6 ms·

Electronic Frontier Foundation Uncovers Widespread FBI Intelligence Violations

213 points by randomwalker 16y ago

raintrees 16y ago
Just as a humorous aside, my wife and I both chuckled when I read the headline aloud stating that the FBI had violated intelligence...
dsplittgerber 16y ago
The EFF needs a more professional copy-writer.
ck2 16y ago
They can get away with all this and more because we have been made to believe it's okay to be in a state of war for a decade now, because everyone can still go shopping at the mall. "Homeland Security" has become such a huge industry, how will we ever get them to scale it back down and give up all their little ways to violate the people they are supposed to protect?
- lotusleaf1987 16y ago
  That's exactly why I support having a draft. If everyone of military age had to worry about being drafted, we'd be much less likely to go to war. As it is, the burden of war falls on the backs of the poor and uneducated because it's the best job opportunity they have.
  - russell 16y ago
    Wishful thinking. Having the draft did not keep us out of Vietnam (or the escalation). Eighteen yearolds have no influence on military policy and their parents buy the patriotic fervor. I am thankful that we dont have the draft and my son did not have to serve in Iraq or Afghanistan. I wish it were more difficult to wage war, not easier.
    - w1ntermute 16y ago
      > Having the draft did not keep us out of Vietnam IIRC, the wealthy were able to stay out of Vietnam by going to college. Perhaps if the children of the influential were drafted as well, things might be different. Then again, knowing this country, any law reinstating the draft would not be complete without a loophole for the wealthy.
      - russell 16y ago
        Anyone got a college deferment, but were drafted afterward unless they were in an essential occupation, which did not exempt doctors, lawyers, and most professions. One way to get out of ground combat was to volunteer for the Navy or Air Force. I managed to string it out for 4 years, but was finally saved only by the lottery.
        w1ntermute 16y ago
        > Anyone got a college deferment Of course, but back then, it was an indirect way of keeping the children of the wealthy out of harm's way, as manufacturing still had a big presence in the US. Rather than going to college, the children of the middle class/poor went to work in factories after high school, and so they could be sent to war. > were drafted afterward unless they were in an essential occupation That's good to know. Were there any other loopholes used by the wealthy (there must have been some)?
        jonah 16y ago
        National Guard. (See G.W. Bush)
  - dantheman 16y ago
    The draft is one of the most evil things that the united states government has ever done. Slavery is evil in all its forms, and conscripted armies are an especially heinous form.
    - GHFigs 16y ago
      Is Norway evil? Finland? Brazil? South Korea? Taiwan? Germany?
      - Aqwis 16y ago
        I am not going to directly defend the Norwegian draft, but the Norwegian military does not send drafted soldiers who do not volunteer to fight in Afghanistan (or other foreign wars). The main reason Norway still has the draft is to have a population that can defend itself (admittedly with questionable efficiacy) in case a foreign power attacked Norway (such as what happened in World War II), not to send drafted youth involuntarily to their deaths in foreign countries.
      - dantheman 16y ago
        Is the country, or the people, evil, of course not -- but the action surely is. Involuntary servitude is wrong. If it's not, then where do you draw the line? Can the government draft people to work on farms, build infrastructure, etc? If not, then why is it ok to send them into battle?
        jberryman 16y ago
        The point is in those countries it is not involuntary servitude; it is part of the social contract, just like taxes are not "the stealing of personal property at the barrel of a gun" as I seem to hear said around here.
        knieveltech 16y ago
        http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&defl=en&q=define:slavery&sa=X&ei=emNGTc3zFMP-8Aaem7S2DQ&ved=0CBcQkAE http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&defl=en&q=define:... That seems to describe conscription to me. I'm not sure what "part of the social contract" means.
  - Duff 16y ago
    I guess the logic of this position is that if the suburban soccer mom's were forced to send their sons and daughters to war, they would do something about it. Or that as a nation we would somehow be more sensible since we would all know someone who may be sent overseas. Maybe so, but traditionally conscription has been all about maximizing manpower to fight a protracted war, and isn't a concept that is typically associated with pacifism.
- jdp23 16y ago
