10 ms·

Burglars Who Took on F.B.I. Abandon Shadows

429 points by philipn 13y ago

selmnoo 13y ago
Among the grim litany of revelations was a blackmail letter F.B.I. agents had sent anonymously to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., threatening to expose his extramarital affairs if he did not commit suicide. Hoooooly shit. Wow. They actually did that.
- PavlovsCat 13y ago
  Call me paranoid, but I am expecting a comeback of such things, considering this: http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/01/05/fbi_drops_law_enforcement_as_primary_mission http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/01/05/fbi_drops...
- afterburner 13y ago
  Yup. Supposedly Martin Luther King Jr.'s wife read the letter first, possibly at MLK's request. This is why the NSA revelations are so scary. This kind of stuff has already been done, and the NSA could do it so much worse, to so many more people.
- firstOrder 13y ago
  If anyone saw the movie "A Serious Man", you may remember that the protagonist's employer received anonymous poison pen letters regarding himself. I know someone that happened to in real life. His name is Louis Proyect. He was a student in the 1960s and got involved with the anti-war movement, and then became a programmer at Metropolitan Life still active in the anti-war movement. The FBI used to send anonymous poison pen letters to his employer, Met Life, in order to try to get him fired. Actually he got his hands on some FOIA documents after a lawsuit, he has some of them on his web page: http://louisproyect.org/2007/08/19/encounters-with-the-fbi http://louisproyect.org/2007/08/19/encounters-with-the-fbi
- cfreeman 13y ago
  They sent a tape with recordings of him having sex with a mistress too.
- InclinedPlane 13y ago
  All of this has happened before and all of this will happen again. As bad as we think the NSA is today the FBI in its "glory days" under Hoover were far, far worse. McCarthy was far worse. "Existential risk to the republic" worse. The NSA is not "that bad", yet, probably. But the potential is there, if anything the potential for badness is far worse and the ability to reign it in seemingly diminished. Edit: Also, the fundamental problem today is not the NSA, it's just a symptom. Even if we completely defunded the NSA tomorrow as well as put every NSA employee on a rocket and shot them into the Sun it would still not solve the underlying problem and it would just be a matter of time before we'd be facing the same issues from some other direction. The problem is that the constitution has been weakened, in pretty much every way. But one important aspect to that is the idea that things that happen on the internet aren't "real" in some basic way that makes the absence of legal protection of fundamental liberties online acceptable.
  - fit2rule 13y ago
    >As bad as we think the NSA is today the FBI in its "glory days" under Hoover were far, far worse. McCarthy was far worse. I disagree, 100%. The NSA is far more powerful, and far - FAR - more dangerous now than the FBI ever was under Hoover. If you don't think this is the case, I don't think you're really looking honestly at the situation. In the Hoover/FBI days, we had a chance - the Operation Snow Whites' and so on. Now, however, there is no such chance: the NSA has far, far too many safe-guards in place to protect itself, and has infiltrated - and controls, directly - too many so-called 'peace movements' and other groups that might have a chance at awakening the sheeple. We must be more diligent, and with greater resolve to fight back now, than ever before in history - because we are at the cusp of allowing a seriously evil influence over the world to have its will - whereas in the 60's and 70's, people were willing to stand up and fight, now hardly anyone will. At all.
    - InclinedPlane 13y ago
      As I said the potential is worse, likely far worse, but right now it's not quite there (maybe?). Back in the worst days with Hoover they were actively targeting specific political activists and basically running black ops against them. We haven't reached that stage with NSA, as far as I can tell, though the potential is certainly there. Maybe you misinterpreted what I said, it shouldn't be an excuse to wait until things get worse before taking action. The fact that the potential is there should be enough.
- a3n 13y ago
  Weapons get used. Power gets used. Until 2013 it was possible to think that the NSA spying wasn't really pervasive, wasn't really against all Americans. Now we know better, but we still think that NSA blackmailing of politicians and others is just too out there, conspiracy theory. But the government has already done exactly that, and probably more. And they'll do it again. Dick Cheney's office outed a covert CIA spy for political revenge. Every overly powerful organization, whether government, corporate or just personal wealth, will be corrupted eventually, because they will inevitably attract corrupt people.
- mikeash 13y ago
  In the wake of Nelson Mandela's death, there were a lot of people who expressed the sentiment that he was not actually a great man, because he espoused violence, because he blew things up, etc. I've seen similar sentiments expressed about Dr. King. In short, he was a womanizer who does not deserve our praise. He is lauded for political purposes. It makes me wonder if the government embraces, and perhaps even plants, ideas like this. Nobody is perfect, and the more stuff somebody accomplishes, the less perfect they're likely to be. No hero will be without something like this to tarnish their image. By convincing the public that a hero should be perfect, they can hold their past transgressions over them in order to gain compliance, as the FBI tried to do here. They can control the narrative afterwards, by concentrating on the flaws of heroes they don't like, and ignoring the flaws of those they do. It certainly seems to have happened in politics, anyway. Few candidates with anything interesting to say make it to office, since they inevitably have something pointless but "scandalous" in their past. If they do, then the threat of exposure should work wonders for getting them to behave.
