The FBI has a new plan to spy on high school kids across the country
salon.com
salon.com
I can say for a fact that I had my fair share of opinions on some pretty ridiculous government policies during high school, at this rate I would have been singled out as a person of interest. What stupidity is this coming from a 'world leading' country.
Young kids, while still in high school, might be terrified of mom and dad finding their secret social media profiles, but otherwise they're very active, downright sloppy, and probably not mindful of carrier-grade government tier national/international surveillance.
Are they enabling full disk encryption? Are they hardening their passwords? Are they even remotely secretive beyond their immediate social spheres?
This means it's a huge, ripe fruit, full of vital information, and eager to be plucked.
So they intend to pull as much data as possible, pre-emptively, so that there's something to mine. Just in case, later on, maybe something will eventually prove useful.
So many other age groups are too savvy now. Ruined by revelations, cautious and jaded to the fact that convenience means naked exposure of identity. But in time their ways will sunset, as they grow old, and are put out to pasture.
Those who are young now... well... it's already too late.
Uh, yeah? I mean, no shit it is. This isn't much farther over the line than the shit that went down in response to the WTC attacks. Where have you been?
Australia, thankfully. Although the current direction of our government is also becoming increasingly security oriented, to the point of metadata retention schemes and site blocking at the ISP level coming in.
Just wanted to highlight this. I hadn't heard of LINE before but they sound dangerous.
Apparently before the "education center", you're brought in before military officials "just to talk" about your statements. They publicly phrase it as just wanting to understand your criticisms of the government, but they really just grill you to see who else you've been talking to, what websites you frequent, etc.
This is where the US is ahead of the game.
We need to take schooling back from government.
Getting "singled out" is already happening to activists and whistleblowers in the Land of the Free. These "targeted individuals"[0] are enrolled in a program designed to deny, disrupt, discredit, destroy, degrade, and deceive the targets and anyone who might be interested in their plight.
The ACLU, the FBI, and the media will not investigate; even Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras of Snowden fame will not touch the "Targeted Individual" phenomenon.
I would be inclined to dismiss the wholesale torture of and non-consensual human experimentation on "Targeted Individuals" using "less than lethal" weapons if I were not already a victim. So I don't blame anyone who cannot believe that such things are possible in the USA and other related countries.
There's a lot of JTRIG-style[1] disinfo online but there's a ton of truth for those who are prepared to consider the possibility of a 21st century update to COINTELPRO.
[0] https://www.google.com/#q=targeted+individuals [1] https://theintercept.com/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/ [2] http://fightgangstalking.com/what-is-gang-stalking/
Looks like Mr. Sanders is the only one willing to stand up for the individual right to privacy.
I downloaded the first linked document;[1] skimming through it and searching it, it seems to lack the most inflamatory claims in the article. Mostly it seems an exaggerated threat (students at every school are at much greater risk of many other threats) and it has other flaws, but it's not so bad. I think the most common theme is to look for students advocating violence to acheive their goals and use their support network to help them.
EDIT: To give you a feel for at least part of the document:
* "The response should leverage the strengths of governments, community organizations, social service agencies, and other professionals to provide what is commonly referred to as an “Off-Ramp”. ... The school formulates an intervention plan in conjunction with the community and non-law enforcement entities on the federal or state level. Ideally, an intervention cadre should contain professionals from the local community representing multiple disciplines such as mental health, social workers, law enforcement, school resource officers, faith-based organizations, and/or crisis intervention teams."
* "If a student continues on a trajectory to violence, the one remaining option is a law enforcement disruption"
----
[1] Preventing Violent Extremism in Schools: https://info.publicintelligence.net/FBI-PreventingExtremismS...
https://cve.fbi.gov/where/?state=report
I believe that is where they got some of the pieces. At least, its the closest I can find to some of the more inflammatory claims. However, all of those have clearly violent messaging.
"If a student continues on a trajectory to violence, the one remaining option is a law enforcement career"...
They forgot the option of joining the armed forces or the US government. Or run for president and advocate violence?
It's like it's not even worth making jokes about the hypocrisy and asinine stupidity.
That's what governments are for. It is one of the fundemental definitions of a sovereign government, the monopoly on violence.[1] Violence is taboo but sometimes necessary. Only the legitimate authority of the people, acting under the law and through their democratically elected government can exercise it. (As I understand the theory.)
As we know, even those legitimate authorities are corrupt to varying degrees; we are cursed with no alternative to human institutions. However, I think it's still much better than individuals making those decisions.
> When can we send the FBI in after them? How about preventing militancy and extremism in government? When can we do something about that?