  We'll get them to back down when everybody stands up and demands their rights. As I said in another thread, now is a a good time to rethink Hacker News' bias against discussions of civil liberties. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2159003 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2159003
- jackfoxy 16y ago
  “War is the father of all things”, so said Heraclitus, and it’s true of modern America in particular. It has not been a good thing for those who cherish Liberty above all else. It has been a good thing for people who believe government can be a force for good (for the federal government would not have the power, without war). Before the Civil War the standing U.S. Army consisted of 3 regiments. Even in those days that was a tiny army. At its largest the Navy had about 40 significant warships, many of which would be in reserve (mothballs) at any given time. This was the design of the founding fathers, who considered a large standing military a threat to the people’s liberty and a tool of despots. The Civil War changed everything. Fighting the war required a huge modern Federal Army and Navy. Men got used to the idea of serving in the standing military (instead of militia service). Occupying the southern states after the war required a larger standing army. The experience of Imperial France occupying Mexico during the Civil War made leaders rethink the old militia system (militias had not done so well fighting a professional army in the War of 1812). And with the final great push of settlers westward, the larger professional army was useful in suppressing the Indians, which had largely been conducted by state and territorial militias before the War. America in the latter half of the 19th century became a culture accustomed to militarism. The federal government, growing more rapidly in the aftermath of the war for many reasons, found the bureaucratic disciplines of a military carry over well to other government services. WWI required not only a rapid military build-up, but for the first time in our history the federal government directing industrial production. That was a new genie let out of the bottle. WWII more of the same within one generation; Cold War immediately following introduces continuing state of war that doesn’t much affect our lifestyle; Korea, the first major shooting war without an explicit declaration of war by Congress; Viet Nam, more of the same – and all the time ever-larger Leviathan finds new areas it can intervene in society (not passing judgment here, just saying).
- hugh3 16y ago
  The point is they can't get away with this. The violations which are in the report are violations which have been detected and investigated and reported to the oversight board. Presumably the agents involved were disciplined in most cases. The FBI, like any other police force, no doubt has its share of officers who do the wrong thing from time to time. But if the actual numbers are eight hundred violations over ten years among the thirty thousand employees of the FBI, then... well, that doesn't seem all that bad to me.
  - Duff 16y ago
    The average duration between incident and report of the incident is 2.5 YEARS. That's a long time, long enough to make effective investigation difficult -- memories fade, evidence goes stale or missing. EFF estimates that there are as many as 40,000 violations. You also need to ask: what prompts the report of a routine activity in an investigation 30 months after the activity takes place? Most scary to me: "almost one-fifth involved an FBI violation of the Constitution, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or other laws governing criminal investigations or intelligence gathering activities" "From 2001 to 2008, the FBI engaged in a number of flagrant legal violations, including: submitting false or inaccurate declarations to courts, using improper evidence to obtain federal grand jury subpoena, accessing password protected documents without a warrant" These are serious issues -- this isn't like the local police getting free lunch or looking the other way. You're talking about an FBI agent lying to a grand jury or a Federal judge. Both are serious felonies. Another thing that is disturbing is that it looks like the FBI isn't following its own procedures internally. So the people who are supposedly running the agency have no clue what is happening. I'm not trying to say that the FBI is like the KGB or is inherently evil. I'd be willing to bet that 98% of the people working there have the best of intentions. But you have a situation where these good people are in highly compartmentalized, secretive units within this massive bureaucracy with this important mission. The middle management is driven to deliver results, but not accountable for their actions. That combination of mission, drive and unaccountability is a recipe for systematic abuses of power.
  - MichaelGG 16y ago