  - mpyne 13y ago
    > It makes me wonder if the government embraces, and perhaps even plants, ideas like this. With full awareness that governments have done this, I really wish people would stop thinking that if a group of rational people oppose things done by one of our heroes, that it could only be as a result of a government sockpuppet. Rhetoric as a concept or tool is incredibly expansive, it's hardly limited to just government. And it wasn't that long ago that Che Guevara was insulting the USA during his speech to the UN for the Ku Klux Klan, the existence of which should readily demonstrate that the people themselves will erect biases and grudges of their own independent of (and often contrary to) government interference. The same government responsible for the agency that threatened MLK, also had to forcibly integrate segregated schools, and forcibly adopt so many other civil rights measures that are still debated today. But in any event if you have paid enough attention to politics (or at least American politics) it would be clear that having minor scandals is not only not a roadblock, but can often be used to great effect in a politician's career. If one thinks "the people" are too stupid to figure this out then would could possibly be the point of a democracy? Let people point out what they want about Dr. King, Nelson Mandela, or anyone else (especially if it's true!). People see the world through different lenses, one may worry more about what our hero does "when no one is watching for compliance" as a measure of integrity. Another may worry only about what the hero does in public as a measure of effectiveness. That doesn't make one or the other of these people a government plant, it just means that we're (wonderfully) different.
- grecy 13y ago
  That's one of the least nasty things they did... they've intentionally infected thousands of people with nasty diseases, overthrown democratically elected governments, assisted in military coups, cheated, lied and stolen for years and years.
joshfraser 13y ago
It's interesting how history repeats itself. This is the story of how we ended up with the FISA court. The lesson for us is that need to be careful that whatever reforms we make to fix the NSA won't be used in even worse ways in the future.
- rdtsc 13y ago
  It likely will be. The bad side-effect is that they have now measured exactly what the tolerance to this is -- t\it wasn't that bad a of a reaction from the general population. HN/Reddit and other communities are too small compared to the general population. Now what can happen, is they can be more brazen in their actions and take it up a couple of more notches, as the saying goes. For example, they know that we know, so no need to expend much effort hiding their tactics and methods. You do something they don't like? They can clearly just send an agent or make a phone call. You did something undesirable but not necessarily illegal, well they might go back 2 years and listen to how you confessed to your partner that you cheated on your IRS taxes that year. You might get a "friendly" reminder from them about that conversation and what it could do if IRS got that info. Another level of this is people start assuming they are omniscient and omnipotent in gathering information. They become the de-facto record keepers. If there is a dispute about a fact, they can chime and say that well "on Friday, November 15, 20:30, you made a phone call and you confessed to this crime". Whether that happened or not, might not matter, what matters is that they could make it up and many will take their word for it.
  - sdoering 13y ago
    I don't know, how it is in the US, but here in Germany, the "normal" media reports the same narrative, that the general public does not care. I can only say, that a great lot of people I know and heard of, do care but often times, they do not know, what to do and what can be done. So do not buy into this narrative. Fight against it, as (at least to me) it does not seem to be true. But I believe, that your dystopic view might be(come) true. Sad, but true.
oinksoft 13y ago
By taking no credit, they ensured the story would be about the documents and not the burglars.
- oskarth 13y ago
  Counterpoint: Snowden vs Manning. It's not that simple.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - oinksoft 13y ago
    They're both examples of how not to do this sort of thing in that regard.
    - Joeboy 13y ago
      To be fair, the key difference is that these guys got away with it. If they hadn't, I hope they'd have the level of notoriety and support Snowden and Manning have had. But I agree that it would be better to focus on the facts and issues rather than the individuals involved.
      - mpyne 13y ago
        > To be fair, the key difference is that these guys got away with it. The other difference is that "these guys" didn't do anything else but find the evidence they needed to prove the types of spying the FBI was up to. It's not as if they copied out all of the FBI file cabinets and only then revealed evidence of spying, along with disclosing lists of known Soviet spies under watch by the FBI.
  - Joeboy 13y ago
    Countercounterpoint: Julian Assange.
pedalpete 13y ago
I'm surprised that this hasn't been referred to regularly throughout the whole current NSA revelations. Or have I just missed it. Really looking forward to reading the book.
- pivnicek 13y ago
  There was a whole popular culture movement back then. I don't see that now, sadly.
- a3n 13y ago
  You can start now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens%27_Commission_to_Investigate_the_FBI https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens%27_Commission_to_Inve... Follow the links out from there.
suprgeek 13y ago
It is hard to conceive of the risk faced by these folks in order to carry out what was in effect an act of civil disobedience -for no personal gain. Bravo! Unfortunately it looks like such courageous folks are the last remaining defense against absolute tyranny in the United States. One wonders how many such actions are even possible with the advent of the global surveillance state?
