15 ms·

FBI raids Washington Post reporter's home

946 points by echelon_musk 9mo ago

edot 9mo ago
"Natanson said her work had led to 1,169 new sources, “all current or former federal employees who decided to trust me with their stories”. She said she learned information “people inside government agencies weren’t supposed to tell me”, saying that the intensity of the work nearly “broke” her." Wow. So they're going to plug her phone in to whatever cracking tech they have and pull down the names of everyone who has been helping her tell the story of the destruction of our government. The following question is "what will they do with the names of the people they pull?". I can only imagine. Horrible. Hopefully she had good OPSEC but she's a reporter, not a technologist. I bet enough mistakes were made (or enough vulnerabilities exist) that they'll be able to pull down the list.
- stevenwoo 9mo ago
  There’s a subreddit dedicated to fed employee opinions so I assume they already identified all active posters by now and the direct contacts are being correlated.
- Traubenfuchs 9mo ago
  You must accept that 3 letter agencies have full root access to any Tim Apple or Google device and will use it if they already went far enough to do an FBI raid on a reporter.
  - snowwrestler 9mo ago
    I don’t have to accept any assertion in the absence of evidence directly supporting it.
    - weberer 9mo ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM
      - SpicyLemonZest 9mo ago
        I don't think that PRISM involved root access to any devices and this link does not claim that it did.
        dkdcio 9mo ago
        I was expecting this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple%E2%80%93FBI_encryption_dispute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple%E2%80%93FBI_encryption_d... still doesn’t really prove much
        parineum 9mo ago
        It actually proves that they _don't_ (or didn't) have that kind of access because they first publicly asked for the access and then rescinded that request when they, not officially but widely accepted, acquired access through some kind of hack/bug/exploit given to them by, probably, the IDF or an Israeli private company.
  - HumblyTossed 9mo ago
    This isn't hyperbole. They literally went to the king with gold in hands. There's no WAY they didn't open up their platforms to him.
    - Traubenfuchs 9mo ago
      > They literally went to the king with gold in hands. Exactly what I was thinking about when I was writing my comment. I can understand that big corpos are not our friends and are purely money driven, but publicly bribing the president with gold is on a level no one ever expected. Right in line with the Fifa peace price.
      - derektank 9mo ago
        IDK, the FIFA world peace prize was completely unsurprising to me. It’s a massively corrupt institution and has been for decades. It’s out of the norm in a US context, for sure, but that kind of thing is penny ante for an organization whose Wikipedia article has multiple subsections on corruption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA?wprov=sfti1#Corruption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA?wprov=sfti1#Corruption
      - fhdkweig 9mo ago
        And don't forget the $400 million airplane that is probably filled with listening devices that will feed info to all of our enemies.
    - DetectDefect 9mo ago
      What is especially insane is people STILL praise Apple for championing "privacy" - after Snowden, after China, after Trump ... the well-engineered sunk-cost fallacy is just too potent to resist, I guess.
      - Traubenfuchs 9mo ago
        Magical end to end protection in Meta and Apple (chat) software to protect you from… whom exactly? MAYBE non US governments? They probably have deals with all the big governments allowing them to spy on their own people at least.
  - embedding-shape 9mo ago
    I'm afraid Snowden was so long time ago, that the most vocal people don't even seemingly know about it, so yet again, we're in a period of time where assuming Apple/Google has full access to anything you do on your device, is seen as conspiracy theories. People seem to forget the past so damn quick, it's a wonder we humans manage to accomplish anything at all at this point.
  - fwip 9mo ago
    Counterpoint - if they have full root access to any phone, why did they need to do the raid?
    - iAMkenough 9mo ago
      The same reason federal agents wear GoPros. Security theater, and to send the message that journalists should not pursue stories like this that put the federal government in a less-than-favorable light.
    - kuerbel 9mo ago
      To intimidate other reporters
    - beeflet 9mo ago
      So they don't burn their 0day
- iamtheworstdev 9mo ago
  > The following question is "what will they do with the names of the people they pull?". I'll take a shot at the answer -> Charge them with treason. Because that's the country we live in now, and most of us are just sitting by passively watching it happen.
  - immibis 9mo ago
    Charging with a crime is so last decade. Nowadays they just shoot people they don't like.
  - lawn 9mo ago
    Or they'll have ICE take them and they'll be deported or made to disappear. Some might even end up dying. That's how the US is right now.
    - mikeweiss 9mo ago
      That only works if they aren't U.S citizens... Which if they're working for the gov means they are. This administration is creative they will find other more 'legal' ways for retribution so the punishment sticks.
      - joering2 9mo ago
        What difference does it make whether they are US citizens or not? At least DHS is not interested in finding out. And there has been plenty US citizens deported under DHS. https://www.congress.gov/119/meeting/house/118180/documents/HMKP-119-JU00-20250430-SD003.pdf https://www.congress.gov/119/meeting/house/118180/documents/... https://www.propublica.org/article/immigration-dhs-american-citizens-arrested-detained-against-will https://www.propublica.org/article/immigration-dhs-american-...
        andsoitis 9mo ago
        > And there has been plenty US citizens deported under DHS. Are you sure? Do you mind linking to information / reporting about that? I have not seen any.
- naravara 9mo ago
  I hope Washington Post does a better job of training their reporters than my friend’s former employer did. They sent her off to a certain country with highly repressive speech laws and secret police to interview and survey various civil rights activist groups. They gave her little to no guidance about how to protect herself aside from “Use a VPN to send any documents to us.” They didn’t even instruct her to use an encrypted email provider or to use a VPN for any online work that didn’t get sent to the employer. It’s very fortunate she knew me and I could at least give her some basic guidance to use an encrypted email service, avoid doing any work on anything sensitive that syncs to a cloud server, make sure she has FileVault enabled, get her using a password manager, verify that her VPN provider is trustworthy, etc.
  - gruez 9mo ago
    >They sent her off to a certain country with highly repressive speech laws and secret police to interview and survey various civil rights activist groups. They gave her little to no guidance about how to protect herself aside from “Use a VPN to send any documents to us.” They didn’t even instruct her to use an encrypted email provider or to use a VPN for any online work that didn’t get sent to the employer. How would those advice have helped? >an encrypted email provider Unless this was in the early 2010s the email provider was probably using TLS, which means to the domestic security service at least, is as safe as a "encrypted email provider" (protonmail?) >FileVault enabled That might work in a country with due process, but in a place with secret police they can just torture you until you give up the keys. >password manager Does the chance of credential stuffing attacks increase when you're in a repressive state? None of the advice is bad, but they're also not really specific to traveling to a repressive country. Phishing training is also good, but I won't lambast a company for not doing phishing training prior to sending a employee to a repressive country.
    - naravara 9mo ago
      > Unless this was in the early 2010s the email provider was probably using TLS It was the mid 2010s yes. And they’re not going to abduct and torture and American citizen out of the blue. The more “intensive” methods are higher cost, the intention is just to increase the friction involved with engaging in the routine and scalable, ordinary forms of snooping.
- srean 9mo ago
  In India we have been going through this the last 14 years or so. Look up Stanswamy [0], an octagenarian jailed on the basis of trumped up charges and planted evidence (most likely with the help of Israeli companies). Journalists held in jail for five years without any charges pressed. Same fate for those who criticize the government too vocally. Now pretty much all of the press is but a government press release with a few holding out here and there. [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/12/13/stan-swamy-hacked-bhima-koregaon/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/12/13/stan-swamy-h...
  - arresin 9mo ago
    One country that produces so much misery and suffering in the world.
- everdrive 9mo ago
