7 ms·

Gather evidence against employees, use that evidence to put them under pressure to testify against their employer or grant access to evidence. Sabu was put und

Gather evidence against employees, use that evidence to put them under pressure to testify against their employer or grant access to evidence. Sabu was put under pressure by the FBI, they threatened to place his kids into foster care. That was legal. Guess what, similar things would be legal in France. We all forget that money is nice, but nation states have real power. Western liberal democracies just rarely use it. The same way the president of the USA can order a Drone strike on a Taliban war lord, the president of France could order Musks plane to be escorted to Paris by 3 Fighter jets.

mmooss 9mo ago
> Western liberal democracies just rarely use it. Also, they are restricted in how they use it, and defendents have rights and due process. > Sabu was put under pressure by the FBI, they threatened to place his kids into foster care. Though things like that can happen, which are very serious.
- VBprogrammer 9mo ago
  > defendents have rights and due process. As they say: you can beat the rap but not the ride. If a state wants to make your life incredibly difficult for months or even years they can, the competent ones can even do it while staying (mostly) on the right side of the law.
  - colechristensen 9mo ago
    We are not entirely sure the rule of law in America isn't already over. People are putting a lot of weight on the midterm elections which are more or less the last line of defense besides a so far tepid response by the courts and even then consequence free defiance of court orders is now rampant. We're really near the point of no return and a lot of people don't seem to notice.
    - 5upplied_demand 9mo ago
      > We're really near the point of no return and a lot of people don't seem to notice. A lot of people are cheering it (some on this very site).
- toss1 9mo ago
  >> they are restricted in how they use it, and defendents have rights and due process. That due process only exists to the extent the branches of govt are independent, have co-equal power, and can hold and act upon different views of the situation. When all branches of govt are corrupted or corrupted to serve the executive, as in autocracies, that due process exists only if the executive likes you, or accepts your bribes. That is why there is such a huge push by right-wing parties to take over the levers of power, so they can keep their power even after they would lose at the ballot box.
- mschuster91 9mo ago
  > Also, they are restricted in how they use it, and defendents have rights and due process. As we're seeing with the current US President... the government doesn't (have to) care. In any case, CSAM is the one thing other than Islamist terrorism that will bypass a lot of restrictions on how police are supposed to operate (see e.g. Encrochat, An0m) across virtually all civilized nations. Western nations also will take anything that remotely smells like Russia as a justification.
  - gf000 9mo ago
    > As we're seeing with the current US President Well, that's particular to the US. It just shows that checks and balances are not properly implemented there, just previous presidents weren't exploiting it maliciously for their own gains.
    - direwolf20 9mo ago
      The USA voted to destroy it's checks and balances consistently for several decades, that is why they don't work now.
- nilamo 9mo ago
  > Also, they are restricted in how they use it, and defendents have rights and due process. It's a nice sentiment, if true. ICE is out there, right now today, ignoring both individual rights as well as due process.
  - generic92034 9mo ago
    They were talking about western liberal democracies, though. /s
kps 9mo ago
> We all forget that money is nice, but nation states have real power. Elon has ICBMs, but France has warheads.
- speed_spread 9mo ago
  France has Ariane, which was good enough to send Jame Web Telescope to some Lagrange point with extra precision. It's all fun and and games until the French finish their cigarette, arms French Guyana and fire ze missiles.
  - deleted 9mo ago
    [deleted]
  - UncleSlacky 9mo ago
    France has a little more than that... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_de_dissuasion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_de_dissuasion
ChrisMarshallNY 9mo ago
> We all forget that money is nice, but nation states have real power. I remember something (probably linked from here), where the essayist was comparing Jack Ma, one of the richest men on earth, and Xi Jinping, a much lower-paid individual. They indicated that Xi got Ma into a chokehold. I think he "disappeared" Ma for some time. Don't remember exactly how long, but it may have been over a year.
- deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]
- kshacker 9mo ago
  From what I hear, Ma made 1 speech critical of the government and Xi showed him his place. It was a few years, a year of total disappearance followed by slow rehab. But China is different. Not sure most of western europe will go that far in most cases.
  - SanjayMehta 9mo ago
    Trump kidnapped Maduro to show the latter his place, but then the US is neither China nor Western Europe so that does not count.
    - almosthere 9mo ago
      Arrested and the vast majority of Venezuela love that it happened. https://www.cbsnews.com/miami/news/venezuela-survey-trump-maduro-removal-us-relations-poll/ https://www.cbsnews.com/miami/news/venezuela-survey-trump-ma...
      - SanjayMehta 9mo ago
        Rand Paul asked Rubio what would happen if the shoe was on the other foot. Every US President from Truman onwards is a war criminal. https://www.tampafp.com/rand-paul-and-marco-rubio-clash-over-maduro-capture-if-they-took-our-president/ https://www.tampafp.com/rand-paul-and-marco-rubio-clash-over...
hiprob 9mo ago
It's legal to just put kids in foster care for no reason but to ruin someone's life?
- rvnx 9mo ago
