A Century of Surveillance: An Interactive Timeline Of FBI Investigations (muckrock.com) 55
"Over a century of fear and filing cabinets" at the FBI has been exposed through six years of Freedom of Information Act requests. And now MuckRock founder (and long-time Slashdot reader) v3rgEz writes:
MuckRock recently published its 100th look into historical FBI files, and to celebrate they've also compiled a timeline of the FBI's history. It traces the rise and fall of J. Edgar Hoover as well as some of the Bureau's more questionable investigations into famous figures ranging from Steve Jobs to Hannah Arendt. Read the timeline, or browse through all of MuckRock's FBI FOIA work.
The FBI interviewed 29 people about Steve Jobs (after he was appointed to the President's Export Council in 1991), with several citing his "past drug use," and several individuals also saying Jobs would "distort reality."
The FBI interviewed 29 people about Steve Jobs (after he was appointed to the President's Export Council in 1991), with several citing his "past drug use," and several individuals also saying Jobs would "distort reality."
Why shouldn't the FBI be on my phone? (Score:2)
Re:They don't investigate the real threats (Score:5, Insightful)
They can't, because the biggest foreign threat is about to become their boss.
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Re: They don't investigate the real threats (Score:1)
Nice political stab but you almost got to the truth anyway. The real threats to this country are the rich and megacorporations, and of course the FBI spends zero time with either unless of course they happen to be the victim of a crime. In those cases the FBI is all over stuff that would be ignored if it happened to any of us.
Yet not Trump? (Score:5, Interesting)
And yet FBI didn't bother to read Trumps stuff? And he can just go into the whitehouse, take control of the executive branch and he hasn't even put his assets into a blind trust (not that Trump Casino Panama or any 'Trump' branded property could ever be 'blind'ly held)!
Go read:
1. The accounts he's disclosed as part of tax disputes (real).
2. The accounts he's disclosed as required by foreign laws (e.g. UK Companies house), also real.
3. The partial reveal of company borrowing in his Election Disclosure Filing (borrowing from banks will be real, but the earnings numbers are lies).
4. Search the names of his foreign coinvestors, and read their ad-hoc claims of investments in Trump 'properties'.
5. Pull the revPar numbers for similar properties to get an idea of he true (non-Trump-lying) revenue.
You quickly find out that Trump co, is a Madoff style ponzi scheme.
Even a little common sense tells you the problem. e.g. he borrows yet another $19 million against Trump National Doral last year.
His attorney when fighting a tax demand says the property is worth only $75 million. A highest estimate puts it at $96 million.
His borrowing against it is $125 million (1.6x the actual value his own legal team claim!).
HE BROKE AND OVERMORTGAGED.
The income claimed in his election filing for that is ridiculous 10x the actual RevPAR of similar golf resorts (i.e. a lie).
So the mortgage profit is bigger than the real profit.
IF HE HAD MONEY HE'D LEND IT TO HIMSELF. SO HE'S BROKE.
Most of his properties have issues, if he sold them at best price, paid off his total borrowing, he'd be very very bankrupt, and there would be a lot of outside investors whose assets had been used as capital against unrelated properties.
He needs to keep pulling in new investors and making new projects to fund the debts on the previous projects. And he needs to do it in secret so the investors don't see where their money flows.
Re:Yet not Trump? (Score:4, Insightful)
Seems like Trump is uniquely qualified to run the (trillions in debt) USA.
Are you kidding? (Score:3)
With our current President-erect's publicly stated attitudes, do you think the FBI's investigative powers will grow or shrink over the next four to eight years? What, with that pesky ACLU and its [redacted] lawyers put in their place, I suspect the FBI will be more than busy enough to justify any budget increase they may need to keep us safe.
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do you think the FBI's investigative powers will grow or shrink over the next four to eight years?
Who was the last president who actually shrank government surveillance? We all thought Obama would, but he didn't. I doubt Clinton would have either. Maybe Sanders would have. Mostly it's not a question of whether it will grow or shrink, just how much it will grow.
He borrows, and Forbes does the math - $3.7B (Score:2)
Trump does use mortgages and other forms of "other people's money" to build things. Heck, the owners of the Empire State Building GAVE him a 50% interest, gave him half the building, in exchange for nothing but his promise to use his knowledge and experience make it more profitable.