  It's important to note, that the law is not written such that it's only illegal to share classified information when you have a good president. I think a lot of us are very sympathetic when classified information is released to the public due to public interest, concern regarding government action, etc. But it's still illegal. I'm not making a moral claim here. Rather, people who release classified information without authorization are breaking the law. If I rob a bank to feed my family vs. robbing a bank because it's fun, it's still illegal. A jury might be more or less sympathetic to my cause, but I will still be arrested and charged if the police can manage it.
  - kasey_junk 9mo ago
    But also note the government is punishing people for legal acts as well. It’s perfectly legal to tell a soldier they do not have to obey unlawful orders, in fact in many cases it’s a requirement. But the us military started court martial proceedings against a sitting congressman person for doing it.
    - everdrive 9mo ago
      Well yes, but you can't tell a judge "yes, I broke the law, but it's OK because the government broke the law first."
      - kasey_junk 9mo ago
        It’s frequently not illegal to talk to a reporter. Let’s not kid ourselves, this isn’t about classified material it’s about loyalty, so watch what happens to sources that didn’t do anything illegal. This government brought sham charges against the Fed president, what are they going to do to a run of the mill federal employee?
        irishcoffee 9mo ago
        > It’s frequently not illegal to talk to a reporter. Let’s not kid ourselves, this isn’t about classified material it’s about loyalty, so watch what happens to sources that didn’t do anything illegal. It is not illegal to talk to a reporter, it is illegal to share classified intel with someone who doesn't have a clearance and a need-to-know. Do I think they should have raided this persons house? Absolutely not. Is it illegal to share classified information, absolutely. "For my friends everything, for everyone else, the law" or whatever the saying is, applies here. In this case, the reporter did nothing wrong, but the raid on the home of the reporter can be justified according to the law, so it isn't illegal. Should it be? Probably. Legislation is good, rules are good, the classified rules seems to make sense if you subscribe to Hanlons Razor at the least. Sometimes though, laws just don't make sense and shouldn't be codified. For example: MCL 750.335 - "Any man or woman, not being married to each other, who lewdly and lasciviously associates and cohabits together, and any man or woman, married or unmarried, who is guilty of open and gross lewdness and lascivious behavior, is guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment for not more than 1 year, or a fine of not more than $1,000.00." This shouldn't be a law.
- kuerbel 9mo ago
  Usually you would only communicate through secure drop. Looks like the Washington post uses it: https://www.washingtonpost.com/securedrop/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/securedrop/
a2tech 9mo ago
Between this and Minneapolis I guess the water temperature just keeps on being turned up, and us frogs are just chilling out in our warm baths.
- FrustratedMonky 9mo ago
  That was one of the main plot points in Andor. The rebellion had to raise the temperature faster, more dramatically, in order to wake people up. To make the frogs realize it was hot and jump out. Lonni Jung: "You realize what you've set in motion? People will suffer." Luthen Rael: "That's the plan." Luthen believes that to succeed, they need to anger the Empire and make them come down hard on the citizens, which in turn will fuel the rebellion.
  - HumblyTossed 9mo ago
    Woah woah woah! I still haven't watched this. (I know, I know...)
    - eszed 9mo ago
      Watch it. Best TV show I can think of, ever. By that I mean that the writing and acting and production values are top notch; it's entertaining throughout - some of the other greats are not (The Wire falls down here, sometimes; Keislowski's Dekalog, likewise - though its best moments are better than anything else); and Andor nails its cultural moment, by being directly about, well, all of the Important Stuff we're talking about in this thread. Also, it's a tragedy; it's about sacrifice and loss, and the human consequences of following your convictions - regardless of the side you choose. (That last note's a personal taste, but I'd stand by the former points as being reasonably objective.) I sat through it going, "how the hell did they manage to make a work of art out of a Star Wars series?", which even makes it better. You don't have to care about Star Wars AT ALL to appreciate Andor, but if you do, watching Andor -> Rogue One -> Originals back to back makes the earlier stuff better. You'll think I'm over-selling it. Please watch it, then come back and tell me I'm wrong.
      - 9mo ago
chasd00 9mo ago
“ Agents searched Hannah Natanson’s Virginia home and seized devices in inquiry tied to a classified materials case” Right underneath the headline. That’s pretty normal for the FBI, assuming they had a search warrant.
- reader9274 9mo ago
  Of course they had a search warrant.
  - cdrnsf 9mo ago
    ICE has been knocking down doors and ripping folks from their homes without warrants. Why would the FBI under this administration behave differently?
- CodingJeebus 9mo ago
  No, this is absolutely not normal as the article clearly states. Reporters are very rarely raided in the US under circumstances like these. The problem is that "classified materials" means whatever the government wants it to mean in this context. Is there a journalist you want to target for a particular reason? Just accuse them of handling classified information, which they don't ever have to produce to the public because it's "classified".
  - notyourwork 9mo ago
    Trump keeps that kind of stuff in their guest bathroom, cool. Reporter, raid and straight to jail. What a timeline to witness. Elected officials glut preventing them from doing their duty.
    - NickC25 9mo ago
      Not only that, the word going around is some of the stuff found in the bathroom were far above top secret, including some Q-Clearance level stuff from the DoE. As in, the US's full knowledge of the technical capacity of Israel's nuclear weapons program, including how we obtained that information. That's now in the hands of the Saudis, Iran, the Chinese, the Russians, etc. And it was found in a fucking bathroom. Yet nobody seems to care that a Trump-appointed lackey magically (whose husband has credibly been linked to organized crime) found themselves on the case "by chance" and issued a whole bunch of bullshit non-appealable verbal rulings on how and why Donald Trump is innocent.
withinboredom 9mo ago
They should have gone to Mar Lago to find their missing classified documents. Do they not watch the news? /s In all seriousness, it sounds like they're trying to stop another Snowden type leak.
- embedding-shape 9mo ago
  > In all seriousness, it sounds like they're trying to stop another Snowden type leak. In what way is what she was doing similar to Snowden? Snowden was a huge bombshell, with droves of material, proving what a lot of people suspected was happening, but had no proof. This journalist seems to have been receiving a ton of "small leaks", of improper firings and a lot of other federal misbehavior, but all within the US, and all with things we already knew was happening. So rather than "one big sea of bad", she was investigating "a thousand small cuts of bad" across thousands of people who had evidence. Snowden leaks had global implications that changed relationships between countries, while this seems mostly internal to the US.
  - saghm 9mo ago
    Agreed. Snowden also wasn't a journalist but the source himself. Having over 1000 individual sources of information is not at all the same thing.
- CodingJeebus 9mo ago
  The problem is that "classified materials" means whatever the government wants it to mean in this context. Is there a journalist you want to target for a particular reason? Just accuse them of handling classified information, which they don't ever have to produce to the public because it's "classified".
- pwg 9mo ago
  Or intimidate a member of the press that isn't "bending the knee" to them.
- jimbohn 9mo ago
  >In all seriousness, it sounds like they're trying to stop another Snowden type leak. I bet it's the recipe for the military-grade copium some people are on
webdoodle 9mo ago
Not really surprised at this point. After Bush allowed, and Obama pardoned the collateral murder pilots, whistleblowers and journalists in the U.S. have been continually threatened, hazed, jailed and killed at the pleasure of whomever the current president is. This isn't party politics, Bush through Trump, are guilty. This is fascism at its finest...
- eunoia 9mo ago
  I think you’re fundamentally right. Trump is obviously the worst we’ve seen yet, but power has been accumulating unchecked in the executive branch’s hands for decades now. Trump is merely a symptom of the problem that is the Imperial Presidency. If we can’t tackle the problem itself we’ll get another politician doing the exact same shit after Trump.
  - embedding-shape 9mo ago
    Indeed, don't blame the individual (all thought the individual has plenty of individual blame going their way, rightfully so), blame the system. Unless the system changes, it'll continue to let people misuse it to their own gain. Trump was hardly the first one, and depending on how things will go, he might be the last, but "last" in a good way or in a bad way remains to be seen.
    - AndrewKemendo 9mo ago
