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I think his quote is absolutely spot on about how this stuff works: "I lived through the McCarthy era, so I know how false accusations, surveillance, and keepi

• jonnybgood 12y ago
  > I thought we were all much more conscious of how these types of programs start to spin out of control. The FBI followed up to get the story straight. The FBI didn't know what the guy was doing or why he wasn't doing it, therefore they went to go find out. They sought out the truth. So please enlighten me as to how this can "spin out of control".
  • Centigonal 12y ago
    To get the story about what straight? The man was taking a picture of a natural gas tank with some art on it. What about that elicits involvement from the FBI? Sure, you could argue the guards were concerned he (some 86 year old guy with a camera) was part of a terrorist plot to blow up the natural gas tank. If you draw the line for suspicious activity there, though, then that time I searched Google Maps for local dairies should be equally concerning, since I could be planning to poison the food supply (I'm not. I am, however, looking for a good source of fresh milk for cheesemaking).
    • wfunction 12y ago
      I think if some terrorist actually did try to poison the food supply like that, it could very well make you become a suspect for that too. Except I don't recall anything famous like that actually having happened in the recent past (correct me if I'm wrong).
      • pyre 12y ago
        So you are advocating a reactive approach where we constantly look to the last terrorist attack as the pattern for what the next terrorist attack will look like?
        • wfunction 12y ago
          Yeah, I think the models need to be recent terrorist attacks, not potential ones that people can dream of on a whim. Kind of like how judges work reactively, they don't make rulings on cases they haven't seen yet.
          • SideburnsOfDoom 12y ago
            > Yeah, I think the models need to be recent terrorist attacks Bruce Schneier disagrees: https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2005/09/terrorists_dont_do_m.html https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2005/09/terrorists_...
        • yourad_io 12y ago
          Exactly - if it is good enough for the TSA... </s>
    • jonnybgood 12y ago
      > To get the story about what straight? If the security guard suspicion was justified. The FBI found out that is wasn't. Case closed. They did everything by the book. And are you telling me that they shouldn't?
      • waterlesscloud 12y ago
        I'm telling you they shouldn't. They should exercise some judgment, realize some bored-ass security guards (think about how dull it must be to guard a site like that) made a report just to feel important, and then toss it right in the trash can. It was a guy taking pictures of a structure in public. No, the FBI should not be tracking him down.
        • jonnybgood 12y ago
          So you want the FBI to risk establishing cognitive biases instead of going out and finding the truth?
          • serf 12y ago
            Yes, except I want them to establish cognitive biases. Let's leave off that 'risk' part, as the risk is already inherent when you bark up wrong trees throughout the investigation. (time loss is the result of the risk posed by uncertain guesswork) Let's get rid of that 'instead' you used, too. Sneaky! There's no reason for 'establish cognitive bias' and 'find the truth' to be exclusive from one another, is there? So here's the new cleaned up version I think I can get behind : "I would like the FBI to establish cognitive biases as a tool towards the goal of finding the truth." Much better!
          • deleted 12y ago
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      • serf 12y ago
        Yeah. Exactly. The FBI chased a dead lead instead of investigating (actually) urgent matters, wasting time and taxpayer money in the process. The agents may have acted fine. Whoever told them to act, or decided to act on such flimsy circumstances, are the ones who are wrong. If the agents decided to investigate this at their own discretion perhaps it was a way to instantiate a cross-country vacation within the workplace. That'd be the best we could hope for, because if the agents thought that this guy was a threat (especially given his names' public image and photography portfolio), that's a problem. You're not at all scared that FBI agents interpret the suspicions of a security guard with greater priority than some random person on the side of the road? I've met plenty of security guards, and a number of them were so grossly under qualified that the thought of them as some sort of authority figure is horrifying, doubly so with FBI backing.
    • bediger4000 12y ago
      You're pointing down the very best road that all this dragnet surveillance can take us: a war on the unexpected. Once everything we do, on or off net, is observed and recorded, the only thing that Johnny Law can do is try to check out the things that are unusual: looking for fresh milk. Or wait, maybe you're one of the animal rights folks, and you're trying to figure out a way around the "ag-gag" laws. How does Johnny Law know? He or she doesn't. If you're lucky, like the photographer, they come ask. If not, you're on The List. Maybe you don't get to fly any more. Maybe you just can't get a new job.
    • Houshalter 12y ago
      We don't know what the security guard told the FBI. They may have exaggerated, lied, or there may have been other circumstances the author of the article didn't mention.
    • Natsu 12y ago
      Boston is very touchy and has been, as evidenced by past displays like the Mooninite scare where the called the bomb squad over some cartoon signs with blinking lights. I have to wonder, though, the way things are, if they were protecting the copyright on the building or because it's filled with liquified natural gas? Then again, it could be both...
  • deleted 12y ago
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  • dontmindifido 12y ago
    It is not practical to investigate every instance of someone doing something 'unusual' (even if you can define it well enough). Even if you could investigate every instance of it you still shouldn't because a police state where everything 'unusual' is questioned is a terrible place to live. If you know that you're going to have to answer questions every time you take a photo, you'll stop taking photos.
