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FBI is investigating Minnesota Signal chats tracking ICE
- superkuh 9mo agoTracking the murderers who executed citizens in the street and then fled the scene of the crime and any sort of trial or investigation? That ICE and Immigration and Border Patrol? I wonder why. And since when is tracking public officials operating in public in the capacity of their government jobs illegal? These federal goons need to be tracked and observed to record their crimes. That much is indisputable.
- stuffn 9mo ago[flagged]
- superkuh 9mo agoAnd you need to watch the videos but I imagine the cognitive dissonance is too uncomfortable.
- stuffn 9mo ago[flagged]
- hobs 9mo agoNo, the ones on broadcast television news where they go scene by scene breaking down any claims of Alex being at fault being bogus lies that you are now repeating.
- direwolf20 9mo agoWhen Trump saw the video of Renee Good's execution, he faltered. He hadn't seen that before.
- hackyhacky 9mo agoAre you holding up some random unverified substack, featuring an obvious AI-generated photo, as a reliable source of information? > You should probably read the original source before taking the opinion of your favorite pundit. This is not an "original source" of the article in question.
- OrvalWintermute 9mo ago[flagged]
- q34tlR4y 9mo ago[dead]
- nimbius 9mo agoi suppose what he means is that the phones of protestors which have signal chat will be investigated. Assuming they dont have disappearing messages activated, and assuming any protestors willingly unlock their phones.
- mrtesthah 9mo agoUnfortunately not everyone in a group chat may be fully vetted, in which case they could be feds collecting "evidence". Some chats may have publicly circulating invite links. But any judge that doesn't immediately reject such cases on a first-amendment basis is doing the business of an authoritarian dictator. This is fully protected speech and assembly.
- JumpCrisscross 9mo ago> any judge that doesn't immediately reject such cases on a first-amendment basis If you say something illegal in a chat with a cop in it, or say it in public, I don’t think there are Constitutional issues with the police using that as evidence. (If you didn’t say anything illegal, you have a valid defence.)
- mrtesthah 9mo agoSure. Can you give me an example of something that's illegal to say in a group chat that coordinates legal observers?
- direwolf20 9mo ago"ICE are at (address)" apparently
- JumpCrisscross 9mo ago> Can you give me an example of something that's illegal to say in a group chat that coordinates legal observers? Actual examples? No. I don’t believe it happened. Hypothetical examples? Co-ordinating gunning down ICE agents. If the chat stays on topic to “coordinat[ing] legal observers,” there shouldn’t be liability. The risk with open chats is they can go off topic if unmoderated.
- bediger4000 9mo agoWhy? That's unequivocally constitutionally protected speech. Why is our tax money being wasted on this?
- Sparkle-san 9mo agoBecause too many people dismissed the claims that electing Trump would lead to a fascist administration as alarmist. Turns out he meant every word he said during his campaign.
- PrettiGoodDead 9mo ago[flagged]
- spankalee 9mo agoYes - very, very dumb people did vote for him.
- hackyhacky 9mo agoWhen has the constitution mattered to this administration?
- randallsquared 9mo agoConspiracy to commit a crime is typically not included in protected speech. Whether you think that's happening here will depend mostly on what side you take, I suspect.
- JKCalhoun 9mo agoInteresting that there would be people on a "side" that think there was a conspiracy to commit a crime. What crime?
- PrettiGoodDead 9mo ago[flagged]
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- ddtaylor 9mo agoI don't know signal very well but when I have spoken to others about it they mention that the phone number is the only metadata they will have access to. This seems like a good example of that being enough metadata to be a big problem.
- spankalee 9mo agoI don't think it's much of a problem at all. Many of the protesters and observers are not hiding their identities, so finding their phone number isn't a problem. Even with content, coordinating legal activities isn't a problem either.
- Psillisp 9mo agoGovernment intimidation of the practice of constitutional rights... what ever could go wrong.
- spankalee 9mo agoI was replying specifically to this: > This seems like a good example of that being enough metadata to be a big problem I was not saying it's not a problem that the feds are doing this, because that's not what I was replying to.
- Psillisp 9mo agoYou are going to need to clarify more. I have no idea what you are for.
- rationalist 9mo agoWhy does a person have to be "for" something?
- Psillisp 9mo ago[flagged]
- dayyan 9mo ago[flagged]
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- hackyhacky 9mo agoSounds good, until you realize that they've now murdered two peaceful protesters, who they post facto smear as terrorists to justify their murder.
- dayyan 9mo ago[flagged]
- hackyhacky 9mo agoHow is a history of constitutional violations not on topic?