      I absolutely blame the individual. Who is responsible for the system if not the individual - and the collective thereof? The fundamental problem is the citizen not being educated or caring enough about their own independence and state of being in the framework of a global economy and sovereign nation state
      - eunoia 9mo ago
        I would highly recommend the book Amusing Ourselves to Death if you are looking to understand how the populace got to the point where truth is irrelevant and nothing really matters. It helped my mental model a lot at the very least.
alsetmusic 9mo ago
It'd be real cool if all the second amendment (guns) people cared as much about the first amendment (free speech and freedom of press). "They're gonna take my guns away!" Yet that never happens. But people are being targeted for what they say, for disagreeing publicly. That's real. And a lot of "patriots" don't seem to notice or care.
- ceejayoz 9mo ago
  > And a lot of "patriots" don't seem to notice or care. They notice. They care. They just love it. The "free speech absolutist" folks never were.
- petcat 9mo ago
  People care more about their guns because, in their minds, that's the last thing that stands between them and complete helplessness. They have fantasies of starting up an Idaho or Montana-style militia to protect themselves from the liberal and immigrant hoards.
  - eunoia 9mo ago
    It was never principled opposition to anything, just a power fantasy that the current admin lets them live even more viscerally.
- Nifty3929 9mo ago
  The guns haven't been taken away only because people do care so much about the 2nd amendment. Those people understand that the 2nd amendment is the only ultimate defense for the people against the government. I too wish people also cared as much about the 1st amendment, but sadly I think the tide is turning on that. Too many on both the right and left seem okay with censorship and harassment.
  - k2enemy 9mo ago
    Kind of ironic that there's a big overlap in the venn diagram between 2nd amendment enthusiasts and the crowd that is cheering on the government's authoritarian actions.
dmschulman 9mo ago
This is Nathanson's recent article (gift link) describing her work and the story that likely triggered the FBI's interest. Her reporting tells the stories of federal workers, she's not involved in any investigative work beyond interviewing current or former civil servants who feel helpless and lost now that the career that gave them purpose is no longer the same: wapo.st/49BQBrh One day, a woman wrote to me on Signal, asking me not to respond. She lived alone, she messaged, and planned to die that weekend. Before she did, she wanted at least one person to understand: Trump had unraveled the government, and with it, her life. I called William, feeling panic rise like hot liquid in the back of my throat. He told me to stay calm. He told me to send the woman a list of crisis resources, starting with the 988 national suicide hotline. He told me to remember that reporters are not trained therapists or counselors, just human beings doing the best we can. “You should try to help, but whatever this woman does or doesn’t do, it may happen regardless of anything you say,” William said. “It’s not up to you.” I did what he said, then fell asleep refreshing the app, checking for a reply. The next morning, a message appeared below her name: “This person isn’t using Signal.”
- woah 9mo ago
  [flagged]
  - genewitch 9mo ago
    mentally unstable people can hold down jobs sometimes, too. Like, those under treatment, but a stressor can cause "relapse" and now you got a predicament at work. Chemical and/or clinical depression can be debilitating, and i consider it mental instability.
  - anigbrowl 9mo ago
    Apparently. If you're scared of the government, this would be an entirely rational thing to do to safeguard the privacy of other people you know on Signal.
- shrubble 9mo ago
  Steps before self-ending: 1. Feed cat, ensure that friend will adopt cat. 2. Talk to any family members. 3. Uninstall Signal 4. Take too many Ambien. Or: “I’m sending this to you confidentially so please don’t respond since metadata will show I contacted you.” Reporter: responds anyway
publicdebates 9mo ago
This strengthens my belief that all governments, mafias, urban gangs, and even cliques, are literally all just ancient tribalism manifested in modernity; may the biggest rocks win.
cathyreisenwitz 9mo ago
“When populists get into power, the rhetorical discourse frames tend to be used to implement successive autocratic measures, such as limiting opposition through electoral manipulation, thwarting the free press, changing the constitution in their own favor, and circumscribing minority, civil, political, and economic rights. Populists are usually not against electoral democracy per se, but rather at odds with liberal democracy. Since they believe they represent the ‘true people,’ other people’s votes do not really count as legitimate. Consequently, they are hostile to the underlying values and principles of constitutionalism, pluralism, minority rights, and checks and balances.” -Nils Karlson, Economist and poltical scientist, founder of the Ratio Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, former professor of political science at Linköping university, Sweden, visiting fellow at Hoover Institution, Stanford University, etc.
- 6stringmerc 9mo ago
  So how does the cycle work? I’m not being sarcastic I actually find this a relevant and on-point summation. I happen to be very interested in the systemic consequences and results in Western history as much as is applicable in present USA. I’m glad to be a bystander and not participant, that’s for sure.
  - shermantanktop 9mo ago
    One final resolution is the guillotine, dangling upside down on a meat hook, or a bunker fire. Those are extreme but we have to wonder what will stop a specific leader from pushing so far that they meet such a fate. This personality type does not stop unless they have to.
    - JumpCrisscross 9mo ago
      > One final resolution is the guillotine Did you miss the lesson from the actual guillotine? It’s just another escalation in the cycle. The parties switch from raiding to guillotining each other. The guillotine doesn’t solve the problem, it just raises the stakes.
Havoc 9mo ago
> impair public interest reporting in general. Some administrations may see this as a feature not bug…
FatherOfCurses 9mo ago
Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post and gave a boatload of money to Trump's campaign. Democracy dies in darkness.
- leoc 9mo ago
  Don’t ever forget what Bezos chooses to do or not to do here, whenever his name comes up in any context in future.
SubiculumCode 9mo ago
Keep your eyes on protecting the midterms from interference... re ICE / militias etc. I encourage governors to call up their State's National Guards to protect their State's electoral systems from Federal intrusion and extremist militia groups. This move is founded in the most republican of urges: State Sovereignty. (btw, I'd even consider that as a move in Minneapolis, right now).
- pjc50 9mo ago
  Do you think the Minneapolis National Guard are willing to fire on ICE if ordered to do so? What do you expect the legal fallout of that situation to be?
  - empath75 9mo ago
    I think that is becoming a less and less ridiculous scenario over time and I hope blue state governors have had long conversations with their national guard leadership about it.
  - SubiculumCode 9mo ago
    There is a lot of room before that. Rather that the Guard would intervene illegal searches etc, and the inevitable tense ICE - National Guard interaction would change the dynamic, temper ICE's behavior. Moreover, the expected outcome would actually be Trump trying to nationalize that guard, then a constitutional crisis/emergency supreme Court intervention. The most power move that Democrats could make right now is the Republican one: state's rights/ sovereignty
    - potato3732842 9mo ago
      I think your assessment is accurate and realistic. But ICE is behaving pretty sloppy. I'm not sure it could get to that point without (just due to risk multiplied by sheer number of interactions) ICE accidentally escalating something via sloppiness, crossing something that they don't value but is a hard line to their local PD security detail, refusing to stop and getting smoked that way, either by their own security or by a passer by while their security shrugs. A fed might not care about literally doing a George Floyd, but your security force might just walk off rather than be party to that.
snowwrestler 9mo ago
To clarify why it’s aggressive: federal employees have a legal duty to secure classified information, but everyone else does not. Reporters are not federal employees and it’s not illegal for them to have or discuss classified materials. Most of what Snowden leaked was classified, and remains classified to this day, but you and I can read about it on Wikipedia. The government pursued Snowden because he was legally obligated to protect that info. They did not pursue Barton Gellman because he wasn’t. So in this case the government is raiding the home of someone who did not commit any crime, in the hopes of getting at people who might have. I think it’s not hard to imagine how this concept could get ugly fast.
- disgruntledphd2 9mo ago
  Thank you, this is really useful context!
- giancarlostoro 9mo ago