That's the job of the voters. Don't forget to vote!
----
[1] The other is the monopoly on justice. The definition works well: For example, in regions of Syria, Daesh uses violence with impunity and runs its own system of justice. You can't really say that the Syrian government has sovereignty over those areas.
1. Anything that could remotely reveal a method of surveillance wouldn't be included in these numbers
2. It's pretty hard to define an "attempted" attack - a lot of attempts might be thwarted in the planning, etc... What about something that wasn't intended to stop a group, but did? Or maybe an underground group that wasn't being monitored, how do we know the gov't stopped them?
The terrorist problem is exactly as we see it. Tiny.
Bombings in the US are way down. Most terrorist incidents in the last 10 years are shootings. The last big bombing was the Boston Marathon, in 2013, and that was two brothers working alone, so intel wouldn't have helped. The last organized plot was in 2009, aimed at the NYC subway and some UK targets. That was allegedly foiled by intel into Al Qaeda communications.
Since 9/11, terrorism in the US [1] has been much less of a problem than routine mass shootings.[2]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_United_States... [2] http://www.shootingtracker.com
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/nov/16/fbi-entrapment-...
Do we? Are all terrorist plots obvious? Surely there are successful terrorist plots that have succeeded that we are unaware of.
I am saying, I doubt it's so black & white.
Terrorism can be subtle and long-term.
Edit: What terrifies you? Did terrorists exclusively create this (threat of terror)? My point is, does a terrorist exclusively create terror... or do these terrorists have a broader goal beyond simple terrorism?
If a terrorist shoots my sister, and nobody knows it was a terrorist plot, the destabilization and other negative effects are still there. I will be afraid, perhaps not of ISIS, but I will generally be terrified that someone might shoot me too.
No. Terrorists even take credit for things they had nothing to do with. The goal of a terrorist is to strike fear into the population by committing crimes in the most public way possible. Secrecy of the result doesn't serve this goal. The other reason to publicize is for recruiting purposes.
We certainly know the number of successful plots. Failed plots and fizzles, perhaps not.
My point is, terrorism is not exclusively a single, concentrated moment of terror. Some terrorist plots are more subtle and long-term.
Yes, we do. If you don't know about a terrorist plot, it is not succesful.
Frankly, terrorists have been around for a long time, and they didn't do shit before 9/11 and they haven't done shit since.
If there were an alternate world where 9/11 happened once a month every month (so, 36k people die due to terrorism every year), that would be equivalent to approximately the US car accidents per year (well, technically that's only ten 9/11's worth, not twelve, but whatever).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_i...
And remember, 9/11 only happened once in the last century, so if statistics hold up we're good to go, and we have a spare few billions per year that were funded the TSA.
Unfortunately you can't do that with all of the guns, bombs, planes, and tanks we have.
Not entirely true. There are genuine reasons to fear terrorism (religious and/or ideologically inspired). Some reasons are - such people terrorists/extremists do NOT tolerate others to such an extent that many of them find it almost impossible to leave peacefully with people with even slightly different views/opinions.
Agreed that Heart disease, cancer, and other such things do kill many more people than plain terrorism but same can be said about sleeping e.g. "millions if not billions of people died while sleeping in their beds". Statistics can be (mis)used to justify any claim.
One reason why people find (irrespective of media) terrorism more dangerous than heart disease, cancer, etc is this - heart disease, cancer, and cars are NOT human beings and thus do NOT actively not tolerate difference of opinions amongst other groups of people and do NOT engage in acts of "killing other people for difference of opinions" while human terrorists do engage in such killings and do constantly search for opportunities to kill people with different opinions.
>>How many people in America died in terrorist attacks? About 30. Yes, 30 people.
I guess, either you forgot the 9/11 or deliberately not mentioned it. If later, do you subscribe to the extreme leftist opinion that 9/11 was nothing more than US conspiracy? If yes, I will not be surprised.
>>Perhaps the US should take their survalence budget and use that money to fight heart disease and cancer.
That may be advisable, only if there is a clear evidence that all (religious and/or ideologically inspired (e.g. communists) terrorists and their organizations have ceased their efforts to bring the entire world under their control. Such evidence is extremely difficult to get even if it is there, unfortunately we do see a lot of evidence pointing the opposite.
edit: minor typo
It was the two words immediately preceding your quotation.
I mean they already have about ~100k paid informants, they can't really find enough poorly educated targets to keep scaling up that program. Only so many young impressionable kids can be talked into doing terrorist attacks they were hardly capable of in the first place by undercover agents disguised as authority figures.