- spiderice 9mo ago[flagged]
- oceansky 9mo agoputting them at risk by trying to dodge them? What?
- hackyhacky 9mo agoThat's not what happened. Watch the video. What you'll see is an undertrained bully with no accountability who was looking for an excuse to use violence. That's why the victim was shot from the side, and why the administration refuses to allow a serious investigation.
- freejazz 9mo ago"fucking bitch" right?
- fleroviumna 9mo ago[dead]
- bs7280 9mo agoA wise man told me, you know signal works because its banned in Russia. I also find it incredibly ironic that they have a problem with this, when the DoD is flagrantly using signal for classified communications.
- psunavy03 9mo agoThe DOD is not using "flagrantly using Signal." The Secretary of Defense, whatever his preferred pronouns are, is breaking the law.
- kodyo 9mo agoCISA recommended Signal for encrypted end-to-end communications for "highly targeted individuals." https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/2024-12/guidance-mobile-communications-best-practices.pdf https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/2024-12/guidance-mo...
- paulryanrogers 9mo agoRecommendations to the private sector don't condone violating security and retention laws for people working in the public sector.
- sedivy94 9mo agoMilitary personnel are currently only allowed to use Signal for mobile communications within their unit. Classified information is a different story, though.
- Cornbilly 9mo agoThe best part is that, in trying to comply with this guidance, the government chose Telemessage to provide the message archiving required by the Federal Records Act. The only problem is that Telemessage was wildly insecure and was transmitting/storing message archives without any encryption.
- 9mo ago
- quercus 9mo ago[flagged]
- hobs 9mo agoMany people on hacker news have a reason to care about the united states government's position on signal and their evolving efforts relating to civil rights.
- quercus 9mo ago[flagged]
- tencentshill 9mo agoYeah! Signal has nothing to do with technology. The government trying to snoop on a private E2EE service is not worth discussion.
- iamnothere 9mo agoI have seen anti-Signal FUD all over the place since it was discovered that protesters have been coordinating on Signal. Here’s the facts: - Protesters have been coordinating using Signal - Breaches of private Signal groups by journalists and counter protesters were due to poor opsec and vetting - If the feds have an eye into those groups, it’s likely that they gained access in the same way as well as through informants (which are common) - Signal is still known to be secure - In terms of potential compromise, it’s much more likely for feds to use spyware like Pegasus to compromise the endpoint than for them to be able to break Signal. If NSA has a Signal vulnerability they will probably use it very sparingly and on high profile foreign targets. - The fact that even casual third parties can break into these groups because of opsec issues shows that encryption is not a panacea. People will always make mistakes, so the fact that secure platforms exist is not a threat in itself, and legal backdoors are not needed.
- cyberge99 9mo agoFeds and ICE are using Palantir ELITE.
- iamnothere 9mo agoThat’s only for targeting. From what I understand ELITE does not include device compromise or eavesdropping. If feds want to compromise a device that has Signal, they would use something like Pegasus that uses exploits to deliver a spyware package, likely through SMS, Whatsapp, or spear phishing URL. (I don’t actually know which software is currently in use but it would be similar to Pegasus.)
- lugu 9mo agoAs mentioned by someone else, they just need to take the phone of a demonstrator to access their signal groups. https://freedom.press/digisec/blog/new-leaks-on-police-phone-unlocking-tech/ https://freedom.press/digisec/blog/new-leaks-on-police-phone...
- 9mo ago
- JumpCrisscross 9mo agoI’ve never seen a set of voluntary fall guys like Noem, Patel and Miller. (And Hegseth for when a military operation fails.)
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- metalliqaz 9mo agoMiller is not the fall guy. The other clowns, yes, but not him. He's the most hard-core fascist in the bunch.
- lenerdenator 9mo agoI don't know if I'd classify Noem as a patsy or fall gal, either. When you mention an anecdote about shooting a hunting dog in your autobiography, that shows something beyond just being a "true believer" or stooge. That is willingly pointing out that you are willing to act out your lack of empathy through violence towards an animal. I'm not a clinician (and haven't met Noem) but that just seems to me to be something indicative of a personality disorder.
- xmcp123 9mo agoNoem strikes me as a loyalist and a team player through and through, so probably a fall gal. Miller is different. He has his own agenda, a lot of which has becomes trumps agenda. But trumps agenda changing does not change what Miller’s agenda is.
