7 ms·

I'm wondering this too. The person already killed a bunch of people. The person is dead. What more to they hope to gain? Some secret cell of others? Unlikely ..

I'm wondering this too. The person already killed a bunch of people. The person is dead. What more to they hope to gain? Some secret cell of others? Unlikely .. and if there is, why not regular warrants, wiretaps, e-mail searches, etc. They already have sooo many tools they can use, both with a warrant and bypassing it via FISA. They had all this domestic spying stuff and still couldn't prevent the shooting! They get nothing with phone access, so why even bother brining up compromising everyone else's security just because they failed to use all their current surveillance means to detect and prevent the shooting to being with?! You want more access? Why? That's fucking unbelievable.

mikejb 7y ago
Probably to understand motive, and check for potential involvement of others. And whilst they have a metric shit-ton of spying capabilities on US civilians, those are not really intended to avoid crime. (Maybe the shift of perception of what is terrorism might change that, though)
- kennywinker 7y ago
  He posted a manifesto online. Think his motive was pretty clearly outlined in it.
  - stordoff 7y ago
    So far as I can tell, the Dayton shooter didn't leave a manifesto: > The Dayton shooter left no manifesto. https://www.vox.com/2019/8/7/20758473/trump-invasion-el-paso-shooting-sanders-warren-dayton https://www.vox.com/2019/8/7/20758473/trump-invasion-el-paso...
  - ethanwillis 7y ago
    Did he? I thought that was the El Paso shooter.
  - iamnotacrook 7y ago
    You're thinking of mass shooting 2019/247, not mass shooting 2019/248. (Yes, we're up to more than one a day on average now) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States_in_2019 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_th...
    - gmueckl 7y ago
      I have no words that let me express my opinion of politicians that are willing to let this go on in a way that doesn't blatantly violate the rules of this site.
    - janOsch 7y ago
      This list gives me shivers...is the USA a scary, uncivilized country?
      - FakeComments 7y ago
        Yes. The Democrat’s policy of de-policing for crimes committed by blacks has made some areas in the USA significantly less safe. The vast majority of those shootings are incidents between or involving gang members, predominantly black. Notice how often Chicago, IL makes that list? Chicago alone is twenty incidents — which isn’t surprising, considering its reputation for gang crime. But a single city accounting for nearly 10% of mass shootings is a culture problem in that city — not a general problem with firearms or nationwide violence.
      - rayiner 7y ago
        Yes, and it always has been. The murder rate per capita in the US has consistently been 5-10x higher than in Europe for the entire 20th century. Long before gun control, social safety nets, the drug war, or any other difference you might want to blame. The US is a low cohesion, high violence society.
        djsumdog 7y ago
        As someone who grew up in the US, lived in the EU, Australia and NZ for a number of years, I can say on a day to day basis, it's still pretty much nothing. The average American rarely ever has to directly confront violence. I've even spent years in major metropolitan areas and the majority of people don't walk around each day anticipating violence. My sister got mugged once, in our small home city, like 20 years ago. I've never personally been mugged or assaulted, but I did have one break in while in NZ (they took all my electronics) and I had a bicycle stolen in Australia. I haven't lived in "bad parts of town" through (although friends told me I lived in a bad part of town in two places I lived in; but I really feel they were exaggerating) and in high crime areas I'm sure it's different. But the portrayal the rest of the world sees of America is through a very limited lens. And German or Irish or Chinese person who comes to visit the US will see kids playing in parks, people in the cities walking to work or lunch, others browsing through stores or pumping petrol into their cars and it will generally looks pretty much like every other part of the mid/high income industrialized world.
  - naasking 7y ago
    > He posted a manifesto online A manifesto isn't necessarily honest. It describes how shooters want the world to view their actions, not necessarily the actual motives behind their actions.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
stordoff 7y ago
I largely agree that they likely gain little from accessing the phone (though they may further understand motive/sources of radicalisation from what he was looking at before the shooting), but it would seem negligent not to check if they have access to it. It doesn't seem to warrant spending significant resources finding a way into it, though (unless they have reason to suspect the involvement of a third-party), or justify calling for a backdoor.
mtgx 7y ago
Yes, but somehow the government believes that not having access to the phone's data is much more dangerous! What a load of BS. If anything, it's all the mass surveillance they do that should have prevented him from shooting people up. But of course it doesn't work like that because mass surveillance = real time noise. Mass surveillance, if anything, can be useful only after the fact, because you already know the crime has been committed, it's no longer an algorithm predicting a "chance" of something happened, multiplied by millions of people, giving you thousands of false positives at any moment in time. But the issue is, this after the fact thing is also what makes it much easier to abuse, as the government can just target anyone they feel might upset them at any point in the future, since they already have everyone's data.

