I could not think of something more that America needs. The government accountability office publishers reports all the time about government waste and malfeasance, but it is consistently, dare I say, pointedly, ignored. Having a separate independent agency, cast with investigating and prosecuting crime and criminals within the government itself would be amazing.
Same with congress.
This would be good, right up until it itself becomes as corrupted as the entities is prosecutes. The problem is that 'unconstitutional' is in the eye of the beholder. Take for example the classic "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.". Does this mean all gun control laws are unconstitutional or does it mean that gun control laws are implicit in what it means to be a 'A well regulated Militia'; the army for example has a ton of rules about guns. Good arguments can be made for either of these views (and others). Interpretation is everything.
First off, you are too late for any comment about the text to hold any water. 2008 Heller and 2010 McDonald settled that. It is an individuals right to keep and bear, not collective, never was. One term that came from Heller was “dangerous and unusual”, make note of the and.
Next, well regulated never meant lots of regulations. It meant well trained and in good working order. 1800s Oxford dictionary.
"Settled" does not mean what you think it means.
There are good arguments that recent jurisprudence is not even justified from an Originalist perspective.
This is neither the time nor place, but your confidence is unfounded.
"Settled" means that it's never, ever going to change, because the composition of the court isn't going to change. At least not during my lifetime, and probably not yours.
It doesn't matter whether it's "justified". The Constitution means what five people on the Court say it means. And if that comes from talking to James Madison on the ouija board, the rest of us have to live with it.
In that sense, it's "settled". And our daily school shootings are just a fact that we have to accept.
because the composition of the court isn't going to change. At least not during my lifetime, and probably not yours.
Why not? The age of the justices in order from oldest to youngest is 75, 73, 69, 68, 63, 58, 56, 53, 51.
Even if you're 60 or older you have a pretty good chance of seeing the composition change.
Of the four court members under 60, three are conservative.
Of the remaining five members, it takes only two conservatives to ensure that the court remains that way. Assuming that future nominations are equally distributed, there's about a 2/3 chance that at least two will be conservative.
And let's just say that I don't think it will be randomly distributed. The existing court composition has a thumb on the scale of future nominees. The party that nominates conservative judges has won only one election outright this century, but until recently only one opposing candidate had been able to win -- including once because the Supreme Court directly stepped in.
It's harder to calculate just what that means, but I think it's sufficient to affirm that the odds are very long against being able to generally reverse this court's direction before Halley's Comet returns.
"Settled" means that it's never, ever going to change, because the composition of the court isn't going to change. At least not during my lifetime, and probably not yours.
I am confident that the composition of the court will change, during my lifetime. I suspect yours as well.
FWIW, I do have a strong opinion on school shootings, of course. I am not comfortable with the assertion that there's something uniquely broken about Americans that means we can't have RTKBA. But if there is, I'm not confident that eliminating 2A would resolve the real problem.
That's... not what "settled" means.
You are allowed to be mad at a ruling you cannot change. Just don’t drag me into your feelings. Maybe it is overruled someday, that’s pretty rare. Maybe you can point to another amendment that made it almost 250 before being interpreted to say something, it does not?
I'm not mad at all. I have no feelings on the issue whatsoever, honestly.
But you're also wrong if you think there's meaningful precedent.
And BTW the entire Bill of Rights is the same age. All are subject to interpretation by the sitting Court.
...
FWIW, I would place 2A lowest on my list of important entries in the BoR though. They're all important because if one is threatened then they are all threatened, but I think 2A is probably net-harmful in the current world. If there was an A/B test, with and without, I'd choose without.
2A has transformed from this vaguely self-protective/deterministic right into this bizarro testament to machismo and the absurd idea that carrying makes one safer from fellow humans, and the frankly asinine idea that it's insurance against government overreach. The statistics, and clear thinking, prove otherwise. Are you that guy? Don't be that guy.
the frankly asinine idea that it's insurance against government overreach
Why is it asinine? It is precisely intended to be the insurance of last resort against a government that turns tyrannical. If your claim is that the might of the US military is so overwhelming that a bunch of rednecks toting AR-15s could be of no match, well, Vietnam and Afghanistan both proved that a determined and armed population is actually quite hard to conquer even for the foremost military power.