    Where did you get the 800 over 10 years? The page says indications of upwards of 40,000 in 9 years. Given this, why should we presume there is proper discipline?
- jim_h 16y ago
  I definitely agree that it's become a 'huge industry'. There are people getting huge payments for selling (and accepting) and even more people getting jobs. Of those involved, who's going to say no to that? I was surprised that they went the airport scanner route since it'll reduce jobs. However, I suppose they've paving the way for more passive invasive technology to be sold and used in more common areas. Profits from hardware, installation, maintenance contracts and training are probably bigger than what exists now.
jamesbressi 16y ago
What implications does this have for those who may have been convicted of a felony based on those 40,000 violations? Scary thought that chances are... of those truly guilty and convicted, there's at least one or a few who committed a heinous crime and could now walk from illegal/improper police work. That's just as scary as violating other's rights and wrongful convictions. Another loss for liberty and safety.
- dstorrs 16y ago
  > [criminals going free is] just as scary as violating other's rights and wrongful convictions. I disagree. There will always be evil in the world; one criminal more or less is a drop in the bucket. What truly hurts a nation is when innocent citizens cannot be sure that their innocence will protect them from their own legal system.
nik61 16y ago
From the UK as at 21:25 GMT the EFF site seems to have completely disappeared...
- westbywest 16y ago
  Also seeing this. Getting "connection reset" errors over HTTP and HTTPS.
johngalt 16y ago
Ever since CALEA it should have been obvious to anyone where we were headed. Only-the-fly remote monitoring capability in of all major telecoms, that the feds can turn on surreptitiously? Right, I'm sure they will only use it when they've filled out all the proper forms.
teepark 16y ago
creepy that it's down now. cache: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ZDGnKBh7N3oJ:https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/01/eff-releases-report-detailing-fbi-intelligence+https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/01/eff-releases-report-detailing-fbi-intelligence&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&source=www.google.com http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ZDGnKBh...
- ecto 16y ago
  I've never seen the EFF down. Smells fishy to me. I hope it's not a case of foul play though and just massive traffic.
- pmorici 16y ago
  Direct link to the actual PDF report; https://www.eff.org/files/EFF%20IOB%20Report_Final%20Version.pdf https://www.eff.org/files/EFF%20IOB%20Report_Final%20Version...
GHFigs 16y ago
Take with a grain of salt. The "40,000" figure the EFF mentions is entirely their own. The number of potential violations actually described in the documents they have is 768. Is it reasonable to assume that the actual number is 50 times higher? Please decide for yourself instead of just taking the EFF's word for it. Also, when considering the scope and scale of these violations, recognize that little distinction is being made between simple violations of procedure and scandalous invasions of individual privacy. If you feel that violations of Constitutional rights are more significant than missed administrative deadlines, this is an important distinction, one that the EFF's "Big Number" only serves to obscure. In fact their own report states that the number of violations involving "violation of the Constitution, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or other laws governing criminal investigations or intelligence gathering activities" is "almost one-fifth" of the already much-deflated total.
- omouse 16y ago
  Whether the number is 40 000 or 768 is irrelevant, even ONE violation should be too much and should be investigated and treated seriously.
  - GHFigs 16y ago
    The documents the EFF obtained are from those investigations.
- Duff 16y ago
  The EFF report talks about how they got to 40,000 on page 12. That estimate makes several assumptions whose validity is tough to validate. I agree that it is probably inflated. The 768 number is based on one release of documents, which only lists reported incidents. The FBI Inspector General estimated 6,400 violations between 2003 and 2006 based on a statistical sample. Say the actual number is alot lower -- 10,000 for the period from 2001 to present. That would mean that like 98% of NSLs (about 40,000 are issued annually) were proper and consistent with the rules. But that 2% still means that there was probably 2,000 incidents where serious violations of constitutional rights were committed by people sworn to protect and defend the constitution.
acabal 16y ago
Am I just being cynical or am I the only one completely unsurprised by this?
daniel-cussen 16y ago
While this is definitely news, it's hardly a surprise.