  That's nothing, there was the time the FBI raided James O'Keefe's house to find Ashley Biden's diary. I feel weird writing any of that out, because its sounds batshit, but they did that. Some people may not like James for any given number of reasons (NPR did a hit peace saying he doesn't qualify for journalism protections - which to me is a matter of opinion not necessarily fact), but since when do federal agents raid peoples homes for diaries? Were there nuclear launch codes in there or something? I would imagine there's way more important things they could have been doing at the time.
  - parineum 9mo ago
    > Were there nuclear launch codes in there or something? It's funny you say that because that'd be just the same, classified information that leaked. They'd just change the codes and try to find who leaked them. The codes themselves would be inconsequential (once changed).
  - NewJazz 9mo ago
    Wasn't the diary stolen, and thus the property was stolen? If you have proof or reasonable suspicion that someone has possession of a stolen property, shouldn't law enforcement be able to retrieve that?
trymas 9mo ago
[flagged]
- awakeasleep 9mo ago
  This dunk might work outside of the US, but inside raving about freedom has always been justification for a power grab
steve1977 9mo ago
I'd say it's not that unusual in totalitarian dictatorships actually.
zzzeek 9mo ago
"that the raid was conducted by the justice department and FBI at the request of the “department of war”, the Trump administration’s informal name for the department of defense." uh oh sounds like the Guardian is asking for a raid too
- jimt1234 9mo ago
  Not sure why they call the name ("Department of War") informal. Seems pretty formal to me. It's displayed on the building.
  - riotnrrd 9mo ago
    It takes an act of Congress to change the name. Trump just made one of his dictatorial proclamations.
    - testing22321 9mo ago
      It was originally named the department of war, and changing it to defence was just newspeak anyway. Of all the things trump has done, I actually like this one. At least he’s being honest about his intentions for what this department does.
      - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 9mo ago
        I'm of two minds on this. As you say, renaming from War to Defense was a lie to tell Americans a more palatable story. However, renaming from Defense to War is actually the same thing in the current political context but for populace with different values. It is honest in a way but that was not the intention, nor is it the effective result. It's just a different lie.
        testing22321 9mo ago
        I mean, they’re doing their best to start new wars right now, so I’d say it’s not a lie at all.
mesk 9mo ago
Or as some 'uknown' VP would say: We will protect freedom of speech until the last journalist is behind the bars. That is the price we are willing to pay.
- aa_is_op 9mo ago
  This country is turning into a meme
- datsci_est_2015 9mo ago
  Are you referencing something? I can’t find any utterances of this phrase or something similar to it. Sounds juicy though.
  - mesk 9mo ago
    No and yes. The first sentence paraphrases certain someone blabbering about the lack of freedom of speech in the EU. The second is from Shrek :-)
cdrnsf 9mo ago
To think that this administration makes Nixon look principled.
g947o 9mo ago
Looks like even Jeff's wealth and bribery couldn't stop this from happening.
- DFHippie 9mo ago
  Jeff is actively abetting this.
  - g947o 9mo ago
    Wouldn't it be easier to just fire the journalist, like what he did with the editorial?
    - datsci_est_2015 9mo ago
      Define “easier”? I see no opposition to this action that would punish or prevent future similar actions. Now you don’t have to play whack-a-mole with other ideological dissenters because they’ll fear for their safety. Journalists have always shown great tenacity when it comes to reporting news even if it jeopardizes their employment, but if it jeopardizes their safety… that’s perhaps one level too far for many journalists.
jvdvegt 9mo ago
Without paywall: https://archive.is/1haDB https://archive.is/1haDB
g947o 9mo ago
> “The Trump administration will not tolerate illegal leaks of classified information that, when reported, pose a grave risk to our nation’s national security and the brave men and women who are serving our country.” That's what the government said when Pentagon Papers were released. Guess what happened. But I guess time is different now, and today's supreme court isn't the same as the one in those days.
- treebeard901 9mo ago
  Yeah cases like this have already been settled years ago. Reporters and news agencies have the right to this information and to publish it if it is in the public interest.
  - NoGravitas 9mo ago
    The current Supreme Court has shown itself to be extremely comfortable overturning precedent from that era.
curiousgal 9mo ago
It's honestly hilarious how fragile all those checks and balances you keep hearing about are. Americans are the first people to criticise other regimes for being authoritarian but I guess the turns have tabled!
Fazebooking 9mo ago
Journalists are the backbone of a healthy democracy. FU USA FU And just to be clear: The biggest military force of the world threatens denmark, scrambles the economy around the world due to sudden politic changes (tarifs) and destroys its own integrity as an ally
- IAmBroom 9mo ago
  Oh, we're clear. We're just powerless to do anything, as the (probably) legally elected administration runs this ship like its own personal party barge into ... everything in sight. Our Checks refuse to speak up in Congress, and our Balances keep voting to make the (current) POTUS immune to the law.
  - octoberfranklin 9mo ago
    Frankly, both parties feel like the "elected administration runs this ship like its own personal party barge" when they're out of power. If you don't like that, the only solution is to push for limited government next time you're in power. Whatever power you put into the hands of the government is guaranteed to fall into your enemy's hands some day. This is a deliberate design feature of the US political system. It's the only way to get people to wake up for the need to limit government power. A good start would be ending selective prosecution by restoring the original role of grand juries: to decide whether or not to hire a contract prosecutor for a single case. Public Prosecutors can be just like Public Defenders -- contractors of the court, with no discretionary powers.
    - Fazebooking 9mo ago
      Thats def not the same though. Trump doesn't take the normal route as any other president did. Of course with his second term, at least people can't complain how he interacts with your ex allies like us germany. Thats fair to do, shitty and short viewed but hey. But certain things like his fraud coins etc. this is bluntly illegal and he did not do this shit in his first term.
    - panda-giddiness 9mo ago
scoofy 9mo ago
This shit needs to stop. If you have any Republican representatives right now, you might consider writing them every day. We can disagree on tax policy, immigration policy, even very strong issues, and I'm happy to fight about those issues and respect disagreement. But in the last month, the president has invaded a foreign country without even notifying congress, has used literal thug tactics to try to get lower interest rates, and now he's obviously illegally entering the home of a reporter to take information which is clear violation of the first and fourth amendments. This is unamerican. It's a violation of the clear principles of the constitution. It's against the law. It's trivially deserving of impeachment.
- IAmBroom 9mo ago
  Strongly worded letters to one's Congressperson are the equivalent to "thoughts and prayers". It doesn't matter how just (you think) your cause is; it will never achieve anything.
  - nobody9999 9mo ago
    >Strongly worded letters to one's Congressperson are the equivalent to "thoughts and prayers". It doesn't matter how just (you think) your cause is; it will never achieve anything. Your assertion isn't supported by, well, anything. The problem is that constituents think they can't affect their representatives' positions. They can.[0][1] Especially if there's a concerted effort to do so. For every constituent who writes/calls/emails, there are at least a half-dozen more who feel the same way. The problem isn't that contacting your representatives isn't effective, it's that by not doing so, you're ceding power to those that do. [0] https://act.represent.us/sign/does-calling-congress-really-work/ https://act.represent.us/sign/does-calling-congress-really-w... [1] https://americansofconscience.com/calling-congress-still-matters/ https://americansofconscience.com/calling-congress-still-mat...
mickle00 9mo ago
fuck this -- how is this not on the front page of HN?
- avensec 9mo ago
  It is the most commented on and has the highest points today. See: https://hckrnews.com/ https://hckrnews.com/ . Another user pointed me to it in the past when I was also frustrated that an obviously engaged story was somehow being buried for reasons I didn't understand.
  - nobody9999 9mo ago
    >It is the most commented on and has the highest points today. See: https://hckrnews.com/ https://hckrnews.com/ Also see https://news.ycombinator.com/active https://news.ycombinator.com/active
billy99k 9mo ago
"reporter early on Wednesday in what the newspaper called a “highly unusual and aggressive” move by law enforcement, and press freedom groups condemned as a “tremendous intrusion” " See: james o'keefe
marysminefnuf 9mo ago
amazing how so many people in the comment section defend this.
BLACKCRAB 9mo ago
[dead]