- joe_the_user 13y ago
  Snowden showed such actions to reveal government surveillance are still possible. The bigger question now is whether his revelations can create any change.
  - dalek_cannes 13y ago
    > The bigger question now is whether his revelations can create any change. It will. It will change the acronym involved. First from FBI to NSA. Now from NSA to something else. Edit: not a statement of cynicism; merely predicting what the government will attempt to do.
  - rbanffy 13y ago
    > such actions to reveal government surveillance are still possible. I worry for how long it will remain so.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
junto 13y ago
I wouldn't put it past the current government to try and push through a new bill so that they could remove the statute of limitations in cases like this where "national security was compromised", so that they can now still prosecute the "traitors". I also wouldn't put it past the current government to use that new power to then posthumously prosecute Mr. Davidon who "died late last year from complications of Parkinson’s disease". Call me cynical, but nothing that USG does to further "protect" its "national security" would surprise me anymore.
- jessedhillon 13y ago
  Given that ex post facto laws are specifically prohibited in the Constitution, that sounds fantastically farfetched even for this thread.
  - accountoftheday 13y ago
    Ex post facto, such as the retroactive changes in CA tax law?
    - twoodfin 13y ago
      Way back to Calder v. Bull in 1798, the U.S. Supreme Court has held that the ex post facto restriction applies to criminal law, not civil matters like taxation. Unusual retroactive taxation could face a due process challenge, but the basic "pass a tax law January 20 that extends backwards to January 1" kind of retroactivity has been upheld several times.
      - mindslight 13y ago
        Just because the Supreme Council condones something does not mean that it is consistent with the Constitution (which is itself only relevant because it's USG's purported charter).
        jessedhillon 13y ago
hooande 13y ago
What strikes me is how little was gained by both sides in this, and how futile their actions seem in hindsight. History probably would have ended up in a similar way if Hoover had not devoted so many resources to spying on Viet Nam protestors and counter culture revolutionaries. He was really pursuing his lifelong obsession with communism, which was another political movement that probably would have died without so much government surveillance. His spying didn't do anything to dissuade Martin Luther King or other members of the Civil Rights movement. All that effort and violation of privacy for a difficult to discern impact on history. Stealing and publishing documents from the FBI didn't seem to have much of an impact either. There was a temporary public outcry, some commissions were established and the whole thing was forgotten in less than a decade. We just wound up in the same situation 40 years later and will most likely end up with the same results. It takes a mountain of courage to steal from the freaking FBI, and that group of people deserve credit for standing up for what they believed in. If only their risk produced a more appreciable reward for society. I fear a never ending cycle of surveillance and protest. Chicken and the egg. The stakes seem higher now, on both sides, but there are no guarantees that we won't go through the whole process again to achieve the same non-result. We need to figure out how to use the political process instead of theft to stop our government agencies from doing things that we don't like. Or else we'll be reading this same story again decades from now.
- jmngomes 13y ago
  "Stealing and publishing documents from the FBI didn't seem to have much of an impact either. There was a temporary public outcry, some commissions were established and the whole thing was forgotten in less than a decade." I think what they did was both brave and highly valuable. They went through great risks to ignite a spark among their fellow citizens, so they would join them in opposing these practices. It's a shame that the majority of their fellow citizens decided to ignore the problem. I too fear that we're going into "never ending cycle of surveillance and protest", but because democracy requires active participation from citizens, and these rarely do anything but complain and, sometimes, vote.
- spot 13y ago
  there are more than those two sides. this definitely altered the balance between the left and right in the US. this lead to shutting down COINTELPRO, the PRISM of that age.
pistle 13y ago
Organized civil disobedience was ineffective.
forgotAgain 13y ago
Interesting that, if done today, analysis of a few months worth of meta-data would show exactly who they were. Edit: Also interesting that today they would be called home grown terrorists instead of anti-war activists.
tokenadult 13y ago
I see most of the interesting comments here so far are from a strictly American perspective, that is just commenting on what was happening in the United States then or is happening in the United States now. But of course there is more than one country in the world. In another place I have lived[1] a supposedly democratic government that in fact was a dictatorship engaged in comprehensive spying on all civil society organizations--not just the organizations that were formally opposition organizations--and stifled all mass media organizations with censorship. That didn't stop a people-power democracy movement from starting and succeeding in democratizing that country. I've advised Hacker News participants before[2] that people power democracy movements to overthrow dictatorships with comprehensive surveillance programs are not easy, but they can succeed. You and I need mental toughness, persistence, and courage to be part of the solution, but what better reward for those virtues is there than expanded freedom (and the dignity of knowing you did the right thing)? Don't give up. Keep on organizing to gain freedom and protect civil rights. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5985720 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5985720 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6336795 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6336795
