We Just Got a Rare Look at US National Security Surveillance

FBI / DOJ violation of the protocol in secret courts is really a serious matter in a democratic society.

I understand that that's how the system works today. I object to it.

1) It doesn't account for fallibility of human memory, and our propensity to make mistakes. I believe that it's easy to badger a person to the point where they're intellectually disoriented, and "lies" become likely even without the suspect have bad intentions.

2) The asymmetry is a problem. Law enforcement routinely lies to suspects. Why is it okay for them morally?

3) We're told that these laws are necessary to prevent obstruction of justice, but it appears that these charges are frequently (maybe usually) when there was no obstruction at all: the police knew exactly what the truth was. They were setting a trap for the suspect, trying to get them to incriminate themselves in a different way.

Caveat: I didn't RTFA, since it's paywalled.

Just because something is illegal does not mean it should be illegal - and as far as dumb ass things to be illegal goes I think lying to the FBI is high up on that list.

There is already obstruction of justice which is significantly more reasonable a crime to charge someone with and if your lying was not obstruction of justice I don't see why the FBI should get to jail you for it.

The Martha Stewart case is a prime example of why you should never talk to investigators. Never help any investigator. Ever. I'm pretty sure you can find something to hang me by if you let me ramble for hours.

> You always have the right to decline to answer questions under the Fifth Amendment in that situation as well (another way to avoid telling a lie).

I've read criminal defense lawyers advise people that they first contact a good lawyer before contacting the police (and have them present during any communication) if their spouse is missing.

What we have to remember is it is just a job for law enforcement and prosecutors. It is best to think of them as machines that act on some kind of feedback loop (incentives). We cannot directly make improvements to the machines. We have to try to change the incentive structure if we want any change in how the machines work.

So the question is: what are the incentives and what needs changing?

A system that is highly secretive and whose only accountability is to pretend to investigate itself inevitably will be abused more than an open one with transparent checks and balances. One has only to see that FISA has only turned down 85 out of 40k requests to understand this is a rubber-stamp process. (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intellig...)

Does this have it's own pitfalls? Certainly. But it's time for the pendulum to swing the other way.

They will use any unconscious fib about any detail, no matter how irrelevant, to impeach you in court. The simplest thing to do is not speak to LEOs at all when they approach you.

so how can you lie about something you are never taken to court for? if she was guilty of insider trading it would make sense to prosecute that, prove that, then that proves the charge of not telling the truth.

this is all part and parcel of federal prosecutions where they lay on as many charges as possible in order to intimidate you. Welcome to the world that led to Aaron Swartz's death.

https://www.popehat.com/2011/12/01/reminder-oh-wont-you-plea...

18 USC Section 1001 is notoriously broad - for example, your local postman is a federal agent, it doesn't just pertain to law enforcement officials. You don't even need to lie directly to the agent - for example if you fudge your hours on a timesheet and that timesheet gets sent to the federal government for some use or other, you "knowingly and willfully made a materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement in any matter within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of the United States."

It doesn't matter if you're not under oath. It doesn't matter if you've been read your miranda rights - any material lie that is made to a federal employee within their jurisdiction is an offense.

Sadly, this means that in almost every case, the only reasonable thing to do is to refuse to talk to the agent and to ask for an attorney if they insist.

Because the right has been complaining about these specific FBI agents biased conduct in this investigation for years now and trying to turn this into a 'we all know fisa is bad' comes off as epic gaslighting.

>The IG report did not find any evidence of political partisan spying, it only faulted the process of getting the warrant.

This is beyond a white washing. He absolutely found evidence that line agents were biased. He did not find clear 'evidence' that the outcome and leadership was biased. The key part is that confessions and a paper trail were not found to lead him to make that conclusion. He stated he made numerous referrals to the doj/fbi about misconduct. If you actually listen to his hearing statements on the 'evidence' for bias he is walking a fine line.

'we did not have documentary or testimonial evidence that (the mistakes) were intentional, but also make note the lack of satisfactory explanations (for the mistakes), from there i cannot draw any further conclusions' - this is during a line of questions from senator whitehouse, but there are many others like it.

I naively thought that in our day and age we, or at least the West, had done away with secret courts. The time around Snowden was quite shocking to me. I fully agree that secret courts are a bad idea and that a free society has no place for them.

Compare this with their coverage of a different revelation of state secrets: the US pressuring the UK to sell out their healthcare in the UK-US trade negotiations. They focus entirely on how it's "associated with a Russian disinformation campaign", with a tiny little addendum that "the leaks seem accurate".

They like to present themselves as trustworthy and neutral, and indeed their coverage is very accurate. But their selection of stories to cover, and angles to cover them from, hides a tremendous bias (which doesn't neatly map to US party lines, as the examples I gave illustrate).

It's not as big of a problemas abuse of power by a federal institution that directed genocide and, incidentally, which that other federal institution answers to, which makes it strange that that's exactly what you are using it to minimize.

> Orange man didn't create this system.

The manner in which Donald Trump has corrupted the administration of the executive branch and for which is defenders—includig those who can't bring themselves to a direct defense by only engage in the kind do distraction you are engaging in now—are desperate to set the precedent of total absence of accountability is one of greatest dangers to democratic-republican government in the history of the nation. Certainly, it builds on a history tracing back at least through the Nixon pardon, the relative lack of accountability in Iran-Contra, the Republican Congress so burnt out from a failed attempt to impeach Clinton for lying about sex that it couldn't muster up accountability for a war waged not only without Congressional action, but against direct Congressional denial of authority, and scores of abuses, including bad faith in making determinations Congress required in the Iraq AUMF, war crimes, torture, etc., directed at the highest levels of the Bush Administration, etc.

But we're running out of opportunities to draw a line in executive abuses of power before there is no more capacity to restrain.

> Obama [...] did pardon Chelsea Manning.

In fact, he did not. He commuted Manning's sentence, which is a very different thing. Not that I see how the issue would be relevant to the rest of the discussion either way.