6 ms·
The government has a word for "research" on classified information: espionage. Expect them to act accordingly.
by bitwize 4y ago
The government has a word for "research" on classified information: espionage. Expect them to act accordingly.
- riffic 4y agoon the other hand I hope he has a good 1A lawyer because this seems like a huge encroachment on those rights.
- JKCalhoun 4y agoI expect this has caught the attention of the ACLU.
- orangepurple 4y agoHe isn't visibly a member of a protected class so don't expect the ACLU to do much.
- monetus 4y agoThe 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 ago2012 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 agoI 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 agoIt 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 agoFair 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.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- bitwize 4y agoThe ACLU has, since 2012, changed its policy and will no longer defend hate speech. Gamergate and the rise of Trump have taught us very important lessons about the scope of free speech and the real effects hate speech has on society.
- kube-system 4y agoIssues in this realm are typically not about the information posted, but how it was obtained.
- imwillofficial 4y agoI 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 agoHe 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 agoUnless 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 agoWhat if you fly a drone over a top secret base with a no fly zone over it?
- godzillabrennus 4y agoPlay stupid games, win stupid prizes.
- brookst 4y ago100% ok as long as the drone is not of the order Diptera.
- thwayunion 4y agoHe 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 agoThe 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 agoExcept 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 agoIt 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 agoIt'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 agoNope. Espionage is delivering said classified information to foreign adversaries.
- Ajedi32 4y agoWhich posting it publicly on the internet certainly does.
- aerostable_slug 4y agoWhich 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 agoDouble 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.
- denton-scratch 4y agoIt'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 agoThanks! 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 agoOne 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...