- mikeash 13y ago
  My guess is that things will have to get worse before they can get better, that it's paradoxically easier to democratically overthrow a true dictatorship than the sort of increasingly-oppressive democracy we see in the US. I say this because most Americans are generally happy with the system. There are aspects they dislike, and lots of results they dislike, but there is still deep respect for the system itself in the people. I think the system may have reached a point where it no longer works well, but it still gives the appearance of doing so. Dictatorships famously have rigged elections to give the regime the appearance of democracy. However, nobody actually believes it. The dictator wins roughly 99.44% of the vote and everybody knows the election is a sham. Here, we have pretty decent elections that are mostly fair and well contested, but which ultimately don't accomplish much. We end up choosing between two candidates who have few differences when it comes to how they'll handle civil liberties, elections, third parties, and such. But the vast majority of the population doesn't see it that way, and so the election, and the system as a whole, is seen as legitimate even though it doesn't really work. Worse, the system manages to control public opinion to perpetuate itself. Most Americans are deeply afraid of terrorism and welcome extreme measures to fight it. Expressing the idea that we should prosecute terrorists as common criminals and accept the occasional mass-casualty attack gets you labeled as a crazy person. This despite the fact that terrorism is a minor threat to our lives compared to almost every other way we can potentially die, even when you restrict it to ways you can die by being killed intentionally by other humans. Just like elections, the propaganda machine is seen as legitimate, unlike in a dictatorship. In a dictatorship, the state news agency works as a government mouthpiece and nobody believes what they say. In the US, nominally independent media organizations work as mouthpieces of the government but since there are a bunch of them, and they're nominally independent, and they express what appears to be a wide range of views (which is actually only wide within the narrow range of what's considered mainstream), people respect them. I'm not saying that it's hopeless or that we should give up the fight. But I do think that it's not entirely right to point out successes in overt dictatorships as proof that the current situation in the US can be fixed. I may be wrong, but it is possible that the current situation is good enough to make it far more difficult to actually improve it.
strathmeyer 13y ago
Am I the only one who gets an auto-play video and then an uncloseable popup that prevents me from pausing or muting it??
- ersii 13y ago
  Yeah, the video starts automatically. I didn't get a popup window at all. I have no blocking mechanisms activated besides what's already in stock Mozilla Firefox.
ck2 13y ago
If the government was scary powerful then, it is terrifying now. If you've ever protested anything in the USA, regardless if on the left or right, you can almost certainly count on your name on some kind of tracking, and they've given themselves legal permission, because they don't have to look at the data in real-time anymore. They can just store it and look at it later on demand if they want with frictionless warrants from courts with no lawyer "for the people" present. If the government feels you've become an annoyance they can just pop you on a no-fly list without court review and no-way to get off. And heaven help you if you go near a border if they've peaked their interest in you, all your data is theirs without any need for warrant or even a reason. The government has also learned the secret that if they want to control the message, they just have to limit media exposure. Release news late on a Friday and it will be gone by Monday. Control court trials to the point where there is no audio or video and TV news will almost certainly not cover it. They are getting incredibly good at this. The newest corruption since 9/11 is to insist they need super powers for anti-terrorism, then use them against average criminals. Even worse, if no real criminals can be found, manufacturer one by constantly harassing some dupe until they do something half-assed and then roll them out for the cameras to justify the insane budgets and overeaching powers.
- dreamdu5t 13y ago
  If you've protested something? WRONG. I cannot emphasize enough that they do not restrict surveillance to suspected protestors or terrorists. They spy on everyone and every device they possibly can. EVERYBODY is being spied on right now. There is NO preselection of who gets spied on and who doesn't. They are using fake mobile cell towers, packet injection, deep packet inspection, and actively attempt to infect ANY computer they can in ANY way they can. They are spying on you right now. They possibly have webcam photos of you. They possibly have some of your passwords, personal communications, and other info they try to collect ON EVERYONE. Don't believe me? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLT7ao1V8vY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLT7ao1V8vY
Taek 13y ago
As I read more about this, I wonder if there has yet been a powerful intel (or otherwise secret) government organization that hasn't abused its power in some major way. Without organizations that can keep secrets, you lose a lot of options (such as undercover operations, and surprise nuclear defence systems), but I wonder if you can't draw parallels to open source. When your government is "closed source", the risks are higher as there are less checks and balances. But maybe, like many open source efforts, keeping the government entirely transparent would increase efficiency enough to make up for the types of operations that you can no longer undertake.