  In France it's possible without legal consequences (though immoral), if you call 119, you can push to have a baby taken from a family for no reason except that you do not like someone. Claim that you suspect there may be abuse, it will trigger a case for a "worrying situation". Then it's a procedural lottery: -> If you get lucky, they will investigate, meet the people, and dismiss the case. -> If you get unlucky, they will take the baby, and it's only then after a long investigation and a "family assistant" (that will check you every day), that you can recover your baby. Typically, ex-wife who doesn't like the ex-husband, but it can be a neighbor etc. One worker explains that they don't really have time to investigate when processing reports: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VG9y_-4kGQA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VG9y_-4kGQA and they have to act very fast, and by default, it is safer to remove from family. The boss of such agency doesn't even take the time to answer to the journalists there... -> Example of such case (this man is innocent): https://www.lefigaro.fr/faits-divers/var-un-homme-se-mobilise-pour-recuperer-ses-enfants-places-20230114 https://www.lefigaro.fr/faits-divers/var-un-homme-se-mobilis... but I can't blame them either, it's not easy to make the right calls.
  - gf000 9mo ago
    I mean, that's surely not as simple as you make it out to be.
    - rvnx 9mo ago
      I've seen that during harassment; in one YouTube live the woman claimed: "today it's my husband to take care of him because sometimes my baby makes me angry that I want to kill him" but she was saying it normally, like any normal person does when they are angry. -> Whoops, someone talked with 119 to refer a "worrying" situation, baby removed. It's already two years. There are some non-profit fighting against such: https://lenfanceaucoeur.org/quest-ce-que-le-placement-abusif/ https://lenfanceaucoeur.org/quest-ce-que-le-placement-abusif... That being said, it's a very small % obviously not let's not exaggerate but it's quite sneaky.
gruez 9mo ago
>Sabu was put under pressure by the FBI, they threatened to place his kids into foster care. >That was legal. Guess what, similar things would be legal in France. lawfare is... good now? Between Trump being hit with felony charges for falsifying business records (lawfare is good?) and Lisa Cook getting prosecuted for mortgage fraud (lawfare is bad?), I honestly lost track at this point. >The same way the president of the USA can order a Drone strike on a Taliban war lord, the president of France could order Musks plane to be escorted to Paris by 3 Fighter jets. What's even the implication here? That they're going to shoot his plane down? If there's no threat of violence, what does the French government even hope to achieve with this?
- knallfrosch 9mo ago
  fighter jets ARE a threat of violence, and it is widely understood and acknowledged. Again: the threat is so clear that you rarely have to execute on it.
  - gruez 9mo ago
    >fighter jets ARE a threat of violence, and it is widely understood and acknowledged. That's not a credible threat because there's approximately 0% chance France would actually follow through with it. Not even Trump would resort to murder to get rid of his domestic adversaries. As we seen the fed, the best he could muster are some spurious prosecutions. France murdering someone would put them on par with Russia or India.
    - ozim 9mo ago
      Don’t forget that captain of the plane makes decisions not Elon. If captain of the plane disobeyed direct threat like that from a nation, his career is going to be limited. Yeah Elon might throw money at him but that guy is most likely never allowed again to fly near any French territory. I guess whole cabin crew as well . Being clear for flying anywhere in the world is their job. Would be quite stupid to loose it like truck driver DUI getting his license revoked.
xoxolian 9mo ago
> We all forget that money is nice, but nation states have real power. Interesting point. There's a top gangster who can buy anything in the prison commissary; and then there's the warden.
- hkpack 9mo ago
  No, state decides on the rules of the game any business is playing by.
  - arijun 9mo ago
    I think both you and the comment you're replying to agree with the gp.
SpaceManNabs 9mo ago
> Sabu was put under pressure by the FBI, they threatened to place his kids into foster care. This is pretty messed up btw. Social work for children systems in the USA are very messed up. It is not uncommon for minority families to lose rights to parent their children for very innocuous things that would not happen to a non-oppressed class. It is just another way for the justice/legal system to pressure families that have not been convicted / penalized under the supervision of a court. And this isn't the only lever they use. Every time I read crap like this I just think of Aaron Swartz.
- pastage 9mo ago
  One can also say we do too little for children who get mistreated. Taking care of other peoples children is never easy the decision needs to be fast and effective and no one wants to take the decision to end it. Because there are those rare cases were children dies because of a reunion with their parents.
projektfu 9mo ago
Wait, Sabu's kids were foster kids. He was fostering them. Certainly if he went to jail, they'd go back to the system. I mean, if you're a sole caretaker and you've been arrested for a crime, and the evidence looks like you'll go to prison, you're going to have to decide what to do with the care of your kids on your mind. I suppose that would pressure you to become an informant instead of taking a longer prison sentence, but there's pressure to do that anyway, like not wanting to be in prison for a long time.
rhetocj23 9mo ago
[dead]
cadamsdotcom 9mo ago
Yes but using such power unscrupulously is a great way to lose it.
chrisjj 9mo ago
> Gather evidence against employees I'm sure they have much better and quieter ways to do that. Whereas a raid is #1 choice for max volume...

