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Comment by hinkley | Hacker News Reader

> "Politicians are not happy. Someone has to pay for it. If you help us we can make sure you are not that someone"

Isn't that racketeering?

Wait, you mean the gang of armed thugs that extort money from people at the point of a gun, throwing them in a tiny rape cage if they disobey, and will abduct their own citizens to dose then with megadoses of psychedelics for weeks straight, while simultaneously operating a massive imperialist war machine...might be guilty of racketeering?

Come to think of it, you might be on to something!

Federal agents, while technically only possessing something akin to an even less accessible version of qualified immunity under the Bivens doctrine, in reality are basically never going to be held responsible in any sort of substantive way from those they victimized on the job, unless they literally kill a bystander or something and even that isn't a sure thing.

That doesn't make it not racketeering...

Regardless of what it is how many here jumping for joy if instead of a "noble security researcher" those tactics were being used against people peddling untaxed goods, rubber stamping commercial motor vehicle inspections or some other "you need to extrapolate out at least a few steps to find a victim" type crime? The government only gets away with this stuff because people turn a blind eye when its done to people they don't like.

no, the government gets away with this stuff because they have power. people turn a blind eye because it doesn't matter if they don't, because they don't have power.

The government gets away with this stuff because people can't coordinate their power, which looks basically the same as powerless people turning a blind eye. You guys are describing two facets of the same thing, but the people do in fact have more power than the government.

They can coordinate their power; it's called "government". Government employs about 15% of the labor force in America, and that's not even including contractors for whom government is the only customer.

Any large-scale coordination will necessarily eclipse the individual and take on a life of its own; you can't really have it both ways.

Not when the government does it.

The great self-referential inconsistency, if you will.

Cops are allowed to lie to you.

Even if it is, who are you gonna tell? The FBI?

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