- cmrdporcupine 9mo agoTrump has loyalty only to himself and in his first term was constantly throwing people under the bus after he decided they were a liability to the Main Character. I could imagine we'll see the same thing again, before or after the midterms, and Miller and Bessent are two I expect to see have a dethroning at some point simply on account of Trump never taking responsibility for anything. That and I've seen both try to speak "on behalf" of Trump, something the authoritarian personality doesn't appreciate. However some of that logic is based on 1st round Trump not being as senile and insane as 2nd round Trump. It's possible his weakening cognitive faculties have made him even more open to manipulation.
- OutOfHere 9mo agohttps://www.phreeli.com/ https://www.phreeli.com/ lets people use phones without revealing identity.
- gruez 9mo agoNot sure what the point of the service is. Given that it's more expensive than other MVNOs, and isn't even more private. You can still buy prepaid SIMs in store with cash, so it's harder to get more private than that. Not to mention this company asks for your zip+4 code (which identifies down to a specific street), and information for E-911. It's basically like Trump Mobile but for people who care about "privacy".
- unethical_ban 9mo agoI was unaware that you could buy a SIM with cash and no private data collected. I thought they had KYC laws like prepaid cash cards.
- gruez 9mo ago>I thought they had KYC laws like prepaid cash cards. You don't. You could even order sim cards off ebay/amazon if you wanted to, which definitely doesn't have any KYC.
- OutOfHere 9mo agoClearly there is no point in it for you. The stores would ID you. As for the nine digit zip, I don't think they validate it. Your anti-privacy agenda is crystal clear.
- gruez 9mo ago>The stores would ID you Source? >As for the nine digit zip, I don't think they validate it. Why collect it then? Imagine having a service promising "lets people use phones without revealing identity" but for whatever reason asks for a bunch of info, then brushes it aside with "yeah but you can fill in fake information so it's fine". >Your anti-privacy agenda is crystal clear. Your inability to take any criticism without resorting to personal attacks is crystal clear.
- dang 9mo agoUrl changed from https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/kash-patel-says-the-fbi-is-investigating-signal-chats-of-minnesotans-tracking-ice https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/kash-patel-..., which points to this.
- quickthrowman 9mo agoI’d be curious to know what they plan to charge people with.
- netsharc 9mo agoJaywalking, misappropriating funds during a renovation? Whatever the police state wants...
- Pwntastic 9mo agodomestic terrorism, of course
- q34tlR4y 9mo ago[dead]
- missingcolours 9mo agoPresumably Seditious Conspiracy, like many people involved in J6. Conspiracy to use force to prevent or delay enforcement of laws.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- lenerdenator 9mo agoOr, at the very least, what they want to try to convince a grand jury to indict people on. That's another angle that needs to be discussed more often with respect to Trump's DoJ: if you're impaneled on a grand jury for charges coming out of these investigations, you don't have to give them a bill.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 9mo agoI hope they're just looking for foreign influence I'm not sure what you could charge peaceful protestors with that would survive in court.
- hsbauauvhabzb 9mo agoThey don’t need to if they just shoot them on the street.
- cdrnsf 9mo agoThey're going to give this more scrutiny than they did to Hegseth leaking sensitive government information.
- hedayet 9mo agoWith all the predatory tech Palantir has produced, it won't take more than a few minutes for FBI to start taking actions, IF they had anything tangible. This is just an intimidation tactic to stop people talking (chatting)
- jatora 9mo ago[flagged]
- lovich 9mo ago“Citizens of law enforcement” What a phrase
- 1potatonagger 9mo ago... that is correct.
- zem 9mo agothe fine nation of law enforcement, which has only colonised the united states for its own good and to bring civilisation to the heathen masses
- jatora 9mo agoyou're aware that LEO are citizens right? with rights as well?
- 9mo ago
- OhMeadhbh 9mo agoCouple of minor nits: 1. Some rando on X saying "OMG! I infiltrated a lefty signal group" doesn't mean said rando actually did infiltrate a signal group. 2. Signal was not the app Hegseth, et al. used. They used TM SGNL, which is a fork of Signal. But that's a minor nit. 3. Encryption is not the same thing as authentication. And authentication is somewhat meaningless if you let everyone into your encrypted group chat.
- nextlevelwizard 9mo agoAnyone organizing your neighborhood and events keep inner circle chats to only people you have personally vetted and use a new group chat for every event/topic and delete the groups for past events. Be mindful of what you share in a big group chat where you don’t know everyone
- zahlman 9mo ago[flagged]
- soupfordummies 9mo ago[flagged]
- q34tlR4y 9mo ago[dead]
- chinathrow 9mo agoThe FBI should investigate the murders done by ICE and until done with that, remain silent.
- hollandheese 9mo agoThe police (FBI and ICE included) are never your friends. They work to protect the rich and powerful and not us.
