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19 years ago, in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the then-Attorney General appeared before the media to proudly announce the conclusion of the larg

19 years ago, in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the then-Attorney General appeared before the media to proudly announce the conclusion of the largest operation in DoJ history. It was the destruction of a warez group. In the lead-up to the 9/11 attacks, the most important thing on the DoJ agenda was not to follow up on any of the numerous intelligence leads warning that Islamist terrorists were planning to ram multiple airliners into multiple buildings, but rather to shut down an organization whose chosen line of activity has never been demonstrated to harm anyone. Putting the factually contraindicated feeling of the software publishing cartels that they're somehow losing money above the actual lives of actual people is a very f'ed up choice of priorities.

mschuster91 6y ago
> 19 years ago, in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the then-Attorney General appeared before the media to proudly announce the conclusion of the largest operation in DoJ history. >It was the destruction of a warez group. In Germany, we have something similar, although with two orders of magnitude less deaths. The conservative Berlin Interior Senator Frank Henkel and his top officers decided in 2016, right in front of the election, to move spies from observing Islamist terrorists to observing a couple of left-anarchist "occupied houses". The result? One of the Islamists was Anis Amri, who half a year later infamously murdered twelve people at Breitscheidplatz: https://taz.de/Anis-Amri-und-die-Rigaer-Strasse/!5510622/ https://taz.de/Anis-Amri-und-die-Rigaer-Strasse/!5510622/ The priority setting of interior politicians seems to be ... messed up across the globe.
chaorace 6y ago
This feels like one of those "mind blowing" factoids. I mean, nobody had 9/11 on their calendars (aside from literally, I guess). I suppose you could argue that the U.S. should have gotten obssessively involved with the middle east before 9/11 ever happened, but I personally think that's a nutcase position.
- chaorace 6y ago
  And let's address this counterargument: "Regardless of 9/11, why wasn't the DOJ doing literally anything else?" I mean, the DOJ is a department. I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure it's not just a single boardroom stocked with sneering capitalists plotting to get back at software pirates. Don't get me wrong, it's a pretty big department, I don't doubt that this evil boardroom probably actually exists in some capacity. I just also happen to think that is... kind of normal? Would you prefer if the DOJ didn't enforce laws? It seems like putting the cart before the horse when one criticizes the executive for executing instead of criticizing the law itself.
rbecker 6y ago
> has never been demonstrated to harm anyone More than that, it later was demonstrated to not harm anyone: https://gizmodo.com/the-eu-suppressed-a-300-page-study-that-found-piracy-do-1818629537 https://gizmodo.com/the-eu-suppressed-a-300-page-study-that-... (Technically, the study merely failed to find any impact. But that failure put a low upper bound on the impact, so it's inaccurate to say "The study didn't find anything".)
mattacular 6y ago
This is the natural outcome of prioritizing capital above all else, including human life. And the examples of this priority are, sadly, very numerous in the world we all live in.
Melting_Harps 6y ago
> It was the destruction of a warez group. Funny, one of my current tabs was the wiki entry for Razor 1911 for some reason, where it states that the DOJ claims it to be the oldest Warez group in operation (circa 1985). > Putting the factually contraindicated feeling of the software publishing cartels that they're somehow losing money above the actual lives of actual people is a very f'ed up choice of priorities. What you wrote was pretty sobering, especially with COVID and mass unemployment hanging over our collective heads... it is sad but somehow entirely predictable, the emergence and wanton profiteering from the Warfare State and Surveillance Economy was what was needed in further inflate and increase the IC's budgets after the end of the cold war.
drtillberg 6y ago
And lots of articles this summer about shark attacks too....

mschuster91 6y ago

> 19 years ago, in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the then-Attorney General appeared before the media to proudly announce the conclusion of the largest operation in DoJ history. >It was the destruction of a warez group. In Germany, we have something similar, although with two orders of magnitude less deaths. The conservative Berlin Interior Senator Frank Henkel and his top officers decided in 2016, right in front of the election, to move spies from observing Islamist terrorists to observing a couple of left-anarchist "occupied houses". The result? One of the Islamists was Anis Amri, who half a year later infamously murdered twelve people at Breitscheidplatz: https://taz.de/Anis-Amri-und-die-Rigaer-Strasse/!5510622/ https://taz.de/Anis-Amri-und-die-Rigaer-Strasse/!5510622/ The priority setting of interior politicians seems to be ... messed up across the globe.

chaorace 6y ago

This feels like one of those "mind blowing" factoids. I mean, nobody had 9/11 on their calendars (aside from literally, I guess). I suppose you could argue that the U.S. should have gotten obssessively involved with the middle east before 9/11 ever happened, but I personally think that's a nutcase position.

chaorace 6y ago
And let's address this counterargument: "Regardless of 9/11, why wasn't the DOJ doing literally anything else?" I mean, the DOJ is a department. I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure it's not just a single boardroom stocked with sneering capitalists plotting to get back at software pirates. Don't get me wrong, it's a pretty big department, I don't doubt that this evil boardroom probably actually exists in some capacity. I just also happen to think that is... kind of normal? Would you prefer if the DOJ didn't enforce laws? It seems like putting the cart before the horse when one criticizes the executive for executing instead of criticizing the law itself.

rbecker 6y ago

> has never been demonstrated to harm anyone More than that, it later was demonstrated to not harm anyone: https://gizmodo.com/the-eu-suppressed-a-300-page-study-that-found-piracy-do-1818629537 https://gizmodo.com/the-eu-suppressed-a-300-page-study-that-... (Technically, the study merely failed to find any impact. But that failure put a low upper bound on the impact, so it's inaccurate to say "The study didn't find anything".)

mattacular 6y ago

This is the natural outcome of prioritizing capital above all else, including human life. And the examples of this priority are, sadly, very numerous in the world we all live in.

Melting_Harps 6y ago

> It was the destruction of a warez group. Funny, one of my current tabs was the wiki entry for Razor 1911 for some reason, where it states that the DOJ claims it to be the oldest Warez group in operation (circa 1985). > Putting the factually contraindicated feeling of the software publishing cartels that they're somehow losing money above the actual lives of actual people is a very f'ed up choice of priorities. What you wrote was pretty sobering, especially with COVID and mass unemployment hanging over our collective heads... it is sad but somehow entirely predictable, the emergence and wanton profiteering from the Warfare State and Surveillance Economy was what was needed in further inflate and increase the IC's budgets after the end of the cold war.

drtillberg 6y ago

And lots of articles this summer about shark attacks too....