429 points by philipn 13y ago

Among the grim litany of revelations was a blackmail letter F.B.I. agents had sent anonymously to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., threatening to expose his extramarital affairs if he did not commit suicide. Hoooooly shit. Wow. They actually did that.

PavlovsCat 13y ago
Call me paranoid, but I am expecting a comeback of such things, considering this: http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/01/05/fbi_drops_law_enforcement_as_primary_mission http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/01/05/fbi_drops...
afterburner 13y ago
Yup. Supposedly Martin Luther King Jr.'s wife read the letter first, possibly at MLK's request. This is why the NSA revelations are so scary. This kind of stuff has already been done, and the NSA could do it so much worse, to so many more people.
firstOrder 13y ago
If anyone saw the movie "A Serious Man", you may remember that the protagonist's employer received anonymous poison pen letters regarding himself. I know someone that happened to in real life. His name is Louis Proyect. He was a student in the 1960s and got involved with the anti-war movement, and then became a programmer at Metropolitan Life still active in the anti-war movement. The FBI used to send anonymous poison pen letters to his employer, Met Life, in order to try to get him fired. Actually he got his hands on some FOIA documents after a lawsuit, he has some of them on his web page: http://louisproyect.org/2007/08/19/encounters-with-the-fbi http://louisproyect.org/2007/08/19/encounters-with-the-fbi
cfreeman 13y ago
They sent a tape with recordings of him having sex with a mistress too.
InclinedPlane 13y ago
All of this has happened before and all of this will happen again. As bad as we think the NSA is today the FBI in its "glory days" under Hoover were far, far worse. McCarthy was far worse. "Existential risk to the republic" worse. The NSA is not "that bad", yet, probably. But the potential is there, if anything the potential for badness is far worse and the ability to reign it in seemingly diminished. Edit: Also, the fundamental problem today is not the NSA, it's just a symptom. Even if we completely defunded the NSA tomorrow as well as put every NSA employee on a rocket and shot them into the Sun it would still not solve the underlying problem and it would just be a matter of time before we'd be facing the same issues from some other direction. The problem is that the constitution has been weakened, in pretty much every way. But one important aspect to that is the idea that things that happen on the internet aren't "real" in some basic way that makes the absence of legal protection of fundamental liberties online acceptable.
- fit2rule 13y ago
  >As bad as we think the NSA is today the FBI in its "glory days" under Hoover were far, far worse. McCarthy was far worse. I disagree, 100%. The NSA is far more powerful, and far - FAR - more dangerous now than the FBI ever was under Hoover. If you don't think this is the case, I don't think you're really looking honestly at the situation. In the Hoover/FBI days, we had a chance - the Operation Snow Whites' and so on. Now, however, there is no such chance: the NSA has far, far too many safe-guards in place to protect itself, and has infiltrated - and controls, directly - too many so-called 'peace movements' and other groups that might have a chance at awakening the sheeple. We must be more diligent, and with greater resolve to fight back now, than ever before in history - because we are at the cusp of allowing a seriously evil influence over the world to have its will - whereas in the 60's and 70's, people were willing to stand up and fight, now hardly anyone will. At all.
  - InclinedPlane 13y ago
    As I said the potential is worse, likely far worse, but right now it's not quite there (maybe?). Back in the worst days with Hoover they were actively targeting specific political activists and basically running black ops against them. We haven't reached that stage with NSA, as far as I can tell, though the potential is certainly there. Maybe you misinterpreted what I said, it shouldn't be an excuse to wait until things get worse before taking action. The fact that the potential is there should be enough.
a3n 13y ago
Weapons get used. Power gets used. Until 2013 it was possible to think that the NSA spying wasn't really pervasive, wasn't really against all Americans. Now we know better, but we still think that NSA blackmailing of politicians and others is just too out there, conspiracy theory. But the government has already done exactly that, and probably more. And they'll do it again. Dick Cheney's office outed a covert CIA spy for political revenge. Every overly powerful organization, whether government, corporate or just personal wealth, will be corrupted eventually, because they will inevitably attract corrupt people.
mikeash 13y ago
In the wake of Nelson Mandela's death, there were a lot of people who expressed the sentiment that he was not actually a great man, because he espoused violence, because he blew things up, etc. I've seen similar sentiments expressed about Dr. King. In short, he was a womanizer who does not deserve our praise. He is lauded for political purposes. It makes me wonder if the government embraces, and perhaps even plants, ideas like this. Nobody is perfect, and the more stuff somebody accomplishes, the less perfect they're likely to be. No hero will be without something like this to tarnish their image. By convincing the public that a hero should be perfect, they can hold their past transgressions over them in order to gain compliance, as the FBI tried to do here. They can control the narrative afterwards, by concentrating on the flaws of heroes they don't like, and ignoring the flaws of those they do. It certainly seems to have happened in politics, anyway. Few candidates with anything interesting to say make it to office, since they inevitably have something pointless but "scandalous" in their past. If they do, then the threat of exposure should work wonders for getting them to behave.
- mpyne 13y ago
  > It makes me wonder if the government embraces, and perhaps even plants, ideas like this. With full awareness that governments have done this, I really wish people would stop thinking that if a group of rational people oppose things done by one of our heroes, that it could only be as a result of a government sockpuppet. Rhetoric as a concept or tool is incredibly expansive, it's hardly limited to just government. And it wasn't that long ago that Che Guevara was insulting the USA during his speech to the UN for the Ku Klux Klan, the existence of which should readily demonstrate that the people themselves will erect biases and grudges of their own independent of (and often contrary to) government interference. The same government responsible for the agency that threatened MLK, also had to forcibly integrate segregated schools, and forcibly adopt so many other civil rights measures that are still debated today. But in any event if you have paid enough attention to politics (or at least American politics) it would be clear that having minor scandals is not only not a roadblock, but can often be used to great effect in a politician's career. If one thinks "the people" are too stupid to figure this out then would could possibly be the point of a democracy? Let people point out what they want about Dr. King, Nelson Mandela, or anyone else (especially if it's true!). People see the world through different lenses, one may worry more about what our hero does "when no one is watching for compliance" as a measure of integrity. Another may worry only about what the hero does in public as a measure of effectiveness. That doesn't make one or the other of these people a government plant, it just means that we're (wonderfully) different.
grecy 13y ago
That's one of the least nasty things they did... they've intentionally infected thousands of people with nasty diseases, overthrown democratically elected governments, assisted in military coups, cheated, lied and stolen for years and years.