946 points by echelon_musk 9mo ago

edot 9mo ago

"Natanson said her work had led to 1,169 new sources, “all current or former federal employees who decided to trust me with their stories”. She said she learned information “people inside government agencies weren’t supposed to tell me”, saying that the intensity of the work nearly “broke” her." Wow. So they're going to plug her phone in to whatever cracking tech they have and pull down the names of everyone who has been helping her tell the story of the destruction of our government. The following question is "what will they do with the names of the people they pull?". I can only imagine. Horrible. Hopefully she had good OPSEC but she's a reporter, not a technologist. I bet enough mistakes were made (or enough vulnerabilities exist) that they'll be able to pull down the list.

stevenwoo 9mo ago
There’s a subreddit dedicated to fed employee opinions so I assume they already identified all active posters by now and the direct contacts are being correlated.
Traubenfuchs 9mo ago
You must accept that 3 letter agencies have full root access to any Tim Apple or Google device and will use it if they already went far enough to do an FBI raid on a reporter.
- snowwrestler 9mo ago
  I don’t have to accept any assertion in the absence of evidence directly supporting it.
  - weberer 9mo ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM
    - SpicyLemonZest 9mo ago
      I don't think that PRISM involved root access to any devices and this link does not claim that it did.
      - dkdcio 9mo ago
        I was expecting this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple%E2%80%93FBI_encryption_dispute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple%E2%80%93FBI_encryption_d... still doesn’t really prove much
        parineum 9mo ago
        It actually proves that they _don't_ (or didn't) have that kind of access because they first publicly asked for the access and then rescinded that request when they, not officially but widely accepted, acquired access through some kind of hack/bug/exploit given to them by, probably, the IDF or an Israeli private company.
- HumblyTossed 9mo ago
  This isn't hyperbole. They literally went to the king with gold in hands. There's no WAY they didn't open up their platforms to him.
  - Traubenfuchs 9mo ago
    > They literally went to the king with gold in hands. Exactly what I was thinking about when I was writing my comment. I can understand that big corpos are not our friends and are purely money driven, but publicly bribing the president with gold is on a level no one ever expected. Right in line with the Fifa peace price.
    - derektank 9mo ago
      IDK, the FIFA world peace prize was completely unsurprising to me. It’s a massively corrupt institution and has been for decades. It’s out of the norm in a US context, for sure, but that kind of thing is penny ante for an organization whose Wikipedia article has multiple subsections on corruption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA?wprov=sfti1#Corruption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA?wprov=sfti1#Corruption
    - fhdkweig 9mo ago
      And don't forget the $400 million airplane that is probably filled with listening devices that will feed info to all of our enemies.
  - DetectDefect 9mo ago
    What is especially insane is people STILL praise Apple for championing "privacy" - after Snowden, after China, after Trump ... the well-engineered sunk-cost fallacy is just too potent to resist, I guess.
    - Traubenfuchs 9mo ago
      Magical end to end protection in Meta and Apple (chat) software to protect you from… whom exactly? MAYBE non US governments? They probably have deals with all the big governments allowing them to spy on their own people at least.
- embedding-shape 9mo ago
  I'm afraid Snowden was so long time ago, that the most vocal people don't even seemingly know about it, so yet again, we're in a period of time where assuming Apple/Google has full access to anything you do on your device, is seen as conspiracy theories. People seem to forget the past so damn quick, it's a wonder we humans manage to accomplish anything at all at this point.
- fwip 9mo ago
  Counterpoint - if they have full root access to any phone, why did they need to do the raid?
  - iAMkenough 9mo ago
    The same reason federal agents wear GoPros. Security theater, and to send the message that journalists should not pursue stories like this that put the federal government in a less-than-favorable light.
  - kuerbel 9mo ago
    To intimidate other reporters
  - beeflet 9mo ago
    So they don't burn their 0day
iamtheworstdev 9mo ago
> The following question is "what will they do with the names of the people they pull?". I'll take a shot at the answer -> Charge them with treason. Because that's the country we live in now, and most of us are just sitting by passively watching it happen.
- immibis 9mo ago
  Charging with a crime is so last decade. Nowadays they just shoot people they don't like.
- lawn 9mo ago
  Or they'll have ICE take them and they'll be deported or made to disappear. Some might even end up dying. That's how the US is right now.
  - mikeweiss 9mo ago
    That only works if they aren't U.S citizens... Which if they're working for the gov means they are. This administration is creative they will find other more 'legal' ways for retribution so the punishment sticks.
    - joering2 9mo ago
      What difference does it make whether they are US citizens or not? At least DHS is not interested in finding out. And there has been plenty US citizens deported under DHS. https://www.congress.gov/119/meeting/house/118180/documents/HMKP-119-JU00-20250430-SD003.pdf https://www.congress.gov/119/meeting/house/118180/documents/... https://www.propublica.org/article/immigration-dhs-american-citizens-arrested-detained-against-will https://www.propublica.org/article/immigration-dhs-american-...
      - andsoitis 9mo ago
        > And there has been plenty US citizens deported under DHS. Are you sure? Do you mind linking to information / reporting about that? I have not seen any.
naravara 9mo ago
I hope Washington Post does a better job of training their reporters than my friend’s former employer did. They sent her off to a certain country with highly repressive speech laws and secret police to interview and survey various civil rights activist groups. They gave her little to no guidance about how to protect herself aside from “Use a VPN to send any documents to us.” They didn’t even instruct her to use an encrypted email provider or to use a VPN for any online work that didn’t get sent to the employer. It’s very fortunate she knew me and I could at least give her some basic guidance to use an encrypted email service, avoid doing any work on anything sensitive that syncs to a cloud server, make sure she has FileVault enabled, get her using a password manager, verify that her VPN provider is trustworthy, etc.
- gruez 9mo ago
  >They sent her off to a certain country with highly repressive speech laws and secret police to interview and survey various civil rights activist groups. They gave her little to no guidance about how to protect herself aside from “Use a VPN to send any documents to us.” They didn’t even instruct her to use an encrypted email provider or to use a VPN for any online work that didn’t get sent to the employer. How would those advice have helped? >an encrypted email provider Unless this was in the early 2010s the email provider was probably using TLS, which means to the domestic security service at least, is as safe as a "encrypted email provider" (protonmail?) >FileVault enabled That might work in a country with due process, but in a place with secret police they can just torture you until you give up the keys. >password manager Does the chance of credential stuffing attacks increase when you're in a repressive state? None of the advice is bad, but they're also not really specific to traveling to a repressive country. Phishing training is also good, but I won't lambast a company for not doing phishing training prior to sending a employee to a repressive country.
  - naravara 9mo ago
    > Unless this was in the early 2010s the email provider was probably using TLS It was the mid 2010s yes. And they’re not going to abduct and torture and American citizen out of the blue. The more “intensive” methods are higher cost, the intention is just to increase the friction involved with engaging in the routine and scalable, ordinary forms of snooping.
srean 9mo ago
In India we have been going through this the last 14 years or so. Look up Stanswamy [0], an octagenarian jailed on the basis of trumped up charges and planted evidence (most likely with the help of Israeli companies). Journalists held in jail for five years without any charges pressed. Same fate for those who criticize the government too vocally. Now pretty much all of the press is but a government press release with a few holding out here and there. [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/12/13/stan-swamy-hacked-bhima-koregaon/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/12/13/stan-swamy-h...
- arresin 9mo ago
  One country that produces so much misery and suffering in the world.
everdrive 9mo ago
It's important to note, that the law is not written such that it's only illegal to share classified information when you have a good president. I think a lot of us are very sympathetic when classified information is released to the public due to public interest, concern regarding government action, etc. But it's still illegal. I'm not making a moral claim here. Rather, people who release classified information without authorization are breaking the law. If I rob a bank to feed my family vs. robbing a bank because it's fun, it's still illegal. A jury might be more or less sympathetic to my cause, but I will still be arrested and charged if the police can manage it.
- kasey_junk 9mo ago
  But also note the government is punishing people for legal acts as well. It’s perfectly legal to tell a soldier they do not have to obey unlawful orders, in fact in many cases it’s a requirement. But the us military started court martial proceedings against a sitting congressman person for doing it.
  - everdrive 9mo ago
    Well yes, but you can't tell a judge "yes, I broke the law, but it's OK because the government broke the law first."
    - kasey_junk 9mo ago
      It’s frequently not illegal to talk to a reporter. Let’s not kid ourselves, this isn’t about classified material it’s about loyalty, so watch what happens to sources that didn’t do anything illegal. This government brought sham charges against the Fed president, what are they going to do to a run of the mill federal employee?
      - irishcoffee 9mo ago
        > It’s frequently not illegal to talk to a reporter. Let’s not kid ourselves, this isn’t about classified material it’s about loyalty, so watch what happens to sources that didn’t do anything illegal. It is not illegal to talk to a reporter, it is illegal to share classified intel with someone who doesn't have a clearance and a need-to-know. Do I think they should have raided this persons house? Absolutely not. Is it illegal to share classified information, absolutely. "For my friends everything, for everyone else, the law" or whatever the saying is, applies here. In this case, the reporter did nothing wrong, but the raid on the home of the reporter can be justified according to the law, so it isn't illegal. Should it be? Probably. Legislation is good, rules are good, the classified rules seems to make sense if you subscribe to Hanlons Razor at the least. Sometimes though, laws just don't make sense and shouldn't be codified. For example: MCL 750.335 - "Any man or woman, not being married to each other, who lewdly and lasciviously associates and cohabits together, and any man or woman, married or unmarried, who is guilty of open and gross lewdness and lascivious behavior, is guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment for not more than 1 year, or a fine of not more than $1,000.00." This shouldn't be a law.
kuerbel 9mo ago
Usually you would only communicate through secure drop. Looks like the Washington post uses it: https://www.washingtonpost.com/securedrop/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/securedrop/

