Parler users furious that site sent violent posts to FBI ahead of Capitol riot
newsweek.com
newsweek.com
I don't see it that way at all. I think these companies' PR is just constantly hanging off of whatever 51% of the country wants to see them do. When the riot happened, public opinion on Parler getting limited/kicked off the internet tipped from just under 50% to just over 50%, and every major corporation to whom it was relevant was watching. It doesn't matter whether more planning happened on Facebook, because that's not the way the public felt about it. I think it's really that simple.
Of course it's still a problem that a handful of companies have so much power and reach. Tyranny of the majority is a thing [1]. But I see no need to invoke conspiracy.
It's analogous to incognito mode. People completely misunderstand its purpose.
They think it means they are sneaking around the internet protected with no consequences for their actions. In reality, "the internet" logs everything you're doing, only your personal browser doesnt. lol
EDIT: Remember: DC is a TERRITORY, not a state. Which means its security comes under the command of the *President*, who wasn't exactly keen on stopping the riot.
EDIT2: Remember the timeline: 12:30pm was around when the fence-line was breached. Capitol was breached by 2:30. DoD approving and sending support around 5pm is way late by any metric. Its clear that the executive branch was dragging their feet on the issue.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_2021_storming_...
> 5:08 p.m.: Army senior leaders relay to Major General Walker the Secretary of Defense's permission to deploy the DCNG to the Capitol.[55]
On the capital side the CPC asked the SAM numerous times and the SAM was ordered to not make the request (though the SAM himself wanted too). Who is in charge of the sam? Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House.
Both Political parties are full of old lying cronies that are doing nothing but stoking the fires of discord by lying and blaming the other party.
The Capital Riots were a failure from all parties involved and no where has anyone asserted Trump refused to provide support.
EDIT: https://www.npr.org/2021/01/11/955548910/ex-capitol-police-c...
Why didn't Trump offer military support at 2:30pm, when the Capitol was breached?
There's a 3-hour period here that's extremely uncomfortable. Wrestle with that 3-hour period between 2pm and 5pm, and come to your own conclusions. But facts be facts.
In contrast: Once the DoD refused to support Pelosi, she called the Governor of Maryland to send in the Maryland National Guard. Governor Hogan refused: because that is tantamount to invasion unless they had DoD approval. Governor Hogan sent the troops in as soon as DoD approval was granted at 5pm.
We know what the holdup was. These discussions are public and documented and timestamped.
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The one group in charge of defense: the Department of Defense (who is in charge of securing territories of the USA), watched on the sidelines between 12pm and 5pm before deciding to help. That's the facts. Maybe waiting was the right choice at 12pm or 1pm (when the hope was that the protesters would go away), but by 2:30pm, shots were fired and blood was spilled.
And don't be naive. We all know that both Proud Boys and Oath Keepers explicitly try to recruit military members into their group. That whole "Defend your Oath after you leave the military" thing plays pretty strongly with military members.
Three hours during fog of war with conflicting and unreliable reports when nobody really knows anything.
This is, incidentally, the problem with politicizing everything. You have politicians claiming they're about to be murdered, despite not even being in the same building. Then a President from the other party has to be concerned he's being goaded into sending national guard that he controls into the capitol in order to bolster a coup narrative. Which is what would have happened if he did that.
But now the executive not sending the military into the legislature is condemned all the same.
Nobody knew anything? The capital breach was literally being live-streamed. We knew exactly what was happening. If you didn’t know what was happening it’s because you chose to intentionally ignore what was happening.
I'm not sure what country you're from, but here in America there was no amount of "stitching together" that would make me believe storming the capital in order to prevent the peaceful transition of power was anything other than sedition. By definition.
Third hand reports and context-free edits from opinionated partisans prior to adversarial examination. This is not a source of reliable information.
> I'm not sure what country you're from, but here in America there was no amount of "stitching together" that would make me believe storming the capital in order to prevent the peaceful transition of power was anything other than sedition. By definition.
Sedition basically means crime against the government. Throwing a shoe at George W. Bush is sedition. So that's a motte and bailey word. It implies an attempt to overthrow the government but with a word that also still applies to breaking a window in the capitol building. Then if the coup narrative disintegrates they can fall back on no, no, it was still technically sedition. Insurrection.