joshfraser 13y ago

It's interesting how history repeats itself. This is the story of how we ended up with the FISA court. The lesson for us is that need to be careful that whatever reforms we make to fix the NSA won't be used in even worse ways in the future.

rdtsc 13y ago
It likely will be. The bad side-effect is that they have now measured exactly what the tolerance to this is -- t\it wasn't that bad a of a reaction from the general population. HN/Reddit and other communities are too small compared to the general population. Now what can happen, is they can be more brazen in their actions and take it up a couple of more notches, as the saying goes. For example, they know that we know, so no need to expend much effort hiding their tactics and methods. You do something they don't like? They can clearly just send an agent or make a phone call. You did something undesirable but not necessarily illegal, well they might go back 2 years and listen to how you confessed to your partner that you cheated on your IRS taxes that year. You might get a "friendly" reminder from them about that conversation and what it could do if IRS got that info. Another level of this is people start assuming they are omniscient and omnipotent in gathering information. They become the de-facto record keepers. If there is a dispute about a fact, they can chime and say that well "on Friday, November 15, 20:30, you made a phone call and you confessed to this crime". Whether that happened or not, might not matter, what matters is that they could make it up and many will take their word for it.
- sdoering 13y ago
  I don't know, how it is in the US, but here in Germany, the "normal" media reports the same narrative, that the general public does not care. I can only say, that a great lot of people I know and heard of, do care but often times, they do not know, what to do and what can be done. So do not buy into this narrative. Fight against it, as (at least to me) it does not seem to be true. But I believe, that your dystopic view might be(come) true. Sad, but true.

oinksoft 13y ago

By taking no credit, they ensured the story would be about the documents and not the burglars.

oskarth 13y ago
Counterpoint: Snowden vs Manning. It's not that simple.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- oinksoft 13y ago
  They're both examples of how not to do this sort of thing in that regard.
  - Joeboy 13y ago
    To be fair, the key difference is that these guys got away with it. If they hadn't, I hope they'd have the level of notoriety and support Snowden and Manning have had. But I agree that it would be better to focus on the facts and issues rather than the individuals involved.
    - mpyne 13y ago
      > To be fair, the key difference is that these guys got away with it. The other difference is that "these guys" didn't do anything else but find the evidence they needed to prove the types of spying the FBI was up to. It's not as if they copied out all of the FBI file cabinets and only then revealed evidence of spying, along with disclosing lists of known Soviet spies under watch by the FBI.
- Joeboy 13y ago
  Countercounterpoint: Julian Assange.

pedalpete 13y ago

I'm surprised that this hasn't been referred to regularly throughout the whole current NSA revelations. Or have I just missed it. Really looking forward to reading the book.

pivnicek 13y ago
There was a whole popular culture movement back then. I don't see that now, sadly.
a3n 13y ago
You can start now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens%27_Commission_to_Investigate_the_FBI https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens%27_Commission_to_Inve... Follow the links out from there.