  • serf 12y ago
    the danger isn't in McCarthyism itself; it's the danger that McCarthyists pose to a society when they make accusations that either a) turn out to be false all together or b) were the result of agent misinterpretation or lies for the sake of personal career advancement. McCarthyists accused and found so many 'red spies' not because they existed (although they did in very limited amounts), but because McCarthyism generated them through false accusation, followed by an unwavering inability to admit wrongdoing or fault.
  • tehwebguy 12y ago
    The FBI follow-up apparently didn't include Googling the guy's name.
  • virtue3 12y ago
    I donno... because a CURSORY google search of his name would reveal his artwork of photographing urban art pieces...
  • pconf 12y ago
    This is a story about what can happen when a governmental agency has: A) too little oversight, B) way too much (taxpayer) money, and C) way, way too little transparency. What can you do about it? A) join the ACLU and donate a little every month, B) actively support open government ordinances and proposals at every level of government, C) support investigative journalism and avoid agenda-driven media outlets and D) vote against surveillance-state supporting politicians (esp Feinstein and Boxer in CA) at every opportunity.
• deleted 12y ago
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• pbhjpbhj 12y ago
  So law enforcement shouldn't surveille? Law enforcement shouldn't keep information about people unless they've been convicted of a crime? Pray tell how do you propose a system of law enforcement can work without both these things. Or do you think that law enforcement is an unnecessary evil? >I've read about this happening // This being 'someone asked about their whereabouts'? Really. This is too much of an invasion of your liberty to simply confirm that you were indeed the person in a particular place? Perhaps he bought something on ebay from a person financially linked to terrorist operations abroad the week before he went visiting a natural gas storage facility .. we don't know. The outcome for him was to answer a couple of phone questions; I find it really hard to see anything in this story that shows the SAR program has failed. I imagine they get a few folks taking pictures. Photogs tend to take lots-and-lots of pictures, and want to get in places where other people don't, get close-ups and such. TBH that this might look suspicious doesn't seem especially unreasonable. The security guards don't know he's a professional photog.
  • alttab 12y ago
    The argument, if you have approached it correctly is then "what level of pre-crime do you want?" Ideally it would be none, because there would be none, because the world is awesome. Reality tends to fall somewhere in the middle.
  • olegbl 12y ago
    There's different kinds of information that law enforcement can store. Looking at extremes: keeping a record of which people have killed someone in the past seems like a very reasonable thing to do. On the other hand, keeping a record of how long each person brushes their teeth on average, seems like an invasion of privacy (and pointless when it comes to anti-terrorism). Taking photos of an already well-photographed public landmark seems to fall in the latter category.
  • AnthonyMouse 12y ago
    > Law enforcement shouldn't keep information about people unless they've been convicted of a crime? "Law enforcement" has no job until a crime has been committed. There is no point in attempting to foil a terrorist plot that doesn't even exist. We could do without all of this pre-crime BS. The FBI can't prevent terrorism. That's not how terrorism works. Any idiot can kill a bunch of random people on the street and there is literally nothing you can do about it. And notwithstanding that, it still doesn't happen often enough to be worth spending half the resources on it that we do. But the real issue in this context is that the people in charge of the pre-crime BS are the same people in charge of putting you in prison for violating the law. Such people are extremely dangerous to normal people because they can so easily ruin your life with a pencil, which is why good upstanding citizens legitimately take such exception to encountering them in these types of situations. It's the chilling effects problem. If something like taking pictures of things causes a visit from LEOs then you're liable to stop taking pictures of things, or advancing your political views in public, or associating with certain people. Which is a totally unacceptable reaction for LEOs to be causing in upstanding citizens who are doing nothing wrong.
• anon12345zxc 12y ago
  > I'm actually rather amazed at the number of "so what?" comments I'm seeing here. Participation in social media outlets (using the target media's language and conventions) is an educational requirement in basic intel training.
• honzzz 12y ago
  I have lived through a communist regime and I believe that accusations, surveillance, and keeping files on innocent people can destroy a lot more than just their careers and lives. It slowly creates some kind of "let's just do nothing to make sure they don't notice me and put me on the list" atmosphere. It might take decades but it has crushing impact on society. Society needs certain things to thrive - like people doing stuff and communicating without fear and self-censoring. Pervasive surveillance can ruin that. How can the nation so famous for its entrepreneurial spirit not understand that you have to accept some risks in order to thrive. You can never be totally safe - there is always going to be some attack vector left. You have two options - accept that some bad things will happen, limit the control you try to have over society, and thrive. Or try to act on everything, prevent every risk... and you will fail... and damage your society more than any terrorist ever could in the process. I am not naive - there needs to be some surveillance. Of course that safety is an important value. But it should not be the most important everything-else-trumping value. If your security services react to a real intelligence about a real threat - that is great. But if they react to stuff like some old guy taking a picture of art (and this is not the only case, nowadays it seems more like a rule than exception) - well, you might be building a cowardly society that is so risk-averse that it will degrade its progress in the future. This also basically means losing war on terror and giving them what they want.
  • SideburnsOfDoom 12y ago
    > accusations, surveillance, and keeping files on innocent people ... slowly creates some kind of "let's just do nothing to make sure they don't notice me and put me on the list" atmosphere This is absolutely right. Censorship is internalised into self-censorship.
    • hadoukenio 12y ago
      It's called the "Chilling Effect": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect
      • SideburnsOfDoom 12y ago