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The US is a limited govt. No govt agency can do anything for which it isn’t explicitly authorized. The FBI is not authorized to be ensuring private companies

The US is a limited govt. No govt agency can do anything for which it isn’t explicitly authorized. The FBI is not authorized to be ensuring private companies adhere to their policies. If a agent is being paid — with taxpayer dollars - to check on Twitter and give it ‘advice’ on how to run itself, that agent is acting outside the scope of his authority. It’s an abuse and misuse of power. It doesn’t matter what the ‘greater good’ is. The FBI’s purpose isn’t to generally look out for the greater good. Rather, it’s to investigate federal crimes. There is no crime in telling people to ‘vote this Wednesday.’ There is no crime of ‘misinformation.’

acdha 4y ago
Which specific actions do you think the FBI took which aren’t part of their mandate? Please link to the sources for those claims.
- lurquer 4y ago
  You have it backwards. The Federal Statutes grant specific authority to the FBI. The burden is in the FBI to point to a specific grant of statutory authority to justify any particular action. What federal statute gives the FBI (or any agency) the right to advise, suggest, or even comment on a particular company’s policies? What statute gives the FBI the power to ‘suggest’ certain accounts be blocked?
  - acdha 4y ago
    I note you’re continuing to present vague claims. Can you point to a specific example of something you think they don’t have legal authority for being involved in? For example, the Twitter Files had a lot of stuff under election misinformation. Since that’s an entire mission, you can argue about effectiveness but it’s not like it’s a stretch: https://www.fbi.gov/how-we-can-help-you/safety-resources/scams-and-safety/common-scams-and-crimes/election-crimes-and-security https://www.fbi.gov/how-we-can-help-you/safety-resources/sca...
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Eisenstein 4y ago
So, cops are not allowed to do welfare checks because there is no crime of 'dying alone in your house' and there is no explicit authorization for police to enforce wellbeing? Don't be adsurd.
- NickNameNick 4y ago
  Under the above theory, Federal agents shouldnt. Local/state police have that power (the general police power) Not the federal government.
- pclmulqdq 4y ago
  Cops are agents of their states, and a welfare check on an individual is a very different situation than a check on the welfare of society as a whole. The government doesn't get to decide when society is well, that's for the people to do as a whole.
  - Eisenstein 4y ago
    Yourreasoning is just as arbitrary as just as nonsensical. What is a democracy if not the will of society as a whole? Do you have a different way for society to determine and enforce its needs?
    - lurquer 4y ago
      The US Federal Government has only the limited powers granted it by the federal constitution. The States, on the other hand, have general authority… their powers are not limited (except by the specific restrictions set forth in the US Const.) In short, there is a very real and legal and intended difference between FedGov and StateGov. If you don’t like it, change the constitution. But, it’s not matter of opinion… it’s simply the way the USA government is set up. States have ‘general police power’ while the Fed does not.
      - Eisenstein 4y ago
        Excuse me but you did not address my comment, you addressed what you wanted to address and ignored what I said.
cactusplant7374 4y ago
I would like the FBI to stop school shooters, would-be terrorists, and foreign influence campaigns. If Elon Musk’s Twitter refuses to help and as a result people die, I want Elon Musk held responsible.
RobLach 4y ago
It's not an abuse of power unless the FBI threatens repercussions. It seems like Twitter was more or less happy to oblige. I don't see what the hubbub is about.
- ilyt 4y ago
  For all we know it could be "you can play nicely and remove it when we tell you to "look into it", or we will look further into your company"
  - krapp 4y ago
    That's passing into "ignore your lying eyes and read between the lines" territory, which isn't an argument from evidence but an argument from political ideology.
  - acdha 4y ago
    That’s possible but you’d expect to see some sign of it: internal emails or messages, legal advice, etc. when those threats were made or guidelines from the legal department about what things the regular trust and safety people can’t ignore. What’s telling is that Musk’s people can’t find anything like that. If this was happening you’d think there’d be at least one example where someone is saying they have to yank something even though it’s not in violation of the rules. Instead, what we see is bending over backwards to keep people like Trump or Raichik from having the rules applied to them, with no mention of government pressure to yank them.
    - zosima 4y ago
      No, you wouldn't expect anything like that at all. Nobody passing kindergarten would write down something so blatantly illegal.
      - acdha 4y ago
        First, you’d think the same thing about almost any crime but there’s a long history of that happening. More importantly, however, as I explained you’d see the presence of that policy even if they managed to keep the conspiracy perfectly. There’d have been cases where something didn’t meet the rules for being banned but someone overruled them to do it anyway, unexplained policy changes following a private meeting, someone setting out hard lines for the moderators, etc. Twitter had a ton of people doing moderation and there’s no way you get that many people to work on a daily basis without stated policies or someone accidentally saying something they knew, or that not a single one of them wouldn’t have gone public or talked to Musk.
michaelmrose 4y ago
You have constructed a theory of how government works from whole cloth having nothing whatsoever to do with reality. Limited government means what powers not explicitly granted to government belong to the people. This is to say government can only acquire new powers via legislation or amendment of the constitution it doesn't mean that they are for forbidden from acting beyond the most limited mandate you imagine. No law is therein broken because you feel it's out of scope because the limitation is your invention.
- zosima 4y ago
  So please tell, by what statute or mandate is FBI helping to enforce twitter's terms of service?
- lurquer 4y ago
  28 USC 531, et seq. sets out the limited authority and mission of the FBI. Ensuring social media platforms adhere to their own policies is outside the scope. Government officials — at the federal level - have extremely well-defined scopes of authority. They have no general power to do things. If they exceed the scope, they are abusing the power given to them. A govt agency has no authority outside the scope of its enacting statute. That I what I meant by limited. It’s not a ‘made up’ concept. If an agent engages in ANY action outside its authority, it is exceeding its limited authority and acting outside the law. It as an abuse as the agent (or agency as a whole) is doing something ‘under color of law’ that Congress did not permit. At the local level, there is a concept of ‘general’ police power where the limits of what your local deputy, for instance, can do is a bit more nebulous. But, not at the federal level.
  - michaelmrose 4y ago
    Can you give an example of where it has been found in a court of law that a government agency has exceeded its mandate and been ordered to alter their behavior entirely on that basis and not for instance because its actions violate someone's rights or harm their interests?
prawn 4y ago
”The FBI is not authorized to be ensuring private companies adhere to their policies.” This is not their goal. It is part of their method.
- zosima 4y ago
  But not, in the way that it has been done, a legally sanctioned part of their method.
  - lern_too_spel 4y ago
    If so, there would be lawsuits. There are none, so let's consider that you are wrong.
comex 4y ago
> There is no crime in telling people to ‘vote this Wednesday.’ There is no crime of ‘misinformation.’ The Department of Justice would disagree with you: “Social Media Influencer Charged with Election Interference Stemming from Voter Disinformation Campaign” [1] Some guy tweeted in 2016 encouraging Hillary Clinton supporters to ‘Vote from Home’ by sending an SMS to a certain number. For this and other tweets, he was charged with violating 18 USC 241, which prohibits “conspir[ing] to injure, oppress, [..] any person [..] in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States”, where the right in question was the right to vote. With the justice system being as slow as it is, the indictment only happened in 2021 and the case is still pending at the district court level. [2] His lawyers argue that his actions were protected by the First Amendment; this is a novel legal question with no Supreme Court precedent on point. [3] [1] https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/social-media-influencer-charged-election-interference-stemming-voter-disinformation-campaign https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/social-media-influencer-charg... [2] https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/59249282/united-states-v-mackey/ https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/59249282/united-states-... [3] https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/douglass-mackey-ricky-vaughn-memes-first-amendment https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/douglass-ma...

