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What are our governments spending money on? How is this possibly a profit-making private enterprise unless it's funded by government? It feels like outsourcin

What are our governments spending money on? How is this possibly a profit-making private enterprise unless it's funded by government? It feels like outsourcing a pre-crime department. If this industry exists outside of normal law enforcement it needs unbelievably tight regulation. What powers do these private companies think they have? Do they pass information on to actual law enforcement, and if so, does actual law enforcement do any checks and balances on the information they're receiving? I don't know if this is next level paranoia or just another scary angle of the same level of paranoia post-911. I'd also like to be employed by the government to play games and chat online: FBI and CIA spies had created fake personas to hunt for potential terror plots discussed in online games, such as World of Warcraft and Second Life, as well as on platforms like Xbox Live. Those initiatives fizzled after the intelligence agencies found little to no evidence of terror communications. I'm interested in arguments that may justify this existing as private industry. Edited to add: I like how the single sentence quote from an FBI official needed to include not one, but two, [sic]s. And “detect threat actors when they are young or starting out at 14 or 15, that's when I start observing and documenting their malicious activities.” Talk about justifying the very activity the teenagers are engaging in, ie. fuck authority. I feel like I want to educate the teens to be smarter, in both their life choices and opsec. I certainly hope law enforcement doesn't treat these teenagers with the blunt object that law enforcement is stereotyped to only be equipped with.