- Analemma_ 9mo agoCynical responses like this are meant to make the speaker sound smart, but actually what you're doing is making further tyranny more likely, because you're deliberately overlooking that-- whatever the existing problems with the FBI-- there is a significant difference between their behavior now and their behavior before. Not even bothering to run the established investigation playbook when law enforcement kills a civilian is a major departure, and one worth noticing. But if all you do is go "same old same old", then you can safely lean back in your chair and do nothing as the problem worsens, while calling yourself so much smarter and more insightful than the people around you.
- cess11 9mo agoBy before, what do you mean? COINTELPRO?
- Analemma_ 9mo agoThis is exactly my point. Yes, COINTELPRO was really bad. But it was intelligence and disruption, they weren't executing people on the street and then bragging about how they'd get away with it. Do you not see the difference?
- defen 9mo agoThey drugged and executed Fred Hampton and no one suffered any consequences for that as far as I know.
- mrandish 9mo agoI suspect they're going to find it challenging to turn protected speech into something prosecutable like obstruction - assuming activists exercise even a modicum of care in their wording. Seems like just another intimidation tactic but in doing that, they've also given a heads-up to their targets.
- nextlevelwizard 9mo agoConsidering ICE is executing people in the streets and were already breaking laws before this something little like free speech won’t help
- jatora 9mo ago[flagged]
- germinalphrase 9mo agoYour causality is reversed. The dude was literally just standing there on a public sidewalk with his hands up. He never initiated the altercation or otherwise impeded any lawful investigation. The agent chose to initiate the altercation during which the victim was pepper sprayed, pinned to the ground by six people, disarmed, and then shot ten times.
- zahlman 9mo ago[flagged]
- DangitBobby 9mo agoNot what happened.
- zahlman 9mo ago[flagged]
- hypeatei 9mo agoI'm convinced all this talk around Signal, including Hegseths fuckup, is to discourage "normies" (for lack of a better term) from using it. Even in this very HN thread, where you'd expect technical nuance, there are people spreading FUD around the phone number requirement as if that'd be your downfall... a timestamp and a phone number? How would that get someone convicted in court?
- pjc50 9mo agoThey don't have to get a conviction if they know your address and have a gun.
- sschueller 9mo agoInteresting, this may result in showing how secure signal really is.
- tbrownaw 9mo ago> Patel said he got the idea for the investigation from Higby. This is confirmation that this wasn't being investigated until just now. This is surprising, I would have thought that "how are these people organizing" would have been an obvious thing to look into.
- kergonath 9mo ago> I would have thought that "how are these people organizing" would have been an obvious thing to look into. You assume competence. Have you heard (or heard of) Kash Patel?
- LastTrain 9mo agoWhy is it so obvious to you to investigate something that is perfectly legal?
- mtswish 9mo agoThe current bias is so large for the administration that most people haven't even clocked that what they are doing is legal
- tbrownaw 9mo ago> something that is perfectly legal The goal is to prevent ICE / BP from doing their jobs. Which I rather suspect is not actually legal. Thinking they're incompetent doesn't change that. Thinking the specific laws they're (nominally) enforcing are evil doesn't change that. Thinking that national borders are fundamentally illegitimate doesn't change that. Perhaps the FBI had been ignoring this out of incompetence. Perhaps they'd been ignoring it as a form of protest. Either is interesting.
- ath3nd 9mo ago[dead]
- plagiarist 9mo agoThe FBI should investigate the first item in the Bill of Rights.
- nextlevelwizard 9mo agoThree letter agencies do three letter agency things
- hohithere 9mo agoYep
- bsimpson 9mo ago> “You cannot create a scenario that illegally entraps and puts law enforcement in harm’s way” Remember when words, at least usually, meant things?
