19 ms·

Air Force, FBI raid homes in probe of Area 51 website

336 points by SirLJ 4y ago

ok123456 4y ago
The Truth is Out There.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
bitwize 4y ago
The government has a word for "research" on classified information: espionage. Expect them to act accordingly.
- riffic 4y ago
  on the other hand I hope he has a good 1A lawyer because this seems like a huge encroachment on those rights.
  - JKCalhoun 4y ago
    I expect this has caught the attention of the ACLU.
    - orangepurple 4y ago
      He isn't visibly a member of a protected class so don't expect the ACLU to do much.
      - monetus 4y ago
        The ACLU has (in)famously defended the kkk and other nationalists with terrible ideas. Hyperbole is useful for illustrating a point, but I don't know if that is warranted here.
        dsfyu404ed 4y ago
        >The ACLU has (in)famously defended the kkk and other nationalists with terrible ideas. Hyperbole is useful for illustrating a point, but I don't know if that is warranted here. Are you naive or just being misleading on purpose? In lieu of the reality in the here and now your comment is just as hyperbolic as the one you are deriding for being hyperbolic. The ACLU defended the KKK a generation ago. People have retired and been replaced. Organizational priorities have shifted. Things have changed. That's not the kind of hill that organization will risk dying on in 2022. That said, the guy here is a lot less onerous than the KKK so maybe they will help him, but I sure wouldn't bet on it.
        brookst 4y ago
        2012 was “a generation ago”? https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-em-defends-kkks-right-free-speech https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-em-defends-kkks-rig...
        dsfyu404ed 4y ago
        I was thinking of Brandenburg v Ohio. Regardless some guy who's schtick is "the government is up to wacky shit" is not going to have the modern ACLU banging on his door. They tend to pick cases where the government is more overtly in the wrong (basically cases where case law lags public sentiment) and where the person getting the shaft is more disadvantaged.
        prottog 4y ago
        It may well be for the purposes of this discussion. The ACLU of the past five years or so is such a radical departure from its tradition of guarding civil liberties; you now have directors of the ACLU publicly stating a desire to suppress published books and so forth, because it goes against their new political ideology.
        brookst 4y ago
        Fair enough. I guess “a generation ago” no longer means about 50 calendar years, it means a major paradigm shift, even if that was 6 months ago.
  - kube-system 4y ago
    Issues in this realm are typically not about the information posted, but how it was obtained.
  - imwillofficial 4y ago
    I expect if it is drones flying over, that this will be cut and dry. That’s a huge no no for any military installation, much less one that has all the aliens. I mean “research planes”.
    - cycomanic 4y ago
      He lays out where it is legal and illegal to fly drones on his website and urges people to stick to those, so I would assume he does so himself. https://www.dreamlandresort.com/area51/drones.html https://www.dreamlandresort.com/area51/drones.html
  - bitwize 4y ago
    "National security" is a spell with the power to negate the Constitution's effect.
- skee8383 4y ago
  Unless he was trespassing on gov property i don't see how it can be espionage. If the gov flies a top secret plane or drone over you house and you happen to see it or even video it, i don't see how that's anyone's fault but theirs.
  - dopamean 4y ago
    What if you fly a drone over a top secret base with a no fly zone over it?
    - godzillabrennus 4y ago
      Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
    - brookst 4y ago
      100% ok as long as the drone is not of the order Diptera.
  - thwayunion 4y ago
    He doesn't have to trespass to break the law -- taking pictures from the outside is enough. 18 U.S. Code § 795(a) )Photographing and sketching defense installations): Whenever, in the interests of national defense, the President defines certain vital military and naval installations or equipment as requiring protection against the general dissemination of information relative thereto, it shall be unlawful to make any photograph, sketch, picture, drawing, map, or graphical representation of such vital military and naval installations or equipment without first obtaining permission of the commanding officer of the military or naval post, camp, or station, or naval vessels, military and naval aircraft, and any separate military or naval command concerned, or higher authority, and promptly submitting the product obtained to such commanding officer or higher authority for censorship or such other action as he may deem necessary. I'm not sure whether protected airspace would count as an installation, but the military base itself certainly would. Per the article, >> Dreamland Resort, at dreamlandresort.com, started by Arnu in 1999, features YouTube videos taken from drones flown over places around Area 51, satellite images of the base, a discussion forum with posts on the topic, articles on test flights, “black projects” and UFOs, and what it says are photos of new vehicles such as the so-called “super secret” Northrop Grumman RQ-180 unmanned stealth aircraft shown flying in 2021. Which leaves open also the possibility that they are investigating someone else; eg, someone with clearance getting an ego boost by posting info on the forums, which isn't unprecedented.
- qikInNdOutReply 4y ago
  The problem is that somebody half as clever as the development team, can guess a lot from little information, and be right in about 1/10 of the cases. Resulting in "Top Scret" Info guessed right by some poor sob. Which is then proven correct with a raid. Espionage is a squishy word, term and action. Dislike some reality being publicly discussed - voila its espionage. Some SciFi author, gamedev creates some fictional weapons system that looks like a real one and has the same capability. Espionage. Military Intelligence.
  - HWR_14 4y ago
    Except that's not what happens. Authors, movie prop designers and game developers have all been asked a lot of questions when their stuff rings a little too true. They don't get in trouble (although the FBI asking questions is some amount of trouble). But the FBI is trying to find who leaked stuff to them, and if they just had good imaginations and/or the government published too much stuff, it's not their fault.
  - Ajedi32 4y ago
    It seems pretty clear-cut to me. "Guessing right" cannot be espionage, because you didn't gather any new information, just discussed existing publicly available information. Similarly, "publicly discussing reality" cannot be espionage unless the "reality" you're discussing includes information you obtained illicitly (e.g. by flying drones near government facilities and taking pictures of them in a concerted effort to obtain said information), or as a result of you having a security clearance.
    - jvanderbot 4y ago
      It's sticky to "guess right", in the case where publicizing that guess would reveal technology "secrets". Those secrets are export controlled whether or not you know of a government program creating those secrets in parallel, even if nobody is working on it. Some capabilities are just automatically guarded from inception. For example, if you "guess" that a certain type of lens would be better for certain types of infrared imaging, and publish this, you have potentially violated the US export control / international traffic in arms regulation (ITAR) by "exporting" that design to the wider public. It's easy to complain about that, but widely publishing information on highly effective weaponry is (I hope) clearly a bad idea, lest some rogue actor start shooting down airliners for fun.
- atemerev 4y ago
  Nope. Espionage is delivering said classified information to foreign adversaries.
  - Ajedi32 4y ago
    Which posting it publicly on the internet certainly does.
    - aerostable_slug 4y ago
      Which you're free to so as long as you've never held a security clearance and/or signed the NDA. The only exceptions are material covered under the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, which has never really been legally tried (it would probably fall apart — how is anyone supposed to know they have a duty to protect a document that says "Restricted Data"?), and the identities of undercover intelligence officers.
  - jjk166 4y ago
    Double nope. Both collecting sensitive information and/or transferring sensitive information to a foreign nation are espionage. Further, the information need not be classified, the entity the information is transferred to need not be foreign, and foreign nations need not be adversaries. You hand over a document from the US military to a US newspaper - espionage. You draw a sketch in a notebook of a military base - espionage. Listening in on government frequencies to get information for a domestic terrorist group - espionage. A sketchy dude gives you a briefcase and tells you to hand it to another sketchy dude - potentially espionage. Mishandling of classified documents you had clearance to see, or aiding a foreign adversary are related crimes.
    - atemerev 4y ago
      The legal definition: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/espionage https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/espionage
    - postalrat 4y ago
      Instead talking theory why don't you post a couple similar cases where a person was successfully prosecuted?
- denton-scratch 4y ago
  It's documents that are classified, not information. If information could be classified, then you'd need a public register of classified topics, so that researchers would know what to avoid researching. Forbidding drone overflight of military installations is another matter.
  - aerostable_slug 4y ago
    > If information could be classified, then you'd need a public register of classified topics, so that researchers would know what to avoid researching. Two points: First, the general public has no duty to protect almost all classified data. If you've never had a clearance and signed the NDA, you can take TS/SCI material you found on the ground and publish it (you'd want to be real careful about not lending support to terrorists etc., because the gendarmes would likely be looking for anything to nail you on). Second, we do have a public register of no-no topics (more accurately, topics you have an affirmative duty to protect even without a security clearance): the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, and the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1981.
    - denton-scratch 4y ago
      Thanks! I'm not from USA, and didn't know that, but I think it's much the same in the UK: if you sign Section 5 of the Official Secrets Act, I think you bind yourself to keep ALL official information secret FOREVER. I believe UK law supposes that if it isn't forbidden, then it's allowed. So if you don't sign, then it has to be the Espionage Act, which would be much harder to prosecute.
      - aerostable_slug 4y ago
        One exception: the UK has what's still colloquially known as a D-notice [0], which compels the recipient to not publish what they've got. The US doesn't have a direct equivalent. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jul/31/d-notice-system-state-media-press-freedom https://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jul/31/d-notice-syste...
ortusdux 4y ago
Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33557240 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33557240
O__________O 4y ago
Link to website in question, which also happens mention what to me is one on the more notable aspects of Area 51 - that being some people working there are flown in and out daily from Las Vegas via private airplanes: https://www.dreamlandresort.com/info/janet_terminal.html https://www.dreamlandresort.com/info/janet_terminal.html
- bragr 4y ago