The presence of "that guy" doesn't invalidate any Constitutional right. Neo-Nazis wanting to march through Skokie is "those guys" taking the 1st Amendment to the absurd. You could say that the Miranda warning arose as a result of "those guys" defense attorneys taking the 5th amendment to the absurd. They are all still rights held by the people.
It's almost not worth trying to explain it. Some people are wired in a way that makes taking care of their own fate terrifying and they're extremely happy to outsource that to a government they know full well to be inefficient and ineffective.
*Tanks and drones don't stand on street corners.* F18s can't enforce a curfew. No amount of equipment is going to control a population. We've seen it over. Now all of that is putting aside that anyone seriously thinks our military wouldn't crumble in a second if directed internally? They're reeling from kicking kids out that didn't want covid shots and failing to recruit, watch what happens when even Career Srgt Bootlicker is asked to open fire on a street that looks just like his back home.
I'm not interested in entertaining the idea I need firearms to stop the US military. I'm cautious I would need to protect mine against the people that would support something like that.
In terms of setting precedent, this is accurate.
It is an individuals right to keep and bear, not collective, never was.
Prior to 2008 it was. New SCOTUS precedent doesn't magically change the past.
Next, well regulated never meant lots of regulations. It meant well trained and in good working order. 1800s Oxford dictionary.
The 1766 definition reads:
"Properly controlled, governed, or directed; subject to guidance or regulations."
Textualism/Originalism is just cherry picking things like this to justify the decision the majority was going to make anyways, which is why someone sought out just the right definition from just the right source from decades after the drafting of the 2nd amendment.
It's weird that they had to resort to this, because you could totally make a convincing case for private firearm ownership based on state militias and how they evolved. There's room for guaranteeing the individual ownership right under the Militia act of 1903 - any male aged 17 to 45 is eligible for "unorganized" state militia service unconnected to the various state-level military branches. That apparently is not their desired outcome, so one presumes this is why they did not pursue this avenue.
Prior to 2008 it was. New SCOTUS precedent doesn't magically change the past.
It really wasn't. Had Miller not be basically defaulted on by death, but decided anyhow... this would have been clear earlier. Just because you don't like it - never made it any less of an individual right... You know, the second one in the section where all the other individual civil rights are - or was that an organizing mistake on their part?
Your definition is very interesting in that it seems to be a clear case of revisionist history, or a complete fabrication. Post a link, please.
Because here are quotes using the term, and not one in the 1700/1800s implies regulation as in government regulation [0] [1]. Working properly, in good working order, effective.
[0] https://www.oed.com/search/advanced/Quotations?textTermText0... [1] https://armsandthelaw.com/archives/WellRegulatedinold%20lite...
But hey.... Keep pushing "collective right" you're wasting your time, not mine. It's moot for my lifetime, and will be my kids problem.
You have to have a paid account to read the 1766 version of it, but here you go:
https://www.oed.com/dictionary/regulated_adj?tab=meaning_and...
But that is besides the point.
Do me a favor and read the definition of Militia as writ in Article 1 section 8 of the constitution. Then give the Second Amendment another read, since that is what it is referring to with the usage of the word "Militia". Then go read the Militia acts of 1792/1795/1862 and finally 1903. It's all really straightforward, and each thing logically follows the next. Miller follows along in that vein. There's nothing revisionist about it; it's all really straightforward.
Where things get crooked in the reasoning is literally the Heller decision. Somehow it refers to the first Militia act with the decision referring to "able bodied men", while then concluding that "Militia" in the 2A does not actually mean "Militia". It's pretty bonkers.
You seem to be as willing to cherry pick as the conservative SCOTUS majority was in 2008. It's kind of nuts, because what I cited above, actually does already provide for private firearm ownership (with some boundaries around it). It's quite obvious that the reason for the much more convoluted reasoning in Heller is because the conservative majority wanted to greatly expand gun rights, and had to work backward from that goal to something that gave them enough of a fig leaf to ignore the (massive, self-evident) history of Militias and their regulation.
Now - if I needed more to support my point (which any honest reading would make clear that I don't), you can have a look at the influence the Federalist Society had on the Heller case:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_Society#District_of...