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- CMay 9mo agoIt's not illegal to track law enforcement, but if any of their still visible chats show intent it will hurt them. They'll also want to find out how many people in the group chat are outside of the US, if any money was being exchanged, etc. Hopefully they can unwind these groups, because it's just pitting people against law enforcement who have no idea what they're up against. They don't seem to have a sense for when they have gone beyond protesting and have broken the law. There's this culture about them, like protesting means they are immune to law. If this all ties back to funded groups who are then misinforming these people about how they should behave to increase the chance of escalatory events with the knowledge that it will increase the chance of these inflammatory political highlights to maximize rage, it won't surprise me. If they want to follow ICE around and protest them, fine, but that's not what they're doing. These people are standing or parking their cars in front of their vehicles and blocking them. They'll also stand in front of the street exits to prevents their vehicles from leaving parking lots and so on. They refuse to move, so they have to be removed by force, because they are breaking the law. Some people are just trying to get arrested to waste ICE's time, and it's particularly bad because Minneapolis police won't help ICE. A lot of video recordings don't even start until AFTER they've already broken the law, so all you end up seeing is ICE reacting. Any time someone dies, there'll have to be an investigation to sort out what happened. Maybe the ICE officer made a mistake, but let the evidence be presented. Being that this is Minneapolis, hopefully they do a better job than the George Floyd case. I absolutely recommend you watch the entire Fall of Minneapolis documentary to get a better sense for what the country may be increasingly up against in multiple states: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFPi3EigjFA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFPi3EigjFA
- unethical_ban 9mo agoCivil disobedience exists and does not deserve a death sentence. At least, while decrying civil disobedience, you differ from the administration in one important aspect: You think there should be accountability for police shootings. That's different than the ICE leader, the DHS leader, the FBI director and the Vice President.
- CMay 9mo ago
- cantalopes 9mo ago[flagged]
- angry_octet 9mo ago[flagged]
- BonoboIO 9mo agoPerspective from Central Europe (Austria): I can tell you that essentially nobody here has any doubt that bad faith is at play. Our mainstream news outlets are openly calling the "official" versions from the Trump administration what they are – lies. The video evidence is clear to anyone watching: this was murder. No amount of spin changes what the footage shows. As citizens of a country that knows firsthand how fascism begins, we recognize the patterns: the brazen lying in the face of obvious evidence, the dehumanization, the paramilitarized enforcement without accountability. We've seen this playbook before. What Americans might not fully grasp is how catastrophically the US has damaged its standing abroad. The sentiment here has shifted from "trusted ally" to "unreliable partner we need to become independent from as quickly as possible." The only thing most Europeans still find relevant about the US at this point is Wall Street. The fact that the FBI is investigating citizens documenting government violence rather than the government agents committing violence tells you everything about where this is heading.
- RIMR 9mo agoJust a reminder that we're dealing with propagandists here. As many have already stated, Signal is overwhelmingly secure. More secure than any other alternative with similar viability here. If the feds were actually concerned about that, publicly "investigating" Signal chats is a great way to drive activists to less secure alternatives, while also benefiting from scattering activist comms.
- dyauspitr 9mo agoSo more nonsense. How about tracking down the murderer first.
- Ms-J 9mo agoPeople need to investigate the FBI. They would be shocked at their crimes. The recent Epstein news comes to mind but that is only the smallest tip of it. Always use encryption for anything. Encrypted messengers are great, but I would never trust Signal. It requires phone numbers to register among other issues, has intelligence funding from places such as the OTF, and their dev asset Rosenfeld is a whole other issue.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- EchoReflection 9mo ago[flagged]
- EchoReflection 9mo agohttps://mediabiasfactcheck.com/nbc-news/ https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/nbc-news/ and what is NBC "news"'s motive/agenda for framing this info the way they are? "LEFT-CENTER BIAS These media sources have a slight to moderate liberal bias. They often publish factual information that utilizes loaded words (wording that attempts to influence an audience by appeals to emotion or stereotypes) to favor liberal causes. These sources are generally trustworthy for information but may require further investigation NBC News is what some call a mainstream media source. They typically publish/report factual news that uses moderately loaded words in headlines such as this: 'Trump threatens border security shutdown, GOP cool to idea.' Story selection tends to favor the left through both wording and bias by omission, where they underreport some news stories that are favorable to the right. NBC always sources its information to credible sources that are either low biased or high for factual reporting. A 2014 Pew Research Survey found that 42% of NBC News’ audience is consistently or primarily liberal, 39% Mixed, and 19% consistently or mostly conservative. A more liberal audience prefers NBC. Further, a Reuters institute survey found that 46% of respondents trust their news coverage and 35% do not, ranking them #5 in trust of the major USA news providers."
- tclancy 9mo agoWhat are you getting at? The idea of any of the major news outlets in the US being left-leaning is risible nowadays.
- zahlman 9mo ago[flagged]
- foldr 9mo agoHmm? These are mostly news reports of one person calling another person a fascist. Notably, one of the people doing the calling is Donald Trump! >Last week, after being found guilty of falsifying business records, former President Donald Trump said Americans today live in a “fascist state,” building on his unfounded conspiracy theory that somehow President Joe Biden is behind his prosecution in Manhattan. https://edition.cnn.com/2024/06/06/politics/fascism-trump-biden-what-matters/ https://edition.cnn.com/2024/06/06/politics/fascism-trump-bi...