  This is pretty well known: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_(airline) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_(airline)
  - Nicksil 4y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_(airline) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_(airline)
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - dboreham 4y ago
    If you stay at the right hotel on the strip, you can sit in your room and watch those planes boarding, departing, arriving. Their terminal is right there in plain view.
- kevinmchugh 4y ago
  A whole private, secret airline!
  - texasbigdata 4y ago
    Right in front of the Los Vegas sphinx and pyramid replicas, how ingenious!
- pjc50 4y ago
  I wonder what the carbon footprint of that is.
user3939382 4y ago
- MSFT_Edging 4y ago
  - bdg 4y ago
    I think the major difference is you can post that kind of media, it's just not in the outlets owned by the billionaires donating to spacs. In china if you generate media that goes against the CCP you'll find yourself living with Jack Ma and Peng Shuai.
    - Consultant32452 4y ago
      The FBI literally raided this guy's house and he will probably wind up in prison. Not to mention: Assange, Snowden, Manning. One difference, which I will grant you, is if you don't have a wide audience the DHS will just tell sites to censor/ban you. Or they'll get folks like Taylor Lorens to dox you so your life is destroyed and you can never work again.
      - bdg 4y ago
        I don't live in the US and I only set foot in the country once in my life. Is it really an orwellian nightmare with a boot stomping in your face forever, or is it merely a threat that it could become this for everyone, with isolated incidents of different branches over-stepping and being held accountable later?
        retrac 4y ago
        I think there's some truth in the old joke -- thank goodness the US system is so disorganized; it would be a frightening thing if were organized. One thing the Americans did get right was pluricentric power. Even their three letter agencies are constantly tripping each other up. And periodically providing oversight. Really, if you go photographing near a military installation in any country you may bring the ire of the authorities down on you. "National security" gets overreactions everywhere. I wouldn't be too surprised if the RCMP showed up at my door here in Canada if I did a stunt like he's accused with the drone. Though I would expect to go free, in the end, if I actually complied with the laws.
d_burfoot 4y ago
I wanted to believe that this was the jackboot of the government coming down on some completely innocent individual, but ... > [the guy's site] features YouTube videos taken from drones flown over places around Area 51, satellite images of the base Yeah, dude, you can't do that.
- TigeriusKirk 4y ago
  Why not?
  - crazygringo 4y ago
    You're really asking why it might be against the law to fly drones over military bases and take/distribute videos?
    - HideousKojima 4y ago
      It's not clear from the wording if the drones were flown over Area 51 or if they were flown nearby.
      - gtirloni 4y ago
        There are laws against both. https://www.dreamlandresort.com/area51/drones.html https://www.dreamlandresort.com/area51/drones.html
        cycomanic 4y ago
        The irony is that the article on the very website of this person who was arrested lays out were you are not allowed to fly drones and urges people to stick to the allowed zones so that the airforce does not have reasons to expand them. Judging by what was written on your link I assume he was very careful to stick to what was allowed.
      - themitigating 4y ago
        "Hey, what's up?" - you "Oh nothing,just walking around my apartment " - me "You're outside your apartment walking the perimeter?" - you "Wha..." - me
imwillofficial 4y ago
He is probably thrilled to be validated after being mostly labeled a kook for so long. This is wild though, wish I knew more. It’s rare they are this heavy handed.
- photochemsyn 4y ago
  Streisand Effect 101. The website is still up, it actually looks rather tame, and I'm sure if it had actually classified documents or similar on it it would have been seized by the FBI. https://dreamlandresort.com/ https://dreamlandresort.com/
  - anotherman554 4y ago
    The article says he took down certain materials from that web site, so it's the opposite of the Streisand effect.
- themitigating 4y ago
  How is he being validated? He flew drones over restricted airspace. This is like if I said the government had aliens in the white house, I jumped the fence, and then while getting arrested said "they are trying to stop me!"
  - A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
    I am not sure how is that not clear. Anyone who will look at the clickbait and reads twitter version of a summary will immediately assume that he was raided, because whatever he put in there was true/accurate and government decided to shut him down. And just in case it is not clear, it will be twitter summary if the person is a consummate consumer of today's media. A minority will skim the article. Even fewer people will actually read the whole thing. Even less will review for key words tracing bias and evaluating it in any given way. Unless you are not familiar with Area 51 symbolic meaning in US culture, I am not sure how else I can explain it.
  - cycomanic 4y ago
    Do you have any proof he flew drones over restricted airspace? He urges people not to and also not to publish videos from it, based on that he likely is careful not to do so himself. https://www.dreamlandresort.com/area51/drones.html https://www.dreamlandresort.com/area51/drones.html
idrathernot 4y ago
A US citizen documenting aircraft seen from publicly accessible land onto an internet forum isn’t really espionage. The article didn’t mention that he was colluding with foreign government officials and most importantly he was never charged with a crime. Thanks to civil forfeiture, he’ll likely never get his stuff back from the Government MAFIA’s attempt to terrorize him into silence.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- indymike 4y ago
  > Thanks to civil forfeiture, he’ll likely never get his stuff back from the Government MAFIA’s attempt to terrorize him into silence. Maybe, but I suspect the Streisand effect will be strong here, and there will be some enterprising lawyer willing to enhance the brand.
- risyachka 4y ago
  I mean, there are super simple rules to follow. Like don't take pictures of restricted objects. Just follow them and you are golden. If a person doesn't understand the importance of secret military bases and that all us power and influence in the world (and dollar purchase power) is like 70% resulted form their military, then I don't even know what to say.
  - cycomanic 4y ago
    > I mean, there are super simple rules to follow. Like don't take pictures of restricted objects. Just follow them and you are golden. Show me where that rule is written. Typically the rules on state level are called laws and are published, so it should be easy for you to point out the law that forbids you to take pictures of "restricted objects" (how would you even know they are, do they have signs?) when they are in public places. Note I am assuming here that he followed the restrictions around where to fly drones considering he urges others to do so: https://www.dreamlandresort.com/area51/drones.html https://www.dreamlandresort.com/area51/drones.html > If a person doesn't understand the importance of secret military bases and that all us power and influence in the world (and dollar purchase power) is like 70% resulted form their military, then I don't even know what to say. Ah yes the US military bullies other countries so we can be rich so let's not criticise it, when it does unjust/illegal things. I don't consider that a very ethical argument.
GartzenDeHaes 4y ago
It's definitely the drone footage. USAF range 72 has plenty of non-fantastic secret stuff going on. Some examples publicly known include: - Secret aircraft and drones (F117, HavBlue) - Testing of Soviet aircraft and equipment (Red Flag) - Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars) projects, such as laser tagging of satellites It's also a active USAF bombing range used by Nellis AFB.
- runjake 4y ago
  You don't know what you're talking about. - What is "range 72"? I know of a Range 75 and 76. I haven't heard of a Range 72. - The F-117 and HAVE BLUE aircraft, while similar looking, are substantially different in both design and size. And HAVE BLUE doesn't exist anymore. Both crashed. - Red Flag is an USAF exercise. You probably meant the Red Hats squadron. - SDI/Star Wars, as civilians know it, is dead and was never really a thing in the first place. It's a whole other ball game now. Hint: a player just landed this week.
  - dcormier 4y ago
    > It's a whole other ball game now. Hint: a player just landed this week. What?
    - skirmish 4y ago
      I assume this: https://www.npr.org/2022/11/12/1136308108/space-force-plane-mission-x37b https://www.npr.org/2022/11/12/1136308108/space-force-plane-...
    - leetrout 4y ago
      He is referencing the "secret" space plane https://qz.com/secret-us-space-plane-china-xi-biden-cold-war-1849780358 https://qz.com/secret-us-space-plane-china-xi-biden-cold-war...
      - runjake 4y ago
        Indeed, I am. I suppose I should have just included a news link. Thanks!
dncornholio 4y ago
US is so petty. They should have kept his stuff up and use it for their own intelligence. Now they don't know what the public knows about Area51 anymore. And what is being posted will be harder to track down..
- UncleOxidant 4y ago
  Is it on the Internet Archive?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
taxicabjesus 4y ago
One of my more memorable encounters in my taxi was with an older fellow who was moving cars to sell at auction (in Scottsdale, Arizona). "How'd you find your way to the desert?" Phoenix was half-way between the labs in Los Angeles, the labs in New Mexico, and the testing sites in Nevada. For a young single man, life on the secret bases in Nevada was pretty sweet. All the meals were the same price (steak, lobster, etc), ammunition was cheap, etc. The married guys didn't like it so much, but he was not married at the time. Ooohhhh... Interesting. There are rumors on the internet about the federal government having extensive underground infrastructure in the western United States. This made sense to me: if you want to hide something, you put it underground. So I asked my passenger about this. "Oh yeah, but there's way more stuff underground at Area 12 [0], than at Area 51." [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Area_12_(Nevada_National_Security_Site)&redirect=no https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Area_12_(Nevada_N... (Redirect is to "Rainier Mesa", "one of four major nuclear test regions within the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS)".) I'm partial to the idea that nothing important happens at Area 51 anymore, just your average everyday testing of the latest thermodynamics-compliant military hardware. All the interesting R&D is now done somewhere else. Ingo Swann [1] said in his Art Bell interview (iirc), w.r.t. his self-published book [2], that the secret program he was involved with, which he couldn't prove, never even got to the point where it needed to be 'classified'. [1] my earlier comment about Swann: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33295488 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33295488 [2] Penetration: The Question of Extraterrestrial and Human Telepathy - https://books.google.com/books/about/Penetration_the_Question_of_Extraterrest.html?id=g7brrQEACAAJ https://books.google.com/books/about/Penetration_the_Questio... [edit: added [1] & renumbered links] [edit2: added clarification to wikipedia's redirect link.]
- tomphoolery 4y ago
  Was this man wearing glasses and an HEV suit by chance? If so, I would stock up on guns. Now.
  - bitdestroyer 4y ago
    Wake up and smell the ashes.
bookofjoe 4y ago