acdha 4y ago

Which specific actions do you think the FBI took which aren’t part of their mandate? Please link to the sources for those claims.

lurquer 4y ago
You have it backwards. The Federal Statutes grant specific authority to the FBI. The burden is in the FBI to point to a specific grant of statutory authority to justify any particular action. What federal statute gives the FBI (or any agency) the right to advise, suggest, or even comment on a particular company’s policies? What statute gives the FBI the power to ‘suggest’ certain accounts be blocked?
- acdha 4y ago
  I note you’re continuing to present vague claims. Can you point to a specific example of something you think they don’t have legal authority for being involved in? For example, the Twitter Files had a lot of stuff under election misinformation. Since that’s an entire mission, you can argue about effectiveness but it’s not like it’s a stretch: https://www.fbi.gov/how-we-can-help-you/safety-resources/scams-and-safety/common-scams-and-crimes/election-crimes-and-security https://www.fbi.gov/how-we-can-help-you/safety-resources/sca...

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

Eisenstein 4y ago

So, cops are not allowed to do welfare checks because there is no crime of 'dying alone in your house' and there is no explicit authorization for police to enforce wellbeing? Don't be adsurd.

NickNameNick 4y ago
Under the above theory, Federal agents shouldnt. Local/state police have that power (the general police power) Not the federal government.
pclmulqdq 4y ago
Cops are agents of their states, and a welfare check on an individual is a very different situation than a check on the welfare of society as a whole. The government doesn't get to decide when society is well, that's for the people to do as a whole.
- Eisenstein 4y ago
  Yourreasoning is just as arbitrary as just as nonsensical. What is a democracy if not the will of society as a whole? Do you have a different way for society to determine and enforce its needs?
  - lurquer 4y ago
    The US Federal Government has only the limited powers granted it by the federal constitution. The States, on the other hand, have general authority… their powers are not limited (except by the specific restrictions set forth in the US Const.) In short, there is a very real and legal and intended difference between FedGov and StateGov. If you don’t like it, change the constitution. But, it’s not matter of opinion… it’s simply the way the USA government is set up. States have ‘general police power’ while the Fed does not.
    - Eisenstein 4y ago
      Excuse me but you did not address my comment, you addressed what you wanted to address and ignored what I said.

cactusplant7374 4y ago

I would like the FBI to stop school shooters, would-be terrorists, and foreign influence campaigns. If Elon Musk’s Twitter refuses to help and as a result people die, I want Elon Musk held responsible.