- resters 9mo agoHow many rights can Trump trample in one year? This is a big deal. I realize most of the problems started with the patriot act (most members of congress are culpable for that). We should all have zero tolerance for the erosion of our rights, zero tolerance for fake emergencies!
- timbit42 9mo agoOsama bin Laden won.
- heavyset_go 9mo agoThis is one of the reasons it's crucial that the next set of secure messaging systems does away with tying real phone numbers to accounts. One phone gets compromised and the whole network is identified with their phone numbers.
- inetknght 9mo agoIf only we knew this would happen when these products were launched... Oh wait, we did.
- trollbridge 9mo agoGee, like any of competing systems like Session.
- itake 9mo agoSession is a low-privacy fork of Signal. source: https://soatok.blog/2025/01/14/dont-use-session-signal-fork/ https://soatok.blog/2025/01/14/dont-use-session-signal-fork/ hn discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42707409 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42707409
- tasuki 9mo agoWhat better alternatives do we have? Not tying my account to a phone number, but rather saving thirteen words, is exactly the UX I've always desired. I don't even need privacy, but I hate losing things when I inevitably lose my phone number.
- nobody9999 9mo ago>What better alternatives do we have? Set up your own XMPP or Matrix server and only expose it via Tor.
- octoberfranklin 9mo agoRicochet (chat via Tor .onion circuits): https://www.ricochetrefresh.net/ https://www.ricochetrefresh.net/ Tox (if you're addicted to phones): https://tox.chat/ https://tox.chat/
- mw888 9mo agoThere seems to be wild speculation about freedom of speech rights or hacking Signal. The FBI simply joined groupchats and read them. This is trivial stuff.
- trollbridge 9mo agoOr just got control of 1 person’s phone/account.
- BurningFrog 9mo agoSeems like there are hundreds of people in those groups. Can't be hard to get into for some skilled undercover cops. TV shows have shown me they do these things all the time!
- themafia 9mo agoIt would help if they stopped holding demonstrations in front of facilities with huge amounts of facial recognition technology. Protesting is not something you should do "casually."
- eleventyseven 9mo agoProtesting is a fundamental human right and obligation. It is something that you should do as casually as you would voting, volunteering, and taking out the garbage: something you do from time to time when the moment demands it. See also: https://enwp.org/Chilling_effect https://enwp.org/Chilling_effect
- themafia 9mo ago[flagged]
- dns_snek 9mo ago> No. It's not. Governments are not natural. So you have no "fundamental" rights here. You could make the same moot point about all societal laws. Fundamental rights are determined by the constitution, the UN declaration of human rights, as well as any other local charters.
- kaitai 9mo agoYeah Cam Higby & friends have "infiltrated" the Signal groups. It's not that hard frankly, and most of the chats emphasize that 1) they're unvetted, 2) don't do anything illegal, anywhere, including taking a right on red if the sign is there saying not to 3) don't write anything you don't want read back to you in a court of law. Higby and friends do have "How do you do, Fellow Kids?" energy in those chats. Here's what I'm interested in: anyone know what Penlink's tools' capabilities actually are? Tangles and WebLoc. Are they as useful as advertised?
- Beijinger 9mo agoDon't want to spoil the fun here. But easy: Don't write anything that you don't want LEO to read.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- burnt-resistor 9mo ago- Don't join giant group chats unless you're Whiskey Pete inviting journalists into a "clean" opsec group. - Know others very personally or not at all. - Don't take a phone to any event without it being in a proven good RF blocking bag.. I wished they made a bag that allowed taking pictures and video with audio. - New people can potentially be liabilities such as crazy, stupid, undercover cops or adversaries, and/or destructive without a care. - Avoid people who think violence is "the way" because there's rarely a positive or politically-acceptable offramp for it. - Destruction of property can be effective non-violent resistance in limited circumstances, e.g., The Boston Tea Party, but that's becoming a criminal in the eyes of the current regime and 95% of rebellions fail.
- cindyllm 9mo ago[dead]
- zahlman 9mo ago[flagged]
- mycodendral 9mo agoAh yes, the typical language of peaceful protestors
- 0xbadcafebee 9mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO When the government wants to oppress people, they surveil the activists trying to fight oppression.
- Empact 9mo ago[flagged]
- Verlyn139 9mo ago[dead]
- ChromaticPanic 9mo agoNope, but executing law abiding citizens in the streets is
- TrnsltLife 9mo agoNeither of them were abiding by the law. Nor were either of them executed. Such hyperbole.