Note the 2 members of the society who voted on Heller, and the extra ones which currently sit on the court. And also note the 2 additional members who have some sympathetic relationship to the group although are not explicitly mentioned as members. That gets you 4/5 of the 5 votes on Heller. 5 sitting SCOTUS as of this writing.
QED, Heller was highly partisan and a break from hundreds of years of precedent. You'd be hard pressed to make an honest case otherwise.
You can post revisionist nonsense “interpreted” and put up by people with agendas all you like. I posted time piece quotes.
Best of all I don’t care. You can stomp your feet, it doesn’t change the law or history.
Back at you buddy.
Bye, Felicia.
The way the Court current works its just settled until the next turn over in court make up.
The court make-up isn't expected to change for decades. The previous President appointed three young members who will be there for a very long time, adding to three existing members. It will be many, many years before the composition of the court is likely to shift significantly.
I'm pro-gun ownership but European. To me you're especially right about that part
It meant well trained and in good working order.
In WV, I've seen people who barely knew how to handle hunting rifles, handle semi-automatique rifles. It's terrifying. Any hunter in my country seeing people handle firearms like those two would've reported them to have their license revoked and firearms locked until further training. (not that hunting permit/license are a big thing in the area btw, I think a lot are hunting kinda illegaly, but well, the woods are shared, and some really need basic training. ).
Interpretation is an issue, just look at the way President Biden, and President Trump are being treated with regards to retention of classified documents. One is being prosecuted, the other is not. That's a very broad and public example, but the party in power typically does not prosecute its own.
Well.
One person retained said documents, bragged about having them, disclosed their contents to random, non-cleared people, lied about having declassified them, and then when the government asked them back, lied again and claimed he didn't have them, instructed his underlings to hide or destroy them, and obstructed the subsequent investigation.
The other person didn't realize he had them, returned them promptly when they were found, and cooperated with the ensuing investigation.
If you really think these two things are the same, I'm not sure you're going to have a productive conversation with anyone who wants to argue in good faith.
Also note that it's not just Biden who fell into that second category; Pence did as well. Funny how you didn't see the need to mention Pence. And good on him for also cooperating and returning what he had.
I agree. Of all the legal proceedings against Don, this is the most appropriate imo.
But... There is one thing that gives me pause about the Biden case. It is understood that Hunter had some capacity of access to the home [1]. Likely this overlapped with his hard drug and prostitute lifestyle. What are the chances that a state sponsored person managed entry to the house with Hunter and then had free reign of it while he slept or was in a drugged state? Does this factor into the risk assessment of the forgotten documents and culpability of Joe?
I admit I'm biased as I don't like Joe, so would prefer he is a one term president.
[1] https://www.newsweek.com/hunter-biden-joe-biden-classified-d...
One is being charged with obstruction and retaining documents. There's no evidence of obstruction for Biden or Pence. If either of them told their attorney to "hide or destroy" documents then they would be receiving the same treatment.
Yet Hillary did both as was not prosecuted.
Do you think this is a good faith argument? What might be differences in these situations that aren't based on simple "other party bad"?
One turned over the classified documents.
You really are the "quintessential affable sales person." With the way you twist narratives, I suspect you sell a lot of networking equipment.
or does it mean that gun control laws are implicit in what it means to be a 'A well regulated Militia'
People who use this argument are disingenuous because they wouldn't argue the same thing about press being limited to printing presses or speech being limited to the spoken word.
Perhaps because "the press" means journalism in general any way you cut it and you need to be very disingenuous to say otherwise as the spirit of the terms is obvious.
Whereas "well regulated militia" absolutely doesn't mean "random redneck with a gun fetish" - the spirit is also obvious here.
People say the second amendment was made in the era of muskets so obviously an automatic rifle isn't what the founders were talking about While the first amendment was made in the era of newspapers, so obviously the right to speech doesn't extend to Telegrams, Radio, TV, or Digital communication
It seems perfectly reasonable for someone from the 1700s to think "hmm, muskets, yeah, that's something everyone should have on hand", but then get sent forward to the 2000s, have modern firearms shown to them, and say "oh whoa, yeah, no way, that seems like a terrible idea".
It also seems perfectly reasonable for someone from the 1700s to think that freedom of speech and the press is a good idea, and then get sent forward to the 2000s, see all of our modern forms of communication and speech, and say, "yeah, that's just a reasonable evolution of things, and should be covered".