213 points by randomwalker 16y ago

Just as a humorous aside, my wife and I both chuckled when I read the headline aloud stating that the FBI had violated intelligence...

dsplittgerber 16y ago

The EFF needs a more professional copy-writer.

ck2 16y ago

They can get away with all this and more because we have been made to believe it's okay to be in a state of war for a decade now, because everyone can still go shopping at the mall. "Homeland Security" has become such a huge industry, how will we ever get them to scale it back down and give up all their little ways to violate the people they are supposed to protect?

lotusleaf1987 16y ago
That's exactly why I support having a draft. If everyone of military age had to worry about being drafted, we'd be much less likely to go to war. As it is, the burden of war falls on the backs of the poor and uneducated because it's the best job opportunity they have.
- russell 16y ago
  Wishful thinking. Having the draft did not keep us out of Vietnam (or the escalation). Eighteen yearolds have no influence on military policy and their parents buy the patriotic fervor. I am thankful that we dont have the draft and my son did not have to serve in Iraq or Afghanistan. I wish it were more difficult to wage war, not easier.
  - w1ntermute 16y ago
    > Having the draft did not keep us out of Vietnam IIRC, the wealthy were able to stay out of Vietnam by going to college. Perhaps if the children of the influential were drafted as well, things might be different. Then again, knowing this country, any law reinstating the draft would not be complete without a loophole for the wealthy.
    - russell 16y ago
      Anyone got a college deferment, but were drafted afterward unless they were in an essential occupation, which did not exempt doctors, lawyers, and most professions. One way to get out of ground combat was to volunteer for the Navy or Air Force. I managed to string it out for 4 years, but was finally saved only by the lottery.
      - w1ntermute 16y ago
        > Anyone got a college deferment Of course, but back then, it was an indirect way of keeping the children of the wealthy out of harm's way, as manufacturing still had a big presence in the US. Rather than going to college, the children of the middle class/poor went to work in factories after high school, and so they could be sent to war. > were drafted afterward unless they were in an essential occupation That's good to know. Were there any other loopholes used by the wealthy (there must have been some)?
        jonah 16y ago
        National Guard. (See G.W. Bush)
- dantheman 16y ago
  The draft is one of the most evil things that the united states government has ever done. Slavery is evil in all its forms, and conscripted armies are an especially heinous form.
  - GHFigs 16y ago
    Is Norway evil? Finland? Brazil? South Korea? Taiwan? Germany?
    - Aqwis 16y ago
      I am not going to directly defend the Norwegian draft, but the Norwegian military does not send drafted soldiers who do not volunteer to fight in Afghanistan (or other foreign wars). The main reason Norway still has the draft is to have a population that can defend itself (admittedly with questionable efficiacy) in case a foreign power attacked Norway (such as what happened in World War II), not to send drafted youth involuntarily to their deaths in foreign countries.
    - dantheman 16y ago
      Is the country, or the people, evil, of course not -- but the action surely is. Involuntary servitude is wrong. If it's not, then where do you draw the line? Can the government draft people to work on farms, build infrastructure, etc? If not, then why is it ok to send them into battle?
      - jberryman 16y ago
        The point is in those countries it is not involuntary servitude; it is part of the social contract, just like taxes are not "the stealing of personal property at the barrel of a gun" as I seem to hear said around here.
        knieveltech 16y ago
        http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&defl=en&q=define:slavery&sa=X&ei=emNGTc3zFMP-8Aaem7S2DQ&ved=0CBcQkAE http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&defl=en&q=define:... That seems to describe conscription to me. I'm not sure what "part of the social contract" means.
- Duff 16y ago
  I guess the logic of this position is that if the suburban soccer mom's were forced to send their sons and daughters to war, they would do something about it. Or that as a nation we would somehow be more sensible since we would all know someone who may be sent overseas. Maybe so, but traditionally conscription has been all about maximizing manpower to fight a protracted war, and isn't a concept that is typically associated with pacifism.
jdp23 16y ago
We'll get them to back down when everybody stands up and demands their rights. As I said in another thread, now is a a good time to rethink Hacker News' bias against discussions of civil liberties. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2159003 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2159003
jackfoxy 16y ago
