13 ms·

FBI Misused Spy Database, FISA Court Says

371 points by impish9208 3y ago

impish9208 3y ago
https://archive.is/gIzkx https://archive.is/gIzkx
- hiatus 3y ago
  Weird, it seems cloudflare DNS is not resolving archive.is (though google dns has no issue). ; <<>> DiG 9.10.6 <<>> archive.is @1.1.1.1 ;; global options: +cmd ;; Got answer: ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 34652 ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 1, ADDITIONAL: 1 ;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION: ; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 1232 ; OPT=15: 00 17 31 39 38 2e 32 34 35 2e 35 33 2e 31 38 32 3a 35 33 20 74 69 6d 65 64 20 6f 75 74 20 66 6f 72 20 61 72 63 68 69 76 65 2e 69 73 20 41 ("..198.245.53.182:53 timed out for archive.is A") ;; QUESTION SECTION: ;archive.is. IN A ;; AUTHORITY SECTION: archive.is. 86272 IN SOA carl.archive.is. admin.archive.is. 2033156158 1200 300 604800 3600 ;; Query time: 68 msec ;; SERVER: 1.1.1.1#53(1.1.1.1) ;; WHEN: Sat May 20 09:14:33 EDT 2023 ;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 136
  - ksherlock 3y ago
    This has been an issue for years and there are reasons. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19828702 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19828702
    - hiatus 3y ago
      Thank you I had no idea.
    - alecco 3y ago
      yep, reposting workaround: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33937866 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33937866 CloudFlare is in the right. This is for privacy. Just put the IPs on your hosts file, it's easy. https://dns.google/query?name=archive.is https://dns.google/query?name=archive.is 23.137.249.79 archive.today 23.137.249.79 archive.is 23.137.249.79 archive.ph While there try a hosts blocklist http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/ http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/ [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29024952 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29024952
jonhohle 3y ago
If laws were broken by a law enforcement agency, the responsible parties need to a) either lose their jobs or, minimally, be reassigned to a department where they can never make that “mistake” again, and b) be prosecuted to the full extent of the law with and be sentenced to a punishment that discourages future “mistakes” by others from occurring. Why are these laws in place if they are not enforced? In recent cases, all levels of the FBI were complicit. Removing funding may only take away resources from useful areas while guilty parties are free to continue their bad behavior at the risk of only a stern talking to by Congress every few years when they promise this will certainly be the last time this happens. Throw some agents in jail along and see if the behavior continues? Imagine you or I caught lying to the FBI, lying to the courts, and then lying to Congress. What would our fate be? Certainly not continuing on with the status quo. Since DOJ has no interest in keeping itself accountable, what can be done? Can individuals who were caught up in this file criminal or civil complaints with any hope of relief? For someone not caught up in this, how can they prevent tax dollars from funding ongoing criminal activity?
- uguuo_o 3y ago
  Unfortunately, none of this is actually surprising. When was the last time such crime was actually prosecuted? It is very hard to have any trust in the legal system when there are many that curtail ot through sheer influence.
  - jonhohle 3y ago
    It’s unfortunate that it’s not surprising and even more so that administrations feel like this is so accepted that (at best) nothing need be done and (at worst) it can be used to their advantage. Even when the minimal executive action of firing those involved is taken (for example, firing Comey, McCabe, Strzok, Page, Clinesmith) the media will attack the enforcers and give comfort to the perpetrators. It’s clown world.
    - silverquiet 3y ago
      Can you remind me again why Comey was fired? What rule did he fall afoul of? I was always under the impression that the FBI is an incredibly conservative institution in every sense of the word, so it's not surprising how the biases play out. What is strange is when they get caught up in intra-conservative-world politics.
SapperDaddy 3y ago
[flagged]
chiefalchemist 3y ago
So nice of the WSJ to follow order and use the proper euphemisms. "Improperly searched" is far too neutral and/or lenient. But at this point" what's another FBI scandle? And these are only the things we know about. It's not like behind close doors they're polishing halos and taking harp lessons.
EscapeFromNY 3y ago
When you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And when you have a massive database built through illegal domestic spying...
- qup 3y ago
  ...everything looks like a web frontend!
- lern_too_spel 3y ago
  The database consists of communications of foreign targets, and its legality isn't in dispute. What's illegal is to search that database for terms related to Americans in criminal investigations not related to national security without a warrant. https://archive.is/jgWUt https://archive.is/jgWUt
  - kyboren 3y ago
    That's not accurate. FBI/NSA interpret FAA 702 to acquire "one end foreign" communications, i.e. the communications of Americans with other parties abroad. There are millions of American citizens who reside abroad, and many thousands more at any given time are vacationing abroad. Those citizens' rights are being systematically trampled. Further, Room 641A and then the Snowden revelations showed that actually FBI/NSA get a mirrored port or just split the beam directly on domestic Internet fiber runs. Submarine fibers are obviously all tapped, too (sorry, Hawaii). Supposedly they apply "minimization" filters on that full-take, but considering their incentives I doubt they try very hard. I suppose it depends on what you mean by the legality of a database definitely containing fruits of Constitutional violations being "in dispute". Clearly FAA 702 is itself "in dispute" right now, with re-authorization not such a rubber stamp this time. And SCOTUS has punted on lawsuits against NSA surveillance with standing BS, so they've never actually ruled on the merits. Certainly many people, myself included, have long disputed the legality of FAA 702 and of retaining or processing communications acquired under its authority. Anyway how can you say the legality isn't in dispute when the government has a secret interpretation of the law that they refuse to allow anyone to see? How can we dispute what we don't know about? "I will continue to urge the DNI to inform the public about how the government and the FISA Court are interpreting the law. There is important, secret information about how the government has interpreted Section 702 that Congress and the American people need to see before the law is renewed." - Sen. Ron Wyden, May 19 2023.