Obviously we'll never know; so far we can't do time travel, so we don't know what they'd think today. This is why I think this sort of reasoning about the constitution is kinda dumb. Even if we could divine what the Founders thought, frankly I don't think it's all that relevant. They are not exactly experts on how government should work. Yes, they did the best they could at the time, but with all the biases and issues of the time. As an example, they also thought that only white landowners should vote, but advocating for that today would get you smacked down pretty quickly.
And regarding 2A, it'd also be reasonable to expect that same person from the 1700s didn't actually think every random person should have a musket, but that only people who are a part of a "well-regulated militia" should have access to one.
Yes, they did the best they could at the time
I'd say even that is debatable.
Perhaps they did do the best THEY could, not the best that could be done even given the ideas already around at the time.
It's worth mentioning that individuals could legally (and some did) own cannons and warships back then as well - it wasn't limited to muskets. The reference in the Constitution to "letters of marque and reprisal" refer to government licenses to attack and capture ships, ie a government license to be a pirate.
And regarding 2A, it'd also be reasonable to expect that same person from the 1700s didn't actually think every random person should have a musket, but that only people who are a part of a "well-regulated militia" should have access to one.
It would not be reasonable to expect that. It's hard for most modern people to understand to what extent a gun was considered a necessary tool for non-urban people, which was a much larger proportion of the population.
The real problem we've run into is cultural. Americans used to run around with actual TOMMY GUNS without mass shootings. It's absolutely insane to think about how easily these people - many of them involved in criminal rings - could have killed hundreds of people if they had woke up one day and decided to. But they didn't.
Now we live in a broken and depraved culture and limiting gun access is about the only obvious tool we have to reduce the problem, or at least that symptom of it.
Not sure what the relevance of the above is. As I already said, people who say either of those are making a bad disingenuous argument.
I'm not saying either of those though, and didn't in my comment you responded to. I said that people who say a "well regulated militia" is not the same as "random individual who likes guns" are making an argument exactly in the intended spirit of the constitution.
Nothing to do with a disingenuous argument about "gun technology then vs now" or "press means just printing presses or newspapers".
So, yeah, if those rednecks form a actual state-run or even citizen-run militia they could have their guns, nice modern guns, in the context of that militia and for the purposes of that militia (and with the proper precautions and rules like police or army has for its guns).
I don't see where the constitutional's expression, as written, allows them to just have whetever guns they like as private individuals, even less so guns for fun and entertainment.
I'd go one better: what some document from 4 centuries ago says, should have no absolute hold to what the law is in a country 4 centuries later. It was what they came up with at the time, to respond to the problems of the time, as they saw them in the viewpoints of the time. All of them are dead now, and the demographics and issues are absolutely not even close to being them same.
The document from 4 centuries ago outlined a process for its continual refactoring, and the process has often been used since its passage.
All we have to do is ammend the Constitution, and the entire 2A debate could easily be settled.
This would be awful. Theft and bribery are already prosecuted aggressively. If anything, too much. It’s gotten to the point that high government officials can’t afford to be lobbied. Here they are, some of the most powerful people in the world, paid barely enough to live an hour drive away from DC, having to spend a fair bit of their personal income to go to lunch and dinner with leaders of private industry.
As for criminalizing “waste”, you start to get dangerously close to criminalizing politics itself. Then it just becomes about controlling DOJ and using it to go after your enemies (this is already too true).
The better thing to do would with regards to intelligence agency abuses would be to have more review of the decisions, mandatory discipline of rulebreakers, and prosecution of specific crimes committed for egregious cases. No need to generally criminalize every time a government official makes a bad judgment call.
You seem to be arguing that we have a system where theft and bribery are necessary in some way, and therefore we shouldn't prosecute it aggressively. Wouldn't we rather reform the system such that it makes theft and bribery less attractive?
No, I’m saying the definition of bribery has been stretched so far to include ballpoint pens, a $30 lunch or free attendance at a conference, at the same time that high officials are underpaid, so as to place an absurd financial burden on middle-class people holding high office. No one says that a CEO who meets a potential supplier who buys him lunch is being bribed. But if a politician does that, it’s a crime somehow. Frankly absurd.