- 0dayz 9mo agoAbiding the law? What law did they break to constitute being shot dead on the spot? Or do you now support vague charges like "obstruction of justice"?
- kreetx 9mo agoOne person showed up with a gun, the other tried to flee (or run over) an officer. Wold you as a police officer always behave perfectly in any urgent situation?
- dannyfreeman 9mo ago
- modzu 9mo agoan old lady and a fucking nurse shot by goons in masks and tactical gear... and they are labelling who as terrorists??? ffs america
- amarant 9mo agoWhat is it like in the US these days? I'm on the outside (occasionally) looking in, and it looks like something out of European history class! The ice seem to have roughly the same priorities and roughly the same methodology as the SA had in the beginning. Is stuff really as bad as it looks or are media somehow exaggerating things? I mean I saw the pretti videos and it certainly seems to corroborate what media is saying. But I'm curious to hear Americans view on matters? As a European I'm also somewhat confused. I always thought that the reason the second amendment was made into such a big deal was because Americans felt they needed to be able to protect themselves in case the government ran amok. Isn't this the exact scenario those arguments were talking about? Have all the second amendment supporters been employed by ice/agree with what they're doing, or was it just empty talk? Stuff seems rough over there, if they actually are, take care everybody! Also please tell me how things actually stand inside the US cause it's making very little sense right now.
- abhinai 9mo agoTo put things in perspective, US is a massive country. All this news is coming from one tier 3 city. (Roughly speaking LA, NYC etc being tier 1. Seattle, Dallas etc being tier 2)
- zombot 9mo agoNext step: Those citizens will disappear and only turn up again in a mass grave 50 years later.
- kreetx 9mo ago[flagged]
- DangitBobby 9mo ago"Accidents"
- kreetx 9mo ago[flagged]
- notepad0x90 9mo agoKeep in mind that with secure messaging, if the other side gets compromised, your chats with them are compromised. This seems obvious, but with signal groups of a large size, they're effectively public groups. Signal insists on using your phone number too, refusing user ids or anything that will make analysis hard. Don't use Signal for organizing anything of this sort, I promise you'll regret it. I've heard people having better luck with Briar, but there might be others too. I only know that Signal and Whatsapp are what you want to avoid. Unless your concern is strictly cryptographic attacks of your chat's network-traffic and nothing more.
- indigo945 9mo ago> Signal insists on using your phone number too, refusing user ids or anything that will make analysis hard. That is no longer true, you can use user IDs now. For the other problem, you can enable self-deleting messages in group chats, limiting the damage when a chat does become compromised. Of course, this doesn't stop any persistent threat, such as law enforcement (is that even the right term anymore?) getting access to an unlocked phone.
- notepad0x90 9mo agoIt doesn't mean much if it isn't the default, even then people who got it prior to that use phone numbers, you can protect yourself maybe, but not other people in the group. But it's good they're doing this now.
- zahlman 9mo agoNo cryptography will protect a group that allows a traitor to join. The fundamental problem is vetting, and you really just can't do that remotely.
- copirate 9mo agoIt can protect the identity of the members, though.
- dominicrose 9mo agoWhy is it so hard for someone like Trump to admit that a mistake was made by one of his agents, put him in jail and leave Minnesota alone at least for a while? It was predictable that things would get worse if he didn't back off and tell the truth.
- bilekas 9mo ago> “As soon as Higby put that post out, I opened an investigation on it,” So when a right wing 'reporter' highlights people are doing things within their legal right, there's an investigation straight away. But they can release the Epstien files when the victims themselves are asking them to. > if that leads to a break in the federal statute or a violation of some law, then we are going to arrest people That's not how the justice system works, you can't just go on fishing expeditions to find a crime.
- NoGravitas 9mo agoReading the comments on this is the first time I've hoped that most HN comments are made by bots.
- henryattleburg 9mo ago[flagged]
- florkbork 9mo agoI think it's important to assess the quality of the comments - they aren't bringing facts, just stating opinions; doing so quickly and agreeing with each other. You can test this out - pick a few names on the comments that disagree, ctrl+f, and you'll quickly find one individual with 29 comments at the time of writing all over the thread; with a handful of others with 1-4 responses. This is not actually what the majority of people think and feel. IE; from recent polling > 55%+ of Americans have “very little” confidence in ICE, while 16 percent only have "some". That's ~71% of ordinary US folks; and I would wager many international folks are very clear eyed about the situation. But why don't you see a ratio of 7/10 of top level comments critical? It's reasonable to assume that about half of those people are just keeping to themselves or part of the political middle that feel something is a "bit wrong"; but not quite enough to go yell into the internet about it. For the others, arguing is tiring and doesn't seem to change much. Watching the situation induces feelings of dread, despair or helplessness. On the opposing side, that 29% of people are faced with the fact that they might actually be the "baddies" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToKcmnrE5oY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToKcmnrE5oY), and a good number of them are flooding conversations to prove they are in fact "not"... because admitting otherwise would mean they are actually doing something quite morally or ethically wrong by their own or their community standards. Since that would be unthinkable! the only logical reaction is to post frequently in shrill defense. If you keep that in mind - the relative psychology of each group - it's much easier not to despair if "everyone" seems to be saying the opposite of what you would expect.