data-abuse 3y ago
When we hear these stories, we never hear about the end result. We only hear about the act. It's like hearing a gun was fired. It was fired, but what did it hit? The data that is in these databases have a high probability to be abused. Blackmail and intimidation are easy to hide. What number of the people that had their location data exposed through this database were shot soon after? What number of people had their identity stolen? What number of people lost their jobs? What number of people had their families or friendships destroyed by secrets being spilled? The dots are never connected beyond the admission of violations.
- hattmall 3y ago
  I'm fairly certain quite a few of them are still in jail without a trial yet right? At least for the January 6th participants.
  - eganist 3y ago
    Stats as of March 25: https://www.npr.org/2023/03/25/1165022885/1000-defendants-january-6-capitol-riot https://www.npr.org/2023/03/25/1165022885/1000-defendants-ja... Cases being pursued by the DoJ: https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/capitol-breach-cases?combine=&order=changed&sort=desc https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/capitol-breach-cases?combine... Noteworthy that $2.6bln was allocated to US attorneys this year; not sure how much more was allocated to specifically support January 6th prosecutions, but the prosecution of every single one of them will hopefully serve as a deterrent.
    - jonhohle 3y ago
      [flagged]
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - j33zusjuice 3y ago
      [flagged]
hunglee2 3y ago
authoritarianism is not a political system but a technique of government control over the people, and the excuse is always some kind of unspecified 'national security'
- abliefern 3y ago
  That's a mockery of real authoritarian countries, where you most definitely wouldn't have the checks and balances of a court that finds a law enforcement agency misused data and with a free press to publicize that fact.
schuyler2d 3y ago
Any speculation on what this could be? > The Biden administration also declined to declassify details about a new “sensitive technique” of surveillance performed under Section 702 that required the court to weigh its legality, keeping Americans in the dark about a method of spying even as it lobbies lawmakers to renew the expiring portions of the law. Sometimes there are hints or past reporting. Eg before Snowden there had been other reporting around Telco complicity at switching stations. Maybe something with satellite connectivity surveillance? (Lol, it would be rich if they said it was covered by FISA because it went from USA to "space" and back in to US) (Edit for typos)
- hattmall 3y ago
  It's probably monitoring social media private messaging or mobile camera / microphone monitoring.
  - schuyler2d 3y ago
    That would have been years if not over a decade ago. This would be something more recent
- detaro 3y ago
  > (Lol, it would be rich if they said it was covered by FISA because it went from USA to "space" and back in to US) That pretty much was German BNDs excuse a few years ago. "Law only restricts what we do on state territory, space isn't even foreign ground"
- orangepurple 3y ago
  My uninformed speculation purely based on the principles of evolution of cell phone technologies over time is satellite based IMSI triangulation with centimeter accuracy to track everyone on earth with a powered on cell phone in their pocket.
bhaney 3y ago
[flagged]
peter_retief 3y ago
[flagged]
TrispusAttucks 3y ago
[flagged]
- ModernMech 3y ago
  The Durham report restated everything we already knew for years as a result of his multiple failed convictions. How come Durham wasn't able to reach any convictions due to his "bombshell" report?
  - TrispusAttucks 3y ago
    I agree. It was obvious to anyone paying attention. But most people still believe there was some truth to it because the media lied for years. The report was important to get those people back to reality.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
CTDOCodebases 3y ago
and nothing will be done about it.
- archgoon 3y ago
  [dead]
- lern_too_spel 3y ago
  The article itself says things are already being done about it. > Senior national security officials said Friday that all of the incidents described took place before the FBI had completed a series of internal reforms—including written justifications for searches, more oversight and requiring analysts to actively opt into searching the foreign intelligence database. Those steps, adopted within the past few years, are intended to reduce incidents of noncompliance. > “We’re not trying to hide from this stuff,” a senior FBI official said. “This type of noncompliance is unacceptable, and that’s why we put these reforms in place to stop that from happening.”
School-Cotton 3y ago
Wow, what a surprise!
web3-is-a-scam 3y ago
[flagged]
sjaak 3y ago
Our Constitution is neither a self-actuating nor a self-correcting document. It requires the constant attention and devotion of all citizens. There is a story, often told, that upon exiting the Constitutional Convention Benjamin Franklin was approached by a group of citizens asking what sort of government the delegates had created. His answer was: "A republic, if you can keep it."
- mindslight 3y ago
  From what we've since discovered about logical complexity and system design, such an attitude today would be appropriately described as cavalier malpractice. Yet the Founders have been practically deified, while it's continually implied the problem is merely that we're not following their simplistic prescriptions well enough.
  - 35997279 3y ago
    [dead]
  - prottog 3y ago
    > it's continually implied the problem is merely that we're not following their simplistic prescriptions well enough Is this wrong? America was founded to be a federal republic composed of sovereign states sharing their power with a small central government with clearly delineated powers; now we have a massive central government that takes in two-thirds of all taxation[0] and spends 38.5% of GDP as of last count[1], and somehow decided that it had the authority to regulate a farmer growing feed for his own animals[2]. [0]: https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/what-breakdown-revenues-among-federal-state-and-local-governments https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/what-breakdown... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_government_spending_as_percentage_of_GDP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_governmen... [2]: https://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1955/317us111 https://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1955/317us111
    - mindslight 3y ago