“War is the father of all things”, so said Heraclitus, and it’s true of modern America in particular. It has not been a good thing for those who cherish Liberty above all else. It has been a good thing for people who believe government can be a force for good (for the federal government would not have the power, without war). Before the Civil War the standing U.S. Army consisted of 3 regiments. Even in those days that was a tiny army. At its largest the Navy had about 40 significant warships, many of which would be in reserve (mothballs) at any given time. This was the design of the founding fathers, who considered a large standing military a threat to the people’s liberty and a tool of despots. The Civil War changed everything. Fighting the war required a huge modern Federal Army and Navy. Men got used to the idea of serving in the standing military (instead of militia service). Occupying the southern states after the war required a larger standing army. The experience of Imperial France occupying Mexico during the Civil War made leaders rethink the old militia system (militias had not done so well fighting a professional army in the War of 1812). And with the final great push of settlers westward, the larger professional army was useful in suppressing the Indians, which had largely been conducted by state and territorial militias before the War. America in the latter half of the 19th century became a culture accustomed to militarism. The federal government, growing more rapidly in the aftermath of the war for many reasons, found the bureaucratic disciplines of a military carry over well to other government services. WWI required not only a rapid military build-up, but for the first time in our history the federal government directing industrial production. That was a new genie let out of the bottle. WWII more of the same within one generation; Cold War immediately following introduces continuing state of war that doesn’t much affect our lifestyle; Korea, the first major shooting war without an explicit declaration of war by Congress; Viet Nam, more of the same – and all the time ever-larger Leviathan finds new areas it can intervene in society (not passing judgment here, just saying).
hugh3 16y ago
The point is they can't get away with this. The violations which are in the report are violations which have been detected and investigated and reported to the oversight board. Presumably the agents involved were disciplined in most cases. The FBI, like any other police force, no doubt has its share of officers who do the wrong thing from time to time. But if the actual numbers are eight hundred violations over ten years among the thirty thousand employees of the FBI, then... well, that doesn't seem all that bad to me.
- Duff 16y ago
  The average duration between incident and report of the incident is 2.5 YEARS. That's a long time, long enough to make effective investigation difficult -- memories fade, evidence goes stale or missing. EFF estimates that there are as many as 40,000 violations. You also need to ask: what prompts the report of a routine activity in an investigation 30 months after the activity takes place? Most scary to me: "almost one-fifth involved an FBI violation of the Constitution, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or other laws governing criminal investigations or intelligence gathering activities" "From 2001 to 2008, the FBI engaged in a number of flagrant legal violations, including: submitting false or inaccurate declarations to courts, using improper evidence to obtain federal grand jury subpoena, accessing password protected documents without a warrant" These are serious issues -- this isn't like the local police getting free lunch or looking the other way. You're talking about an FBI agent lying to a grand jury or a Federal judge. Both are serious felonies. Another thing that is disturbing is that it looks like the FBI isn't following its own procedures internally. So the people who are supposedly running the agency have no clue what is happening. I'm not trying to say that the FBI is like the KGB or is inherently evil. I'd be willing to bet that 98% of the people working there have the best of intentions. But you have a situation where these good people are in highly compartmentalized, secretive units within this massive bureaucracy with this important mission. The middle management is driven to deliver results, but not accountable for their actions. That combination of mission, drive and unaccountability is a recipe for systematic abuses of power.
- MichaelGG 16y ago
  Where did you get the 800 over 10 years? The page says indications of upwards of 40,000 in 9 years. Given this, why should we presume there is proper discipline?
jim_h 16y ago
I definitely agree that it's become a 'huge industry'. There are people getting huge payments for selling (and accepting) and even more people getting jobs. Of those involved, who's going to say no to that? I was surprised that they went the airport scanner route since it'll reduce jobs. However, I suppose they've paving the way for more passive invasive technology to be sold and used in more common areas. Profits from hardware, installation, maintenance contracts and training are probably bigger than what exists now.