- kreetx 9mo agoIn my comments, I add opinions after the facts. Nor have I been donwvoted to oblivion. IMO, the people who I reply to aren't really acquainted with the facts. I on the other hand happen to be a "bootlicker", while their opinion seems to be that it's ok to interfere with police work, and that the person that got shot did nothing wrong..
- phendrenad2 9mo agoSchrödinger's HN story: Is it a tech story (in which case it's uninteresting) or is it a political story (in which case it's against the rules)? It's both.
- theyneverlear 9mo ago[flagged]
- theyneverlear 9mo ago[flagged]
- volemo 9mo agoLook, there’s little I can do about my government. Maybe I can help you fight yours? They can’t harm me and you can bet I’m not visiting. Can we help somehow?
- cdrnsf 9mo agoMaybe they should investigate why the idiots in ICE tried to get into the Ecuadorian consulate in Minneapolis and then threatened staff when they were denied access.
- sethammons 9mo agosource: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2026/jan/28/footage-appears-to-show-ice-agent-trying-to-enter-ecuadors-consulate-in-minneapolis-video https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2026/jan/28/footag... What I can tell is ICE starts to open a door, and a clerk immediately stops them and ICE shut the door a second later. The clerk opens the door to further tell them they are not allowed to enter. The ICE person states they will not try to enter and if the clerk touches them, they will yank the person out of the building. ICE then leaves. I'm not ok with what ICE has been doing. But, it feels like a bit of a stretch to call this threatening staff, to me. Saying what will happen if the other party escalates feels like a different axis than threatening. Def taken as another data point in a sea of overreach however.
- nutjob2 9mo ago> The ICE person states they will not try to enter and if the clerk touches them, they will yank the person out of the building. I'm not sure what the agent has to do to qualify as a threat to you, but at the very least this is thuggish behavior. The embassy is Ecuadorean sovereign territory where the staff have immunity from US laws, threatening to yank someone out of there is like extracting someone from Ecuador by force. It's highly offensive. If you tried that at a US embassy you'd probably be shot, but it's generally impossible because they are all heavily secured and fortified.
- cdrnsf 9mo agoI don't think that it's reasonable to see this behavior as anything but threatening given the location and the ample context provided by ICE's behavior up to this point. > The ICE person states they will not try to enter and if the clerk touches them, they will yank the person out of the building. Does that not amount to a threat? It sounds as though most of these agents are poorly trained at best. https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/ice-unloads https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/ice-unloads > “The brand new agents are idiots,” an experienced ICE agent assigned to homeland security investigations told me. > The new ICE officer continued: “I thought federal agents were supposed to be clean cut but some of them pass around a flask as we are watching a suspect,” observing as well that the new guys “have some weird tattoos.”
- flumpcakes 9mo agoI can't believe there are so many boot licking fascist-lovers on hacker news. ICE are executing Americans on the streets and a bunch of people here are defending that. The US is cooked.
- colpabar 9mo agoyour comment will surely help!
- mangodrunk 9mo agoMaybe your understanding of things is wrong? Maybe the information you are getting on the situation is misleading? I am a democrat who does support ICE. If there are any issues, as there are given the numbers, they should be investigated. There have been many instances where an “execution” is claimed but they, the agents, were reasonable to assume imminent harm and self defense.
- mycodendral 9mo agoAre you capable of accurately describing the other sides argument?
- scotthenshaw3 9mo ago[dead]
- whatsupdog 9mo agoA lot of comments that don't go along the liberal hivemind are being downvoted and flagged, even though they don't break hacker news rules. If this community can not hear opposing opinions, then let's just ban political and politically charged news from being shared and discussed here.
- danorama 9mo agoCan I suggest that using the term "liberal hivemind" is really never going to help your case no matter what your "opposing opinion" is?
- TheCoelacanth 9mo agoAh, yes, that liberal hivemind saying that first amendment rights are a thing and that mild resistance is not grounds for summary execution. Classic liberal hivemind.