a2tech 9mo ago

Between this and Minneapolis I guess the water temperature just keeps on being turned up, and us frogs are just chilling out in our warm baths.

FrustratedMonky 9mo ago
That was one of the main plot points in Andor. The rebellion had to raise the temperature faster, more dramatically, in order to wake people up. To make the frogs realize it was hot and jump out. Lonni Jung: "You realize what you've set in motion? People will suffer." Luthen Rael: "That's the plan." Luthen believes that to succeed, they need to anger the Empire and make them come down hard on the citizens, which in turn will fuel the rebellion.
- HumblyTossed 9mo ago
  Woah woah woah! I still haven't watched this. (I know, I know...)
  - eszed 9mo ago
    Watch it. Best TV show I can think of, ever. By that I mean that the writing and acting and production values are top notch; it's entertaining throughout - some of the other greats are not (The Wire falls down here, sometimes; Keislowski's Dekalog, likewise - though its best moments are better than anything else); and Andor nails its cultural moment, by being directly about, well, all of the Important Stuff we're talking about in this thread. Also, it's a tragedy; it's about sacrifice and loss, and the human consequences of following your convictions - regardless of the side you choose. (That last note's a personal taste, but I'd stand by the former points as being reasonably objective.) I sat through it going, "how the hell did they manage to make a work of art out of a Star Wars series?", which even makes it better. You don't have to care about Star Wars AT ALL to appreciate Andor, but if you do, watching Andor -> Rogue One -> Originals back to back makes the earlier stuff better. You'll think I'm over-selling it. Please watch it, then come back and tell me I'm wrong.
    - 9mo ago

chasd00 9mo ago

“ Agents searched Hannah Natanson’s Virginia home and seized devices in inquiry tied to a classified materials case” Right underneath the headline. That’s pretty normal for the FBI, assuming they had a search warrant.

reader9274 9mo ago
Of course they had a search warrant.
- cdrnsf 9mo ago
  ICE has been knocking down doors and ripping folks from their homes without warrants. Why would the FBI under this administration behave differently?
CodingJeebus 9mo ago
No, this is absolutely not normal as the article clearly states. Reporters are very rarely raided in the US under circumstances like these. The problem is that "classified materials" means whatever the government wants it to mean in this context. Is there a journalist you want to target for a particular reason? Just accuse them of handling classified information, which they don't ever have to produce to the public because it's "classified".
- notyourwork 9mo ago
  Trump keeps that kind of stuff in their guest bathroom, cool. Reporter, raid and straight to jail. What a timeline to witness. Elected officials glut preventing them from doing their duty.
  - NickC25 9mo ago
    Not only that, the word going around is some of the stuff found in the bathroom were far above top secret, including some Q-Clearance level stuff from the DoE. As in, the US's full knowledge of the technical capacity of Israel's nuclear weapons program, including how we obtained that information. That's now in the hands of the Saudis, Iran, the Chinese, the Russians, etc. And it was found in a fucking bathroom. Yet nobody seems to care that a Trump-appointed lackey magically (whose husband has credibly been linked to organized crime) found themselves on the case "by chance" and issued a whole bunch of bullshit non-appealable verbal rulings on how and why Donald Trump is innocent.

withinboredom 9mo ago

They should have gone to Mar Lago to find their missing classified documents. Do they not watch the news? /s In all seriousness, it sounds like they're trying to stop another Snowden type leak.

embedding-shape 9mo ago
> In all seriousness, it sounds like they're trying to stop another Snowden type leak. In what way is what she was doing similar to Snowden? Snowden was a huge bombshell, with droves of material, proving what a lot of people suspected was happening, but had no proof. This journalist seems to have been receiving a ton of "small leaks", of improper firings and a lot of other federal misbehavior, but all within the US, and all with things we already knew was happening. So rather than "one big sea of bad", she was investigating "a thousand small cuts of bad" across thousands of people who had evidence. Snowden leaks had global implications that changed relationships between countries, while this seems mostly internal to the US.
- saghm 9mo ago
  Agreed. Snowden also wasn't a journalist but the source himself. Having over 1000 individual sources of information is not at all the same thing.
CodingJeebus 9mo ago
The problem is that "classified materials" means whatever the government wants it to mean in this context. Is there a journalist you want to target for a particular reason? Just accuse them of handling classified information, which they don't ever have to produce to the public because it's "classified".
pwg 9mo ago
Or intimidate a member of the press that isn't "bending the knee" to them.
jimbohn 9mo ago
>In all seriousness, it sounds like they're trying to stop another Snowden type leak. I bet it's the recipe for the military-grade copium some people are on

webdoodle 9mo ago

Not really surprised at this point. After Bush allowed, and Obama pardoned the collateral murder pilots, whistleblowers and journalists in the U.S. have been continually threatened, hazed, jailed and killed at the pleasure of whomever the current president is. This isn't party politics, Bush through Trump, are guilty. This is fascism at its finest...

eunoia 9mo ago
I think you’re fundamentally right. Trump is obviously the worst we’ve seen yet, but power has been accumulating unchecked in the executive branch’s hands for decades now. Trump is merely a symptom of the problem that is the Imperial Presidency. If we can’t tackle the problem itself we’ll get another politician doing the exact same shit after Trump.
- embedding-shape 9mo ago
  Indeed, don't blame the individual (all thought the individual has plenty of individual blame going their way, rightfully so), blame the system. Unless the system changes, it'll continue to let people misuse it to their own gain. Trump was hardly the first one, and depending on how things will go, he might be the last, but "last" in a good way or in a bad way remains to be seen.
  - AndrewKemendo 9mo ago
    I absolutely blame the individual. Who is responsible for the system if not the individual - and the collective thereof? The fundamental problem is the citizen not being educated or caring enough about their own independence and state of being in the framework of a global economy and sovereign nation state
    - eunoia 9mo ago
      I would highly recommend the book Amusing Ourselves to Death if you are looking to understand how the populace got to the point where truth is irrelevant and nothing really matters. It helped my mental model a lot at the very least.

