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I doubt this will be received well but here goes: People choose to commit violent acts or agree with those that do. Whether these people are psychologically im

I doubt this will be received well but here goes: People choose to commit violent acts or agree with those that do. Whether these people are psychologically impaired or clear-headed and bloodthirsty, they could just as easily STOP glorifying terrorism, watching execution videos, communicating with terrorists and terrorist supporters...nobody is forcing them to want to be terrorists. Is the FBI overstepping its bounds by providing weapons to whom they will soon arrest? Maybe. But if they had simply stopped bothering with their investigations, who's to say they wouldn't commit acts of terror with more primitive means? Someone with aims of terror could smash a container of bleach against a container of ammonia in the middle of a crowded shopping mall and kill dozens of people - with stuff you could buy at any hardware or grocery store. No permit, no license, no FBI investigator involved. In the end, there is only one question you need to ask yourself: am I at risk of an FBI entrapment sting? Since I do not condone terrorism or make any effort to communicate with terrorists or terrorist supporters, the Bureau will not bother me. And the same, I hope, will go for you.

Kristine1975 10y ago
>Since I do not condone terrorism or make any effort to communicate with terrorists or terrorist supporters, the Bureau will not bother me. And the same, I hope, will go for you. Isn't that the classic "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about" argument? And maybe you do communicate with terrorist supporters: Are you absolutely sure none of the people you communicate with support terrorism?
- rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
  Yes it is that argument exactly and it is a case where it works. Nobody is contacting me on terrorist matters. Even if someone did I would ignore them and/or report them to the Bureau. I don't see how this is a problem for anybody here. Unless you are literally planning an attack, you have done nothing wrong, you are not in the process of doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about. Unless you have an anectode about being personally harassed by the FBI then I submit that you are getting worked up over something that is not and should not ever be your problem.
  - throwawaysocks 10y ago
    The red scare. The civil rights movement. Anti-war movements during WWII. People distrust the FBI for very good reasons.
    - mlvljr 10y ago
      You chickening bastard! Come up and respond under your own account, like we commies from Mother Russia do!!
  - dsfyu404ed 10y ago
    It sure worked well for everyone that knew the Boston marathon bombing terrorists. /s The whole "investigate anyone who's ever been friends with anyone who's been investigated for terrorism" workflow just winds up wasting resources and screwing over people who don't deserve to be screwed over. I supposed we could fix it by going back to a society of hunter/gatherers who have little to no contact outside their tribe, after all, it'd be in the name of "preventing terrorism."/s I understand that one has to choose their friends and not associate with obvious terrorists and organized crime but that just builds groups that reinforce each other. Incentivizing communities to become more politically homogenous just breeds more terrorism. If radicals only hang out with radicals they become more radical. That's why we have neo Nazis and white supremacist groups. Nobody wants to hang out with them because of the social stigma so they hang out with each other and create an echo chamber. If nobody but the kid that secretly wants to shoot up the school will hang out with the other kid that secretly wants to shoot up the school you get problems, problems that scale to white supremacist groups, Al-Queda and ISIS, heck it even scales all the way up to major religions. How many hundreds of years did it take for protestants and Catholics to stop throwing each other in jail every time their land was conquered by a king of the other religion? How are the Sunnis and Shia doing? I'm not by any means advocating for social/political homogeny (1984, Brave New World, etc). However, when the rules of society include "do nothing wrong and you have nothing to fear" people surround themselves with people of similar belief and kick out those that believe differently because what's right and wrong are determined by consensus. That's how you get two kids that think shooting up a school is a great idea, or ten guys that think bombing some sports event is a great idea, everyone (no matter how few) around them agrees. So if you really want to prevent terrorism become friends with that awkward quiet religious fundamentalist guy in your office (or the doomsday prepper, or the racist or some other generic example of a person that usually becomes a social outcast). Everyone seeks out a group to be a meaningful part of. The enemy sets the bar for inclusion low, anyone can wear a suicide vest and the gun doesn't care if the person pulling the trigger is socially awkward. People join those groups and surround themselves with other radicals because all you have to do is believe what they do and you're part of the team. Shunning people that are a "little bit too extreme" because associating with those types is suspicious and not something you want to involve yourself with just provides an incentive for them to associate with each other and create a positive feedback loop. No it's not a problem for anyone here but indirectly it's a problem for everyone here. Do the people that were friends with Eric Harris, the Tsarniav(sp?) brothers and Jihadi John but let that friendship erode are glad they no longer associate with those people or do they wish they could have done something?