      Yes - analysis of "just follow the rules harder" is generally wrong, which is why we've moved on to blameless postmortems. I agree with your criticism of the current state of the system. The problem is the lack of mechanisms that encourage convergence towards the desired state. Without them, divergence continually adds up, creating the well known ratchet effect. If Filburn itself had been decided differently, the Supreme Court would have eventually justified the federal government power grab at a later time. Slower progression would mean we'd be in a better state today, but we'd still be headed towards the same place.
macinjosh 3y ago
Stop voting for the establishment.
- sneak 3y ago
  You can't change lawless and unaccountable power structures by voting or not voting for any particular candidate or set of candidates.
- lern_too_spel 3y ago
  The article says the current administration is trying to fix it and might have been successful already. None of the incidents occurred after the fixes. > Senior national security officials said Friday that all of the incidents described took place before the FBI had completed a series of internal reforms—including written justifications for searches, more oversight and requiring analysts to actively opt into searching the foreign intelligence database. Those steps, adopted within the past few years, are intended to reduce incidents of noncompliance > “We’re not trying to hide from this stuff,” a senior FBI official said. “This type of noncompliance is unacceptable, and that’s why we put these reforms in place to stop that from happening.”
WhereIsTheTruth 3y ago
Why would the FBI use such database? Why they omit CIA from the equation? Law only apply to the FBI? or we pretend laws exist to prevent agents from abusing it? Either way, this is another evidence of the massive global spying capabilities of the US and how easily accessible they are for their agents
r3trohack3r 3y ago
It’s amazing how normalized this practice has become. And how far down the slope we’ve slid. > Civil liberties advocates say the FBI uses Section 702 as a backdoor for warrantless searches to get around the courts. I don’t think they argued this originally. Originally we argued that THE SEARCH HAPPENS BEFORE THE QUERY. That moving data into the database constitutes a search. To oversimplify a bit, it’s similar to the government coming into your home every day, taking photos of everything, and inventorying every item. Creating a huge manifest of everything in your home, filing it away with every other manifest they’ve collected on your neighbors, and then claiming they haven’t searched your home because they will only look at the manifest if they think it’s relevant to a qualifying investigation. Every entry in this database _should_ constitute a search. > “Say I want to collect information on Vladimir Putin,” explained Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. attorney, “and I see on his Gmail, it turns out he’s been talking to an American. So I’m collecting on Putin, but it might capture communications with a U.S. person, and so now in that database, I have every email he’s ever sent, and I can go in and query for that U.S. person.” This isn’t exactly accurate either. Last I heard, it was based on “hops.” Not just 1 degree of separation of Vladimir Putin, but N degrees of separation from anyone considered to be a potential “national security threat.” So if your landscaper is sending money back home to their family who is in contact with someone who is involved in a cartel, maybe your entire digital footprint (metadata? more?) is fair game for this database. If you text the owner of your gym and their babysitter’s brother is suspected of being associated with a foreign group, maybe your entire digital life is fair game for this database. The scope of this data dragnet is staggering. > (Though the evidence suggests the FBI was searching for Black Lives Matter protesters as much as Jan. 6 suspects.) The federal court that reviewed how the FBI uses the database threatened to put major limitations on the agency’s ability to use it if the FBI did not change its procedures. I don’t understand how these searches that were illegally conducted aren’t required to be handed over to the defense team for every trial this was used in, along with the records that were returned for their client. Everything downstream of these searches is tainted evidence, no?
- eternalban 3y ago
  > The scope of this data dragnet is staggering. https://www.stasi-unterlagen-archiv.de/en/ https://www.stasi-unterlagen-archiv.de/en/
tomohawk 3y ago
Add in this recent report showing how the FBI pushed a partisan agenda, it's well past time to take a hard look at reforming the FBI. https://www.justice.gov/storage/durhamreport.pdf https://www.justice.gov/storage/durhamreport.pdf
- adrr 3y ago
  Partisan agenda like using a special prosecutor role to write a report about policies and procedures? I don’t think that was mentioned in the order that creates that role. Also he how many cases did he lose with malicious partisan prosecution?
NecroTechno 3y ago
[flagged]
Slava_Propanei 3y ago
[dead]
2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
Good. I can't read the paywalled article but it appears that the FISA court is providing a counter to FBI power. Sounds like a healthy Democratic system of checks and balances to me and I'm not being sarcastic.
WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
[flagged]
jscipione 3y ago
[flagged]
- shrimp_emoji 3y ago
  [flagged]
- dang 3y ago
  Please don't post like this here. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
  - jscipione 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - dang 3y ago
      It asks you not to fulminate or post flamebait or use HN for ideological battle, and that more than covers the above.
      - jscipione 3y ago
        [flagged]
celtoid 3y ago
I've posted this link before and I really wish more people were familiar with it. "Democracy Versus The National Security State" (1976) by the late Marcus Raskin is only 32 pages long but it's an excellent overview of the history of the rise of arbitrary and unaccountable power in the US after WWII. It's also quite the prophetic work. "We shall see that the national security state and the rule of law are mortal enemies. In the first place, by its nature and the mission which it has set for itself, the national security state apparatus needs arbitrary power. Such power has its own code, which is meant to govern or justify the behavior of the initiated—after the fact. It operates to protect the state apparatus from the citizenry." [0] [0] https://archive.org/details/democracy-versus-the-national-security-state/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/democracy-versus-the-national-se...
- dredmorbius 3y ago