alsetmusic 9mo ago

It'd be real cool if all the second amendment (guns) people cared as much about the first amendment (free speech and freedom of press). "They're gonna take my guns away!" Yet that never happens. But people are being targeted for what they say, for disagreeing publicly. That's real. And a lot of "patriots" don't seem to notice or care.

ceejayoz 9mo ago
> And a lot of "patriots" don't seem to notice or care. They notice. They care. They just love it. The "free speech absolutist" folks never were.
petcat 9mo ago
People care more about their guns because, in their minds, that's the last thing that stands between them and complete helplessness. They have fantasies of starting up an Idaho or Montana-style militia to protect themselves from the liberal and immigrant hoards.
- eunoia 9mo ago
  It was never principled opposition to anything, just a power fantasy that the current admin lets them live even more viscerally.
Nifty3929 9mo ago
The guns haven't been taken away only because people do care so much about the 2nd amendment. Those people understand that the 2nd amendment is the only ultimate defense for the people against the government. I too wish people also cared as much about the 1st amendment, but sadly I think the tide is turning on that. Too many on both the right and left seem okay with censorship and harassment.
- k2enemy 9mo ago
  Kind of ironic that there's a big overlap in the venn diagram between 2nd amendment enthusiasts and the crowd that is cheering on the government's authoritarian actions.

dmschulman 9mo ago

This is Nathanson's recent article (gift link) describing her work and the story that likely triggered the FBI's interest. Her reporting tells the stories of federal workers, she's not involved in any investigative work beyond interviewing current or former civil servants who feel helpless and lost now that the career that gave them purpose is no longer the same: wapo.st/49BQBrh One day, a woman wrote to me on Signal, asking me not to respond. She lived alone, she messaged, and planned to die that weekend. Before she did, she wanted at least one person to understand: Trump had unraveled the government, and with it, her life. I called William, feeling panic rise like hot liquid in the back of my throat. He told me to stay calm. He told me to send the woman a list of crisis resources, starting with the 988 national suicide hotline. He told me to remember that reporters are not trained therapists or counselors, just human beings doing the best we can. “You should try to help, but whatever this woman does or doesn’t do, it may happen regardless of anything you say,” William said. “It’s not up to you.” I did what he said, then fell asleep refreshing the app, checking for a reply. The next morning, a message appeared below her name: “This person isn’t using Signal.”

woah 9mo ago
[flagged]
- genewitch 9mo ago
  mentally unstable people can hold down jobs sometimes, too. Like, those under treatment, but a stressor can cause "relapse" and now you got a predicament at work. Chemical and/or clinical depression can be debilitating, and i consider it mental instability.
- anigbrowl 9mo ago
  Apparently. If you're scared of the government, this would be an entirely rational thing to do to safeguard the privacy of other people you know on Signal.
shrubble 9mo ago
Steps before self-ending: 1. Feed cat, ensure that friend will adopt cat. 2. Talk to any family members. 3. Uninstall Signal 4. Take too many Ambien. Or: “I’m sending this to you confidentially so please don’t respond since metadata will show I contacted you.” Reporter: responds anyway

publicdebates 9mo ago

This strengthens my belief that all governments, mafias, urban gangs, and even cliques, are literally all just ancient tribalism manifested in modernity; may the biggest rocks win.

cathyreisenwitz 9mo ago

“When populists get into power, the rhetorical discourse frames tend to be used to implement successive autocratic measures, such as limiting opposition through electoral manipulation, thwarting the free press, changing the constitution in their own favor, and circumscribing minority, civil, political, and economic rights. Populists are usually not against electoral democracy per se, but rather at odds with liberal democracy. Since they believe they represent the ‘true people,’ other people’s votes do not really count as legitimate. Consequently, they are hostile to the underlying values and principles of constitutionalism, pluralism, minority rights, and checks and balances.” -Nils Karlson, Economist and poltical scientist, founder of the Ratio Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, former professor of political science at Linköping university, Sweden, visiting fellow at Hoover Institution, Stanford University, etc.

6stringmerc 9mo ago
So how does the cycle work? I’m not being sarcastic I actually find this a relevant and on-point summation. I happen to be very interested in the systemic consequences and results in Western history as much as is applicable in present USA. I’m glad to be a bystander and not participant, that’s for sure.
- shermantanktop 9mo ago
  One final resolution is the guillotine, dangling upside down on a meat hook, or a bunker fire. Those are extreme but we have to wonder what will stop a specific leader from pushing so far that they meet such a fate. This personality type does not stop unless they have to.
  - JumpCrisscross 9mo ago
    > One final resolution is the guillotine Did you miss the lesson from the actual guillotine? It’s just another escalation in the cycle. The parties switch from raiding to guillotining each other. The guillotine doesn’t solve the problem, it just raises the stakes.

Havoc 9mo ago

> impair public interest reporting in general. Some administrations may see this as a feature not bug…

FatherOfCurses 9mo ago

Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post and gave a boatload of money to Trump's campaign. Democracy dies in darkness.

leoc 9mo ago
Don’t ever forget what Bezos chooses to do or not to do here, whenever his name comes up in any context in future.

SubiculumCode 9mo ago

Keep your eyes on protecting the midterms from interference... re ICE / militias etc. I encourage governors to call up their State's National Guards to protect their State's electoral systems from Federal intrusion and extremist militia groups. This move is founded in the most republican of urges: State Sovereignty. (btw, I'd even consider that as a move in Minneapolis, right now).

pjc50 9mo ago
Do you think the Minneapolis National Guard are willing to fire on ICE if ordered to do so? What do you expect the legal fallout of that situation to be?
- empath75 9mo ago
  I think that is becoming a less and less ridiculous scenario over time and I hope blue state governors have had long conversations with their national guard leadership about it.
- SubiculumCode 9mo ago
  There is a lot of room before that. Rather that the Guard would intervene illegal searches etc, and the inevitable tense ICE - National Guard interaction would change the dynamic, temper ICE's behavior. Moreover, the expected outcome would actually be Trump trying to nationalize that guard, then a constitutional crisis/emergency supreme Court intervention. The most power move that Democrats could make right now is the Republican one: state's rights/ sovereignty
  - potato3732842 9mo ago
    I think your assessment is accurate and realistic. But ICE is behaving pretty sloppy. I'm not sure it could get to that point without (just due to risk multiplied by sheer number of interactions) ICE accidentally escalating something via sloppiness, crossing something that they don't value but is a hard line to their local PD security detail, refusing to stop and getting smoked that way, either by their own security or by a passer by while their security shrugs. A fed might not care about literally doing a George Floyd, but your security force might just walk off rather than be party to that.

snowwrestler 9mo ago

To clarify why it’s aggressive: federal employees have a legal duty to secure classified information, but everyone else does not. Reporters are not federal employees and it’s not illegal for them to have or discuss classified materials. Most of what Snowden leaked was classified, and remains classified to this day, but you and I can read about it on Wikipedia. The government pursued Snowden because he was legally obligated to protect that info. They did not pursue Barton Gellman because he wasn’t. So in this case the government is raiding the home of someone who did not commit any crime, in the hopes of getting at people who might have. I think it’s not hard to imagine how this concept could get ugly fast.