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 10y ago
> or make any effort to communicate with terrorists or terrorist supporters How do you know that?
- rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
  Example: Person A talks to person B. Person B supports terrorism. Person B does not mention terrorism in any communication with person A. Therefore, person A knows nothing, has done nothing wrong, and has nothing to worry about.
  - Kristine1975 10y ago
    >and has nothing to worry about. How can you be so sure about that? Maybe the FBI thinks that A and B use some kind of code and B did mention terrorism to A. It's not about what really happened, it's about what the FBI thinks happened.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > Therefore, person A knows nothing, has done nothing wrong, and has nothing to worry about. "knows nothing, has done nothing wrong" does not imply "has nothing to worry about". Lest we forget, this is the same agency that -- until caught fairly recently, and for decades -- invented, practiced, and promoted to other law enforcement agencies an entire fraudulent field of "science" just so that law enforcement could pretend there was evidence linking people to crimes without any real basis. [0] [0] http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2015/04/fbi_s_flawed_forensics_expert_testimony_hair_analysis_bite_marks_fingerprints.html http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudenc...
droopyEyelids 10y ago
I don't know. I've been following this news, and one example is a case where the FBI hired a woman to chat with one of these guys all day and all night. The guy was suicidal, and her whole script was "You should hurt other people, not yourself" She managed to convince this guy to say "ok" to taking guns after months of that sort of behavior. I think you're being overly credulous. You can listen to the actual recorded conversations here: https://theintercept.com/2016/04/21/listen-to-an-fbi-honeypot-on-the-job/ https://theintercept.com/2016/04/21/listen-to-an-fbi-honeypo...
pjc50 10y ago
communicate with terrorists or terrorist supporters This is actually a constitutional right.
tunap 10y ago
Good points. I too am grateful for risk mitigations the alphabet agencies provide. I don't admit it enough. I grudgingly agree with you on the last paragraph. For the majority of the population this is true. For a relative few outliers mistaken intent, misinterperetation or simply guilty of emotional outbursts(online & IRL) can and will happen. The frequency can be in the millions w/ a large enough population and pressure to over-reach/profit. That said, it seems fairly obvious to me the pressure to profit has grown too extreme. Unchecked in part due to FISA-style politics, political collusion and lobbying. I am hopeful the pendulum of fear theater rocks back from this trend soon, as the backswing tends to mirror the former in extremity. The internet has enabled information sharing in ways previously unimaginable and in speeds hard to comprehend for most. The alphabet agencies & the mega corps(alphabet/apple/ms/etc) are the best at it and attract the majority of the talent. I theorize, perhaps the corps were the best of the best of the best at it and are a little miffed big bro is collecting it's own data good enough now the guv stopped buying data and now just demands more for free. edit: added 'own data' 2nd to last sentence subbed 'it' for more in last sentence. TLDR: Your're right. Abuses/erreors can and will always happen. Profit motive has pushed the envelope to what we have today.
EdHominem 10y ago
> who's to say they wouldn't commit acts of terror with more primitive means? Basic psych, backed up by statistics. There's a critical amount of motivation needed for large plans (travel, running a business, shooting people, etc) that most people never come up with on their own. When we look at how many dangerous people (as proven by unprompted attacks) fit into a profile the FBI would have harassed beforehand we can see how unrelated these groups are. It's not like they're doing a bad thing but actually accomplishing something with it, such that if we just suffer some pain (the odd false arrest) we would made safer. Actually they're almost 100% misguided and we gain nothing except having built an otherwise worthless secret police who think they're infallible. (After all, they convince almost 100% of the crazies they target to push a button...) > In the end, there is only one question you need to ask yourself: am I at risk of an FBI entrapment sting? No, are you more likely at risk of FBI entrapment than suffering in an actual terrorist attack? Security has to have a goal (safety) against which you measure the cost (false arrest). The answer is that you're vastly more likely to be implicated in a sting than actually hurt by a terrorist. Why? Because the FBI's actual success rate at stopping dangerous people is close to zero but their budget is nearly unlimited. They're federal police. They good at stopping bank robberies and kidnappings. They fail at everything more complex because they are institutionally allergic to realistic profiles. (Why, partly because most agents would get a high score on a "likely dangerous" checklist that didn't unduly focus on being muslim.) > Since I do not condone terrorism or make any effort to communicate with terrorists or terrorist supporters, the Bureau will not bother me. If you understood the depth of data collected you'd realize you're never more than two-degrees separated. Probably less if you have a contact-list over 100 people.

