Can you be added to a watchlist for playing a video game?
playtopsecret.com
playtopsecret.com
Should I google that word, or visit that site? Or use that encryption method? Or play that game?
Maybe not."
And this is exactly why totalitarian surveillance can't be allowed to metastasize any further. The mere existence of the capability to spy on people's thoughts causes self-censorship and conformity.
When it's revealed that the FBI has manipulated at least one politician because of the electronic dossiers they keep, I will be laughing. Bitterly.
Sure, I sometimes think twice. But I'd rather live freely in the moment than self-censor due to a vague (though admittedly plausible) future totalitarian threat.
Or maybe you'd call it poor impulse control. Either way, what a rebel. /s
Better response is using VPN services and Tor.
There's a multi-analyst system for reviewing the criteria for adding someone to a watchlist, and under no circumstances is someone going to be added without a legitimate nexus to terrorism. Terrorism might be ambiguous to define in a document, but it's pretty cut-and-dry in actual practice. There are people who attend terrorist camps, and there are people who visited a terrorist forum. The first is definitely a terrorist, and the second (by itself) is not.
Theoretically, if a system rewarded analysts by how many people they watchlisted, then you might have the possibility for people to try to game the system in order to up their numbers (get promotions, bonuses, etc.). That's not even remotely the case, however. The system that is in place is one that takes putting someone on a watchlist very seriously, as it can have an impact on that person's life. Not only that, but it adds a lot of noise to the whole, and could end up taking away from the effort to identify real terrorists.
How do I know all this? I helped build the system. Feel free to ask questions, but obviously I have to stay within what is allowable (unclassified), which admittedly isn't much but at least can shed light on the "why" of the matter.
I'll put that up there with every other time a government has promised that they will not abuse their power.
It may serve as an outlet but I don't believe it necessarily serves as a catalyst. The more time extremists spend online killing virtual people, rather than offline killing actual people, the better.
What are your thoughts on the events of last year when Linux Journal readers were flagged by XKEYSCORE?
I have no idea about the events you're talking about. That said, XKEYSCORE isn't a flagging system at all, but more like conducting a google search. So, bad input always equals bad output.
And this is why there is a distrust of mental health professionals. Why would you seek help if it could result in being watched if not worse. Imagine if doctors reported drug users to the police; people would rather risk handling an overdose on their own than getting help and then being punished.
That's only valid under the assumption that the people doing the adding do care about the haystack problem. If their managers set quotas, the quotas will be met; damned if innocents get harassed and criminals get lost in the crowd.
Imagine a cylindrical prison where every inmate is within line-of-sight to a central pillar. You can see out from the pillar but not into it. Prisoners never know when they are being watched so must constantly act as if they are under surveillance [...] The key insight being that the mere possibility of surveillance is enough to change behaviour [...] a panopticon derives its power from the awareness of its subjects. In fact, belief in the existence of it is the sole requirement. Neither intent, nor reality are necessary for control.
Suddenly casts things in a completely different light for me. What if, for example, the Snowden leaks were on purpose? What if we were supposed to notice the FBI plane above Baltimore? What if the facility in Utah was really just an empty building, and the goal was not to record all phone calls but to make you think they could?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/video-games/video-game...
They also have at least one programme to harvest in-game messaging, so, basically, you can either be 'groomed' by snitches or 'hoovered up' by the same machines that eavesdrop on everything else. It would be naive to think otherwise. So long as you have nothing to hide then there is nothing to fear.
If analysts are discounting the value of membership to a watchlist because of the amount of noise such as what you're suggesting, then the watchlist isn't going to help the organization that's keeping it.
From a strictly practical standpoint, there is an incentive to keep watchlists small, focused, and accurate, otherwise they lose meaning.
I think they serve a different purpose: to be able to manufacture an excuse when it is convenient. We're far enough past "innocent until proven guilty" that we've manufactured a plethora of new tools and processes to support nearly any unconstitutional actions against citizens.
When you create an us/them narrative, you might not be the only one who plays into it, just remember that.
Perhaps if more people played into that, we would not be in this situation.
edit: Zikes beat me to it, and said it better.
I think there is no incentive to keep watch lists small or focused or accurate. In fact, there's a huge disincentive for that. If some name (or other identifying info) gets on a watch list, and then someone makes a judgement call to take that name/info off the list, and then the person identified by that name or info does something violent and/or stupid, whichever agency the judgement caller works for, and the call him/herself would come under enormous, very unpleasant scrutiny. The 9/11 thing about "failing to connect the dots" almost certainly weighs heavily on every one connected with watch lists.
There's zero incentive for any outsider to call for a name or other info removal for exactly the same reason. What if...? becomes the single overriding concern.
The reason the lists exist is to cover FBI and DHS bureaucratic ass if some long shot "terrorism" event happens - "Hey, they were on the watchlist - we connected those dots!"
An act that is dangerous to property or infrastructure and appears intended to influence the policy of a government is an act of terrorism.
So all protesters could be classified as terrorists under this definition? Am I misreading this?
In other words, I'm full of shit unless someone backs it up.
It takes a lot of willpower to keep to the moral high road when you can see the folks walking on it ahead of you getting their asses kicked.
The rights to free speech and petition for redress in the U.S. are not universally respected by those targeted by the criticism.
In that context, placing a protester on a watchlist has all the appearance of malicious retaliation for exercise of a protected right.
Discontent will generate some form of expression, whether you like it or not.
So if you will arrest angry people for blocking vehicular traffic and disturbing the peace, there is less incentive for them to march in the streets, and a greater incentive to do things less subject to identification and retaliation. For instance, someone might instead violate health codes when the state's agents are ordering food from their restaurant.
The more you close off and punish the relatively less harmful means of venting discontent, the more likely you are to see more harmful means, such as riots. And likewise, if those less harmful means are seen as relatively ineffective, people will do other things.
So putting protesters on a terrorist watchlist is, in a way, a form of self-fulfilling prophecy.
welcome to the sad reality of our "democracy".
An act that is dangerous to property or infrastructure and appears intended to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion. The "by intimidation or coercion" seems to rule out most protests; although protests may result in the damage of property or infrastructure, said damage is most likely not intended to be coercive or intimidating.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulte_Homes,_Inc._v._Laborers%...
If picketers outside of a Planned Parenthood were to, say, violently assault women trying to enter the building to instill fear and keep women away. Is that not terrorism?
Remember terrorism is much broader than foreign nationals crashing planes and planting roadside bombs.
You're heavily stramanning the definition. Nowhere near all protesters endanger human life, property, or infrastructure, and showing where voting desires are is clearly not what is meant by 'intimidation'. The vast majority of protesters do not do any of these things, hence the vast majority do not satisfy the quoted definition.