  Raskin's bio, for those curious: Marcus Goodman Raskin (April 30, 1934 – December 24, 2017) was an American progressive social critic, political activist, author, and philosopher. He was the co-founder, with Richard Barnet, of the progressive think tank the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC. He was also a professor of public policy at The George Washington University’s School of Public Policy and Public Administration.... Notably: In 1971, Raskin received from Daniel Ellsberg, documents that became known as the Pentagon Papers. Raskin put Ellsberg in touch with New York Times reporter Neil Sheehan. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Raskin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Raskin> And father of Rep. Jamie Raskin, as noted at Archive.org.
  - celtoid 3y ago
    IIRC, Marcus Raskin also coined the term "national security state".
    - dredmorbius 3y ago
      Interesting. Apparently in The Politics of National Security (1979), see the back-cover blurb. Internet Archive appear to have garbled metadata for that book with another, unfortunately: <https://archive.org/details/politicsofnation0000rask https://archive.org/details/politicsofnation0000rask>
whiddershins 3y ago
Of course they did. Someone always does, eventually.
wonderwonder 3y ago
I used to think that the people that were calling for the dismantling of the FBI were insane conspiracy theorists. I am not so sure anymore, the agency does appear to be compromised and have a very distinct political allegiance. Law enforcement should be politically neutral as they are very much the most powerful force in the country. A compromised agency is worse than no agency at all in some respects.
- shrimpx 3y ago
  What’s their political allegiance? I can come up with a half dozen purposely screwed up or super shady recent FBI/DOJ investigations toward either political party.
  - wonderwonder 3y ago
    I very much dislike Trump. Voted for Biden. The FBI / DOJ has been blatantly anti Trump.
    - fugalfervor 3y ago
      Trump has blatantly committed crimes.
      - logicchains 3y ago
        You only believe that because of all the effort the intelligence agencies and their agents in the media went through to frame him
        notmypenguin 3y ago
        You only think that because Trump has successfully destroyed an entire LE bureau in efforts to get away with treason
        fugalfervor 3y ago
        There is a recording of him asking the Georgia secretary of state to find votes for him. I have listened to the recording.
lazyeye 3y ago
I think voting in someone like Robert Kennedy is the only hope against the Washington "uni-party" and a clearly corrupt justice system. Who else is there?
- 20after4 3y ago
  You think they wouldn't kill him just like they did the other Kennedy troublemakers?
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > I think voting in someone like Robert Kennedy is the only hope against the Washington "uni-party" and a clearly corrupt justice system. Who else is there? I'm old enough to remember when another celebrity political outsider got this exact treatment in 2016. To the extent that a problem loosely matching your description exists, the solution mostly isn't in Presidential elections, and anyone selling that as the solution is either an idiot who doesn't understand that the US isn’t an executive dictatorship or a would-be tyrant trying to make it one.
  - cwkoss 3y ago
    Are you arguing that voters should continue supporting "establishment stooges" because hoping for change is pointless?
    - dragonwriter 3y ago
      > Are you arguing that voters should continue supporting "establishment stooges" because hoping for change is pointless? No, if I was saying that I ... would have said that.
boomboomsubban 3y ago
>Senior national security officials said Friday that all of the incidents described took place before the FBI had completed a series of internal reforms—including written justifications for searches, more oversight and requiring analysts to actively opt into searching the foreign intelligence database. "Written justification for searches" is a recent reform? So until now, they didn't need any paper trail of their searches? Not that in house approval of your "justification" is really enough for this. How can anyone believe the FBI gives a shit if it took them well over a decade to go "maybe we should write something down when we use this."
pyuser583 3y ago
Here’s something I don’t get: why is it an “abuse” to run the name of someone applying for a top secret clearance through the databases? It’s ok to run a school teacher in Bucharest, but if someone is applying to be an FBI agent - nope. This isn’t the first time the FBI has “wrongly” run the names to prospective agents and clearance holders to through this db. They’ve promised not to do it again before. But isn’t this the perfect use case for such a thing? When you apply for a security clearance, you waive certain privacy rights. That’s reasonable and part of the deal.
- ghostpepper 3y ago
  This seems like the least egregious use. The article also talks about 19,000 congressional campaign donors names being run, as well as everyone who was arrested during several protests/riots. Perhaps the most egregious: > And between 2016 and 2020, the FBI routinely ran names of people who appeared in police homicide reports, “including victims, next-of-kin, witnesses and suspects.”
  - pyuser583 3y ago
    This time (because this sort of thing happens again and again) it’s only a small part. Last time it was all of it.
- anonymousiam 3y ago
  The reason it's not an abuse is that the subject candidate for the clearance has signed the SF86 form and granted the government permission to look into all aspects of their life. The abuse being discussed here has nothing to do with applicants for a TS clearance. It has to do with US citizens who were exercising their constitutional rights within the US, and not interacting with any foreign entities. The 702 rules explicitly prohibit this, but the FBI did it anyway. https://www.dni.gov/files/icotr/Section702-Basics-Infographic.pdf https://www.dni.gov/files/icotr/Section702-Basics-Infographi... From the above linked document: SECTION 702: PROTECTING U.S. PERSON INFORMATION CAN THE IC USE SECTION 702 TO COLLECT U.S. PERSON COMMUNICATIONS? • The government cannot use Section 702 to target U.S. persons or persons located in the U.S. • However, as Congress understood when it passed the statute, it is possible that a foreign person who has been targeted under Section 702 may communicate with, or discuss information concerning, a U.S. person.
trident5000 3y ago
These agencies smell especially as of recent. Defunding many of them and starting over makes a lot of sense. You're not going to get the corruption out without a complete overhaul. I would argue the FBI falls into the defund category with the latest events.
deafpolygon 3y ago
It's almost as if no one predicted that surveillance data was going to be mis-used!