Off topic: https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/wsi9so/in_1994_over_60_children_in_ruwa_zimbabwe_claimed/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/wsi9so/i...
- deleted 4y ago
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shiftpgdn 4y ago
Directly from the website operator: "I am Joerg Arnu, owner and webmaster of the Dreamland Resort web site (www.DreamlandResort.com). The subject of the web site is Area 51. I have operated that web site since 1999. Last week Thursday (11/3/22) in the early morning my homes in Rachel (just outside of Area 51) and in Las Vegas were searched by a joint force of FBI and AF OSI. This happened without any warning. The doors were broken open and I in Rachel and my girlfriend in our Las Vegas home were detained and treated in the most disrespectful way. My girlfriend was led out into the street barefoot and only in her underwear in full view of our neighbors; I was led outside, handcuffed and only in t-shirt and sweats in sub-freezing temperatures. Each home was searched by 15-20 agents in full riot gear, causing further damage in both homes besides the broken front doors. Despite my repeated requests for an explanation, I was only told that the search was related to images posted on my Area 51 web site. I was very surprised how forceful the search warrant was executed and how rough we, both unarmed senior citizens, were treated. I have to believe that someone gave them bad information about us. All my laptops, phones, backup drives, camera gear and my drone were seized. With the equipment I lost all my medical records, financial and tax records, passwords, email and phone contacts, photos etc. Even my phone was taken, leaving me in Rachel with two broken doors and no way to communicate or call for help. Not counting my expected legal expenses my losses so far include over $20k in equipment taken and over $5k in damage. There are 40 pages missing from the search warrant I received and the case records are sealed. So, I cannot look up the reason for the search and I do not want to speculate. I left several messages with the FBI agent in charge but he has not returned any of my calls. At this point I have no choice but to take legal action to try and get my equipment back and to seek reimbursement for the damage. In an effort to defuse the situation I have removed some material from my Dreamland Resort web site although I believe that it was legally obtained and legal to publish. I am not sharing anything on my web site that cannot be found on dozens of other web sites and news outlet publications. Considering how this went down I have no intention of removing any more material unless ordered to do so by a federal judge. I believe the search, executed with completely unnecessary force by overzealous government agents was meant as a message to silence the Area 51 research community. The question now is: How far will they go? " This should serve as a gentle reminder that the police, the FBI, and other law enforcement are not your friends and that you should run encryption on all of your devices.
balozi 4y ago
I am sure this were joint Air Force and FBI raids, but the optics of the phrase "U.S. Air Force and FBI recently raided homes ..." is really not that great. Maybe just me, but few want to hear of the Air Force raiding homes in America. They should really leave the domestic law enforcement to the FBI, both literary and in public perception.
- alexb_ 4y ago
  The Air Force has it's own investigation body called OSI (Office of Special Investigations) - that's what they are referring to here.
  - nonameiguess 4y ago
    For what it's worth, every branch of the military has its own criminal investigative arm, as well as its own security. While the vast bulk of this is limited to jurisdiction on military installations, they can't help but venture out sometimes. My wife used to work as part of a classified Naval air unit working on experimental radar, for instance, and they couldn't do everything on a Naval base. Every now and again, some people wearing AT&T coveralls or something that got too close would be kindly apprehended and escorted somewhere else by unmarked black SUVs that were part of NCIS. But what else are they supposed to do? The local police aren't cleared to know what's being guarded, either. They'd get apprehended and have their phones wiped, too.
    - dsfyu404ed 4y ago
      Acting like glorified security guards than actively running investigations and kicking in doors.
  - tyingq 4y ago
    The question, though, is to what degree they would be allowed to meddle with civilians. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act
belter 4y ago
- You see John, Area 51 was my department idea. Best security measure we ever come up with! It's getting expensive now.. - What you mean Paul? - Well you know...All these thousands of people we fly in every day, the random events, its an expensive facade to maintain! But the department demands it!. - I see Paul. I guess it's worth it no? Anything to keep their attention focused on it. Last thing we want is them finding out about Areas 52 and 53!
- deleted 4y ago
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alexb_ 4y ago
You cannot just fly drones over airspace you are not allowed to, take pictures of a classified base, and expect nothing to ever happen. This isn't a free speech issue like many are making it out to be in this comment section. The pictures were forbidden from distribution in the first place, and gathered illegally. And this doesn't have anything to do with Area 51 in particular either. If someone did this to any Air Force base, the same thing would happen. Drones are banned from all bases for obvious reasons.
- maestroia 4y ago
  I don't think the drones flew over the installation. Rather, the article states, "features YouTube videos taken from drones flown over places around Area 51". (emphasis mine) So long as the areas are either public lands, or he has permission from the owners, and follows FAA regs on drone operations, nothing wrong with it.
  - deleted 4y ago
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  - shitpostbot 4y ago
  - toss1 4y ago
    WRONG Even if in plain view, it can be very illegal [0]. Never assume that your own "common-sense" expectation of how the law or taxes works is the way it actually works. You are almost always guaranteed to be wrong [1]. In this case, your error could have seriously bad consequences,and your ignorance would be no excuse >> "(a) Whenever, in the interests of national defense, the President defines certain vital military and naval installations or equipment as requiring protection against the general dissemination of information relative thereto, it shall be unlawful to make any photograph, sketch, picture, drawing, map, or graphical representation of such vital military and naval installations or equipment without first obtaining permission of the commanding officer of the military or naval post, camp, or station, or naval vessels, military and naval aircraft, and any separate military or naval command concerned, or higher authority, and promptly submitting the product obtained to such commanding officer or higher authority for censorship or such other action as he may deem necessary. (b) Whoever violates this section shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both." [0] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/795 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/795 [1] Married to a top attny, the first thing said about almost any question is "go read the actual contract or the actual code" before even bothering to start reasoning about the thing. Even an attny's inital assumptions are very often wrong. We'd (at least should) be saying the same thing about any software system.
aww_dang 4y ago
He's out 20k in equipment. How much did he make from his online presence? How much can he make from a legal settlement or GoFundMe campaign? Can he parlay these events into a bigger online presence and fame in the conspiracy sphere? As unpleasant as the experience has been, it could prove to be beneficial to him in the longer term.
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  I'd imagine "I got raided by the Feds" elevates one's credibility significantly in said conspiracy sphere.
- afarrell 4y ago
  Is “bigger online presence and fame in the conspiracy sphere” beneficial to a person?
  - aww_dang 4y ago
    If that's his shtick, then yes.
  - bogwog 4y ago
    Is this a rhetorical question? If not, just look at Alex Jones.
  - 111111101101 4y ago
    Most likely. As someone who was deep into the hacking and phreaking worlds when I was a kid, I've often thought that I would have had a better career if I'd been busted for some of the hundreds of crimes that I committed as a child.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
untech 4y ago
God I hate security agencies of all kinds. Lots of power and zero accountability. They should be regulated by some UN-level treaty or banned entirely.
- Cthulhu_ 4y ago
  I mean they are to a degree, it's just that the US holds the most influence in it (veto powers and such). They don't have zero accountability, they exist under the auspice of the government, Supreme Court and the President. It's just that they have approved of the things they do.
  - untech 4y ago
    Well, true, but it doesn’t seem to be enough. Too little transparency to public for this amount of power. Maybe you can say instead that executive branch is too powerful by inference, and special services are just their instrument projecting this power, but I think that’s not the whole picture. By design, such services become a semi-independent branch themselves, and iirc they are not really rotated, at least on low-to-middle levels.
- phpisthebest 4y ago
  I was in agreement with you until you stated giving UN power. The only organization I trust less than the intel/security agencies is the UN
  - untech 4y ago
    UN should be reformed, of course. What I meant was more like a world-wide WMD ban, some multilateral agreement, and I used UN more as a proxy of “international level”.
    - science4sail 4y ago
      How would a world-wide WMD ban even happen? The last remaining country with WMDs could just ramp up their WMD production to Cold War levels and then hold the rest of the world hostage. North Korea is proof that sanctions can't stop nuclear problems. The only plausible route I imagine is if the non-WMD states put massive resources into countermeasures (e.g. missile interceptors or thwarting nuclear terrorism).
AlbertCory 4y ago
I helped with this talk by Trevor Paglen (didn't introduce him, though). His specialty is photographing these black sites. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mApBa2qKVDM&list=PL4ugKP-T4LYu0UyTzj3FeSDW1zSZUADju&index=10 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mApBa2qKVDM&list=PL4ugKP-T4L...
- ethbr0 4y ago
  That was an amazing talk, thoughtfully presented. Thanks for anything you helped with on it!
  - tigerBL00D 4y ago
    I get upset hearing news like this because it dismantles comfy beliefs. Some part of one's identity is inevitably linked to the national identity. I guess the way to not get upset is to remember that there are really no good governments. Any government, if unchecked by the people it tries to govern, will exploit and oppress while doing its utmost best to maintain a positive image.
    - ethbr0 4y ago
      A poli sci grad student friend put it best. Paraphrased: "Everybody wants to live in a country benefiting from international exploitation, but no one wants to actually see the methods used to effect it."
  - AlbertCory 4y ago
    As I recall, I hung out with him before his room was ready. I guess I must have gotten his signature on the video release. That's about all I can remember of it.
- jbegley 4y ago
  Another good one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlrHNKatHMc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlrHNKatHMc
thih9 4y ago
