5 ms·

This is the account: https://twitter.com/ALT_uscis https://twitter.com/ALT_uscis

mythrwy 10y ago
Does anyone know why they would have such an interest in this person? Scrolling back a few pages, apparently he is anti-current policy and pretty vocal but that puts him in company with millions of others. So why the interest?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- mcbits 10y ago
  Perhaps because they already have the identities of most of the others.
- zelon88 10y ago
  I'm honestly surprised anyone had to ask this question. Suppression Of Dissent is actually a term. Why do hotels sue guests who post negative reviews on Yelp? Why did the Stasi Police exist? Why is a clown poster of Putin illegal in Russia? We are being converted into an oligarchy. The administration is backed by a demographic that either doesn't realize this, or doesn't care. They unabashedly silence their opposition on the floors of Congress and the Senate all the time. Can't get your legislation through? Change the rules. The GOP has no constituents. Nobody with a net worth under $10,000,000 matters to the GOP.
  - AnimalMuppet 10y ago
    > The GOP has no constituents. Nobody with a net worth under $10,000,000 matters to the GOP. You might re-examine that belief in light of the last election...
    - michaelchisari 10y ago
      I think the disagreement might be in the distinction between constituents and supporters.
    - dopamean 10y ago
      I think there are a lot of people who support the GOP (evidenced by the last election) but very few the GOP actually look out for.
      - AnimalMuppet 10y ago
        Well, if that's the distinction we're talking about, then I would say that the Democratic Party also has far fewer people that it looks out for than that vote for it. They no longer seem to have the working class as a constituency, for example.
        deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
        nojvek 10y ago
        Trump was perceived as the lesser of the two evils. Looking at Hillary's donation list, it was even more pronounced that she was a Corporation puppet. Trump was the wild "fuck you" card who was perceived as the only candidate that would not sell out.
        klipt 10y ago
        Except Trump is a corporation[1], which now gets federal money funneled into its pockets every time the president golfs at Mar-a-lago. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trump_Organization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trump_Organization
  - eric_h 10y ago
    > We are being converted into an oligarchy. The administration is backed by a demographic that either doesn't realize this, or doesn't care A portion doesn't realize, and another portion is likely actively in favor of this outcome, as oligarchies are pretty good for the oligarchs (at least for a while). Unfortunately the first portion has the votes, and the second has the money; that's just the way things are at the moment. The issues the GOP are getting those low income votes on are total fabrications (yeah, sure, coal will come back, even though no one's investing in it; it was the environmentalists that cost those mining jobs, not the robots that replaced the miners; "We're Pro Life", unless you've already exited the womb), but it works, apparently. I'm really not sure what steps we can take to increase the level of rational, critical thought in this discussion. People read a headline, get the endorphin rush of reading something that confirms their own biases, retweet and then stop thinking! I've noticed this bias in my own behavior and have taken steps to correct it - if an article just feels good to read, I must double check that its sources are well cited and its points are correct, otherwise it gets a mark of questionable credibility in my brain. I don't really know how to convince others to do the same...
  - cmurf 10y ago
    Request for refinement. Oligarchy is just rule by a few, perhaps you mean rule by the wealthy, plutocracy, which seems to be more compatible with your argument. But then the GOP do have constituents, via a continued enhancement of the Southern strategy, to get people to vote against their economic interests. Of course there simply aren't enough plutocrats to win elections, so they have to rile up some masses with various promises, rhetoric, and occasionally throwing them red meat.
- inputcoffee 10y ago
  My best guess would be that he (or she!) posted something that required information that they do not believe the general public would have. The lawsuit was probably part of an effort to identify a leak.
  - oligopoly 10y ago
    Exactly, this is too obvious to even post but since most people here seem to still hold emotional state about Trump and his administration. from the Verge article: >@ALT_uscis is one of a string of accounts claiming to be operated by rogue government employees, formed in the wake of Donald Trump’s inauguration. It’s unclear whether any of the accounts are authentic — including @ALT_uscis — although many purport to offer an insider perspective. The Trump administration has responded aggressively to leaks in the past, including on-the-spot phone checks of White House staffers suspected of sharing information with the press. http://www.theverge.com/2017/4/6/15211092/twitter-trump-lawsuit-customs-alt-government http://www.theverge.com/2017/4/6/15211092/twitter-trump-laws...
    - pcwalton 10y ago
      Under what authority could the executive branch require third parties to identify leakers? Or, if you prefer a normative argument: Do you think Bob Woodward should have been forced to identify Mark Felt?
    - openasocket 10y ago
      What do you mean by "leakers"? Unless this account is tweeting classified information (which is unlikely, seeing how almost all of the tweets are just links to news articles with some commentary), the account owner has not committed a crime.
- ralmeida 10y ago
  According to the news article in the other post, it seems the account author identifies him/herself as a gov employee: "In the suit, Twitter writes that @ALT_uscis has purported to be a dissenting member of US Citizenship and Immigration Services"
  - clarkcox3 10y ago
    So what? I could claim to be a government official on Twitter; that wouldn't give the government the right to my identity.
    - ralmeida 10y ago
      Of course it doesn't, I was just talking about why the government may have taken interest in this person, and not on countless other accounts with similar views.
- Mendenhall 10y ago
  From my understanding its because the account claims to be an employee of USCIS.
- baursak 10y ago
  They offered their own theory as to why all of a sudden: https://twitter.com/ALT_uscis/status/850186120776306688 https://twitter.com/ALT_uscis/status/850186120776306688

Does anyone know why they would have such an interest in this person? Scrolling back a few pages, apparently he is anti-current policy and pretty vocal but that puts him in company with millions of others. So why the interest?