mmooss 9mo ago

> Western liberal democracies just rarely use it. Also, they are restricted in how they use it, and defendents have rights and due process. > Sabu was put under pressure by the FBI, they threatened to place his kids into foster care. Though things like that can happen, which are very serious.

VBprogrammer 9mo ago
> defendents have rights and due process. As they say: you can beat the rap but not the ride. If a state wants to make your life incredibly difficult for months or even years they can, the competent ones can even do it while staying (mostly) on the right side of the law.
- colechristensen 9mo ago
  We are not entirely sure the rule of law in America isn't already over. People are putting a lot of weight on the midterm elections which are more or less the last line of defense besides a so far tepid response by the courts and even then consequence free defiance of court orders is now rampant. We're really near the point of no return and a lot of people don't seem to notice.
  - 5upplied_demand 9mo ago
    > We're really near the point of no return and a lot of people don't seem to notice. A lot of people are cheering it (some on this very site).
toss1 9mo ago
>> they are restricted in how they use it, and defendents have rights and due process. That due process only exists to the extent the branches of govt are independent, have co-equal power, and can hold and act upon different views of the situation. When all branches of govt are corrupted or corrupted to serve the executive, as in autocracies, that due process exists only if the executive likes you, or accepts your bribes. That is why there is such a huge push by right-wing parties to take over the levers of power, so they can keep their power even after they would lose at the ballot box.
mschuster91 9mo ago
> Also, they are restricted in how they use it, and defendents have rights and due process. As we're seeing with the current US President... the government doesn't (have to) care. In any case, CSAM is the one thing other than Islamist terrorism that will bypass a lot of restrictions on how police are supposed to operate (see e.g. Encrochat, An0m) across virtually all civilized nations. Western nations also will take anything that remotely smells like Russia as a justification.
- gf000 9mo ago
  > As we're seeing with the current US President Well, that's particular to the US. It just shows that checks and balances are not properly implemented there, just previous presidents weren't exploiting it maliciously for their own gains.
  - direwolf20 9mo ago
    The USA voted to destroy it's checks and balances consistently for several decades, that is why they don't work now.
nilamo 9mo ago
> Also, they are restricted in how they use it, and defendents have rights and due process. It's a nice sentiment, if true. ICE is out there, right now today, ignoring both individual rights as well as due process.
- generic92034 9mo ago
  They were talking about western liberal democracies, though. /s