> Arnu said both his homes were raided “without warning” on Nov. 3 “by 15-20 agents in full riot gear.” The agents broke open the doors while Arnu was in the Rachel home and his girlfriend at the Las Vegas one, and then they “were detained and treated in the most disrespectful way.” I realise that flying drones over restricted airspaces is not allowed. At the same time it doesn't feel like this kind of treatment was justified. Wouldn't three or four police officers (and no riot gear) be enough?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- paganel 4y ago
  My understanding is that as long as they (the security forces) have already bought that equipment then they might as well use it. It doesn’t really matter if said equipment is best suited for the task at hand or not.
- pionar 4y ago
  You underestimate how much cops like playing with their toys.
  - 1attice 4y ago
    "Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat."
- chmod775 4y ago
  What where they even hoping to find? Since this was about publicly distributed video, they should have already had all the evidence they need. Most civilized places the only thing coming through his door would've been a letter informing him about his upcoming appointment at a local police station.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - unnouinceput 4y ago
denton-scratch 4y ago
If the USAF don't want UFO crazies trying to find out about their secret testing station, maybe they should move it to somewhere that isn't famous for UFO myths. Then they could open the gates to Area 51, perhaps charge for entry, and offer guided tours. They could even build a hotel (you can imagine the style of architecture) and a golf-course (Oops! Water shortage, so scrap that).
- jahewson 4y ago
  The moved the aliens to cover it up!! Yep, that’ll work.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- wollsmoth 4y ago
  Maybe they don't do anything super secret there anymore, but the site is still useful as misdirection.
  - rantingdemon 4y ago
    Interesting thoughts. But does this warrant unarmed, senior citizens, to go through the reported abuse?
    - wollsmoth 4y ago
      If you're talking about what happened in the article, we don't know exactly what the probe is about. If the guy truly hasn't done anything illegal then I don't know why they'd bother. I think they are rewarded for convictions.
VLM 4y ago
There's a simply amazing amount of sophistry from one side on this post. Its like they're not even trying intellectual discourse anymore, its just here's your logical fallacy and we outnumber you now so obey.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
AYBABTME 4y ago
If you're set on trying to uncover and release as much classified as you can glean, I'd say it's not surprising to end up getting an unpleasant visit. At the end of the day, if your passion involves actively degrading your country's competitive advantage by leaking every info you can to the wide world, I don't know. One argument is that their discoveries set a floor for what a well equipped actual spy would be able to easily glean. The easy counter argument is that the actual spy should _also_ be investigated by the FBI in riot gear. Protecting classified information isn't just a defensive game of hoping no one will see and distribute the information. It also involves preventing people from doing so.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- RetpolineDrama 4y ago
  > if your passion involves actively degrading your country's competitive advantage by leaking every info you can to the wide world, I don't like that mindset. The US Gov steals trillions of dollars a year from the public to fund all sorts of stuff. These black projects alone represent hundreds of billions of R&D dollars, that tech should *belong to the public*. We pay for it, they work for us (don't they?), we should collectively benefit from it. Instead valuable advancements are locked away in secret hangars. Entire industries are left un-disrupted, all so we can have some edge for a hypothetical war we shouldn't even be fighting anyways.
  - AYBABTME 4y ago
    I understand your position but I respectfully think it's unreasonable given that the world isn't aligned on your views, and as such there is competitive struggle between countries. In prior wars, these secretive and competitive advantages were decisive in determining the outcome. As a US tax payer, would I rather the US use my tax money to keep a competitive edge against would-be competitors? I sure do. Particularly in a world where competitors are authoritarian dictators. If all the other world powers were pacifists and merely had gentlemen's disagreements over minor stuff, perhaps I'd share your views.
adolph 4y ago
I'm not convinced there isn't something more than drone flights adjacent to secret facilities. In the below link a private pilot describes: The first time I ventured into the Nellis Ranges was on a flight from Tonopah to Rachel via R4807A where I went down to the edge of that side of 4808A [also known as "The Box"] and got some good views of Groom [Area 51] from the north. After departing Rachel, I was given permission to enter R4806W enroute to Henderson and proceeded to fly the perimeter of The Box and R4808N basically to Yucca Lake. https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/32919/pilot-takes-amazing-images-of-area-51-and-tonopah-air-base-while-skirting-restricted-airspace https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/32919/pilot-takes-amaz...
neilv 4y ago
I don't know about this one, but there's been at least a couple projects mentioned on HN in the last year or so that I suspected were probably more valuable to non-US intel efforts than they were to their ostensible users. (And one of them appeared to oops while juggling a sockpuppet account on HN to help promote -- which was a little suspicious because that tactic seemed incongruent with the goal they claimed. I suppose, with that project, the non-US intel value could've been intentional. It's much easier to imagine a lot of people being motivated to follow Area 51, just out of curiosity and the mystique, and not seeing any harm in it.) Which prompts the thought: with all sorts of geopolitical tensions going on right now -- as much as we Internet-age techies can be global citizens who extend fellowship (through HN, open source, research communities, companies, etc.) -- maybe we should try to be aware when actions we are considering doing would stray into delicate global balances that we don't understand. We don't know enough to know everything to avoid, but maybe sometimes we can guess, so it seems worth the occasional thought.
- sneak 4y ago
  Rather than handwavey “geopolitical tensions” excuses, I have decided to universally condemn the US’s escalating and heavyhanded assault on the free exercise of journalism in all cases, from Assange to this and anything in between. If I’m paying for it with my tax money, I should be able to read reporting on what it’s being spent on. This goes doubly so for people doing reporting who have no obligation whatsoever to keep US government secrets. Security through obscurity is not a sound enough principle that resources should be expended and freedoms curtailed to attempt to preserve it.
  - sfe22 4y ago
    Slight correction there, you are not “paying with your tax money” thus expecting something from it. Paying to buy something assumes you willingly committed to the deal and had the option to back out. You did not have such an option so you may not expect or demand something in return for it.
    - sneak 4y ago
prirun 4y ago
> My girlfriend was led out into the street barefoot and only in her underwear in full view of our neighbors; I was led outside, handcuffed and only in t-shirt and sweats in sub-freezing temperatures. > Each home was searched by 15-20 agents in full riot gear, causing further damage in both homes besides the broken front doors > I was very surprised how forceful the search warrant was executed and how rough we, both unarmed senior citizens, were treated. > Even my phone was taken, leaving me in Rachel with two broken doors and no way to communicate or call for help. I don't care what the hell he did, this kind of abuse is not acceptable. It's no wonder Americans have lost respect for law enforcement: the people enforcing the law are often committing worse crimes than the supposed criminals. Taking his electronic shit I get. But not letting the poor woman get dressed? That's just a bunch of thugs having a playday with their toys.
- millzlane 4y ago
  My house has been raided multiple times by local police (Victim of a senseless drug war). They have never let me get dressed. I have always assumed it was a safety issue. How do they know, I'm going to actually get dressed and not pull out a firearm or push a hidden button to blow us all up. Not excusing their actions, but this seems to be the norm.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - airstrike 4y ago
    Maybe they can grab your clothes for you from your closet? Surely there's got to be some creative way to allow a human to get dressed And if said human is like the Riddler and has rigged the place to blow should the wrong t-shirt be picked up, well then that's called the risk of being a law enforcement field agent... it's in the job description
    - cyberlurker 4y ago
      At marathons they have those solar blankets. Law enforcement could easily provide clothing or blankets for those being raided. Everyone deserves dignity imo, even potentially guilty people. No risk involved.
lisper 4y ago
The details of the warrant were not disclosed in this article, but it appears to have something to do with images of area 51 and the possible disclosure of classified information. A similar warrant, also involving possible mishandling of state secrets, was recently served on former president Donald Trump at Mar a Lago. The differences between how these two warrants were carried out are staggering. The idea that the law treats everyone equally in the U.S. is so manifestly falsified by this that I don't see how anyone can continue to claim it with a straight face.
- aerostable_slug 4y ago
  See also: Roger Stone
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
throwawaysleep 4y ago
These people are spies. What did they expect? Throw them in ADX like the rest.
_trampeltier 4y ago
Now a lot of people have drones. Wonder about in 20 years, when everybody can have a own satelite.
- mclightning 4y ago
  you dont really need a satellite to picture any place on earth. there are many other cheaper methods.
  - _trampeltier 4y ago
    But from space, there are no rules. You are not in this country. So it's kind of legal.
    - mclightning 4y ago
      everything is legal until it becomes "democratised".
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
rantingdemon 4y ago
I am a South African. We have lived through some of the most draconian Orwellian autocratic measures in the world. Furthermore, our journey to democracy has not been smooth - the last 10 years were marred by massive corruption. Through all of this, our constitutional rights to freedom of expression, and freedom of press, has stayed sound. We have had multiple instances where journalists reported on some nefarious action and were intimidated or even legally threatened by authorities. However, our courts have, for the most part, sided with our freedom of expression and press rights. The South African government has had quite a couple of punches on the nose in our courts ;-). I have read most of the comments in this thread. I think I understand most of the viewpoints, and I always try and have an open mind. I am also not an American citizen. However, like every Earth citizen I have a keen interest (possibly forced...) on USA issues. "If America sneeze the world catches a cold". This is clearly a very contentious topic, and I will reply with some specific thoughts on specific comments. I just wanted to give the perspective of a citizen in a country where this is a serious history of government abuse. We cannot take these things likely. Now that I think about it, I think the Germans feel the same way (living through the Gestapo and Stasi years could not have been fun....).
tarboreus 4y ago
Thugs.