371 points by impish9208 3y ago

impish9208 3y ago

https://archive.is/gIzkx https://archive.is/gIzkx

hiatus 3y ago
Weird, it seems cloudflare DNS is not resolving archive.is (though google dns has no issue). ; <<>> DiG 9.10.6 <<>> archive.is @1.1.1.1 ;; global options: +cmd ;; Got answer: ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 34652 ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 1, ADDITIONAL: 1 ;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION: ; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 1232 ; OPT=15: 00 17 31 39 38 2e 32 34 35 2e 35 33 2e 31 38 32 3a 35 33 20 74 69 6d 65 64 20 6f 75 74 20 66 6f 72 20 61 72 63 68 69 76 65 2e 69 73 20 41 ("..198.245.53.182:53 timed out for archive.is A") ;; QUESTION SECTION: ;archive.is. IN A ;; AUTHORITY SECTION: archive.is. 86272 IN SOA carl.archive.is. admin.archive.is. 2033156158 1200 300 604800 3600 ;; Query time: 68 msec ;; SERVER: 1.1.1.1#53(1.1.1.1) ;; WHEN: Sat May 20 09:14:33 EDT 2023 ;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 136
- ksherlock 3y ago
  This has been an issue for years and there are reasons. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19828702 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19828702
  - hiatus 3y ago
    Thank you I had no idea.
  - alecco 3y ago
    yep, reposting workaround: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33937866 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33937866 CloudFlare is in the right. This is for privacy. Just put the IPs on your hosts file, it's easy. https://dns.google/query?name=archive.is https://dns.google/query?name=archive.is 23.137.249.79 archive.today 23.137.249.79 archive.is 23.137.249.79 archive.ph While there try a hosts blocklist http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/ http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/ [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29024952 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29024952

jonhohle 3y ago

If laws were broken by a law enforcement agency, the responsible parties need to a) either lose their jobs or, minimally, be reassigned to a department where they can never make that “mistake” again, and b) be prosecuted to the full extent of the law with and be sentenced to a punishment that discourages future “mistakes” by others from occurring. Why are these laws in place if they are not enforced? In recent cases, all levels of the FBI were complicit. Removing funding may only take away resources from useful areas while guilty parties are free to continue their bad behavior at the risk of only a stern talking to by Congress every few years when they promise this will certainly be the last time this happens. Throw some agents in jail along and see if the behavior continues? Imagine you or I caught lying to the FBI, lying to the courts, and then lying to Congress. What would our fate be? Certainly not continuing on with the status quo. Since DOJ has no interest in keeping itself accountable, what can be done? Can individuals who were caught up in this file criminal or civil complaints with any hope of relief? For someone not caught up in this, how can they prevent tax dollars from funding ongoing criminal activity?

uguuo_o 3y ago
Unfortunately, none of this is actually surprising. When was the last time such crime was actually prosecuted? It is very hard to have any trust in the legal system when there are many that curtail ot through sheer influence.
- jonhohle 3y ago
  It’s unfortunate that it’s not surprising and even more so that administrations feel like this is so accepted that (at best) nothing need be done and (at worst) it can be used to their advantage. Even when the minimal executive action of firing those involved is taken (for example, firing Comey, McCabe, Strzok, Page, Clinesmith) the media will attack the enforcers and give comfort to the perpetrators. It’s clown world.
  - silverquiet 3y ago
    Can you remind me again why Comey was fired? What rule did he fall afoul of? I was always under the impression that the FBI is an incredibly conservative institution in every sense of the word, so it's not surprising how the biases play out. What is strange is when they get caught up in intra-conservative-world politics.

SapperDaddy 3y ago

[flagged]

chiefalchemist 3y ago

So nice of the WSJ to follow order and use the proper euphemisms. "Improperly searched" is far too neutral and/or lenient. But at this point" what's another FBI scandle? And these are only the things we know about. It's not like behind close doors they're polishing halos and taking harp lessons.

EscapeFromNY 3y ago

When you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And when you have a massive database built through illegal domestic spying...

qup 3y ago
...everything looks like a web frontend!
lern_too_spel 3y ago
The database consists of communications of foreign targets, and its legality isn't in dispute. What's illegal is to search that database for terms related to Americans in criminal investigations not related to national security without a warrant. https://archive.is/jgWUt https://archive.is/jgWUt
- kyboren 3y ago
  That's not accurate. FBI/NSA interpret FAA 702 to acquire "one end foreign" communications, i.e. the communications of Americans with other parties abroad. There are millions of American citizens who reside abroad, and many thousands more at any given time are vacationing abroad. Those citizens' rights are being systematically trampled. Further, Room 641A and then the Snowden revelations showed that actually FBI/NSA get a mirrored port or just split the beam directly on domestic Internet fiber runs. Submarine fibers are obviously all tapped, too (sorry, Hawaii). Supposedly they apply "minimization" filters on that full-take, but considering their incentives I doubt they try very hard. I suppose it depends on what you mean by the legality of a database definitely containing fruits of Constitutional violations being "in dispute". Clearly FAA 702 is itself "in dispute" right now, with re-authorization not such a rubber stamp this time. And SCOTUS has punted on lawsuits against NSA surveillance with standing BS, so they've never actually ruled on the merits. Certainly many people, myself included, have long disputed the legality of FAA 702 and of retaining or processing communications acquired under its authority. Anyway how can you say the legality isn't in dispute when the government has a secret interpretation of the law that they refuse to allow anyone to see? How can we dispute what we don't know about? "I will continue to urge the DNI to inform the public about how the government and the FISA Court are interpreting the law. There is important, secret information about how the government has interpreted Section 702 that Congress and the American people need to see before the law is renewed." - Sen. Ron Wyden, May 19 2023.