kps 9mo ago

> We all forget that money is nice, but nation states have real power. Elon has ICBMs, but France has warheads.

speed_spread 9mo ago
France has Ariane, which was good enough to send Jame Web Telescope to some Lagrange point with extra precision. It's all fun and and games until the French finish their cigarette, arms French Guyana and fire ze missiles.
- deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]
- UncleSlacky 9mo ago
  France has a little more than that... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_de_dissuasion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_de_dissuasion

ChrisMarshallNY 9mo ago

> We all forget that money is nice, but nation states have real power. I remember something (probably linked from here), where the essayist was comparing Jack Ma, one of the richest men on earth, and Xi Jinping, a much lower-paid individual. They indicated that Xi got Ma into a chokehold. I think he "disappeared" Ma for some time. Don't remember exactly how long, but it may have been over a year.

deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]
kshacker 9mo ago
From what I hear, Ma made 1 speech critical of the government and Xi showed him his place. It was a few years, a year of total disappearance followed by slow rehab. But China is different. Not sure most of western europe will go that far in most cases.
- SanjayMehta 9mo ago
  Trump kidnapped Maduro to show the latter his place, but then the US is neither China nor Western Europe so that does not count.
  - almosthere 9mo ago
    Arrested and the vast majority of Venezuela love that it happened. https://www.cbsnews.com/miami/news/venezuela-survey-trump-maduro-removal-us-relations-poll/ https://www.cbsnews.com/miami/news/venezuela-survey-trump-ma...
    - SanjayMehta 9mo ago
      Rand Paul asked Rubio what would happen if the shoe was on the other foot. Every US President from Truman onwards is a war criminal. https://www.tampafp.com/rand-paul-and-marco-rubio-clash-over-maduro-capture-if-they-took-our-president/ https://www.tampafp.com/rand-paul-and-marco-rubio-clash-over...

hiprob 9mo ago

It's legal to just put kids in foster care for no reason but to ruin someone's life?

rvnx 9mo ago
In France it's possible without legal consequences (though immoral), if you call 119, you can push to have a baby taken from a family for no reason except that you do not like someone. Claim that you suspect there may be abuse, it will trigger a case for a "worrying situation". Then it's a procedural lottery: -> If you get lucky, they will investigate, meet the people, and dismiss the case. -> If you get unlucky, they will take the baby, and it's only then after a long investigation and a "family assistant" (that will check you every day), that you can recover your baby. Typically, ex-wife who doesn't like the ex-husband, but it can be a neighbor etc. One worker explains that they don't really have time to investigate when processing reports: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VG9y_-4kGQA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VG9y_-4kGQA and they have to act very fast, and by default, it is safer to remove from family. The boss of such agency doesn't even take the time to answer to the journalists there... -> Example of such case (this man is innocent): https://www.lefigaro.fr/faits-divers/var-un-homme-se-mobilise-pour-recuperer-ses-enfants-places-20230114 https://www.lefigaro.fr/faits-divers/var-un-homme-se-mobilis... but I can't blame them either, it's not easy to make the right calls.
- gf000 9mo ago
  I mean, that's surely not as simple as you make it out to be.
  - rvnx 9mo ago
    I've seen that during harassment; in one YouTube live the woman claimed: "today it's my husband to take care of him because sometimes my baby makes me angry that I want to kill him" but she was saying it normally, like any normal person does when they are angry. -> Whoops, someone talked with 119 to refer a "worrying" situation, baby removed. It's already two years. There are some non-profit fighting against such: https://lenfanceaucoeur.org/quest-ce-que-le-placement-abusif/ https://lenfanceaucoeur.org/quest-ce-que-le-placement-abusif... That being said, it's a very small % obviously not let's not exaggerate but it's quite sneaky.