You seem to be arguing
The sarcasm is positively dripping from that post
Your comment brought to mind the number of IRS employees who are delinquent on their taxes. I think it really comes down to trust. You say that the government is already investigated enough, but I would contend that it's really the government investigating itself. If there is a separate, independent agency that investigates government and employee malfeasance, then at least there can be some check, accountability, and maybe transparency.
I can understand your focus with intelligent agency abusive, but I think the problem is much more systemic, and far greater than simply the intelligence agencies. People who work in the public trust should be held to a higher standard.
"According to the FY 2021 FERDI Annual Report, IRS employees had a 1.35 percent delinquency rate, compared to 4.93 percent for civilian workers throughout the Federal Government."
That number should really be zero.
So IRS employees are now magically exempt from making mistakes in life, just because they're IRS employees? I think it's good that the rate of delinquency is lower for IRS employees, but I think expecting it to be zero is a bit much.
But sure, that should be fixed. Just like the 5% of other workers who should get their tax situation in hand. Just like how all the private citizens who are delinquent should get their tax situation in hand.
I'm not really sure how this oversight agency you advocate would even work. How would it be independent? Who would fund it? How would you ensure that its members aren't biased or influenced in any way? Ultimately these sorts of agencies are staffed by real humans, not automatons with perfect, disinterested software. I agree with the desire for this sort of thing, but I don't think it's at all practical.
It’s gotten to the point that high government officials can’t afford to be lobbied.
This is just nonsense, most members of congress take lobby money.
Members of congress are a small subset of government officials.
That they get away with corrupt behavior doesn't mean that people in the civil service should have to be anxious about trivial things. If a government employee can be influenced by something as minor as a pen or lunch, they are in the wrong line of work.
It’s gotten to the point that high government officials can’t afford to be lobbied.
Good! But also, not true!
It’s gotten to the point that high government officials can’t afford to be lobbied.
Of all the sad things I’ve read today, this one is surely the saddest. Good thing it isn’t based on a reality I have observed… where do you think those billions “to” Ukraine are really going?
Developed nations laugh at our checks and balances, because we believe in them
bUt aT LeAst wE cAN tALK aBoUt It
Believe me it is not laughing in a good way, it is more a nervous laughter with a permanent sinking feeling in the stomach kind of way.
The collective 'we' developed nations have our own set of problems, but broadly speaking from time to time self correct away from polarisation to hopefully enough of a degree.
A unique kind of leadership needs to be allowed to grow in America to stear a less polarised course.
I know, theyre laughing at us because we think our compromisestitution is a feature
I would prefer a government that investigates all the bad acts of LEOs.
I would prefer a government that investigates the rich.
I would prefer a government that investigates wage theft.
I would prefer a government that enforces the law blindly. Our legal system is fundamentally broken as long as we consider wealth, career, politics, personal connections, etc before filing charges and trying a case.
What's hilarious is that in an ideal world, the FBI is exactly the organization that should be doing this. Two of the bureau's top priorities are 1) Combat public corruption at all levels, and 2) Protect civil rights
Law enforcement in the US exists to enforce the existing social order (including that of class and race), not to pursue justice or universally/fairly enforce laws. This isn’t some conspiracy theory, but is well documented in the history of policing in the USA, both at the local and federal level.
It is a tool used by the ownership class (via selective enforcement) to legally mitigate threats to their social, economic, and political dominance.
This is why minorities are disproportionately represented in prison for disproportionately minor crimes, and why rich white people doing the same drugs don’t generally get in any trouble.
This is also why police, the essential enforcers in the system, are generally permitted to commit as much minor crime (except against members of the ownership class) as they wish. The system falls down without their cooperation.
Once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
It's certainly possible, but the U.S. Supreme Court has been working against the exposure of such crimes by government officials:
https://whyy.org/articles/temple-professor-suing-fbi-for-wro...
"Xi’s team has a very high legal hurdle to clear because recent Supreme Court decisions make it very difficult to sue federal officials for damages for violating constitutional rights."
It will be fine so long as there's no corruption. But if there's even a hint that one group is getting persecuted...
Wasn't that supposed to be the fourth estate?
I'm not sure having police investigating our elected officials is such a good thing. If you look at corruption investigations of high level officials in history, they are very frequently partisan attacks. For example, the investigation into Lula da Silva turned out to have been driven by a group of right wing judges and prosecutors that had his ouster as a goal, not justice.