disgruntledphd2 9mo ago
Thank you, this is really useful context!
giancarlostoro 9mo ago
That's nothing, there was the time the FBI raided James O'Keefe's house to find Ashley Biden's diary. I feel weird writing any of that out, because its sounds batshit, but they did that. Some people may not like James for any given number of reasons (NPR did a hit peace saying he doesn't qualify for journalism protections - which to me is a matter of opinion not necessarily fact), but since when do federal agents raid peoples homes for diaries? Were there nuclear launch codes in there or something? I would imagine there's way more important things they could have been doing at the time.
- parineum 9mo ago
  > Were there nuclear launch codes in there or something? It's funny you say that because that'd be just the same, classified information that leaked. They'd just change the codes and try to find who leaked them. The codes themselves would be inconsequential (once changed).
- NewJazz 9mo ago
  Wasn't the diary stolen, and thus the property was stolen? If you have proof or reasonable suspicion that someone has possession of a stolen property, shouldn't law enforcement be able to retrieve that?

trymas 9mo ago

[flagged]

awakeasleep 9mo ago
This dunk might work outside of the US, but inside raving about freedom has always been justification for a power grab

steve1977 9mo ago

I'd say it's not that unusual in totalitarian dictatorships actually.

zzzeek 9mo ago

"that the raid was conducted by the justice department and FBI at the request of the “department of war”, the Trump administration’s informal name for the department of defense." uh oh sounds like the Guardian is asking for a raid too

jimt1234 9mo ago
Not sure why they call the name ("Department of War") informal. Seems pretty formal to me. It's displayed on the building.
- riotnrrd 9mo ago
  It takes an act of Congress to change the name. Trump just made one of his dictatorial proclamations.
  - testing22321 9mo ago
    It was originally named the department of war, and changing it to defence was just newspeak anyway. Of all the things trump has done, I actually like this one. At least he’s being honest about his intentions for what this department does.
    - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 9mo ago
      I'm of two minds on this. As you say, renaming from War to Defense was a lie to tell Americans a more palatable story. However, renaming from Defense to War is actually the same thing in the current political context but for populace with different values. It is honest in a way but that was not the intention, nor is it the effective result. It's just a different lie.
      - testing22321 9mo ago
        I mean, they’re doing their best to start new wars right now, so I’d say it’s not a lie at all.

mesk 9mo ago

Or as some 'uknown' VP would say: We will protect freedom of speech until the last journalist is behind the bars. That is the price we are willing to pay.

aa_is_op 9mo ago
This country is turning into a meme
datsci_est_2015 9mo ago
Are you referencing something? I can’t find any utterances of this phrase or something similar to it. Sounds juicy though.
- mesk 9mo ago
  No and yes. The first sentence paraphrases certain someone blabbering about the lack of freedom of speech in the EU. The second is from Shrek :-)

cdrnsf 9mo ago

To think that this administration makes Nixon look principled.

g947o 9mo ago

Looks like even Jeff's wealth and bribery couldn't stop this from happening.

DFHippie 9mo ago
Jeff is actively abetting this.
- g947o 9mo ago
  Wouldn't it be easier to just fire the journalist, like what he did with the editorial?
  - datsci_est_2015 9mo ago
    Define “easier”? I see no opposition to this action that would punish or prevent future similar actions. Now you don’t have to play whack-a-mole with other ideological dissenters because they’ll fear for their safety. Journalists have always shown great tenacity when it comes to reporting news even if it jeopardizes their employment, but if it jeopardizes their safety… that’s perhaps one level too far for many journalists.

jvdvegt 9mo ago

Without paywall: https://archive.is/1haDB https://archive.is/1haDB

g947o 9mo ago

> “The Trump administration will not tolerate illegal leaks of classified information that, when reported, pose a grave risk to our nation’s national security and the brave men and women who are serving our country.” That's what the government said when Pentagon Papers were released. Guess what happened. But I guess time is different now, and today's supreme court isn't the same as the one in those days.

treebeard901 9mo ago
Yeah cases like this have already been settled years ago. Reporters and news agencies have the right to this information and to publish it if it is in the public interest.
- NoGravitas 9mo ago
  The current Supreme Court has shown itself to be extremely comfortable overturning precedent from that era.

curiousgal 9mo ago

It's honestly hilarious how fragile all those checks and balances you keep hearing about are. Americans are the first people to criticise other regimes for being authoritarian but I guess the turns have tabled!

Fazebooking 9mo ago

Journalists are the backbone of a healthy democracy. FU USA FU And just to be clear: The biggest military force of the world threatens denmark, scrambles the economy around the world due to sudden politic changes (tarifs) and destroys its own integrity as an ally

IAmBroom 9mo ago
Oh, we're clear. We're just powerless to do anything, as the (probably) legally elected administration runs this ship like its own personal party barge into ... everything in sight. Our Checks refuse to speak up in Congress, and our Balances keep voting to make the (current) POTUS immune to the law.
- octoberfranklin 9mo ago
  Frankly, both parties feel like the "elected administration runs this ship like its own personal party barge" when they're out of power. If you don't like that, the only solution is to push for limited government next time you're in power. Whatever power you put into the hands of the government is guaranteed to fall into your enemy's hands some day. This is a deliberate design feature of the US political system. It's the only way to get people to wake up for the need to limit government power. A good start would be ending selective prosecution by restoring the original role of grand juries: to decide whether or not to hire a contract prosecutor for a single case. Public Prosecutors can be just like Public Defenders -- contractors of the court, with no discretionary powers.
  - Fazebooking 9mo ago
    Thats def not the same though. Trump doesn't take the normal route as any other president did. Of course with his second term, at least people can't complain how he interacts with your ex allies like us germany. Thats fair to do, shitty and short viewed but hey. But certain things like his fraud coins etc. this is bluntly illegal and he did not do this shit in his first term.
  - panda-giddiness 9mo ago

scoofy 9mo ago

This shit needs to stop. If you have any Republican representatives right now, you might consider writing them every day. We can disagree on tax policy, immigration policy, even very strong issues, and I'm happy to fight about those issues and respect disagreement. But in the last month, the president has invaded a foreign country without even notifying congress, has used literal thug tactics to try to get lower interest rates, and now he's obviously illegally entering the home of a reporter to take information which is clear violation of the first and fourth amendments. This is unamerican. It's a violation of the clear principles of the constitution. It's against the law. It's trivially deserving of impeachment.

IAmBroom 9mo ago
Strongly worded letters to one's Congressperson are the equivalent to "thoughts and prayers". It doesn't matter how just (you think) your cause is; it will never achieve anything.
- nobody9999 9mo ago
  >Strongly worded letters to one's Congressperson are the equivalent to "thoughts and prayers". It doesn't matter how just (you think) your cause is; it will never achieve anything. Your assertion isn't supported by, well, anything. The problem is that constituents think they can't affect their representatives' positions. They can.[0][1] Especially if there's a concerted effort to do so. For every constituent who writes/calls/emails, there are at least a half-dozen more who feel the same way. The problem isn't that contacting your representatives isn't effective, it's that by not doing so, you're ceding power to those that do. [0] https://act.represent.us/sign/does-calling-congress-really-work/ https://act.represent.us/sign/does-calling-congress-really-w... [1] https://americansofconscience.com/calling-congress-still-matters/ https://americansofconscience.com/calling-congress-still-mat...

mickle00 9mo ago

fuck this -- how is this not on the front page of HN?

avensec 9mo ago
It is the most commented on and has the highest points today. See: https://hckrnews.com/ https://hckrnews.com/ . Another user pointed me to it in the past when I was also frustrated that an obviously engaged story was somehow being buried for reasons I didn't understand.
- nobody9999 9mo ago
  >It is the most commented on and has the highest points today. See: https://hckrnews.com/ https://hckrnews.com/ Also see https://news.ycombinator.com/active https://news.ycombinator.com/active

billy99k 9mo ago

"reporter early on Wednesday in what the newspaper called a “highly unusual and aggressive” move by law enforcement, and press freedom groups condemned as a “tremendous intrusion” " See: james o'keefe

marysminefnuf 9mo ago

amazing how so many people in the comment section defend this.

BLACKCRAB 9mo ago

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