But that's cheating your way out of the hard question, which is what actually happened. It's convenient if all you want is othering the perpetrators to justify tribal warfare, but tribal warfare is bad.
And the problem with the coup narrative is that it's incoherent. There is no logical sequence of events where storming the capitol leads to an undemocratic transition of power. It doesn't work that way. That road doesn't go there. And for the same reason it makes no sense for Trump to have ordered or desired that.
So then what the heck was it?
A riot. Not a plan, despite whatever social media posts people try to retcon into a unified motive or an organizational structure. Undirected anger. Pissed off jackasses who smashed.
Which is illegal. They're in jail. You don't do it that way.
But a riot is a sign that something is wrong, and Donald Trump was more symptom than cause. When your choices are the establishment or Donald Trump and like half the country chooses Donald Trump, what does that say about the establishment? There is a deeper lesson here than orange man bad.
What do you do?
I start the clock at Nansi Pelosi's telephone call to the DoD for a reason. That's when shit got real and the DoD got eye-witness and high-authority pleas for help. Even if they somehow weren't looking at the news at the time, Nansi Pelosi's phone call is a turning point in the entire situation.
As others said because he doesn't have the authority to?
Why did Nancy Pelosi deny requests for the national guard ahead of time? Funny how those questions are never asked.
And to be clear I have no love lost for either party. They are for themselves and all left/right/liberal/conservative does for them is keep us arguing amongst ourselves and not paying attention to the way both establishment oligarchies line their pockets at our expense.
If you think either political party sincerely has your best interest at heart you are a damn fool. Ignorance truly is bliss.
Read the law. Now that we have the law here, I ask you who the commander and chief of the DC National Guard is.
> As others said because he doesn't have the authority to?
This is false. Not only does he have the authority to offer such support to local authority anywhere in the US in response to an insurgency against local authority (10 USC § 251), but he’s also, because D.C. is a federal district that lacks command of its own national guard, the applicable local authority with regard to D.C. (D.C. Code § 49-409), and, on top of that, even if D.C. were a state he would still have paramount authority to decide on military intervention independent of any local decision because he has unilateral authority and duty to determine the need to use military force anywhere in the US in response to an insurrection, and to act unilaterally on such determination, under the Insurrection Act (see 10 USC §§ 253, 254.)
> Why did Nancy Pelosi deny requests for the national guard ahead of time?
Nancy Pelosi has no operational authority over any portion of the military, including the D.C. or any other National Guard.
Both sides were definitely 'lying liar cronies' in terms of preparation, but Trump created the conditions for the riot, and then when it got really bad, he waited hours to react and subsequently praised instead of chastising individuals.
FBI did the bare minimum correct thing to do: they sent an email on January 5th talking about the risks. They should have done more but... technically yes, they did warn people.
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That's... maybe a C, or D grade. "Barely passing", but technically correct. Compared to the failures of the DoD to sit on their ass for 3 hours while Senators / House members literally plea for help is a different story.
I'm giving you an F.
I know the FBI does a few muscle jobs here and there, but only where they're authorized. I don't think the FBI has any direct responsibility to the security of the DC Capitol area.
So as far as I'm concerned for this situation, they were intelligence (since FBI is still in charge of figuring out threats and relaying that information to local police forces).
Like... This is a pattern of mishandling. At some point you've got to stop giving them the benefit of the doubt.
The Mayor of DC refused help in the days coming up to the protest and is very much on the record as saying they were 'well prepared'. [1]
The DoD is a major step to take, it's not like they would have been deployed early.
Trump and White House officials exacerbated the situation by refusing to call for help.
But for the preparations that matter, the city was the problem.
[1] https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/national-international/la...
Lets pretend its 2:30pm.
Protesters are storming the capitol. Mike Pence was forced into a bunker to hide. Shots fired inside the capitol, killing one of the invaders. Nansi Pelosi is on the Telephone, asking for help. Capitol Police are completely overrun. There are Youtube / Twitch livestreams of protesters breaking and entering inside the Capitol Building. There's all-to-wall coverage of the events on every single news channel and radio network in America.