gruez 9mo ago

>Sabu was put under pressure by the FBI, they threatened to place his kids into foster care. >That was legal. Guess what, similar things would be legal in France. lawfare is... good now? Between Trump being hit with felony charges for falsifying business records (lawfare is good?) and Lisa Cook getting prosecuted for mortgage fraud (lawfare is bad?), I honestly lost track at this point. >The same way the president of the USA can order a Drone strike on a Taliban war lord, the president of France could order Musks plane to be escorted to Paris by 3 Fighter jets. What's even the implication here? That they're going to shoot his plane down? If there's no threat of violence, what does the French government even hope to achieve with this?

knallfrosch 9mo ago
fighter jets ARE a threat of violence, and it is widely understood and acknowledged. Again: the threat is so clear that you rarely have to execute on it.
- gruez 9mo ago
  >fighter jets ARE a threat of violence, and it is widely understood and acknowledged. That's not a credible threat because there's approximately 0% chance France would actually follow through with it. Not even Trump would resort to murder to get rid of his domestic adversaries. As we seen the fed, the best he could muster are some spurious prosecutions. France murdering someone would put them on par with Russia or India.
  - ozim 9mo ago
    Don’t forget that captain of the plane makes decisions not Elon. If captain of the plane disobeyed direct threat like that from a nation, his career is going to be limited. Yeah Elon might throw money at him but that guy is most likely never allowed again to fly near any French territory. I guess whole cabin crew as well . Being clear for flying anywhere in the world is their job. Would be quite stupid to loose it like truck driver DUI getting his license revoked.

xoxolian 9mo ago

> We all forget that money is nice, but nation states have real power. Interesting point. There's a top gangster who can buy anything in the prison commissary; and then there's the warden.

hkpack 9mo ago
No, state decides on the rules of the game any business is playing by.
- arijun 9mo ago
  I think both you and the comment you're replying to agree with the gp.

SpaceManNabs 9mo ago

> Sabu was put under pressure by the FBI, they threatened to place his kids into foster care. This is pretty messed up btw. Social work for children systems in the USA are very messed up. It is not uncommon for minority families to lose rights to parent their children for very innocuous things that would not happen to a non-oppressed class. It is just another way for the justice/legal system to pressure families that have not been convicted / penalized under the supervision of a court. And this isn't the only lever they use. Every time I read crap like this I just think of Aaron Swartz.

pastage 9mo ago
One can also say we do too little for children who get mistreated. Taking care of other peoples children is never easy the decision needs to be fast and effective and no one wants to take the decision to end it. Because there are those rare cases were children dies because of a reunion with their parents.

projektfu 9mo ago

Wait, Sabu's kids were foster kids. He was fostering them. Certainly if he went to jail, they'd go back to the system. I mean, if you're a sole caretaker and you've been arrested for a crime, and the evidence looks like you'll go to prison, you're going to have to decide what to do with the care of your kids on your mind. I suppose that would pressure you to become an informant instead of taking a longer prison sentence, but there's pressure to do that anyway, like not wanting to be in prison for a long time.

rhetocj23 9mo ago

[dead]

cadamsdotcom 9mo ago

Yes but using such power unscrupulously is a great way to lose it.

chrisjj 9mo ago

> Gather evidence against employees I'm sure they have much better and quieter ways to do that. Whereas a raid is #1 choice for max volume...