It's not even a question of whether corruption happens! Of course it does. E.g. maybe Lula did some kind of wrongdoing. However frequent and highly publicized corruption investigations put the power in the hands of police, prosecutors and judges and takes it away from democratic means. Frankly, I'd rather have a little bit of corruption than allow police to say who is an acceptable leader.
Part of the issue is that there is a lot of grey area in what even counts as corruption. What counts as "violating the constitution" is even greyer, especially in the US where the constitution itself is short, vague and poorly phrased leaving decisions on what is constitutional to be a political question in itself.
We could get really far simply by changing the incentives of our legal system.
On the subject of FBI/NSA/CIA insincerity, that makes me think of various post-9/11 debates often involving "ticking bomb" Hollywood scenarios.
I'd like to reiterate that any kind of "OMG there's no time we must stop the NYC WMD ASAP" scenario already has a special exception route: Just commit the necessary spying/theft/torture crime, and plan for a Presidential pardon after explaining the extraordinary circumstances that totally justified your action.
If they aren't willing to put their own skin in the game, then the situation cannot be as clearly dire as they claim.
That’s insincere. Even if you truly believe a catastrophe may happen you may not be willing to risk life in prison because the President doesn’t like your bosses boss.
You really think in that case they'd be bound by the President's likes and dislikes? If the President or whatever court didn't let them out, there would be riots in the streets.
Nope, most successfully stopped attacks are secret. Nobody would even know.
No they're not. If our bloated "national security" apparatus could possibly justify its existence, it would. The reason they keep such justification secret is because it doesn't exist. It has nothing to do with "sources and methods." It has nothing to do with "civil unrest."
The reason we can't see the justification is because it doesn't exist.
They don't tell you because they don't feel the need to justify it to you. They do tell some of it individuals with the proper clearances who hold some level of power over them (comittees etc).
Here is a small list of the ones that were publicized. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsuccessful_terrori...
Laughable. This list substantiates my point.
What is laughable about that list?
It doesn't really speak to or against your point. You're not going to justify an entire national security system on a subset of one of its many functions.
Why would we keep them secret forever?
Probably not forever, but until the systems/methods they used become obsolete. You don't burn your intel collection mechanisms to publicize something that the public was never aware of in the fist place.
Are they? Sounds like a BS theory, promoted to make them sound secretly more competent than they are ("we're great and stop a lot of attacks, we just aren't telling you". Yeah, right).
The truth is that even a minor succesfully stopped attack they'd advertise till the end of time, to score political and press points.
You don't burn your methods and systems for some political points.
There are or should be at least (bound by national security related laws) oversight review committees and stats reporting...
... but of course it depends on the standard for what 'prevented' means. De-radicalized a potential terrorist, does that mean a terror attack was stopped/prevented.
It's quite complicated in practice, alas.
I mean, aren't they quite busy radicalising the mentally ill just so they can then capture the mark in the process of following the plan they developed for them just so they bump up their 'terrorist plan foiled' stats?
There are already riots in the street and it doesn't influence presidential decisions.
Those wont be the kind of riots they use to score political points from either side.
life in prison because the President doesn’t like your bosses boss
1. If the President hates the CIA/NSA/FBI director that much they tend to get quickly replaced.
2. Punishing a lower-level agent with prison doesn't seem like an effective way to get revenge on whatever agency leadership the President might hate.
You're making an appeal to a compound scenario: It isn't just (A) "Hollywood ticking bomb" unlikely, but also (B) "TV political backstabbing drama" unlikely, multiplied again by (C) "stupidly baroque form of revenge" unlikely... to get a final probability somewhere near zero-point-zero-zero-not-gonna-happen-LOL.
So no, I don't think that fantastical hypothetical justifies day-to-day erosion of rule-of-law and civil rights.
Even if you truly believe a catastrophe may happen
If someone truly believes it and they have a reasonable basis behind that belief [0], then surely the morality of saving millions from an atomic fireball or whatever goes pretty dang far in outweighing 1-20 years in federal prison, and they will have ample evidence to make a strong case for getting a pardon.
[0] If spy/agent/analyst dude "truly believes" but for no real reason other than voices in their head, a prophetic dream, hidden scriptures, or alphabet-soup... they are already incompetent and need to be fired immediately to remove them from that position of authority.