data-abuse 3y ago

When we hear these stories, we never hear about the end result. We only hear about the act. It's like hearing a gun was fired. It was fired, but what did it hit? The data that is in these databases have a high probability to be abused. Blackmail and intimidation are easy to hide. What number of the people that had their location data exposed through this database were shot soon after? What number of people had their identity stolen? What number of people lost their jobs? What number of people had their families or friendships destroyed by secrets being spilled? The dots are never connected beyond the admission of violations.

hattmall 3y ago
I'm fairly certain quite a few of them are still in jail without a trial yet right? At least for the January 6th participants.
- eganist 3y ago
  Stats as of March 25: https://www.npr.org/2023/03/25/1165022885/1000-defendants-january-6-capitol-riot https://www.npr.org/2023/03/25/1165022885/1000-defendants-ja... Cases being pursued by the DoJ: https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/capitol-breach-cases?combine=&order=changed&sort=desc https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/capitol-breach-cases?combine... Noteworthy that $2.6bln was allocated to US attorneys this year; not sure how much more was allocated to specifically support January 6th prosecutions, but the prosecution of every single one of them will hopefully serve as a deterrent.
  - jonhohle 3y ago
    [flagged]
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - j33zusjuice 3y ago
    [flagged]

hunglee2 3y ago

authoritarianism is not a political system but a technique of government control over the people, and the excuse is always some kind of unspecified 'national security'

abliefern 3y ago
That's a mockery of real authoritarian countries, where you most definitely wouldn't have the checks and balances of a court that finds a law enforcement agency misused data and with a free press to publicize that fact.

schuyler2d 3y ago

Any speculation on what this could be? > The Biden administration also declined to declassify details about a new “sensitive technique” of surveillance performed under Section 702 that required the court to weigh its legality, keeping Americans in the dark about a method of spying even as it lobbies lawmakers to renew the expiring portions of the law. Sometimes there are hints or past reporting. Eg before Snowden there had been other reporting around Telco complicity at switching stations. Maybe something with satellite connectivity surveillance? (Lol, it would be rich if they said it was covered by FISA because it went from USA to "space" and back in to US) (Edit for typos)

hattmall 3y ago
It's probably monitoring social media private messaging or mobile camera / microphone monitoring.
- schuyler2d 3y ago
  That would have been years if not over a decade ago. This would be something more recent
detaro 3y ago
> (Lol, it would be rich if they said it was covered by FISA because it went from USA to "space" and back in to US) That pretty much was German BNDs excuse a few years ago. "Law only restricts what we do on state territory, space isn't even foreign ground"
orangepurple 3y ago
My uninformed speculation purely based on the principles of evolution of cell phone technologies over time is satellite based IMSI triangulation with centimeter accuracy to track everyone on earth with a powered on cell phone in their pocket.

bhaney 3y ago

[flagged]

peter_retief 3y ago

[flagged]

TrispusAttucks 3y ago

[flagged]

ModernMech 3y ago
The Durham report restated everything we already knew for years as a result of his multiple failed convictions. How come Durham wasn't able to reach any convictions due to his "bombshell" report?
- TrispusAttucks 3y ago
  I agree. It was obvious to anyone paying attention. But most people still believe there was some truth to it because the media lied for years. The report was important to get those people back to reality.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]

CTDOCodebases 3y ago

and nothing will be done about it.

archgoon 3y ago
[dead]
lern_too_spel 3y ago
The article itself says things are already being done about it. > Senior national security officials said Friday that all of the incidents described took place before the FBI had completed a series of internal reforms—including written justifications for searches, more oversight and requiring analysts to actively opt into searching the foreign intelligence database. Those steps, adopted within the past few years, are intended to reduce incidents of noncompliance. > “We’re not trying to hide from this stuff,” a senior FBI official said. “This type of noncompliance is unacceptable, and that’s why we put these reforms in place to stop that from happening.”

School-Cotton 3y ago

Wow, what a surprise!

web3-is-a-scam 3y ago

[flagged]

sjaak 3y ago

Our Constitution is neither a self-actuating nor a self-correcting document. It requires the constant attention and devotion of all citizens. There is a story, often told, that upon exiting the Constitutional Convention Benjamin Franklin was approached by a group of citizens asking what sort of government the delegates had created. His answer was: "A republic, if you can keep it."

mindslight 3y ago
From what we've since discovered about logical complexity and system design, such an attitude today would be appropriately described as cavalier malpractice. Yet the Founders have been practically deified, while it's continually implied the problem is merely that we're not following their simplistic prescriptions well enough.
- 35997279 3y ago
  [dead]
- prottog 3y ago
  > it's continually implied the problem is merely that we're not following their simplistic prescriptions well enough Is this wrong? America was founded to be a federal republic composed of sovereign states sharing their power with a small central government with clearly delineated powers; now we have a massive central government that takes in two-thirds of all taxation[0] and spends 38.5% of GDP as of last count[1], and somehow decided that it had the authority to regulate a farmer growing feed for his own animals[2]. [0]: https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/what-breakdown-revenues-among-federal-state-and-local-governments https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/what-breakdown... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_government_spending_as_percentage_of_GDP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_governmen... [2]: https://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1955/317us111 https://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1955/317us111
  - mindslight 3y ago
    Yes - analysis of "just follow the rules harder" is generally wrong, which is why we've moved on to blameless postmortems. I agree with your criticism of the current state of the system. The problem is the lack of mechanisms that encourage convergence towards the desired state. Without them, divergence continually adds up, creating the well known ratchet effect. If Filburn itself had been decided differently, the Supreme Court would have eventually justified the federal government power grab at a later time. Slower progression would mean we'd be in a better state today, but we'd still be headed towards the same place.