Kristine1975 10y ago

>Since I do not condone terrorism or make any effort to communicate with terrorists or terrorist supporters, the Bureau will not bother me. And the same, I hope, will go for you. Isn't that the classic "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about" argument? And maybe you do communicate with terrorist supporters: Are you absolutely sure none of the people you communicate with support terrorism?

rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
Yes it is that argument exactly and it is a case where it works. Nobody is contacting me on terrorist matters. Even if someone did I would ignore them and/or report them to the Bureau. I don't see how this is a problem for anybody here. Unless you are literally planning an attack, you have done nothing wrong, you are not in the process of doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about. Unless you have an anectode about being personally harassed by the FBI then I submit that you are getting worked up over something that is not and should not ever be your problem.
- throwawaysocks 10y ago
  The red scare. The civil rights movement. Anti-war movements during WWII. People distrust the FBI for very good reasons.
  - mlvljr 10y ago
    You chickening bastard! Come up and respond under your own account, like we commies from Mother Russia do!!
- dsfyu404ed 10y ago
  It sure worked well for everyone that knew the Boston marathon bombing terrorists. /s The whole "investigate anyone who's ever been friends with anyone who's been investigated for terrorism" workflow just winds up wasting resources and screwing over people who don't deserve to be screwed over. I supposed we could fix it by going back to a society of hunter/gatherers who have little to no contact outside their tribe, after all, it'd be in the name of "preventing terrorism."/s I understand that one has to choose their friends and not associate with obvious terrorists and organized crime but that just builds groups that reinforce each other. Incentivizing communities to become more politically homogenous just breeds more terrorism. If radicals only hang out with radicals they become more radical. That's why we have neo Nazis and white supremacist groups. Nobody wants to hang out with them because of the social stigma so they hang out with each other and create an echo chamber. If nobody but the kid that secretly wants to shoot up the school will hang out with the other kid that secretly wants to shoot up the school you get problems, problems that scale to white supremacist groups, Al-Queda and ISIS, heck it even scales all the way up to major religions. How many hundreds of years did it take for protestants and Catholics to stop throwing each other in jail every time their land was conquered by a king of the other religion? How are the Sunnis and Shia doing? I'm not by any means advocating for social/political homogeny (1984, Brave New World, etc). However, when the rules of society include "do nothing wrong and you have nothing to fear" people surround themselves with people of similar belief and kick out those that believe differently because what's right and wrong are determined by consensus. That's how you get two kids that think shooting up a school is a great idea, or ten guys that think bombing some sports event is a great idea, everyone (no matter how few) around them agrees. So if you really want to prevent terrorism become friends with that awkward quiet religious fundamentalist guy in your office (or the doomsday prepper, or the racist or some other generic example of a person that usually becomes a social outcast). Everyone seeks out a group to be a meaningful part of. The enemy sets the bar for inclusion low, anyone can wear a suicide vest and the gun doesn't care if the person pulling the trigger is socially awkward. People join those groups and surround themselves with other radicals because all you have to do is believe what they do and you're part of the team. Shunning people that are a "little bit too extreme" because associating with those types is suspicious and not something you want to involve yourself with just provides an incentive for them to associate with each other and create a positive feedback loop. No it's not a problem for anyone here but indirectly it's a problem for everyone here. Do the people that were friends with Eric Harris, the Tsarniav(sp?) brothers and Jihadi John but let that friendship erode are glad they no longer associate with those people or do they wish they could have done something?