What do YOU do?
1. Send help?
2. Refuse to send help for 3 hours?
Take a guess what the DoD did.
The FBI says there are threats of violence.
What do you do?
1) Accept the offer from the national guard et. al. and make preparations?
2) Refuse and say it's all good.
The Mayor of DC and capitol police had every offer and chance to make basic preparations such that the National Guard would not have to be called in. [1]
I'm not sure about the actions of the DoD, but I wouldn't find it hard to believe that that bureaucracy took a few hours to really move. The national guard is not something you can press a button and they magically appear.
They offered to be present, they were turned down beforehand.
I blame Trump for the entirety of this, he's the poison in the swamp, but there's no doubt the city leadership made a huge mistake in lack of preparation.
[1] https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/america-votes/u-s-capitol-polic...
I'm talking about mistakes on January 6th. Trump was still in charge of the DC National Guard on January 6th, and refused to authorize help.
This refusal to authorize help meant that Virginia / Maryland national guard was unable to help until 5pm as well. I understand that it takes hours for military to prepare and brief, but Maryland / Virginia national guard was ready by 3pm IIRC, and just waiting for DC-National Guard (aka: DoD) authorization.
> I'm not sure about the actions of the DoD, but I wouldn't find it hard to believe that that bureaucracy took a few hours to really move.
All it needed was a phone call from Trump, who has the ultimate authority as the President, and the seat as commander-in-chief.
But why are so many unwilling to admit/conceded/realize that the US Capitol was very clearly warned of impending problems, and refused help in a very public way.
If this were any different, 'normal' president that had a rally that got out of hand, we would be blaming the officials who were straight up told of problems in preparation.
Also, very unfortunately, this situation very well shows us how 'freedom of expression' has a dark side as well, in that it allows people to orchestrate violence. It's rare, but it it will happen. So we have to 'find a way' to not have the VP almost assassinated while not becoming China. It's a problem.
Because on January 5th, the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys weren't considered a threat. That changed on January 6th.
I still remember the debates when Biden pointed out that the Proud Boys could be a threat on national TV. Within my circle of friends, that caused some debate. I've had only minor experiences with the Proud Boys: but I generally remember them as those dumbasses with guns at protests (and I didn't really think of them as a threat, especially in a town like DC where marching with guns is illegal).
True story: the general feeling in my circle of friends was that Biden was exaggerating the threat. None of us were proud of Trump's answer either, but for Biden to call them out explicitly still seemed unusual.
Of course, that changed on January 6th when Proud Boys / Oath Keepers invaded the capitol and demonstrated themselves to be a threat.
---------------
In hindsight: we all had a blind spot for the damage right-wing protesters could cause. They've been marching for years with guns and getting rowdier and rowdier. But I think we generally still trusted them to "do the right thing".
Generally speaking, we do want to support the police. And seeing people march with pro-police signs is usually a decent thing (racism of Blue Lives Matter vs Black Lives Matter aside, I don't think anyone disagrees with the core message of "Police matter" and "African Americans matter").
It isn't until one of those groups starts beating literal Police officers with their Blue-lives matter flags before we realize that they too were just in the political game, playing us all along.
This is not true.
"FBI alert about possible ‘war’ against Congress reached D.C. and Capitol Police on eve of attack, deepening security questions" [1]
"FBI, NYPD told Capitol Police about possibility of violence before riot, senior officials say" [2]
The FBI issued direct warnings to the Capitol Hill police and others, including such language:
"The FBI issued a report from its Norfolk, Va., field office on Jan. 5 that detailed specific calls for violence on Jan. 6, including those that suggested protesters go to the Capitol “ready for war.” [3]
Literally 'ready for war'.
“We did communicate that information in a timely fashion to the Capitol Police and MPD in not one, not two, but three different ways,” (FBI statement) [4]
There's clear evidence that the FBI made a stark warning + assessment and made every attempt to communicate it.
Former Capitol Hill Police Chief Steven Sund says that he 'didn't get the memo' but admitted his agency actually did, that he didn't see it himself.
It seems pretty clear that the Capitol Hill police and DC Government were informed of the severe potentiality and should have at least had reinforcements or communication channels open if needed.