ok_dad 3y ago
As a parent, I’d be fucking PISSED THE FUCK OFF if the FBI had been investigating my kid for nothing like this. I would have an absolute fit. I would demand action from my senators and congress critters. I would sue so hard for civil rights violations against underage kids.
- marak830 3y ago
  I'm not sure why you were DV'ed, I agree. As an outside (non-US) your policing organisation's seem so damn over the top, whilst at the same time your security (the:personal ownership and carrying of weapons ccw or open) seems fucking batshit crazy. I have never been able to get the two into a mesh in my head as to why they work that way.
  - BLKNSLVR 3y ago
    It's like the treat the electronic as the real world and the real world as a game. It's like some kind of acknowledgment that ideas really are more dangerous than actual weapons. It's also incongruent with the very origins of the United States.
    - TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
      The US is one giant LARP park. In-game fantasies of wealth, power, unlimited freedom and attractiveness are more real than the physical world.
  - xkcd-sucks 3y ago
    - The USA is about 400 years old as a "civilization" (idk) and 250 years old as a nation. - Throughout all that time, immigrants were mostly trying to escape political and economic conditions in older nations - The first 300 of those years, the majority of the land was sparsely populated frontier - Its settlers were in violent competition with the original inhabitants - Its settlers were often also in violent competition with each other, mostly over natural resources (mining claims, grazing range, etc.) but also over political control (slave vs free, Mormon vs non, etc.). Wild-West cowboys vs other cowboys (and cowboys vs. indians) fighting was still happening up to the 1920s - Regional governments arose mostly bottom-up from settlers self organizing. This was a matter of principle, but also a practical necessity in privately-settled sparsely populated regions. - The nation was established by a civil war although it's not called that (England vs colony) - *When the nation was founded, a future civil war was a foregone conclusion.* (North/"Free" vs South/"Slave" although this was *not* a strict equivalence) The first hundred years ish was a mostly linear progression to this civil war! And the subsequent 150 years have been strongly influenced by it as well.
- onetokeoverthe 3y ago
  [dead]
notjulianjaynes 3y ago
I wonder if the FBI agents pushing against E2E encryption under the "think of the children" banner and the FBI agents stalking 14 year olds on Fortnite eat in the same cafeteria.
- willcipriano 3y ago
  Hey pal! Don't mock these heros on memorial day weekend of all days. They put their lives on the line, for your freedom in security, every single day in Minecraft. Who is going to tell you that "the shooter was on our radar" after the fact if it wasn't for these brave souls.
  - BLKNSLVR 3y ago
    Last thing I saw before the explosion, officer, was a creepy green-ish dude with no arms. Then I woke up in a crater.
    - fdhfdjkfhdkj 3y ago
      [dead]
- hulitu 3y ago
  They are the same people from the "internet" department. As long as they do their job, nobody cares.
zahma 3y ago
I got worried seeing how she profiled 14/15 year olds in the same frame as adults. That’s problematic. Children have a right to make mistakes — I’m sure we’ve all benefited from a second chance, although my rationale must change to consider the possibility for massive damage over a computer terminal. The thing is that these crimes are hard to stop by anyone else considering how complex they can be for the public, let alone for parents to understand what it is their kid is doing in their bedroom late at night.
aww_dang 3y ago
Coaching people into committing crimes, so they can meet their metrics and justify further spending. https://theintercept.com/2015/03/16/howthefbicreatedaterrorist/ https://theintercept.com/2015/03/16/howthefbicreatedaterrori... >THE STING How the FBI Created a Terrorist >Osmakac was the target of an elaborately orchestrated FBI sting that involved a paid informant, as well as FBI agents and support staff working on the setup for more than three months. The FBI provided all of the weapons seen in Osmakac’s martyrdom video. The bureau also gave Osmakac the car bomb he allegedly planned to detonate, and even money for a taxi so he could get to where the FBI needed him to go. Osmakac was a deeply disturbed young man, according to several of the psychiatrists and psychologists who examined him before trial. He became a “terrorist” only after the FBI provided the means, opportunity and final prodding necessary to make him one. https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/opinion/sunday/terrorist-plots-helped-along-by-the-fbi.html https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/opinion/sunday/terrorist-... >But all these dramas were facilitated by the F.B.I., whose undercover agents and informers posed as terrorists offering a dummy missile, fake C-4 explosives, a disarmed suicide vest and rudimentary training. Suspects naïvely played their parts until they were arrested. https://theintercept.com/2021/08/14/911-al-qaeda-fbi-liberty-city-seven/ https://theintercept.com/2021/08/14/911-al-qaeda-fbi-liberty... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/dec/12/newburgh-four-fbi-entrapment-terror https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/dec/12/newburgh-four-... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/nov/16/fbi-entrapment-fake-terror-plots https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/nov/16/fbi-entrapment... >Some experts agree. "The target, the motive, the ideology and the plot were all led by the FBI," said Karen Greenberg, a law professor at Fordham University in New York, who specialises in studying the new FBI tactics.
- christophilus 3y ago
  If you had suggested this as a plot for a miniseries, you’d have been laughed out of the room as a conspiracy nut, and yet… it appears to be real. Can we just toss all of DC and it’s thugs out and start over?
  - aww_dang 3y ago
    "Verified threat incident" detected. I only need to find 5 more to meet my daily quota.

ok_dad 3y ago

As a parent, I’d be fucking PISSED THE FUCK OFF if the FBI had been investigating my kid for nothing like this. I would have an absolute fit. I would demand action from my senators and congress critters. I would sue so hard for civil rights violations against underage kids.

marak830 3y ago
I'm not sure why you were DV'ed, I agree. As an outside (non-US) your policing organisation's seem so damn over the top, whilst at the same time your security (the:personal ownership and carrying of weapons ccw or open) seems fucking batshit crazy. I have never been able to get the two into a mesh in my head as to why they work that way.
- BLKNSLVR 3y ago
  It's like the treat the electronic as the real world and the real world as a game. It's like some kind of acknowledgment that ideas really are more dangerous than actual weapons. It's also incongruent with the very origins of the United States.
  - TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
    The US is one giant LARP park. In-game fantasies of wealth, power, unlimited freedom and attractiveness are more real than the physical world.
- xkcd-sucks 3y ago
  - The USA is about 400 years old as a "civilization" (idk) and 250 years old as a nation. - Throughout all that time, immigrants were mostly trying to escape political and economic conditions in older nations - The first 300 of those years, the majority of the land was sparsely populated frontier - Its settlers were in violent competition with the original inhabitants - Its settlers were often also in violent competition with each other, mostly over natural resources (mining claims, grazing range, etc.) but also over political control (slave vs free, Mormon vs non, etc.). Wild-West cowboys vs other cowboys (and cowboys vs. indians) fighting was still happening up to the 1920s - Regional governments arose mostly bottom-up from settlers self organizing. This was a matter of principle, but also a practical necessity in privately-settled sparsely populated regions. - The nation was established by a civil war although it's not called that (England vs colony) - *When the nation was founded, a future civil war was a foregone conclusion.* (North/"Free" vs South/"Slave" although this was *not* a strict equivalence) The first hundred years ish was a mostly linear progression to this civil war! And the subsequent 150 years have been strongly influenced by it as well.
onetokeoverthe 3y ago
[dead]