macinjosh 3y ago

Stop voting for the establishment.

sneak 3y ago
You can't change lawless and unaccountable power structures by voting or not voting for any particular candidate or set of candidates.
lern_too_spel 3y ago
The article says the current administration is trying to fix it and might have been successful already. None of the incidents occurred after the fixes. > Senior national security officials said Friday that all of the incidents described took place before the FBI had completed a series of internal reforms—including written justifications for searches, more oversight and requiring analysts to actively opt into searching the foreign intelligence database. Those steps, adopted within the past few years, are intended to reduce incidents of noncompliance > “We’re not trying to hide from this stuff,” a senior FBI official said. “This type of noncompliance is unacceptable, and that’s why we put these reforms in place to stop that from happening.”

WhereIsTheTruth 3y ago

Why would the FBI use such database? Why they omit CIA from the equation? Law only apply to the FBI? or we pretend laws exist to prevent agents from abusing it? Either way, this is another evidence of the massive global spying capabilities of the US and how easily accessible they are for their agents

r3trohack3r 3y ago

It’s amazing how normalized this practice has become. And how far down the slope we’ve slid. > Civil liberties advocates say the FBI uses Section 702 as a backdoor for warrantless searches to get around the courts. I don’t think they argued this originally. Originally we argued that THE SEARCH HAPPENS BEFORE THE QUERY. That moving data into the database constitutes a search. To oversimplify a bit, it’s similar to the government coming into your home every day, taking photos of everything, and inventorying every item. Creating a huge manifest of everything in your home, filing it away with every other manifest they’ve collected on your neighbors, and then claiming they haven’t searched your home because they will only look at the manifest if they think it’s relevant to a qualifying investigation. Every entry in this database _should_ constitute a search. > “Say I want to collect information on Vladimir Putin,” explained Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. attorney, “and I see on his Gmail, it turns out he’s been talking to an American. So I’m collecting on Putin, but it might capture communications with a U.S. person, and so now in that database, I have every email he’s ever sent, and I can go in and query for that U.S. person.” This isn’t exactly accurate either. Last I heard, it was based on “hops.” Not just 1 degree of separation of Vladimir Putin, but N degrees of separation from anyone considered to be a potential “national security threat.” So if your landscaper is sending money back home to their family who is in contact with someone who is involved in a cartel, maybe your entire digital footprint (metadata? more?) is fair game for this database. If you text the owner of your gym and their babysitter’s brother is suspected of being associated with a foreign group, maybe your entire digital life is fair game for this database. The scope of this data dragnet is staggering. > (Though the evidence suggests the FBI was searching for Black Lives Matter protesters as much as Jan. 6 suspects.) The federal court that reviewed how the FBI uses the database threatened to put major limitations on the agency’s ability to use it if the FBI did not change its procedures. I don’t understand how these searches that were illegally conducted aren’t required to be handed over to the defense team for every trial this was used in, along with the records that were returned for their client. Everything downstream of these searches is tainted evidence, no?

eternalban 3y ago
> The scope of this data dragnet is staggering. https://www.stasi-unterlagen-archiv.de/en/ https://www.stasi-unterlagen-archiv.de/en/

tomohawk 3y ago

Add in this recent report showing how the FBI pushed a partisan agenda, it's well past time to take a hard look at reforming the FBI. https://www.justice.gov/storage/durhamreport.pdf https://www.justice.gov/storage/durhamreport.pdf

adrr 3y ago
Partisan agenda like using a special prosecutor role to write a report about policies and procedures? I don’t think that was mentioned in the order that creates that role. Also he how many cases did he lose with malicious partisan prosecution?

NecroTechno 3y ago

[flagged]

Slava_Propanei 3y ago

[dead]

2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago

Good. I can't read the paywalled article but it appears that the FISA court is providing a counter to FBI power. Sounds like a healthy Democratic system of checks and balances to me and I'm not being sarcastic.

WarOnPrivacy 3y ago

[flagged]

jscipione 3y ago

[flagged]

shrimp_emoji 3y ago
[flagged]
dang 3y ago
Please don't post like this here. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
- jscipione 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - dang 3y ago
    It asks you not to fulminate or post flamebait or use HN for ideological battle, and that more than covers the above.
    - jscipione 3y ago
      [flagged]

celtoid 3y ago

I've posted this link before and I really wish more people were familiar with it. "Democracy Versus The National Security State" (1976) by the late Marcus Raskin is only 32 pages long but it's an excellent overview of the history of the rise of arbitrary and unaccountable power in the US after WWII. It's also quite the prophetic work. "We shall see that the national security state and the rule of law are mortal enemies. In the first place, by its nature and the mission which it has set for itself, the national security state apparatus needs arbitrary power. Such power has its own code, which is meant to govern or justify the behavior of the initiated—after the fact. It operates to protect the state apparatus from the citizenry." [0] [0] https://archive.org/details/democracy-versus-the-national-security-state/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/democracy-versus-the-national-se...