jamesbressi 16y ago

What implications does this have for those who may have been convicted of a felony based on those 40,000 violations? Scary thought that chances are... of those truly guilty and convicted, there's at least one or a few who committed a heinous crime and could now walk from illegal/improper police work. That's just as scary as violating other's rights and wrongful convictions. Another loss for liberty and safety.

dstorrs 16y ago
> [criminals going free is] just as scary as violating other's rights and wrongful convictions. I disagree. There will always be evil in the world; one criminal more or less is a drop in the bucket. What truly hurts a nation is when innocent citizens cannot be sure that their innocence will protect them from their own legal system.

nik61 16y ago

From the UK as at 21:25 GMT the EFF site seems to have completely disappeared...

westbywest 16y ago
Also seeing this. Getting "connection reset" errors over HTTP and HTTPS.

johngalt 16y ago

Ever since CALEA it should have been obvious to anyone where we were headed. Only-the-fly remote monitoring capability in of all major telecoms, that the feds can turn on surreptitiously? Right, I'm sure they will only use it when they've filled out all the proper forms.

teepark 16y ago

creepy that it's down now. cache: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ZDGnKBh7N3oJ:https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/01/eff-releases-report-detailing-fbi-intelligence+https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/01/eff-releases-report-detailing-fbi-intelligence&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&source=www.google.com http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ZDGnKBh...

ecto 16y ago
I've never seen the EFF down. Smells fishy to me. I hope it's not a case of foul play though and just massive traffic.
pmorici 16y ago
Direct link to the actual PDF report; https://www.eff.org/files/EFF%20IOB%20Report_Final%20Version.pdf https://www.eff.org/files/EFF%20IOB%20Report_Final%20Version...

GHFigs 16y ago

Take with a grain of salt. The "40,000" figure the EFF mentions is entirely their own. The number of potential violations actually described in the documents they have is 768. Is it reasonable to assume that the actual number is 50 times higher? Please decide for yourself instead of just taking the EFF's word for it. Also, when considering the scope and scale of these violations, recognize that little distinction is being made between simple violations of procedure and scandalous invasions of individual privacy. If you feel that violations of Constitutional rights are more significant than missed administrative deadlines, this is an important distinction, one that the EFF's "Big Number" only serves to obscure. In fact their own report states that the number of violations involving "violation of the Constitution, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or other laws governing criminal investigations or intelligence gathering activities" is "almost one-fifth" of the already much-deflated total.

omouse 16y ago
Whether the number is 40 000 or 768 is irrelevant, even ONE violation should be too much and should be investigated and treated seriously.
- GHFigs 16y ago
  The documents the EFF obtained are from those investigations.
Duff 16y ago
The EFF report talks about how they got to 40,000 on page 12. That estimate makes several assumptions whose validity is tough to validate. I agree that it is probably inflated. The 768 number is based on one release of documents, which only lists reported incidents. The FBI Inspector General estimated 6,400 violations between 2003 and 2006 based on a statistical sample. Say the actual number is alot lower -- 10,000 for the period from 2001 to present. That would mean that like 98% of NSLs (about 40,000 are issued annually) were proper and consistent with the rules. But that 2% still means that there was probably 2,000 incidents where serious violations of constitutional rights were committed by people sworn to protect and defend the constitution.

acabal 16y ago

Am I just being cynical or am I the only one completely unsurprised by this?

daniel-cussen 16y ago

While this is definitely news, it's hardly a surprise.