mikejb 7y ago

Probably to understand motive, and check for potential involvement of others. And whilst they have a metric shit-ton of spying capabilities on US civilians, those are not really intended to avoid crime. (Maybe the shift of perception of what is terrorism might change that, though)

kennywinker 7y ago
He posted a manifesto online. Think his motive was pretty clearly outlined in it.
- stordoff 7y ago
  So far as I can tell, the Dayton shooter didn't leave a manifesto: > The Dayton shooter left no manifesto. https://www.vox.com/2019/8/7/20758473/trump-invasion-el-paso-shooting-sanders-warren-dayton https://www.vox.com/2019/8/7/20758473/trump-invasion-el-paso...
- ethanwillis 7y ago
  Did he? I thought that was the El Paso shooter.
- iamnotacrook 7y ago
  You're thinking of mass shooting 2019/247, not mass shooting 2019/248. (Yes, we're up to more than one a day on average now) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States_in_2019 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_th...
  - gmueckl 7y ago
    I have no words that let me express my opinion of politicians that are willing to let this go on in a way that doesn't blatantly violate the rules of this site.
  - janOsch 7y ago
    This list gives me shivers...is the USA a scary, uncivilized country?
    - FakeComments 7y ago
      Yes. The Democrat’s policy of de-policing for crimes committed by blacks has made some areas in the USA significantly less safe. The vast majority of those shootings are incidents between or involving gang members, predominantly black. Notice how often Chicago, IL makes that list? Chicago alone is twenty incidents — which isn’t surprising, considering its reputation for gang crime. But a single city accounting for nearly 10% of mass shootings is a culture problem in that city — not a general problem with firearms or nationwide violence.
    - rayiner 7y ago
      Yes, and it always has been. The murder rate per capita in the US has consistently been 5-10x higher than in Europe for the entire 20th century. Long before gun control, social safety nets, the drug war, or any other difference you might want to blame. The US is a low cohesion, high violence society.
      - djsumdog 7y ago
        As someone who grew up in the US, lived in the EU, Australia and NZ for a number of years, I can say on a day to day basis, it's still pretty much nothing. The average American rarely ever has to directly confront violence. I've even spent years in major metropolitan areas and the majority of people don't walk around each day anticipating violence. My sister got mugged once, in our small home city, like 20 years ago. I've never personally been mugged or assaulted, but I did have one break in while in NZ (they took all my electronics) and I had a bicycle stolen in Australia. I haven't lived in "bad parts of town" through (although friends told me I lived in a bad part of town in two places I lived in; but I really feel they were exaggerating) and in high crime areas I'm sure it's different. But the portrayal the rest of the world sees of America is through a very limited lens. And German or Irish or Chinese person who comes to visit the US will see kids playing in parks, people in the cities walking to work or lunch, others browsing through stores or pumping petrol into their cars and it will generally looks pretty much like every other part of the mid/high income industrialized world.
- naasking 7y ago
  > He posted a manifesto online A manifesto isn't necessarily honest. It describes how shooters want the world to view their actions, not necessarily the actual motives behind their actions.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

stordoff 7y ago

I largely agree that they likely gain little from accessing the phone (though they may further understand motive/sources of radicalisation from what he was looking at before the shooting), but it would seem negligent not to check if they have access to it. It doesn't seem to warrant spending significant resources finding a way into it, though (unless they have reason to suspect the involvement of a third-party), or justify calling for a backdoor.

mtgx 7y ago

Yes, but somehow the government believes that not having access to the phone's data is much more dangerous! What a load of BS. If anything, it's all the mass surveillance they do that should have prevented him from shooting people up. But of course it doesn't work like that because mass surveillance = real time noise. Mass surveillance, if anything, can be useful only after the fact, because you already know the crime has been committed, it's no longer an algorithm predicting a "chance" of something happened, multiplied by millions of people, giving you thousands of false positives at any moment in time. But the issue is, this after the fact thing is also what makes it much easier to abuse, as the government can just target anyone they feel might upset them at any point in the future, since they already have everyone's data.