336 points by SirLJ 4y ago

ok123456 4y ago

The Truth is Out There.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

bitwize 4y ago

The government has a word for "research" on classified information: espionage. Expect them to act accordingly.

riffic 4y ago
on the other hand I hope he has a good 1A lawyer because this seems like a huge encroachment on those rights.
- JKCalhoun 4y ago
  I expect this has caught the attention of the ACLU.
  - orangepurple 4y ago
    He isn't visibly a member of a protected class so don't expect the ACLU to do much.
    - monetus 4y ago
      The ACLU has (in)famously defended the kkk and other nationalists with terrible ideas. Hyperbole is useful for illustrating a point, but I don't know if that is warranted here.
      - dsfyu404ed 4y ago
        >The ACLU has (in)famously defended the kkk and other nationalists with terrible ideas. Hyperbole is useful for illustrating a point, but I don't know if that is warranted here. Are you naive or just being misleading on purpose? In lieu of the reality in the here and now your comment is just as hyperbolic as the one you are deriding for being hyperbolic. The ACLU defended the KKK a generation ago. People have retired and been replaced. Organizational priorities have shifted. Things have changed. That's not the kind of hill that organization will risk dying on in 2022. That said, the guy here is a lot less onerous than the KKK so maybe they will help him, but I sure wouldn't bet on it.
        brookst 4y ago
        2012 was “a generation ago”? https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-em-defends-kkks-right-free-speech https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-em-defends-kkks-rig...
        dsfyu404ed 4y ago
        I was thinking of Brandenburg v Ohio. Regardless some guy who's schtick is "the government is up to wacky shit" is not going to have the modern ACLU banging on his door. They tend to pick cases where the government is more overtly in the wrong (basically cases where case law lags public sentiment) and where the person getting the shaft is more disadvantaged.
        prottog 4y ago
        It may well be for the purposes of this discussion. The ACLU of the past five years or so is such a radical departure from its tradition of guarding civil liberties; you now have directors of the ACLU publicly stating a desire to suppress published books and so forth, because it goes against their new political ideology.
        brookst 4y ago
        Fair enough. I guess “a generation ago” no longer means about 50 calendar years, it means a major paradigm shift, even if that was 6 months ago.
- kube-system 4y ago
  Issues in this realm are typically not about the information posted, but how it was obtained.
- imwillofficial 4y ago
  I expect if it is drones flying over, that this will be cut and dry. That’s a huge no no for any military installation, much less one that has all the aliens. I mean “research planes”.
  - cycomanic 4y ago
    He lays out where it is legal and illegal to fly drones on his website and urges people to stick to those, so I would assume he does so himself. https://www.dreamlandresort.com/area51/drones.html https://www.dreamlandresort.com/area51/drones.html
- bitwize 4y ago
  "National security" is a spell with the power to negate the Constitution's effect.
skee8383 4y ago
Unless he was trespassing on gov property i don't see how it can be espionage. If the gov flies a top secret plane or drone over you house and you happen to see it or even video it, i don't see how that's anyone's fault but theirs.
- dopamean 4y ago
  What if you fly a drone over a top secret base with a no fly zone over it?
  - godzillabrennus 4y ago
    Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
  - brookst 4y ago
    100% ok as long as the drone is not of the order Diptera.
- thwayunion 4y ago
  He doesn't have to trespass to break the law -- taking pictures from the outside is enough. 18 U.S. Code § 795(a) )Photographing and sketching defense installations): Whenever, in the interests of national defense, the President defines certain vital military and naval installations or equipment as requiring protection against the general dissemination of information relative thereto, it shall be unlawful to make any photograph, sketch, picture, drawing, map, or graphical representation of such vital military and naval installations or equipment without first obtaining permission of the commanding officer of the military or naval post, camp, or station, or naval vessels, military and naval aircraft, and any separate military or naval command concerned, or higher authority, and promptly submitting the product obtained to such commanding officer or higher authority for censorship or such other action as he may deem necessary. I'm not sure whether protected airspace would count as an installation, but the military base itself certainly would. Per the article, >> Dreamland Resort, at dreamlandresort.com, started by Arnu in 1999, features YouTube videos taken from drones flown over places around Area 51, satellite images of the base, a discussion forum with posts on the topic, articles on test flights, “black projects” and UFOs, and what it says are photos of new vehicles such as the so-called “super secret” Northrop Grumman RQ-180 unmanned stealth aircraft shown flying in 2021. Which leaves open also the possibility that they are investigating someone else; eg, someone with clearance getting an ego boost by posting info on the forums, which isn't unprecedented.
qikInNdOutReply 4y ago
The problem is that somebody half as clever as the development team, can guess a lot from little information, and be right in about 1/10 of the cases. Resulting in "Top Scret" Info guessed right by some poor sob. Which is then proven correct with a raid. Espionage is a squishy word, term and action. Dislike some reality being publicly discussed - voila its espionage. Some SciFi author, gamedev creates some fictional weapons system that looks like a real one and has the same capability. Espionage. Military Intelligence.
- HWR_14 4y ago
  Except that's not what happens. Authors, movie prop designers and game developers have all been asked a lot of questions when their stuff rings a little too true. They don't get in trouble (although the FBI asking questions is some amount of trouble). But the FBI is trying to find who leaked stuff to them, and if they just had good imaginations and/or the government published too much stuff, it's not their fault.
- Ajedi32 4y ago
  It seems pretty clear-cut to me. "Guessing right" cannot be espionage, because you didn't gather any new information, just discussed existing publicly available information. Similarly, "publicly discussing reality" cannot be espionage unless the "reality" you're discussing includes information you obtained illicitly (e.g. by flying drones near government facilities and taking pictures of them in a concerted effort to obtain said information), or as a result of you having a security clearance.
  - jvanderbot 4y ago
    It's sticky to "guess right", in the case where publicizing that guess would reveal technology "secrets". Those secrets are export controlled whether or not you know of a government program creating those secrets in parallel, even if nobody is working on it. Some capabilities are just automatically guarded from inception. For example, if you "guess" that a certain type of lens would be better for certain types of infrared imaging, and publish this, you have potentially violated the US export control / international traffic in arms regulation (ITAR) by "exporting" that design to the wider public. It's easy to complain about that, but widely publishing information on highly effective weaponry is (I hope) clearly a bad idea, lest some rogue actor start shooting down airliners for fun.
atemerev 4y ago
Nope. Espionage is delivering said classified information to foreign adversaries.
- Ajedi32 4y ago
  Which posting it publicly on the internet certainly does.
  - aerostable_slug 4y ago
    Which you're free to so as long as you've never held a security clearance and/or signed the NDA. The only exceptions are material covered under the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, which has never really been legally tried (it would probably fall apart — how is anyone supposed to know they have a duty to protect a document that says "Restricted Data"?), and the identities of undercover intelligence officers.
- jjk166 4y ago
  Double nope. Both collecting sensitive information and/or transferring sensitive information to a foreign nation are espionage. Further, the information need not be classified, the entity the information is transferred to need not be foreign, and foreign nations need not be adversaries. You hand over a document from the US military to a US newspaper - espionage. You draw a sketch in a notebook of a military base - espionage. Listening in on government frequencies to get information for a domestic terrorist group - espionage. A sketchy dude gives you a briefcase and tells you to hand it to another sketchy dude - potentially espionage. Mishandling of classified documents you had clearance to see, or aiding a foreign adversary are related crimes.
  - atemerev 4y ago
    The legal definition: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/espionage https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/espionage
  - postalrat 4y ago
    Instead talking theory why don't you post a couple similar cases where a person was successfully prosecuted?
denton-scratch 4y ago
It's documents that are classified, not information. If information could be classified, then you'd need a public register of classified topics, so that researchers would know what to avoid researching. Forbidding drone overflight of military installations is another matter.
- aerostable_slug 4y ago
  > If information could be classified, then you'd need a public register of classified topics, so that researchers would know what to avoid researching. Two points: First, the general public has no duty to protect almost all classified data. If you've never had a clearance and signed the NDA, you can take TS/SCI material you found on the ground and publish it (you'd want to be real careful about not lending support to terrorists etc., because the gendarmes would likely be looking for anything to nail you on). Second, we do have a public register of no-no topics (more accurately, topics you have an affirmative duty to protect even without a security clearance): the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, and the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1981.
  - denton-scratch 4y ago
    Thanks! I'm not from USA, and didn't know that, but I think it's much the same in the UK: if you sign Section 5 of the Official Secrets Act, I think you bind yourself to keep ALL official information secret FOREVER. I believe UK law supposes that if it isn't forbidden, then it's allowed. So if you don't sign, then it has to be the Espionage Act, which would be much harder to prosecute.
    - aerostable_slug 4y ago
      One exception: the UK has what's still colloquially known as a D-notice [0], which compels the recipient to not publish what they've got. The US doesn't have a direct equivalent. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jul/31/d-notice-system-state-media-press-freedom https://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jul/31/d-notice-syste...

ortusdux 4y ago

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33557240 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33557240

