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When the CIA spied on American citizens using pigeons
- kube-system 4y agoBirds aren’t real!
- Oarch 4y agoThe real conspiracy is the fake conspiracy was real all along!
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- victorbstan 4y agoThis is what I came here for.
- annoyingnoob 4y agoMy 3rd grade teacher was into Pigeon Racing. There were always some that never made it home, attrition was higher than you'd think.
- waste_monk 4y agoThat's the reason motorsport teams don't build race cars out of food. Too much attrition.
- jojobas 4y agoHeard of horse races?
- waste_monk 4y agoHorse racing is on a relatively safe enclosed track. Pigeon races are unconstrained by geography and have predators such as hawks. If horse races went through a forest or other rough terrain with significant predators such as bears it would be a better comparison. I am not advocating for this in any way (the horses have a bad enough time with broken legs and things on traditional racing courses). Just that the two things are not like-for-like, similar to Formula 1 vs cross-country rally racing for cars.
- throwawee 4y agoNo, that's too much nutrition. Same reason Baby Formula 1 racers never took off.
- hammock 4y agoIs it legal for the CIA to spy on American citizens?
- skyyler 4y agoDoes legality matter to the CIA? What entity could bring meaningful complaints against them?
- yodon 4y agoSee for example [0] [0]https://www.brown.edu/Research/Understanding_the_Iran_Contra_Affair/prosecutions.php https://www.brown.edu/Research/Understanding_the_Iran_Contra...
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- the_optimist 4y agoSumming punishment across all of history would probably total an upscale automobile, zero prison.
- nonethewiser 4y agoThat example is the government prosecuting the government for harming the governments interests. Thats not accountability, its infighting. Accountability would be punishment for crimes against the American people and structural changes that prevent it from happening again.
- qbasic_forever 4y agoCongress could defund them or perhaps even shut the whole org down. But I have to imagine a congressman that starts snooping around what the CIA is up to will almost certainly end up mired in mysterious controversy, accusations of malfeasance, etc.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- mr3martinis 4y agoI'm curious how the shutter was triggered and how many photos the camera could take. I assume that it used a timer?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- anigbrowl 4y agoClickbait. They tested a technology that could be used for espionage by trying it out around a US military installation. It's not like they could instruct the pigeons not to photograph anything outside the property line.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- anonu 4y agoIf it flies it spies: https://birdsarentreal.com/ https://birdsarentreal.com/
- wildpeaks 4y agoReddit has rotten my brain because this is the first thing I thought about when reading this title. Although, as much as I enjoy the silliness of it, I hope there aren't people that are taking it seriously, the similar "flat earth" joke already backfired.
- anonu 4y agoDon't be so hard on yourself. There was a NYT article about it. Plus it's part of the cultural zeitgeist: government conspiracies and protesting.
- schiffern 4y agoThe only thing that's implausible is the claim that all birds are spy devices. It seems inconceivable that some modern spy devices aren't camouflaged as flying birds. A perfect smokescreen would be to widely disseminate the patently ridiculous ("joke") claim that all birds are spy devices, thus muddying the waters. It's a simple logical shift: "there exists" vs. "for all."
- 4ggr0 4y ago> A perfect smokescreen would be to widely disseminate the patently ridiculous ("joke") claim that all birds are spy devices, thus muddying the waters. Conspiracies about conspiracies, I like it. Wonder how deep we can go. Claim that no birds are real to hide the fact that some birds aren't real, said unreal birds actually also spray COVID into the air to infect people to convince the population to take a vaccine which contains tracking chips. (110% /s)
- schiffern 4y agoGood one, but I don't think ridicule helps us learn anything here. Historically it's been employed against both true and false ideas.
- Eleison23 4y ago[dead]
- nonethewiser 4y agoThe CIA, FBI, etc. have never been held accountable for their countless crimes. There is every reason to believe they are committing more every day. I honestly have no clue how the American people have an ounce of trust in them.
- sneak 4y agoThey got caught lying under oath to Congress, about hacking Congressional computers (to delete files to cover up their torture program) and nothing happened. This is a string argument for the US being no more a country with the rule of law than China or Russia.
- somenameforme 4y agoIt gets far more sordid than that if you're willing to look back to times long enough for classified material to have been declassified. Operation Northwoods [1] is something that somehow was formulated, discussed, and made its way all the way to the top. It was stopped only because one man refused to sign it into action - JFK. Then there was the FBI trying to get MLK to commit suicide [2], and much more. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI%E2%80%93King_suicide_letter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI%E2%80%93King_suicide_lette...
- yieldcrv 4y agoCongress doesn’t care about how strictly any agency follows its mandate. Its kind of fortunate that the agencies follow it so closely at all. When agencies learn how to make their own money, there is even less accountability because they don’t have to beg Congress. Things would be different if this funding and mandate enforcement process was also delegated to an agency, or maybe better: a court.
- LatteLazy 4y agoWe will never know for sure whether these agencies (the NSA especially) do what they want because the elected officials like the idea of getting illegal shit done OR because no sane official can cross them and live. Or rather what the mix is between those two motives. They really are parallel power structures...