dredmorbius 3y ago
Raskin's bio, for those curious: Marcus Goodman Raskin (April 30, 1934 – December 24, 2017) was an American progressive social critic, political activist, author, and philosopher. He was the co-founder, with Richard Barnet, of the progressive think tank the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC. He was also a professor of public policy at The George Washington University’s School of Public Policy and Public Administration.... Notably: In 1971, Raskin received from Daniel Ellsberg, documents that became known as the Pentagon Papers. Raskin put Ellsberg in touch with New York Times reporter Neil Sheehan. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Raskin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Raskin> And father of Rep. Jamie Raskin, as noted at Archive.org.
- celtoid 3y ago
  IIRC, Marcus Raskin also coined the term "national security state".
  - dredmorbius 3y ago
    Interesting. Apparently in The Politics of National Security (1979), see the back-cover blurb. Internet Archive appear to have garbled metadata for that book with another, unfortunately: <https://archive.org/details/politicsofnation0000rask https://archive.org/details/politicsofnation0000rask>

whiddershins 3y ago

Of course they did. Someone always does, eventually.

wonderwonder 3y ago

I used to think that the people that were calling for the dismantling of the FBI were insane conspiracy theorists. I am not so sure anymore, the agency does appear to be compromised and have a very distinct political allegiance. Law enforcement should be politically neutral as they are very much the most powerful force in the country. A compromised agency is worse than no agency at all in some respects.

shrimpx 3y ago
What’s their political allegiance? I can come up with a half dozen purposely screwed up or super shady recent FBI/DOJ investigations toward either political party.
- wonderwonder 3y ago
  I very much dislike Trump. Voted for Biden. The FBI / DOJ has been blatantly anti Trump.
  - fugalfervor 3y ago
    Trump has blatantly committed crimes.
    - logicchains 3y ago
      You only believe that because of all the effort the intelligence agencies and their agents in the media went through to frame him
      - notmypenguin 3y ago
        You only think that because Trump has successfully destroyed an entire LE bureau in efforts to get away with treason
      - fugalfervor 3y ago
        There is a recording of him asking the Georgia secretary of state to find votes for him. I have listened to the recording.

lazyeye 3y ago

I think voting in someone like Robert Kennedy is the only hope against the Washington "uni-party" and a clearly corrupt justice system. Who else is there?

20after4 3y ago
You think they wouldn't kill him just like they did the other Kennedy troublemakers?
dragonwriter 3y ago
> I think voting in someone like Robert Kennedy is the only hope against the Washington "uni-party" and a clearly corrupt justice system. Who else is there? I'm old enough to remember when another celebrity political outsider got this exact treatment in 2016. To the extent that a problem loosely matching your description exists, the solution mostly isn't in Presidential elections, and anyone selling that as the solution is either an idiot who doesn't understand that the US isn’t an executive dictatorship or a would-be tyrant trying to make it one.
- cwkoss 3y ago
  Are you arguing that voters should continue supporting "establishment stooges" because hoping for change is pointless?
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    > Are you arguing that voters should continue supporting "establishment stooges" because hoping for change is pointless? No, if I was saying that I ... would have said that.

boomboomsubban 3y ago

>Senior national security officials said Friday that all of the incidents described took place before the FBI had completed a series of internal reforms—including written justifications for searches, more oversight and requiring analysts to actively opt into searching the foreign intelligence database. "Written justification for searches" is a recent reform? So until now, they didn't need any paper trail of their searches? Not that in house approval of your "justification" is really enough for this. How can anyone believe the FBI gives a shit if it took them well over a decade to go "maybe we should write something down when we use this."

pyuser583 3y ago

Here’s something I don’t get: why is it an “abuse” to run the name of someone applying for a top secret clearance through the databases? It’s ok to run a school teacher in Bucharest, but if someone is applying to be an FBI agent - nope. This isn’t the first time the FBI has “wrongly” run the names to prospective agents and clearance holders to through this db. They’ve promised not to do it again before. But isn’t this the perfect use case for such a thing? When you apply for a security clearance, you waive certain privacy rights. That’s reasonable and part of the deal.

ghostpepper 3y ago
This seems like the least egregious use. The article also talks about 19,000 congressional campaign donors names being run, as well as everyone who was arrested during several protests/riots. Perhaps the most egregious: > And between 2016 and 2020, the FBI routinely ran names of people who appeared in police homicide reports, “including victims, next-of-kin, witnesses and suspects.”
- pyuser583 3y ago
  This time (because this sort of thing happens again and again) it’s only a small part. Last time it was all of it.
anonymousiam 3y ago
The reason it's not an abuse is that the subject candidate for the clearance has signed the SF86 form and granted the government permission to look into all aspects of their life. The abuse being discussed here has nothing to do with applicants for a TS clearance. It has to do with US citizens who were exercising their constitutional rights within the US, and not interacting with any foreign entities. The 702 rules explicitly prohibit this, but the FBI did it anyway. https://www.dni.gov/files/icotr/Section702-Basics-Infographic.pdf https://www.dni.gov/files/icotr/Section702-Basics-Infographi... From the above linked document: SECTION 702: PROTECTING U.S. PERSON INFORMATION CAN THE IC USE SECTION 702 TO COLLECT U.S. PERSON COMMUNICATIONS? • The government cannot use Section 702 to target U.S. persons or persons located in the U.S. • However, as Congress understood when it passed the statute, it is possible that a foreign person who has been targeted under Section 702 may communicate with, or discuss information concerning, a U.S. person.

trident5000 3y ago

These agencies smell especially as of recent. Defunding many of them and starting over makes a lot of sense. You're not going to get the corruption out without a complete overhaul. I would argue the FBI falls into the defund category with the latest events.

deafpolygon 3y ago

It's almost as if no one predicted that surveillance data was going to be mis-used!