O__________O 4y ago

Link to website in question, which also happens mention what to me is one on the more notable aspects of Area 51 - that being some people working there are flown in and out daily from Las Vegas via private airplanes: https://www.dreamlandresort.com/info/janet_terminal.html https://www.dreamlandresort.com/info/janet_terminal.html

bragr 4y ago
This is pretty well known: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_(airline) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_(airline)
- Nicksil 4y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_(airline) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_(airline)
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- dboreham 4y ago
  If you stay at the right hotel on the strip, you can sit in your room and watch those planes boarding, departing, arriving. Their terminal is right there in plain view.
kevinmchugh 4y ago
A whole private, secret airline!
- texasbigdata 4y ago
  Right in front of the Los Vegas sphinx and pyramid replicas, how ingenious!
pjc50 4y ago
I wonder what the carbon footprint of that is.

user3939382 4y ago

MSFT_Edging 4y ago
- bdg 4y ago
  I think the major difference is you can post that kind of media, it's just not in the outlets owned by the billionaires donating to spacs. In china if you generate media that goes against the CCP you'll find yourself living with Jack Ma and Peng Shuai.
  - Consultant32452 4y ago
    The FBI literally raided this guy's house and he will probably wind up in prison. Not to mention: Assange, Snowden, Manning. One difference, which I will grant you, is if you don't have a wide audience the DHS will just tell sites to censor/ban you. Or they'll get folks like Taylor Lorens to dox you so your life is destroyed and you can never work again.
    - bdg 4y ago
      I don't live in the US and I only set foot in the country once in my life. Is it really an orwellian nightmare with a boot stomping in your face forever, or is it merely a threat that it could become this for everyone, with isolated incidents of different branches over-stepping and being held accountable later?
      - retrac 4y ago
        I think there's some truth in the old joke -- thank goodness the US system is so disorganized; it would be a frightening thing if were organized. One thing the Americans did get right was pluricentric power. Even their three letter agencies are constantly tripping each other up. And periodically providing oversight. Really, if you go photographing near a military installation in any country you may bring the ire of the authorities down on you. "National security" gets overreactions everywhere. I wouldn't be too surprised if the RCMP showed up at my door here in Canada if I did a stunt like he's accused with the drone. Though I would expect to go free, in the end, if I actually complied with the laws.

d_burfoot 4y ago

I wanted to believe that this was the jackboot of the government coming down on some completely innocent individual, but ... > [the guy's site] features YouTube videos taken from drones flown over places around Area 51, satellite images of the base Yeah, dude, you can't do that.

TigeriusKirk 4y ago
Why not?
- crazygringo 4y ago
  You're really asking why it might be against the law to fly drones over military bases and take/distribute videos?
  - HideousKojima 4y ago
    It's not clear from the wording if the drones were flown over Area 51 or if they were flown nearby.
    - gtirloni 4y ago
      There are laws against both. https://www.dreamlandresort.com/area51/drones.html https://www.dreamlandresort.com/area51/drones.html
      - cycomanic 4y ago
        The irony is that the article on the very website of this person who was arrested lays out were you are not allowed to fly drones and urges people to stick to the allowed zones so that the airforce does not have reasons to expand them. Judging by what was written on your link I assume he was very careful to stick to what was allowed.
    - themitigating 4y ago
      "Hey, what's up?" - you "Oh nothing,just walking around my apartment " - me "You're outside your apartment walking the perimeter?" - you "Wha..." - me

imwillofficial 4y ago

He is probably thrilled to be validated after being mostly labeled a kook for so long. This is wild though, wish I knew more. It’s rare they are this heavy handed.

photochemsyn 4y ago
Streisand Effect 101. The website is still up, it actually looks rather tame, and I'm sure if it had actually classified documents or similar on it it would have been seized by the FBI. https://dreamlandresort.com/ https://dreamlandresort.com/
- anotherman554 4y ago
  The article says he took down certain materials from that web site, so it's the opposite of the Streisand effect.
themitigating 4y ago
How is he being validated? He flew drones over restricted airspace. This is like if I said the government had aliens in the white house, I jumped the fence, and then while getting arrested said "they are trying to stop me!"
- A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
  I am not sure how is that not clear. Anyone who will look at the clickbait and reads twitter version of a summary will immediately assume that he was raided, because whatever he put in there was true/accurate and government decided to shut him down. And just in case it is not clear, it will be twitter summary if the person is a consummate consumer of today's media. A minority will skim the article. Even fewer people will actually read the whole thing. Even less will review for key words tracing bias and evaluating it in any given way. Unless you are not familiar with Area 51 symbolic meaning in US culture, I am not sure how else I can explain it.
- cycomanic 4y ago
  Do you have any proof he flew drones over restricted airspace? He urges people not to and also not to publish videos from it, based on that he likely is careful not to do so himself. https://www.dreamlandresort.com/area51/drones.html https://www.dreamlandresort.com/area51/drones.html

idrathernot 4y ago

A US citizen documenting aircraft seen from publicly accessible land onto an internet forum isn’t really espionage. The article didn’t mention that he was colluding with foreign government officials and most importantly he was never charged with a crime. Thanks to civil forfeiture, he’ll likely never get his stuff back from the Government MAFIA’s attempt to terrorize him into silence.

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indymike 4y ago
> Thanks to civil forfeiture, he’ll likely never get his stuff back from the Government MAFIA’s attempt to terrorize him into silence. Maybe, but I suspect the Streisand effect will be strong here, and there will be some enterprising lawyer willing to enhance the brand.
risyachka 4y ago
I mean, there are super simple rules to follow. Like don't take pictures of restricted objects. Just follow them and you are golden. If a person doesn't understand the importance of secret military bases and that all us power and influence in the world (and dollar purchase power) is like 70% resulted form their military, then I don't even know what to say.
- cycomanic 4y ago
  > I mean, there are super simple rules to follow. Like don't take pictures of restricted objects. Just follow them and you are golden. Show me where that rule is written. Typically the rules on state level are called laws and are published, so it should be easy for you to point out the law that forbids you to take pictures of "restricted objects" (how would you even know they are, do they have signs?) when they are in public places. Note I am assuming here that he followed the restrictions around where to fly drones considering he urges others to do so: https://www.dreamlandresort.com/area51/drones.html https://www.dreamlandresort.com/area51/drones.html > If a person doesn't understand the importance of secret military bases and that all us power and influence in the world (and dollar purchase power) is like 70% resulted form their military, then I don't even know what to say. Ah yes the US military bullies other countries so we can be rich so let's not criticise it, when it does unjust/illegal things. I don't consider that a very ethical argument.

GartzenDeHaes 4y ago

It's definitely the drone footage. USAF range 72 has plenty of non-fantastic secret stuff going on. Some examples publicly known include: - Secret aircraft and drones (F117, HavBlue) - Testing of Soviet aircraft and equipment (Red Flag) - Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars) projects, such as laser tagging of satellites It's also a active USAF bombing range used by Nellis AFB.

runjake 4y ago
You don't know what you're talking about. - What is "range 72"? I know of a Range 75 and 76. I haven't heard of a Range 72. - The F-117 and HAVE BLUE aircraft, while similar looking, are substantially different in both design and size. And HAVE BLUE doesn't exist anymore. Both crashed. - Red Flag is an USAF exercise. You probably meant the Red Hats squadron. - SDI/Star Wars, as civilians know it, is dead and was never really a thing in the first place. It's a whole other ball game now. Hint: a player just landed this week.
- dcormier 4y ago
  > It's a whole other ball game now. Hint: a player just landed this week. What?
  - skirmish 4y ago
    I assume this: https://www.npr.org/2022/11/12/1136308108/space-force-plane-mission-x37b https://www.npr.org/2022/11/12/1136308108/space-force-plane-...
  - leetrout 4y ago
    He is referencing the "secret" space plane https://qz.com/secret-us-space-plane-china-xi-biden-cold-war-1849780358 https://qz.com/secret-us-space-plane-china-xi-biden-cold-war...
    - runjake 4y ago
      Indeed, I am. I suppose I should have just included a news link. Thanks!

dncornholio 4y ago

US is so petty. They should have kept his stuff up and use it for their own intelligence. Now they don't know what the public knows about Area51 anymore. And what is being posted will be harder to track down..

UncleOxidant 4y ago
Is it on the Internet Archive?
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taxicabjesus 4y ago

One of my more memorable encounters in my taxi was with an older fellow who was moving cars to sell at auction (in Scottsdale, Arizona). "How'd you find your way to the desert?" Phoenix was half-way between the labs in Los Angeles, the labs in New Mexico, and the testing sites in Nevada. For a young single man, life on the secret bases in Nevada was pretty sweet. All the meals were the same price (steak, lobster, etc), ammunition was cheap, etc. The married guys didn't like it so much, but he was not married at the time. Ooohhhh... Interesting. There are rumors on the internet about the federal government having extensive underground infrastructure in the western United States. This made sense to me: if you want to hide something, you put it underground. So I asked my passenger about this. "Oh yeah, but there's way more stuff underground at Area 12 [0], than at Area 51." [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Area_12_(Nevada_National_Security_Site)&redirect=no https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Area_12_(Nevada_N... (Redirect is to "Rainier Mesa", "one of four major nuclear test regions within the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS)".) I'm partial to the idea that nothing important happens at Area 51 anymore, just your average everyday testing of the latest thermodynamics-compliant military hardware. All the interesting R&D is now done somewhere else. Ingo Swann [1] said in his Art Bell interview (iirc), w.r.t. his self-published book [2], that the secret program he was involved with, which he couldn't prove, never even got to the point where it needed to be 'classified'. [1] my earlier comment about Swann: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33295488 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33295488 [2] Penetration: The Question of Extraterrestrial and Human Telepathy - https://books.google.com/books/about/Penetration_the_Question_of_Extraterrest.html?id=g7brrQEACAAJ https://books.google.com/books/about/Penetration_the_Questio... [edit: added [1] & renumbered links] [edit2: added clarification to wikipedia's redirect link.]

tomphoolery 4y ago
Was this man wearing glasses and an HEV suit by chance? If so, I would stock up on guns. Now.
- bitdestroyer 4y ago
  Wake up and smell the ashes.

bookofjoe 4y ago

Off topic: https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/wsi9so/in_1994_over_60_children_in_ruwa_zimbabwe_claimed/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/wsi9so/i...