Forbes magazine has been doing the math on Trump's net worth (assets minus liabilities) for 35 years. As you may know, they do a list of wealthiest people very year, and they've gotten reasonably good at it. According to Forbes,
Re: It takes a Hatian village... (Score:1)
Shhh...you apparently don't know that other than the occasional mild successes the only way to get rich with that stuff is to ALREADY BE RICH. Otherwise the success of capitalism statistically is no better than dart throwing.
You don't get rich by working hard. Lots of people work hard and aren't. You don't get rich by being smart. Same thing. You get rich by family connections and having a pool of wealth to start with. Sure there are outliers you can point at, just like lotteries and casinos love post
Clowns with weapons. (Score:2)
The FBI are a bunch of clowns. It's history is littered with investigations that arise simply from misunderstanding the culture of the time. Perhaps others arise from jealousy of intelligent and knowledgeable people.
Unfortunately, the FBI is very dangerous: it has weapons that can be used to destroy people's lives.
And then we have the fact that Hoover used the FBI to help Reagan get elected and then, this year, Comey provided the final push to get Trump elected.
You've underestimated them very badly. (Score:4, Insightful)
To rephrase: if the FBI isn't the premier law enforcement agency we would desire, it'll be more effective to improve them than it is to replace them - and regardless of their blunders, we really can't do without them.
Re:Clowns with weapons. (Score:5, Informative)
And then we have the fact that Hoover used the FBI to help Reagan get elected and then, this year, Comey provided the final push to get Trump elected.
That was a pretty amazing feat, given that J Edgar Hoover died in 1972.
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Comey being a Trump shill, he is. That's obvious. And, perhaps an unwitting, Russian shill. He is.
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Sorry, Nixon.
So Nixon helped Reagan get elected . . . ?
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The connection between the assistance and the election wasn't so direct as with Comey and Trump.
So Reagan helped Comey and Trump get elected . . . ?
I'm anxiously awaiting your next clarification. This is getting really interesting . . .
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Its hard to collect data and use informants in faith groups that have US party political cover demanding a policy of inclusion. The risks of a faith or cult based fifth column or Quisling been allowed to wo
FBI Overthrew one President. (Score:4, Interesting)
I wonder if anyone has considered that the FBI forced Richard Nixon to resign by feeding reporters information anonymously. "Deep Throat", it turns out, was the assistant FBI director. That rather important piece of information was kept from the public for almost 50 years. Long enough that a movie got made that portrayed Woodward and Bernstein as heroic reporters instead of pawns of the FBI. Why were they investigating Steve Jobs at all/ The answer is to get whatever dirt they could collect in case he ever posed a threat to their political agenda. The reality is the FBI has always been an authoritarian political organization.
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...You may be correct, I'm not in a fact check mood.
Fake News is on the rise? People believe everything they read? FBI does whatever the hell they want and no one cares?
Gosh, I can't imagine how that happens...
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Yeah, the FBI "overthrew" a corrupt-to-his-core Nixon and his cronies in the same way that Russia "hacked" the election by exposing a corrupt-to-her-core Hillary Clinton and her campaign cronies, in-the-tank MSM, and DNC. How'd they do it? By revealing the truth.
Hillary no longer needs to be jailed (Score:2)
You idiot. We don't need Hillary to be corrupt any more, Trump won the election. Can't you keep the party line straight from one day to the next?
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In the case of Steve Jobs, it sounds like they were just doing their job. He was appointed to a presidential council. Of course they did a background check on him. That's just standard procedure.
Reality altering drugs (Score:3)
The FBI thought that Steve Jobs had taken drugs that altered other people's perception of reality? Have I woken up in a Philip K Dick story?
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The FBI thought that Steve Jobs had taken drugs that altered other people's perception of reality? Have I woken up in a Philip K Dick story?
No, Steve Jobs took other peoples' drugs that altered the FBI's perception of reality.
Proud to Have FBI File on Me (Score:3, Interesting)
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How do you know if you have a file or not? ..."We were young and stupid, but that didn't make us wrong." Didn't make you right.
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You can use the FOIA to request the records on yourself with the excuse of correcting any errors.
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I wondered if he knew. I know I have one. It's about 30 years old as an applicant file.
FBI Needs Checks and Balances (Score:2)
They are a rouge political organization.
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They had red cheeks...
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They are a rouge political organization.
The federal boys in bleu.