notjulianjaynes 3y ago

I wonder if the FBI agents pushing against E2E encryption under the "think of the children" banner and the FBI agents stalking 14 year olds on Fortnite eat in the same cafeteria.

willcipriano 3y ago
Hey pal! Don't mock these heros on memorial day weekend of all days. They put their lives on the line, for your freedom in security, every single day in Minecraft. Who is going to tell you that "the shooter was on our radar" after the fact if it wasn't for these brave souls.
- BLKNSLVR 3y ago
  Last thing I saw before the explosion, officer, was a creepy green-ish dude with no arms. Then I woke up in a crater.
  - fdhfdjkfhdkj 3y ago
    [dead]
hulitu 3y ago
They are the same people from the "internet" department. As long as they do their job, nobody cares.

zahma 3y ago

I got worried seeing how she profiled 14/15 year olds in the same frame as adults. That’s problematic. Children have a right to make mistakes — I’m sure we’ve all benefited from a second chance, although my rationale must change to consider the possibility for massive damage over a computer terminal. The thing is that these crimes are hard to stop by anyone else considering how complex they can be for the public, let alone for parents to understand what it is their kid is doing in their bedroom late at night.

aww_dang 3y ago

Coaching people into committing crimes, so they can meet their metrics and justify further spending. https://theintercept.com/2015/03/16/howthefbicreatedaterrorist/ https://theintercept.com/2015/03/16/howthefbicreatedaterrori... >THE STING How the FBI Created a Terrorist >Osmakac was the target of an elaborately orchestrated FBI sting that involved a paid informant, as well as FBI agents and support staff working on the setup for more than three months. The FBI provided all of the weapons seen in Osmakac’s martyrdom video. The bureau also gave Osmakac the car bomb he allegedly planned to detonate, and even money for a taxi so he could get to where the FBI needed him to go. Osmakac was a deeply disturbed young man, according to several of the psychiatrists and psychologists who examined him before trial. He became a “terrorist” only after the FBI provided the means, opportunity and final prodding necessary to make him one. https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/opinion/sunday/terrorist-plots-helped-along-by-the-fbi.html https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/opinion/sunday/terrorist-... >But all these dramas were facilitated by the F.B.I., whose undercover agents and informers posed as terrorists offering a dummy missile, fake C-4 explosives, a disarmed suicide vest and rudimentary training. Suspects naïvely played their parts until they were arrested. https://theintercept.com/2021/08/14/911-al-qaeda-fbi-liberty-city-seven/ https://theintercept.com/2021/08/14/911-al-qaeda-fbi-liberty... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/dec/12/newburgh-four-fbi-entrapment-terror https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/dec/12/newburgh-four-... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/nov/16/fbi-entrapment-fake-terror-plots https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/nov/16/fbi-entrapment... >Some experts agree. "The target, the motive, the ideology and the plot were all led by the FBI," said Karen Greenberg, a law professor at Fordham University in New York, who specialises in studying the new FBI tactics.

christophilus 3y ago
If you had suggested this as a plot for a miniseries, you’d have been laughed out of the room as a conspiracy nut, and yet… it appears to be real. Can we just toss all of DC and it’s thugs out and start over?
- aww_dang 3y ago
  "Verified threat incident" detected. I only need to find 5 more to meet my daily quota.