suprgeek 13y ago

It is hard to conceive of the risk faced by these folks in order to carry out what was in effect an act of civil disobedience -for no personal gain. Bravo! Unfortunately it looks like such courageous folks are the last remaining defense against absolute tyranny in the United States. One wonders how many such actions are even possible with the advent of the global surveillance state?

joe_the_user 13y ago
Snowden showed such actions to reveal government surveillance are still possible. The bigger question now is whether his revelations can create any change.
- dalek_cannes 13y ago
  > The bigger question now is whether his revelations can create any change. It will. It will change the acronym involved. First from FBI to NSA. Now from NSA to something else. Edit: not a statement of cynicism; merely predicting what the government will attempt to do.
- rbanffy 13y ago
  > such actions to reveal government surveillance are still possible. I worry for how long it will remain so.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

junto 13y ago

I wouldn't put it past the current government to try and push through a new bill so that they could remove the statute of limitations in cases like this where "national security was compromised", so that they can now still prosecute the "traitors". I also wouldn't put it past the current government to use that new power to then posthumously prosecute Mr. Davidon who "died late last year from complications of Parkinson’s disease". Call me cynical, but nothing that USG does to further "protect" its "national security" would surprise me anymore.

jessedhillon 13y ago
Given that ex post facto laws are specifically prohibited in the Constitution, that sounds fantastically farfetched even for this thread.
- accountoftheday 13y ago
  Ex post facto, such as the retroactive changes in CA tax law?
  - twoodfin 13y ago
    Way back to Calder v. Bull in 1798, the U.S. Supreme Court has held that the ex post facto restriction applies to criminal law, not civil matters like taxation. Unusual retroactive taxation could face a due process challenge, but the basic "pass a tax law January 20 that extends backwards to January 1" kind of retroactivity has been upheld several times.
    - mindslight 13y ago
      Just because the Supreme Council condones something does not mean that it is consistent with the Constitution (which is itself only relevant because it's USG's purported charter).
      - jessedhillon 13y ago

hooande 13y ago

What strikes me is how little was gained by both sides in this, and how futile their actions seem in hindsight. History probably would have ended up in a similar way if Hoover had not devoted so many resources to spying on Viet Nam protestors and counter culture revolutionaries. He was really pursuing his lifelong obsession with communism, which was another political movement that probably would have died without so much government surveillance. His spying didn't do anything to dissuade Martin Luther King or other members of the Civil Rights movement. All that effort and violation of privacy for a difficult to discern impact on history. Stealing and publishing documents from the FBI didn't seem to have much of an impact either. There was a temporary public outcry, some commissions were established and the whole thing was forgotten in less than a decade. We just wound up in the same situation 40 years later and will most likely end up with the same results. It takes a mountain of courage to steal from the freaking FBI, and that group of people deserve credit for standing up for what they believed in. If only their risk produced a more appreciable reward for society. I fear a never ending cycle of surveillance and protest. Chicken and the egg. The stakes seem higher now, on both sides, but there are no guarantees that we won't go through the whole process again to achieve the same non-result. We need to figure out how to use the political process instead of theft to stop our government agencies from doing things that we don't like. Or else we'll be reading this same story again decades from now.

jmngomes 13y ago
"Stealing and publishing documents from the FBI didn't seem to have much of an impact either. There was a temporary public outcry, some commissions were established and the whole thing was forgotten in less than a decade." I think what they did was both brave and highly valuable. They went through great risks to ignite a spark among their fellow citizens, so they would join them in opposing these practices. It's a shame that the majority of their fellow citizens decided to ignore the problem. I too fear that we're going into "never ending cycle of surveillance and protest", but because democracy requires active participation from citizens, and these rarely do anything but complain and, sometimes, vote.
spot 13y ago
there are more than those two sides. this definitely altered the balance between the left and right in the US. this lead to shutting down COINTELPRO, the PRISM of that age.

pistle 13y ago

Organized civil disobedience was ineffective.

forgotAgain 13y ago

Interesting that, if done today, analysis of a few months worth of meta-data would show exactly who they were. Edit: Also interesting that today they would be called home grown terrorists instead of anti-war activists.

