FBI conducts bulk warrantless seizure of phone records related to Capitol attack | Hacker News Reader

FBI conducts bulk warrantless seizure of phone records related to Capitol attack

theintercept.com

29 pointsbarbacoa9 comments

The problem with this is that the intelligence agencies don’t spy on congress in order to persecute people. They do it for leverage, and this is not hypothetical: they did this going into the Iran deal in order to gain information to help the deal go through:

https://theintercept.com/2015/12/30/spying-on-congress-and-i...

And in 2014: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/01/world/senate-intelligence...

> The report by the agency’s inspector general also found that C.I.A. officers read the emails of the Senate investigators and sent a criminal referral to the Justice Department based on false information

When the people with guns start collecting leverage on the people who make laws, things will get ugly fast.

I would like the people who are downvoting you to refute your assertions directly. Downvotes should not mean just "I find this opinion upsetting".

Doesn't sound like the FBI even need a warrant for any of this.

When the same thing was done in response to the BLM riots, there were howls of outrage, so I'd rethink the idea of cheering when the FBI goes after your enemies but crying "injustice" when it goes after your friends.

I’d like you to consider the problems with giving executive branch (FBI) power to monitor legislative (congressional members) without a warrant.

Our intelligence agencies have vast power now, and have been largely enabled by sympathetic tech companies. I wouldn’t be surprised if we find out the FBI has a record of every SMS conversation that happened at the capitol.

Anyone with a good lawyer would argue this is circumstantial evidence, and considering the large volume of felonious criminals in the area, it wouldn't be above them to spoof the cell signals to frame anyone they wanted. Considering the government those rioters were attempting to overthrow is also in heavy possession of electronic devices to spoof cellular signals, the FBI/CIA/NSA could have framed them.

The important thing to remember with intelligence agencies and a principle of omniscience itself is that if you could see literally all crimes being committed in an area and who is doing them, not only would you be horrified and trust no one ever again but you would immediately be forced to reevaluate what constitutes a “serious” crime worth pursuing

I think you should have stopped at "this is circumstantial".

Anyone who has had their GPS suddenly think they are 30 meters to the right of the road knows this is possible.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com