It's hard to know what exact actions they could have taken, but at very least having supplementary support at the ready would have been prudent, rather than have to wait hours for DoD etc. to start moving gears.
FYI "True story: the general feeling in my circle of friends " None of us really believed the Proud Boys were that big of a threat - but 'your friends' opinions (and mine) don't matter really, do they? When the FBI is submitting clear and stark intelligence information, that's what matters. It's not about 'how we felt' it's about the material and actionable information available.
Finally here is the DC Mayor's public statement indicating she doesn't want/need further support, and that they are prepared. Dated Jan 5. [5]
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/capitol-riot-intelli...
[2] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/crime-courts/fbi-nypd-told-capi...
[3] https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/540081-ex-capit...
[4] https://www.rollcall.com/2021/03/03/capitol-police-chief-dis...
[5] https://twitter.com/mayorbowser/status/1346530358674792466?l...
Speak for yourself. People have been warning about America's right wing militias for a long time, and about the fascistic tendencies in Trump's alt-right base since before his election. No one noticed they were in the political game? Have you ever heard NRA rhetoric? These groups are practically the armed wing of Conservative Christianity, the Republican party and the KKK, and their capacity for domestic terrorism was a primary concern of the FBI and BATF before 9/11.
Don't act like no one saw this coming. People have been shouting from the rooftops for years warning that this was coming.
You have to remember this forum is full of people who supported Trump, QAnon and the insurrection, and they make an effort to reframe and distort the narrative at every opportunity. You can't assume good faith in threads like this, even though the site guidelines require you to.
In fact I suggest it's slightly left/anarcho/libertarian for the most part, with some hot-button issues where I feel the discussion gets out of hand. Trump, Bitcoin, Security, Hackers, Whistleblowers, NIMYBISM are all issues in which I feel there's what I would call a 'lack of maturity' or more politely an 'overabundance of idealism' in getting to the nature of especially macro issues, something resulting from 'highly intelligent and academic viewpoints' of those who haven't generally had to contend with the reality and mechanics of power, responsibility and public communications.
Everything is intellectual in rhetoric, but it's 100% 'making sausage' in the real world.
A kind of populist, intellectual idealism here. But it's definitely in 'good faith'.
There it is. What these users want is not free speech, but rather no consequences.
edit: I am not talking about the strict legal definition of free speech. I agree it's important that the government cannot punish people for the things they say. What I'm saying is that people want to be free of all consequence for the things they say. They want to shout the n-word at a large black man and not get punched. They want to advocate for paedophilia on Twitter and not get fired from their job. They want to be a jerk and not be ostracized by friends and family.
Now, planning an act of violence is not expressing a political opinion. The people who think they don't go to jail for that are idiots. But that's the users, not the company, and if you want to shut down Parler for that then why is Facebook still there?
I guess academic freedom was a bad idea.
Anyway, probably not the best idea to join mainstream social media and call for mass violence or some other insane BS. Especially not on any of the American owned ones. These are just honeypots in disguise for the government.
Doesn't matter who gave out my ip or metadata. I'd be pissed anyway. Even if my data wasn't leaked, what ever happened to the f#ck the pōlice code within our society... Someone sitting down and thinking how they can make the FBI's work of hunting down civilians like them easier. Something seriously wrong with these new generation of netizens.
Clearly. Who'd have thought that publicly conspiring to overthrow the government would have negative consequences? Not those schmucks, I guess.
> Something seriously wrong with these new generation of netizens.
Well, we've got politicians on both sides clamoring to "fix" section 230. This wasn't just any old netizens, it was Parler. Sounds like they realized that their necks were seriously on the line because of their users' extremely ill-advised behavior, and snitched in hope of leniency.
Which is it?
When our technical overseers decide it’s time for you to go, they’ll show you the door quickly. A strong counter argument to “Just start your own twitter!”
How do we know that?
Nothing in the article makes any such claim, much less provides evidence to substantiate it, and neither does the Wall Street Journal article it links to[0]. If anything, quotes from Parler users referring to being "ratted out" as well as reactions to this very article from sites elsewhere (which can be found with a simple Google search,) suggest the accusations were accurate.