tokenadult 13y ago

I see most of the interesting comments here so far are from a strictly American perspective, that is just commenting on what was happening in the United States then or is happening in the United States now. But of course there is more than one country in the world. In another place I have lived[1] a supposedly democratic government that in fact was a dictatorship engaged in comprehensive spying on all civil society organizations--not just the organizations that were formally opposition organizations--and stifled all mass media organizations with censorship. That didn't stop a people-power democracy movement from starting and succeeding in democratizing that country. I've advised Hacker News participants before[2] that people power democracy movements to overthrow dictatorships with comprehensive surveillance programs are not easy, but they can succeed. You and I need mental toughness, persistence, and courage to be part of the solution, but what better reward for those virtues is there than expanded freedom (and the dignity of knowing you did the right thing)? Don't give up. Keep on organizing to gain freedom and protect civil rights. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5985720 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5985720 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6336795 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6336795

mikeash 13y ago
My guess is that things will have to get worse before they can get better, that it's paradoxically easier to democratically overthrow a true dictatorship than the sort of increasingly-oppressive democracy we see in the US. I say this because most Americans are generally happy with the system. There are aspects they dislike, and lots of results they dislike, but there is still deep respect for the system itself in the people. I think the system may have reached a point where it no longer works well, but it still gives the appearance of doing so. Dictatorships famously have rigged elections to give the regime the appearance of democracy. However, nobody actually believes it. The dictator wins roughly 99.44% of the vote and everybody knows the election is a sham. Here, we have pretty decent elections that are mostly fair and well contested, but which ultimately don't accomplish much. We end up choosing between two candidates who have few differences when it comes to how they'll handle civil liberties, elections, third parties, and such. But the vast majority of the population doesn't see it that way, and so the election, and the system as a whole, is seen as legitimate even though it doesn't really work. Worse, the system manages to control public opinion to perpetuate itself. Most Americans are deeply afraid of terrorism and welcome extreme measures to fight it. Expressing the idea that we should prosecute terrorists as common criminals and accept the occasional mass-casualty attack gets you labeled as a crazy person. This despite the fact that terrorism is a minor threat to our lives compared to almost every other way we can potentially die, even when you restrict it to ways you can die by being killed intentionally by other humans. Just like elections, the propaganda machine is seen as legitimate, unlike in a dictatorship. In a dictatorship, the state news agency works as a government mouthpiece and nobody believes what they say. In the US, nominally independent media organizations work as mouthpieces of the government but since there are a bunch of them, and they're nominally independent, and they express what appears to be a wide range of views (which is actually only wide within the narrow range of what's considered mainstream), people respect them. I'm not saying that it's hopeless or that we should give up the fight. But I do think that it's not entirely right to point out successes in overt dictatorships as proof that the current situation in the US can be fixed. I may be wrong, but it is possible that the current situation is good enough to make it far more difficult to actually improve it.

strathmeyer 13y ago

Am I the only one who gets an auto-play video and then an uncloseable popup that prevents me from pausing or muting it??

ersii 13y ago
Yeah, the video starts automatically. I didn't get a popup window at all. I have no blocking mechanisms activated besides what's already in stock Mozilla Firefox.

ck2 13y ago

If the government was scary powerful then, it is terrifying now. If you've ever protested anything in the USA, regardless if on the left or right, you can almost certainly count on your name on some kind of tracking, and they've given themselves legal permission, because they don't have to look at the data in real-time anymore. They can just store it and look at it later on demand if they want with frictionless warrants from courts with no lawyer "for the people" present. If the government feels you've become an annoyance they can just pop you on a no-fly list without court review and no-way to get off. And heaven help you if you go near a border if they've peaked their interest in you, all your data is theirs without any need for warrant or even a reason. The government has also learned the secret that if they want to control the message, they just have to limit media exposure. Release news late on a Friday and it will be gone by Monday. Control court trials to the point where there is no audio or video and TV news will almost certainly not cover it. They are getting incredibly good at this. The newest corruption since 9/11 is to insist they need super powers for anti-terrorism, then use them against average criminals. Even worse, if no real criminals can be found, manufacturer one by constantly harassing some dupe until they do something half-assed and then roll them out for the cameras to justify the insane budgets and overeaching powers.

dreamdu5t 13y ago
If you've protested something? WRONG. I cannot emphasize enough that they do not restrict surveillance to suspected protestors or terrorists. They spy on everyone and every device they possibly can. EVERYBODY is being spied on right now. There is NO preselection of who gets spied on and who doesn't. They are using fake mobile cell towers, packet injection, deep packet inspection, and actively attempt to infect ANY computer they can in ANY way they can. They are spying on you right now. They possibly have webcam photos of you. They possibly have some of your passwords, personal communications, and other info they try to collect ON EVERYONE. Don't believe me? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLT7ao1V8vY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLT7ao1V8vY

Taek 13y ago

As I read more about this, I wonder if there has yet been a powerful intel (or otherwise secret) government organization that hasn't abused its power in some major way. Without organizations that can keep secrets, you lose a lot of options (such as undercover operations, and surprise nuclear defence systems), but I wonder if you can't draw parallels to open source. When your government is "closed source", the risks are higher as there are less checks and balances. But maybe, like many open source efforts, keeping the government entirely transparent would increase efficiency enough to make up for the types of operations that you can no longer undertake.