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 10y ago

> or make any effort to communicate with terrorists or terrorist supporters How do you know that?

rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
Example: Person A talks to person B. Person B supports terrorism. Person B does not mention terrorism in any communication with person A. Therefore, person A knows nothing, has done nothing wrong, and has nothing to worry about.
- Kristine1975 10y ago
  >and has nothing to worry about. How can you be so sure about that? Maybe the FBI thinks that A and B use some kind of code and B did mention terrorism to A. It's not about what really happened, it's about what the FBI thinks happened.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > Therefore, person A knows nothing, has done nothing wrong, and has nothing to worry about. "knows nothing, has done nothing wrong" does not imply "has nothing to worry about". Lest we forget, this is the same agency that -- until caught fairly recently, and for decades -- invented, practiced, and promoted to other law enforcement agencies an entire fraudulent field of "science" just so that law enforcement could pretend there was evidence linking people to crimes without any real basis. [0] [0] http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2015/04/fbi_s_flawed_forensics_expert_testimony_hair_analysis_bite_marks_fingerprints.html http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudenc...

droopyEyelids 10y ago

I don't know. I've been following this news, and one example is a case where the FBI hired a woman to chat with one of these guys all day and all night. The guy was suicidal, and her whole script was "You should hurt other people, not yourself" She managed to convince this guy to say "ok" to taking guns after months of that sort of behavior. I think you're being overly credulous. You can listen to the actual recorded conversations here: https://theintercept.com/2016/04/21/listen-to-an-fbi-honeypot-on-the-job/ https://theintercept.com/2016/04/21/listen-to-an-fbi-honeypo...

pjc50 10y ago

communicate with terrorists or terrorist supporters This is actually a constitutional right.

tunap 10y ago

Good points. I too am grateful for risk mitigations the alphabet agencies provide. I don't admit it enough. I grudgingly agree with you on the last paragraph. For the majority of the population this is true. For a relative few outliers mistaken intent, misinterperetation or simply guilty of emotional outbursts(online & IRL) can and will happen. The frequency can be in the millions w/ a large enough population and pressure to over-reach/profit. That said, it seems fairly obvious to me the pressure to profit has grown too extreme. Unchecked in part due to FISA-style politics, political collusion and lobbying. I am hopeful the pendulum of fear theater rocks back from this trend soon, as the backswing tends to mirror the former in extremity. The internet has enabled information sharing in ways previously unimaginable and in speeds hard to comprehend for most. The alphabet agencies & the mega corps(alphabet/apple/ms/etc) are the best at it and attract the majority of the talent. I theorize, perhaps the corps were the best of the best of the best at it and are a little miffed big bro is collecting it's own data good enough now the guv stopped buying data and now just demands more for free. edit: added 'own data' 2nd to last sentence subbed 'it' for more in last sentence. TLDR: Your're right. Abuses/erreors can and will always happen. Profit motive has pushed the envelope to what we have today.

EdHominem 10y ago

> who's to say they wouldn't commit acts of terror with more primitive means? Basic psych, backed up by statistics. There's a critical amount of motivation needed for large plans (travel, running a business, shooting people, etc) that most people never come up with on their own. When we look at how many dangerous people (as proven by unprompted attacks) fit into a profile the FBI would have harassed beforehand we can see how unrelated these groups are. It's not like they're doing a bad thing but actually accomplishing something with it, such that if we just suffer some pain (the odd false arrest) we would made safer. Actually they're almost 100% misguided and we gain nothing except having built an otherwise worthless secret police who think they're infallible. (After all, they convince almost 100% of the crazies they target to push a button...) > In the end, there is only one question you need to ask yourself: am I at risk of an FBI entrapment sting? No, are you more likely at risk of FBI entrapment than suffering in an actual terrorist attack? Security has to have a goal (safety) against which you measure the cost (false arrest). The answer is that you're vastly more likely to be implicated in a sting than actually hurt by a terrorist. Why? Because the FBI's actual success rate at stopping dangerous people is close to zero but their budget is nearly unlimited. They're federal police. They good at stopping bank robberies and kidnappings. They fail at everything more complex because they are institutionally allergic to realistic profiles. (Why, partly because most agents would get a high score on a "likely dangerous" checklist that didn't unduly focus on being muslim.) > Since I do not condone terrorism or make any effort to communicate with terrorists or terrorist supporters, the Bureau will not bother me. If you understood the depth of data collected you'd realize you're never more than two-degrees separated. Probably less if you have a contact-list over 100 people.