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
mcbits 10y ago
Perhaps because they already have the identities of most of the others.
zelon88 10y ago
I'm honestly surprised anyone had to ask this question. Suppression Of Dissent is actually a term. Why do hotels sue guests who post negative reviews on Yelp? Why did the Stasi Police exist? Why is a clown poster of Putin illegal in Russia? We are being converted into an oligarchy. The administration is backed by a demographic that either doesn't realize this, or doesn't care. They unabashedly silence their opposition on the floors of Congress and the Senate all the time. Can't get your legislation through? Change the rules. The GOP has no constituents. Nobody with a net worth under $10,000,000 matters to the GOP.
- AnimalMuppet 10y ago
  > The GOP has no constituents. Nobody with a net worth under $10,000,000 matters to the GOP. You might re-examine that belief in light of the last election...
  - michaelchisari 10y ago
    I think the disagreement might be in the distinction between constituents and supporters.
  - dopamean 10y ago
    I think there are a lot of people who support the GOP (evidenced by the last election) but very few the GOP actually look out for.
    - AnimalMuppet 10y ago
      Well, if that's the distinction we're talking about, then I would say that the Democratic Party also has far fewer people that it looks out for than that vote for it. They no longer seem to have the working class as a constituency, for example.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
      - nojvek 10y ago
        Trump was perceived as the lesser of the two evils. Looking at Hillary's donation list, it was even more pronounced that she was a Corporation puppet. Trump was the wild "fuck you" card who was perceived as the only candidate that would not sell out.
        klipt 10y ago
        Except Trump is a corporation[1], which now gets federal money funneled into its pockets every time the president golfs at Mar-a-lago. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trump_Organization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trump_Organization
- eric_h 10y ago
  > We are being converted into an oligarchy. The administration is backed by a demographic that either doesn't realize this, or doesn't care A portion doesn't realize, and another portion is likely actively in favor of this outcome, as oligarchies are pretty good for the oligarchs (at least for a while). Unfortunately the first portion has the votes, and the second has the money; that's just the way things are at the moment. The issues the GOP are getting those low income votes on are total fabrications (yeah, sure, coal will come back, even though no one's investing in it; it was the environmentalists that cost those mining jobs, not the robots that replaced the miners; "We're Pro Life", unless you've already exited the womb), but it works, apparently. I'm really not sure what steps we can take to increase the level of rational, critical thought in this discussion. People read a headline, get the endorphin rush of reading something that confirms their own biases, retweet and then stop thinking! I've noticed this bias in my own behavior and have taken steps to correct it - if an article just feels good to read, I must double check that its sources are well cited and its points are correct, otherwise it gets a mark of questionable credibility in my brain. I don't really know how to convince others to do the same...
- cmurf 10y ago
  Request for refinement. Oligarchy is just rule by a few, perhaps you mean rule by the wealthy, plutocracy, which seems to be more compatible with your argument. But then the GOP do have constituents, via a continued enhancement of the Southern strategy, to get people to vote against their economic interests. Of course there simply aren't enough plutocrats to win elections, so they have to rile up some masses with various promises, rhetoric, and occasionally throwing them red meat.
inputcoffee 10y ago
My best guess would be that he (or she!) posted something that required information that they do not believe the general public would have. The lawsuit was probably part of an effort to identify a leak.
- oligopoly 10y ago
  Exactly, this is too obvious to even post but since most people here seem to still hold emotional state about Trump and his administration. from the Verge article: >@ALT_uscis is one of a string of accounts claiming to be operated by rogue government employees, formed in the wake of Donald Trump’s inauguration. It’s unclear whether any of the accounts are authentic — including @ALT_uscis — although many purport to offer an insider perspective. The Trump administration has responded aggressively to leaks in the past, including on-the-spot phone checks of White House staffers suspected of sharing information with the press. http://www.theverge.com/2017/4/6/15211092/twitter-trump-lawsuit-customs-alt-government http://www.theverge.com/2017/4/6/15211092/twitter-trump-laws...
  - pcwalton 10y ago
    Under what authority could the executive branch require third parties to identify leakers? Or, if you prefer a normative argument: Do you think Bob Woodward should have been forced to identify Mark Felt?
  - openasocket 10y ago
    What do you mean by "leakers"? Unless this account is tweeting classified information (which is unlikely, seeing how almost all of the tweets are just links to news articles with some commentary), the account owner has not committed a crime.
ralmeida 10y ago
According to the news article in the other post, it seems the account author identifies him/herself as a gov employee: "In the suit, Twitter writes that @ALT_uscis has purported to be a dissenting member of US Citizenship and Immigration Services"
- clarkcox3 10y ago
  So what? I could claim to be a government official on Twitter; that wouldn't give the government the right to my identity.
  - ralmeida 10y ago
    Of course it doesn't, I was just talking about why the government may have taken interest in this person, and not on countless other accounts with similar views.
Mendenhall 10y ago
From my understanding its because the account claims to be an employee of USCIS.
baursak 10y ago
They offered their own theory as to why all of a sudden: https://twitter.com/ALT_uscis/status/850186120776306688 https://twitter.com/ALT_uscis/status/850186120776306688