So, hey, what if we build snitch networks in high schools like East German youth programs?
NYPD has 4.8 billion and a lot more mundane duties.
How can you be so sure? What evidence have you got to support your claim? Curious to know.
---- From a very cynical person ----This is as "classic" a move as the "think-of-the-children" strategy. It has been predicted by so many people (which of course have been labeled as "tinfoil hat" wearers and "conspiracy activists") that the fact that this has been allowed to become reality makes one simply speechless. (Pun not even intended.)
What does this remind you of?
Does this sound like a country you want to live in?
Parents should also be upset at the thoughtpolice sort of world this kind of policy reinforces. It's bad enough the FBI monitors social media of security researchers and calls their employers should they be tagged or take photos with "watchlisted" people... this already happens, today, and it's not just some tinfoil wingnuttery. Considering how low the bar is for millions on various watchlists, how must it feel to become "radioactive" without a trial or even hard, unclassified evidence? Fear and gossip are powerful motivators, especially threatening people's careers and reputations.
I think this sort of thing sets a dangerous precedent when the re are already programs like https://www.dhs.gov/see-something-say-something
I think the authorities forgot how to solve crimes without full access to your data. They forgot about what started this country and they despise the bill of rights and especially Amendment #4. At some point having all this data is just noise and makes actual detection harder. Even if they have the data, without detective work by smart authorities, having all that data is useless.
Terror attacks are horrible and we should try to prevent them, but the legislative and executive attack on our freedoms is much worse than any terrorist could do.
More recently however, I'm beginning to think that the risk may be ultimately worth it now despite the issues, because at this rate the US may become too scary to visit at all in my young adult life.
As soon as I save up enough money I'm moving to Iceland while I still can.
Not only do most Americans seem oblivious to their loss of personal liberties, but they also are also apparently unconcerned with the widespread havoc wrought by US foreign policy. Now after 3 years of living in one such country that got deeply fucked over by the apathy and ignorance of US citizens, that last part is especially hard for me to tolerate.
I'm actually considering a visit back for the first time to see my ailing grandparents, and honestly I'm worried about re-entering because I frequently voice "radical" opinions online (though never violent). We'll see how it goes.
Apparently Free Speech is permitted, though only as per a set of white listed regions in the U.S.
But I see from the comment thread that ranting is already covered, so instead I will try to provide a little context by defending the FBI (a little bit)
Part of the job of any police force is not to act in a reactive manner. You should develop leads, work confidential informants, and keep files on folks you might expect to deal with in the future. This process fits into staffing, handling large crowds, planning for needed jail and prosecution resources, and so on.
Police forces just don't sit on the corner waiting to react. If they did, they'd use a helluva lot more force than they do now. This is a good thing for everyone -- up until a point.
Likewise, in extreme circumstances, citizens should expect to be roughly handled and/or have their rights taken away from them. If you're on a public conveyance that is in danger of exploding, you might be forceably removed. Under certain unique threats, you could be strip-searched. All sorts of bad things happen -- every now and then.
This is the way it should be. When things like this occur, somebody should be taking political risk. Ticking nuclear bomb? Sure, waterboard the terrorist (please excuse arguments for torture not working for sake of argument). But that torture was a one-time, political decision made by an elected person with executive authority. That person is taking a risk. Perhaps evidence shows there was no threat. In that case, they could be removed from office.
What we're doing here that's so batshit crazy is systemitizing things that should be one-of occurrences. There are provisions for one-time extraordinary events in our system of government. But with modernization, what the government wants to do is automate all of that. No free system of government can last long under these conditions. You're killing the baby to put the fire out in the house.
Each little department, however, only sees their little piece of the action. I saw a video yesterday where a conservative congressman is now coming around to believing Apple's case[1]. He was questioning the Attorney General. What about all these side effects of what the FBI wants, he asked. Are you considering what kind of impact this case can have on the entire system?
The answer was nope, not in my wheelhouse. FBI needs something, Apple has it. They're going to need it again, so we want a system where it's easy and/or automated.
This is the case all over, from traffic tickets to civil asset forfeiture to financial reporting standards. Ideas in the past would have sounded good, Congress would have passed a law -- and 12 guys would be stuck trying to implement it. Eventually they would have given up. But now, that's no longer the case. Whatever each little silo wants, it can pay to have automated. You can bet it'll happen.
Our system is made for people to operate, not machines. Apologies for the over-the-top rhetoric, but the automation, systemization, and computerization of what used to be manual government processes is an evil far beyond anything mankind has ever seen. I don't even think most folks understand the problem, much less know what to do about it.