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shiftpgdn 4y ago

Directly from the website operator: "I am Joerg Arnu, owner and webmaster of the Dreamland Resort web site (www.DreamlandResort.com). The subject of the web site is Area 51. I have operated that web site since 1999. Last week Thursday (11/3/22) in the early morning my homes in Rachel (just outside of Area 51) and in Las Vegas were searched by a joint force of FBI and AF OSI. This happened without any warning. The doors were broken open and I in Rachel and my girlfriend in our Las Vegas home were detained and treated in the most disrespectful way. My girlfriend was led out into the street barefoot and only in her underwear in full view of our neighbors; I was led outside, handcuffed and only in t-shirt and sweats in sub-freezing temperatures. Each home was searched by 15-20 agents in full riot gear, causing further damage in both homes besides the broken front doors. Despite my repeated requests for an explanation, I was only told that the search was related to images posted on my Area 51 web site. I was very surprised how forceful the search warrant was executed and how rough we, both unarmed senior citizens, were treated. I have to believe that someone gave them bad information about us. All my laptops, phones, backup drives, camera gear and my drone were seized. With the equipment I lost all my medical records, financial and tax records, passwords, email and phone contacts, photos etc. Even my phone was taken, leaving me in Rachel with two broken doors and no way to communicate or call for help. Not counting my expected legal expenses my losses so far include over $20k in equipment taken and over $5k in damage. There are 40 pages missing from the search warrant I received and the case records are sealed. So, I cannot look up the reason for the search and I do not want to speculate. I left several messages with the FBI agent in charge but he has not returned any of my calls. At this point I have no choice but to take legal action to try and get my equipment back and to seek reimbursement for the damage. In an effort to defuse the situation I have removed some material from my Dreamland Resort web site although I believe that it was legally obtained and legal to publish. I am not sharing anything on my web site that cannot be found on dozens of other web sites and news outlet publications. Considering how this went down I have no intention of removing any more material unless ordered to do so by a federal judge. I believe the search, executed with completely unnecessary force by overzealous government agents was meant as a message to silence the Area 51 research community. The question now is: How far will they go? " This should serve as a gentle reminder that the police, the FBI, and other law enforcement are not your friends and that you should run encryption on all of your devices.

balozi 4y ago

I am sure this were joint Air Force and FBI raids, but the optics of the phrase "U.S. Air Force and FBI recently raided homes ..." is really not that great. Maybe just me, but few want to hear of the Air Force raiding homes in America. They should really leave the domestic law enforcement to the FBI, both literary and in public perception.

alexb_ 4y ago
The Air Force has it's own investigation body called OSI (Office of Special Investigations) - that's what they are referring to here.
- nonameiguess 4y ago
  For what it's worth, every branch of the military has its own criminal investigative arm, as well as its own security. While the vast bulk of this is limited to jurisdiction on military installations, they can't help but venture out sometimes. My wife used to work as part of a classified Naval air unit working on experimental radar, for instance, and they couldn't do everything on a Naval base. Every now and again, some people wearing AT&T coveralls or something that got too close would be kindly apprehended and escorted somewhere else by unmarked black SUVs that were part of NCIS. But what else are they supposed to do? The local police aren't cleared to know what's being guarded, either. They'd get apprehended and have their phones wiped, too.
  - dsfyu404ed 4y ago
    Acting like glorified security guards than actively running investigations and kicking in doors.
- tyingq 4y ago
  The question, though, is to what degree they would be allowed to meddle with civilians. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act

belter 4y ago

- You see John, Area 51 was my department idea. Best security measure we ever come up with! It's getting expensive now.. - What you mean Paul? - Well you know...All these thousands of people we fly in every day, the random events, its an expensive facade to maintain! But the department demands it!. - I see Paul. I guess it's worth it no? Anything to keep their attention focused on it. Last thing we want is them finding out about Areas 52 and 53!

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alexb_ 4y ago

You cannot just fly drones over airspace you are not allowed to, take pictures of a classified base, and expect nothing to ever happen. This isn't a free speech issue like many are making it out to be in this comment section. The pictures were forbidden from distribution in the first place, and gathered illegally. And this doesn't have anything to do with Area 51 in particular either. If someone did this to any Air Force base, the same thing would happen. Drones are banned from all bases for obvious reasons.

maestroia 4y ago
I don't think the drones flew over the installation. Rather, the article states, "features YouTube videos taken from drones flown over places around Area 51". (emphasis mine) So long as the areas are either public lands, or he has permission from the owners, and follows FAA regs on drone operations, nothing wrong with it.
- deleted 4y ago
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- shitpostbot 4y ago
- toss1 4y ago
  WRONG Even if in plain view, it can be very illegal [0]. Never assume that your own "common-sense" expectation of how the law or taxes works is the way it actually works. You are almost always guaranteed to be wrong [1]. In this case, your error could have seriously bad consequences,and your ignorance would be no excuse >> "(a) Whenever, in the interests of national defense, the President defines certain vital military and naval installations or equipment as requiring protection against the general dissemination of information relative thereto, it shall be unlawful to make any photograph, sketch, picture, drawing, map, or graphical representation of such vital military and naval installations or equipment without first obtaining permission of the commanding officer of the military or naval post, camp, or station, or naval vessels, military and naval aircraft, and any separate military or naval command concerned, or higher authority, and promptly submitting the product obtained to such commanding officer or higher authority for censorship or such other action as he may deem necessary. (b) Whoever violates this section shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both." [0] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/795 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/795 [1] Married to a top attny, the first thing said about almost any question is "go read the actual contract or the actual code" before even bothering to start reasoning about the thing. Even an attny's inital assumptions are very often wrong. We'd (at least should) be saying the same thing about any software system.

aww_dang 4y ago

He's out 20k in equipment. How much did he make from his online presence? How much can he make from a legal settlement or GoFundMe campaign? Can he parlay these events into a bigger online presence and fame in the conspiracy sphere? As unpleasant as the experience has been, it could prove to be beneficial to him in the longer term.

ceejayoz 4y ago
I'd imagine "I got raided by the Feds" elevates one's credibility significantly in said conspiracy sphere.
afarrell 4y ago
Is “bigger online presence and fame in the conspiracy sphere” beneficial to a person?
- aww_dang 4y ago
  If that's his shtick, then yes.
- bogwog 4y ago
  Is this a rhetorical question? If not, just look at Alex Jones.
- 111111101101 4y ago
  Most likely. As someone who was deep into the hacking and phreaking worlds when I was a kid, I've often thought that I would have had a better career if I'd been busted for some of the hundreds of crimes that I committed as a child.
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untech 4y ago

God I hate security agencies of all kinds. Lots of power and zero accountability. They should be regulated by some UN-level treaty or banned entirely.

Cthulhu_ 4y ago
I mean they are to a degree, it's just that the US holds the most influence in it (veto powers and such). They don't have zero accountability, they exist under the auspice of the government, Supreme Court and the President. It's just that they have approved of the things they do.
- untech 4y ago
  Well, true, but it doesn’t seem to be enough. Too little transparency to public for this amount of power. Maybe you can say instead that executive branch is too powerful by inference, and special services are just their instrument projecting this power, but I think that’s not the whole picture. By design, such services become a semi-independent branch themselves, and iirc they are not really rotated, at least on low-to-middle levels.
phpisthebest 4y ago
I was in agreement with you until you stated giving UN power. The only organization I trust less than the intel/security agencies is the UN
- untech 4y ago
  UN should be reformed, of course. What I meant was more like a world-wide WMD ban, some multilateral agreement, and I used UN more as a proxy of “international level”.
  - science4sail 4y ago
    How would a world-wide WMD ban even happen? The last remaining country with WMDs could just ramp up their WMD production to Cold War levels and then hold the rest of the world hostage. North Korea is proof that sanctions can't stop nuclear problems. The only plausible route I imagine is if the non-WMD states put massive resources into countermeasures (e.g. missile interceptors or thwarting nuclear terrorism).

AlbertCory 4y ago

I helped with this talk by Trevor Paglen (didn't introduce him, though). His specialty is photographing these black sites. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mApBa2qKVDM&list=PL4ugKP-T4LYu0UyTzj3FeSDW1zSZUADju&index=10 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mApBa2qKVDM&list=PL4ugKP-T4L...

ethbr0 4y ago
That was an amazing talk, thoughtfully presented. Thanks for anything you helped with on it!
- tigerBL00D 4y ago
  I get upset hearing news like this because it dismantles comfy beliefs. Some part of one's identity is inevitably linked to the national identity. I guess the way to not get upset is to remember that there are really no good governments. Any government, if unchecked by the people it tries to govern, will exploit and oppress while doing its utmost best to maintain a positive image.
  - ethbr0 4y ago
    A poli sci grad student friend put it best. Paraphrased: "Everybody wants to live in a country benefiting from international exploitation, but no one wants to actually see the methods used to effect it."
- AlbertCory 4y ago
  As I recall, I hung out with him before his room was ready. I guess I must have gotten his signature on the video release. That's about all I can remember of it.
jbegley 4y ago
Another good one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlrHNKatHMc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlrHNKatHMc

thih9 4y ago

> Arnu said both his homes were raided “without warning” on Nov. 3 “by 15-20 agents in full riot gear.” The agents broke open the doors while Arnu was in the Rachel home and his girlfriend at the Las Vegas one, and then they “were detained and treated in the most disrespectful way.” I realise that flying drones over restricted airspaces is not allowed. At the same time it doesn't feel like this kind of treatment was justified. Wouldn't three or four police officers (and no riot gear) be enough?