[0]https://www.wsj.com/articles/parler-says-it-informed-fbi-of-...
EDIT: It was done through adding emphasis to certain portions of Dr. King's "Letter From Birmingham Jail". In bold font:
> who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace
It's the same as the lack of admittance that the Capital Riot and a Year of riots around the US were all horrible. One did billions in damage to the US for months, the other a few broken windows and doors. Yet we're supposed to be mad that one group did something stupid, but respect the other because, they had an emotional right to it.
How about everyone that participated in rioting regardless of the cause, are morons that should be held accountable.
Black people in the USA have faced various degrees of oppression at individual and systemic levels for generations. There’s not just residue of that left in the country, but real substance still present from day to day. It’s a real problem. I don’t support everything that happened during those riots, but I recognize the desire and the need to address and resolve that problem.
Donald Trump lost the election and tried to undermine the American democracy, incited violence, and caused a riot by lying to his supporters. Innocent people died, the social cohesion of America was seriously degraded, and it was all for virtually nothing.
I don’t support that. That group did do something stupid. But I think it’s important to have compassion for them, because they were lied to (and this was allowed for years) and they, like BLM protestors, probably believed they were doing important work.
If trump wasn’t lying to them, they would have been attempting to save democracy. The insurrection would have gone down in history as an important, brave moment. But that’s not what was happening. It’ll be remembered as something so much worse.
Just like BLM, bad rioters show up. That’s not necessarily a reflection of the cause. I try not to condemn a protest based on the damage that was done by bad actors. They’re always present. They’re sometimes placed by authorities to encourage people outside of the protest to demand that it ends and remove any support, patience, or tolerance.
I see a clear case for battling systemic racism, but none at all for battling for Trump’s illegitimate second term.
By your same accord you can't condemn the protest at the capital on the 6th, you have to condemn those that were idiots and caused damage like bad actors. Both groups felt they were in the right, both groups felt marginalized. You can't dictate how someone feels on either side. So you have to either condemn equally for the outcomes, or not. In this case people chose to condemn one and not the other.
You're not going to convince me that battling "systemic racism" isn't the same as battling "a system designed to limit and inhibit your way of life because you're a republican or trump supporter"
Take the recent incident in boulder, people were all to quick to blame it on a White Male Gun owner, and demand people have their guns taken away because these things happen. As a white male gun owner, wouldn't it be fair for you to feel constantly attacked and oppressed? It' doesn't matter if you think it's the same or not, oppression is oppression. When conservative news is shut down, when far leftist ideals are pushed and nuanced discussions shut down, it's easy to see where those that stormed the capital have a grievance. In the case of the boulder incident, it turns out the attacker has extremist views, bought the gun legally (because of failures in the process of vetting by the FBI) was already under investigation by the FBI, and ultimately had been planning an attack (to include a trump rally prior to covid). Yet the news paints this as a reason why Trump supporters or Gun enthusiasts are bad.
Parler was an alternative site, you don't have to agree with it, but the fact is nothing posted there wasn't present on all the other major platforms, often times being much more represented on them. It was singled out and chastised because it was a "trump" supporter platform.
Until you and by you I mean people who hold the stance you presented, accept and acknowledge the hypocrisy and ignorance of the one sided arguments, you're going to continue to create the thing you're so desperate to prevent. Angry, people that will turn to extremes because they're constantly being derided and chastised for their views and way of life.
Capital protest was fine, Rioters breaking in was abhorrent. BLM protests were fine, Rioting, looting, and destruction was abhorrent. The two aren't different. The context of how the protest started is irrelevant. Parler, Facebook, Twitter, and whatever other platforms you use are no different. They are fine, calls to violence or illegal activities are abhorrent.
And how has this email not leaked?
Is that actually what they did, or do they support BLM, and you equate support for BLM with support for political violence?
> who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace
I strongly recommend reading some histories of the 1950s and 1960s civil-rights movement, it was a fascinating era. MLK was deeply committed to non-violence, he wrote at great length about why he felt that non-violence was the superior method for pursuing the civil rights cause. It was other African-American ideologues who favoured violent actions, and tension arose between them and MLK because of it.