RobLach 4y ago

It's not an abuse of power unless the FBI threatens repercussions. It seems like Twitter was more or less happy to oblige. I don't see what the hubbub is about.

ilyt 4y ago
For all we know it could be "you can play nicely and remove it when we tell you to "look into it", or we will look further into your company"
- krapp 4y ago
  That's passing into "ignore your lying eyes and read between the lines" territory, which isn't an argument from evidence but an argument from political ideology.
- acdha 4y ago
  That’s possible but you’d expect to see some sign of it: internal emails or messages, legal advice, etc. when those threats were made or guidelines from the legal department about what things the regular trust and safety people can’t ignore. What’s telling is that Musk’s people can’t find anything like that. If this was happening you’d think there’d be at least one example where someone is saying they have to yank something even though it’s not in violation of the rules. Instead, what we see is bending over backwards to keep people like Trump or Raichik from having the rules applied to them, with no mention of government pressure to yank them.
  - zosima 4y ago
    No, you wouldn't expect anything like that at all. Nobody passing kindergarten would write down something so blatantly illegal.
    - acdha 4y ago
      First, you’d think the same thing about almost any crime but there’s a long history of that happening. More importantly, however, as I explained you’d see the presence of that policy even if they managed to keep the conspiracy perfectly. There’d have been cases where something didn’t meet the rules for being banned but someone overruled them to do it anyway, unexplained policy changes following a private meeting, someone setting out hard lines for the moderators, etc. Twitter had a ton of people doing moderation and there’s no way you get that many people to work on a daily basis without stated policies or someone accidentally saying something they knew, or that not a single one of them wouldn’t have gone public or talked to Musk.

michaelmrose 4y ago

You have constructed a theory of how government works from whole cloth having nothing whatsoever to do with reality. Limited government means what powers not explicitly granted to government belong to the people. This is to say government can only acquire new powers via legislation or amendment of the constitution it doesn't mean that they are for forbidden from acting beyond the most limited mandate you imagine. No law is therein broken because you feel it's out of scope because the limitation is your invention.

zosima 4y ago
So please tell, by what statute or mandate is FBI helping to enforce twitter's terms of service?
lurquer 4y ago
28 USC 531, et seq. sets out the limited authority and mission of the FBI. Ensuring social media platforms adhere to their own policies is outside the scope. Government officials — at the federal level - have extremely well-defined scopes of authority. They have no general power to do things. If they exceed the scope, they are abusing the power given to them. A govt agency has no authority outside the scope of its enacting statute. That I what I meant by limited. It’s not a ‘made up’ concept. If an agent engages in ANY action outside its authority, it is exceeding its limited authority and acting outside the law. It as an abuse as the agent (or agency as a whole) is doing something ‘under color of law’ that Congress did not permit. At the local level, there is a concept of ‘general’ police power where the limits of what your local deputy, for instance, can do is a bit more nebulous. But, not at the federal level.
- michaelmrose 4y ago
  Can you give an example of where it has been found in a court of law that a government agency has exceeded its mandate and been ordered to alter their behavior entirely on that basis and not for instance because its actions violate someone's rights or harm their interests?

prawn 4y ago

”The FBI is not authorized to be ensuring private companies adhere to their policies.” This is not their goal. It is part of their method.

zosima 4y ago
But not, in the way that it has been done, a legally sanctioned part of their method.
- lern_too_spel 4y ago
  If so, there would be lawsuits. There are none, so let's consider that you are wrong.

comex 4y ago

> There is no crime in telling people to ‘vote this Wednesday.’ There is no crime of ‘misinformation.’ The Department of Justice would disagree with you: “Social Media Influencer Charged with Election Interference Stemming from Voter Disinformation Campaign” [1] Some guy tweeted in 2016 encouraging Hillary Clinton supporters to ‘Vote from Home’ by sending an SMS to a certain number. For this and other tweets, he was charged with violating 18 USC 241, which prohibits “conspir[ing] to injure, oppress, [..] any person [..] in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States”, where the right in question was the right to vote. With the justice system being as slow as it is, the indictment only happened in 2021 and the case is still pending at the district court level. [2] His lawyers argue that his actions were protected by the First Amendment; this is a novel legal question with no Supreme Court precedent on point. [3] [1] https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/social-media-influencer-charged-election-interference-stemming-voter-disinformation-campaign https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/social-media-influencer-charg... [2] https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/59249282/united-states-v-mackey/ https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/59249282/united-states-... [3] https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/douglass-mackey-ricky-vaughn-memes-first-amendment https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/douglass-ma...