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paganel 4y ago
My understanding is that as long as they (the security forces) have already bought that equipment then they might as well use it. It doesn’t really matter if said equipment is best suited for the task at hand or not.
pionar 4y ago
You underestimate how much cops like playing with their toys.
- 1attice 4y ago
  "Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat."
chmod775 4y ago
What where they even hoping to find? Since this was about publicly distributed video, they should have already had all the evidence they need. Most civilized places the only thing coming through his door would've been a letter informing him about his upcoming appointment at a local police station.
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- unnouinceput 4y ago

denton-scratch 4y ago

If the USAF don't want UFO crazies trying to find out about their secret testing station, maybe they should move it to somewhere that isn't famous for UFO myths. Then they could open the gates to Area 51, perhaps charge for entry, and offer guided tours. They could even build a hotel (you can imagine the style of architecture) and a golf-course (Oops! Water shortage, so scrap that).

jahewson 4y ago
The moved the aliens to cover it up!! Yep, that’ll work.
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wollsmoth 4y ago
Maybe they don't do anything super secret there anymore, but the site is still useful as misdirection.
- rantingdemon 4y ago
  Interesting thoughts. But does this warrant unarmed, senior citizens, to go through the reported abuse?
  - wollsmoth 4y ago
    If you're talking about what happened in the article, we don't know exactly what the probe is about. If the guy truly hasn't done anything illegal then I don't know why they'd bother. I think they are rewarded for convictions.

VLM 4y ago

There's a simply amazing amount of sophistry from one side on this post. Its like they're not even trying intellectual discourse anymore, its just here's your logical fallacy and we outnumber you now so obey.

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AYBABTME 4y ago

If you're set on trying to uncover and release as much classified as you can glean, I'd say it's not surprising to end up getting an unpleasant visit. At the end of the day, if your passion involves actively degrading your country's competitive advantage by leaking every info you can to the wide world, I don't know. One argument is that their discoveries set a floor for what a well equipped actual spy would be able to easily glean. The easy counter argument is that the actual spy should _also_ be investigated by the FBI in riot gear. Protecting classified information isn't just a defensive game of hoping no one will see and distribute the information. It also involves preventing people from doing so.

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RetpolineDrama 4y ago
> if your passion involves actively degrading your country's competitive advantage by leaking every info you can to the wide world, I don't like that mindset. The US Gov steals trillions of dollars a year from the public to fund all sorts of stuff. These black projects alone represent hundreds of billions of R&D dollars, that tech should *belong to the public*. We pay for it, they work for us (don't they?), we should collectively benefit from it. Instead valuable advancements are locked away in secret hangars. Entire industries are left un-disrupted, all so we can have some edge for a hypothetical war we shouldn't even be fighting anyways.
- AYBABTME 4y ago
  I understand your position but I respectfully think it's unreasonable given that the world isn't aligned on your views, and as such there is competitive struggle between countries. In prior wars, these secretive and competitive advantages were decisive in determining the outcome. As a US tax payer, would I rather the US use my tax money to keep a competitive edge against would-be competitors? I sure do. Particularly in a world where competitors are authoritarian dictators. If all the other world powers were pacifists and merely had gentlemen's disagreements over minor stuff, perhaps I'd share your views.

adolph 4y ago

I'm not convinced there isn't something more than drone flights adjacent to secret facilities. In the below link a private pilot describes: The first time I ventured into the Nellis Ranges was on a flight from Tonopah to Rachel via R4807A where I went down to the edge of that side of 4808A [also known as "The Box"] and got some good views of Groom [Area 51] from the north. After departing Rachel, I was given permission to enter R4806W enroute to Henderson and proceeded to fly the perimeter of The Box and R4808N basically to Yucca Lake. https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/32919/pilot-takes-amazing-images-of-area-51-and-tonopah-air-base-while-skirting-restricted-airspace https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/32919/pilot-takes-amaz...

neilv 4y ago

I don't know about this one, but there's been at least a couple projects mentioned on HN in the last year or so that I suspected were probably more valuable to non-US intel efforts than they were to their ostensible users. (And one of them appeared to oops while juggling a sockpuppet account on HN to help promote -- which was a little suspicious because that tactic seemed incongruent with the goal they claimed. I suppose, with that project, the non-US intel value could've been intentional. It's much easier to imagine a lot of people being motivated to follow Area 51, just out of curiosity and the mystique, and not seeing any harm in it.) Which prompts the thought: with all sorts of geopolitical tensions going on right now -- as much as we Internet-age techies can be global citizens who extend fellowship (through HN, open source, research communities, companies, etc.) -- maybe we should try to be aware when actions we are considering doing would stray into delicate global balances that we don't understand. We don't know enough to know everything to avoid, but maybe sometimes we can guess, so it seems worth the occasional thought.

sneak 4y ago
Rather than handwavey “geopolitical tensions” excuses, I have decided to universally condemn the US’s escalating and heavyhanded assault on the free exercise of journalism in all cases, from Assange to this and anything in between. If I’m paying for it with my tax money, I should be able to read reporting on what it’s being spent on. This goes doubly so for people doing reporting who have no obligation whatsoever to keep US government secrets. Security through obscurity is not a sound enough principle that resources should be expended and freedoms curtailed to attempt to preserve it.
- sfe22 4y ago
  Slight correction there, you are not “paying with your tax money” thus expecting something from it. Paying to buy something assumes you willingly committed to the deal and had the option to back out. You did not have such an option so you may not expect or demand something in return for it.
  - sneak 4y ago

prirun 4y ago

> My girlfriend was led out into the street barefoot and only in her underwear in full view of our neighbors; I was led outside, handcuffed and only in t-shirt and sweats in sub-freezing temperatures. > Each home was searched by 15-20 agents in full riot gear, causing further damage in both homes besides the broken front doors > I was very surprised how forceful the search warrant was executed and how rough we, both unarmed senior citizens, were treated. > Even my phone was taken, leaving me in Rachel with two broken doors and no way to communicate or call for help. I don't care what the hell he did, this kind of abuse is not acceptable. It's no wonder Americans have lost respect for law enforcement: the people enforcing the law are often committing worse crimes than the supposed criminals. Taking his electronic shit I get. But not letting the poor woman get dressed? That's just a bunch of thugs having a playday with their toys.

millzlane 4y ago
My house has been raided multiple times by local police (Victim of a senseless drug war). They have never let me get dressed. I have always assumed it was a safety issue. How do they know, I'm going to actually get dressed and not pull out a firearm or push a hidden button to blow us all up. Not excusing their actions, but this seems to be the norm.
- deleted 4y ago
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- airstrike 4y ago
  Maybe they can grab your clothes for you from your closet? Surely there's got to be some creative way to allow a human to get dressed And if said human is like the Riddler and has rigged the place to blow should the wrong t-shirt be picked up, well then that's called the risk of being a law enforcement field agent... it's in the job description
  - cyberlurker 4y ago
    At marathons they have those solar blankets. Law enforcement could easily provide clothing or blankets for those being raided. Everyone deserves dignity imo, even potentially guilty people. No risk involved.

lisper 4y ago

The details of the warrant were not disclosed in this article, but it appears to have something to do with images of area 51 and the possible disclosure of classified information. A similar warrant, also involving possible mishandling of state secrets, was recently served on former president Donald Trump at Mar a Lago. The differences between how these two warrants were carried out are staggering. The idea that the law treats everyone equally in the U.S. is so manifestly falsified by this that I don't see how anyone can continue to claim it with a straight face.

aerostable_slug 4y ago
See also: Roger Stone
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throwawaysleep 4y ago

These people are spies. What did they expect? Throw them in ADX like the rest.

_trampeltier 4y ago

Now a lot of people have drones. Wonder about in 20 years, when everybody can have a own satelite.

mclightning 4y ago
you dont really need a satellite to picture any place on earth. there are many other cheaper methods.
- _trampeltier 4y ago
  But from space, there are no rules. You are not in this country. So it's kind of legal.
  - mclightning 4y ago
    everything is legal until it becomes "democratised".

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rantingdemon 4y ago

I am a South African. We have lived through some of the most draconian Orwellian autocratic measures in the world. Furthermore, our journey to democracy has not been smooth - the last 10 years were marred by massive corruption. Through all of this, our constitutional rights to freedom of expression, and freedom of press, has stayed sound. We have had multiple instances where journalists reported on some nefarious action and were intimidated or even legally threatened by authorities. However, our courts have, for the most part, sided with our freedom of expression and press rights. The South African government has had quite a couple of punches on the nose in our courts ;-). I have read most of the comments in this thread. I think I understand most of the viewpoints, and I always try and have an open mind. I am also not an American citizen. However, like every Earth citizen I have a keen interest (possibly forced...) on USA issues. "If America sneeze the world catches a cold". This is clearly a very contentious topic, and I will reply with some specific thoughts on specific comments. I just wanted to give the perspective of a citizen in a country where this is a serious history of government abuse. We cannot take these things likely. Now that I think about it, I think the Germans feel the same way (living through the Gestapo and Stasi years could not have been fun....).

tarboreus 4y ago

Thugs.