Play this out with the recent Hamas attack. You decide to torture some Hamas member and discover plans of this attack. You feed the info to Israel who then changes their patrol pattern and Hamas pulls their attack plan.
Now you are in trial for torturing this guy. You state that you stopped a major attack. Israel isn’t even fully convinced an attack was eminent, despite you being confident. Even other members of Hamas provide evidence on your behalf, but it looks bad for everyone involved that torture was needed. It’s much better looking to the general intelligence establishment that you acted ina rogue manner doing something that may have at best helped a little and at worst had ignited a whole international crisis of torture of a Palestinian.
I think for a lot of people they would be fine to just see how things play out and later say “if we tortured this guy who later admitted to know we could’ve stopped the attack”.
If you can't justify that risk tradeoff, then it's probably not that catastrophic to begin with.
NSA analyst?
The proof is in the pudding! Since there have been no horrible events since the ultra-law was enacted, it must be working!
No polar bears in Arizona either since I installed my anti-polar-bear device there. Must be working!
Lisa Simpson [0] approved.
On the subject of FBI/NSA/CIA insincerity, that makes me think of various post-9/11 debates often involving "ticking bomb" Hollywood scenarios.
It would be appropriate if we could reverse "ticking bomb" scenario. What if we suspect that government is about to break construction, would it be appropriate for citizens to torture public officials to reveal such information? After all neither of them (government and citizens) should be able to do so legally.
A good friend who worked for DoD explained it well to me: unseemly behavior in response to “ticking time bomb” scenarios should be absolutely 100% illegal; don’t worry, if it ever actually happens (unlikely) we will break the law and ask for forgiveness.
"A warrant requirement would amount to a de facto ban, because query applications either would not meet the legal standard to win court approval"
I hope that we get that de facto ban. It would be good for society.
This is literally what warrants and probable cause are for. Really shocking degree of impunity on display that he would have the balls to say this out loud, in public, on the record.
That is very calculated I think. If people let him get away with saying it, that's it, it's done, it's banalized, it's normal.
That's a technique often used by toxic people.
(Disclaimer: im no american)
Why do you have to disclaim that? It’s nothing to be ashamed of. I have friends that are also not American, and I’m even okay being seen with them in public. You can feel safe fully disclosing!
Why do you take it that way? I took saying "not American" to mean his perspective is from outside looking in, which is useful context.
Oh, I was perhaps unwisely playful: “disclaimer” (a denial or risk) and “full disclosure” (adding context) are different but occasionally confused.
Who watches the FBI director?
Congress? LOL
TMK he reports to the DOJ that reports to the president. Wray->Garland->Biden
The fourth amendment is a de jure ban, and shouldn't a de jure ban be a de facto ban for law enforcement? The lawful way to make it de facto is to make it de jure first by repealing that pesky amendment.
The US government flouts the constitution constantly, for example the UN charter which according to the constitution, treaties are part of the supreme law of the land. It's a security state designed to squelch popular resistance to a global imperial project (that is currently floundering).
Yes, but treaties are still subjugate to the Constitution. Congress isn't authorized to violate the constitution, amd thetefore isn't authorized to enter into treaties which would do so.
De jure, de jure is de jure, de facto, de jure is not de facto?
To absolutely mangle paraphrasing yogi berra's quote about the difference between theory and practice.
watch as mass shootings go down when they have a harder time profiling patsies
'No way to prevent this,' says only nation where this regularly happens.
Shortly followed by ‘thoughts and prayers’.
Most other countries probably have far less legal and/or ethically grey surveillance at their fingertips, and still dont have this problem.
Agree. It shocks me that anyone would stand against this— there’s so much anti Patriot Act rhetoric, this is one of the only ways to make a step toward achieving justice in the situation
The acid test for this is, if its OK for the FBI to spy on you as a citizen, then cool, we need the right to spy on the FBI agent and his family members -- why does he get to spy on me and my family members when there is zero reason for them to do that? I don't have anything to hide, and neither should he, so its all kosher right?
You should be able to do just about anything they claim is legal without needing probable cause or a warrant.
I don't know what America Chris Wray is from, but in my America, law officers should not get any special treatment when it comes to this. The same arguments that would constitute your actions as stalking should apply to the FBI, if they are engaging in the same set of behaviors while operating outside of any special judicial framework such as a warrant.
The single greatest problem we have in government today is the fact that over the years we have added more and more exclusions, exemptions, and privileges for "law enforcement"
Rules for thee but not for me is the height of government tyranny, and today that is at all levels of governance from something as simple as parking enforcement all the up to lethal force
No government agent should be exempt from the law, no government agent should have special rights.
"The single greatest problem we have in government today is" ...
Well, *one* of the greatest problems, anyway... Another similar related one is most of our politicians bein' pretty much fully "bought and paid for" by corporate interests, and money / power bein' far more important to them than human lives.
I agree with this one hundred percent. I wish there was some sort of organization that coordinated OSINT efforts on law enforcement.
Don't worry. The grass roots have got this ..
National insecurity something something. You know. Some are more equal than others.
I think I believe the problem isn’t lack of privacy, buts unilateral privacy. I’d be willing to get rid of most of my privacy, iff everyone else did too. But when you’re a target and you don’t even know who is looking, that feels like the problem.
A clarification, because I'm seeing a lot of misunderstanding:
This is about whether or not the FBI needs a warrant to see information that was already collected legally by another part of the gov't.
This is not about whether or not the gov't can collect this specific data in the first place, everyone involved seems to agree they do.
Correct. There is a strong dividing line between those two organizations, resulting from some very bad misbehavior by the FBI and CIA in the 1950s and 60s. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was set up to allow some agencies to collect information on non-Americans using techniques they'd never allow on citizens, while other agencies can use a more restricted set of techniques on Americans.
After 9/11 they breached that somewhat, because of a (not entirely well-founded) belief that the separation kept them from preventing the attack.
Those are the two ends of the spectrum being debated here: harassing Martin Luther King on the one side, and 9/11 on the other. No compromise is going to make everybody happy. In fact, no matter what, it's going to make everybody mad.
How is 9/11 on the other side of harassing MLK? FBI had been told before 9/11 about non-citizens paying with cash at flights schools for heavy aircraft simulator time.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fbi-was-warned-about-flight-sch...
The people having the data collected are also involved and I doubt they agree
It’s a good thing an organization like this doesn’t have the power to act politically.
/s, I presume...
“A warrant requirement would amount to a de facto ban, because query applications either would not meet the legal standard to win court approval; or because, when the standard could be met, it would be so only after the expenditure of scarce resources, the submission and review of a lengthy legal filing, and the passage of significant time — which, in the world of rapidly evolving threats, the government often does not have,”
The serious issue for IT professionals is, as always, to find a solution that meets all needs: Efficiency (resource consumption), privacy, legality.
I don't know enough of the requirements, but a couple possibilities:
* Automate warrant submissions (obviously).
* Provide warrantless views of the data that preserve privacy and allow rapid review. For example, hide all proper nouns and only allow a GPT and intelligence agent to review it. If something is found, it can be passed to law enforcement for warrant requests.
Again, I really don't know nearly enough about the requirements, process, etc., but it would be interesting to hear from someone who does.
but but gais hear me out, TikTok is the REAL problem here! /s
Brilliant. I particularly liked the first comment (Anonymous Coward):
Wray meant:
Of course, we have probable cause.
We always have probable cause for everything we do–well, mostly anyway.
Well, I mean, we could maybe get probable cause, but it’s too complicated and it takes too long.
You see, by the time we find an excuse that might double for probable cause, so much time will have passed, that we will all have died of old age.
And that’s assuming we can really find an excuse in the first place.
Yeah it was such a bizarre argument that highlights just how unconstitutional this is: "if we need a warrant to do this, we wouldn't be able to do it because we'd fail the probable cause part". That's not a good argument dude, that's an admission that this program is unconstitutional.
FBI: See the problem we face is finding a needle in a haystack.
Morons in congress: Oh, we're really sorry to hear that, what should we do?
FBI: Give us more hay for the stack.
I don't believe it. I've been scolded so many times, including by users here, that the FBI would never. There must be some misunderstanding!
It's just so slow
I'm sure it would end badly, but sometimes I fantasize about the U.S. citizens having a LEO that actively investigates / prosecutes government officials who violate the constitution.