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Comment by throw_away_dgs | Hacker News Reader

Some FBI agents came to my house once and told me that my home Internet had been used to visit Islamic Extremist websites. They brought a local police office with them and a 'threat assessment' coordinator from my workplace. They asked me if my family was Muslim and wanted to know if we had been radicalized.

We are not religious (at all). We do not attend church, synagogue or mosque. We are lower middle class white Americans born and raised in the USA and have never traveled outside the country.

I have no idea why they thought this about us. Maybe it was an IP mix-up, but it was very disturbing. I feared that I may lose my job. I became very afraid of the FBI that day. I think this could happen to anyone at anytime.

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"threat assessment' coordinator from my workplace" "I feared that I may lose my job."

I understand that police/FBI have to conduct investigation. What dont understand is involvement of the employer , it's extremely disturbing - you have not been convincted, you have not been charged, you are not even a suspect or accused of anything at this point - how is your private life the business of your employer?

Why is your privacy being breached and livehood being placed at risk?

Surely the FBI is not allowed to publicise random dirt they find on innocent people?

The FBI still has buildings named after J Edgar Hoover. That should tell you everything you need to know about their institutional respect for justice and due process.

For non-americans, what was J Edgar Hoover known for?

I'm also not an American - but as far as I've read - massive abuse of power in using the FBI to spy on political rivals, illegal wiretapping, illegal surveillance of US congressmen and even presidents, running the FBI while they were doing extremely controversial programs like COINTELPRO and programs and investigations that tried to hinder the civil rights movement, etc.

As a non American, I think COINTELPRO is the single most anti-democratic abuse of power ever done by US government.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO#Range_of_targets

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO#Alleged_methods

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Edgar_Hoover#Investigation_...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Edgar_Hoover#Reaction_to_ci...

Turning the FBI into a blackmail operation.

Being in the pocket of the mob

Cross dressing

> Surely the FBI is not allowed to publicise random dirt they find on innocent people?

If they're doing an investigation, they very likely got the employer involved in order to get more information on the person they're investigating, and companies have liaisons for law enforcement, as well. If the FBI comes knocking and says, "we think you've hired a terrorist," it's going to ruffle some feathers at the company no matter how unfounded or untruthful the claim is.

It isn't just the suspicion of terrorism that might have law enforcement or the FBI knocking at an employer's door. If someone is suspected of any type of cyber crime, the FBI will be coming for all of their computers and electronic devices, including the ones they use at work.

"If they're doing an investigation, they very likely got the employer involved in order to get more information on the person they're investigating"

What is an employer going to contibute, realistically. "Oh yeah, he always carries potassium nitrate and makes explosions during lunch breaks!"

Depending on the company they would likely audit their activities incase the company itself was a vector, assuming that terrorists also require intelligence networks.

This is par for the course FBI intimidation tactics, along with interviewing everyone you've regularly conversed with. Serves a double purpose of investigation while simultaneously making you radioactive to be around.

Thereby isolating the person during a period of high emotional anxiety.

Employer might have been defense contractor. Most jobs without clearance don't even have "threat assessment coordinaror".

> Most jobs without clearance don't even have "threat assessment coordinaror"

The title may vary from place to place but all companies have people filling this role, even if you've never met them.

Normally falls somewhere under a team like Global Intelligence, Workplace Security, Business Continuity, etc.

No, most places do not have Global Intelligence, Workplace Security positions. Business Continuity is most often a IT business function ...

Companies that employ software engineers likely are divided into those that have that role and those that don't have it yet.

You deserve to be always assumed innocent until proven guilty, and you will have to be proven guilty to be found guilty, and realistically speaking, those premises are extremely technical.

You don't have to be found guilty to be punished, lookup "case load". That can keep you on probation and monitoring as long as they want to draw out the case and the whole time you are required to make monthly payments or risk going to jail.

In the US, the process IS the punishment.

One of the principle argument for the "speedy trial" clause of the US 6th Amendment, and similar rights in other jurisdictions.

Note that the US law does not apply to noncriminal processes --- civil lawsuits or other elements of law.

How about a State felony case that has taken nearly two years?

How about it?

Without specifics, or some indication of who is triggering the delay (e.g., defendants may request delays), I couldn't possibly comment.

Given law and legal processes are not my baliwick, I'd probably not be able to comment intelligently regardless. But you've posed a null-content question.

The State Attorney General dragging the case out because they refuse to look at it. They also filed it under the wrong statue so their arguments are incorrect.

Seems possible grounds for a challenge. The entire case can be dismissed if the right is denied.

https://www.justia.com/criminal/procedure/right-to-a-speedy-...

https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/the-right-speedy-tri...

Not during COVID times...

He is already being punished.

I'm reading a book where the main character receives a subpoena to go to a interview with the Portugal dictatorship political police. Nothing happens to him (till now) but everybody in the hotel where he is hosted starts to treat him differently.

Who will be the first in the line when a firing is necessary? Probably the guy that has problems with the FBI.

It's (scarily) interesting that they react with actual personal attendance based purely on a very limited set of electronic information.

From your further description:

> We are not religious (at all). We do not attend church, synagogue or mosque. We are lower middle class white Americans born and raised in the USA and have never traveled outside the country.

Would not the FBI have been able to any amount of background searching (read: further electronic information gathering), that would be less effort-intensive than getting arranging a 'threat assessment' coordinator from throw_away_dgs' actual workplace and a local police officer for an in-person door-knock. If such background checks were performed, then they either don't have much data or their threat weightings are set to red-scare levels of paranoia. Either way, it's scary.

Unless there's more to the story.

I think what he experienced is another manifestation of the same phenomena as zero-tolerance policies in schools; institutions ask their enforcers to suspend common sense and strictly enforce the letter of the law/guideline/etc, even in situations where any reasonable person would decide it made no sense. They do this because such common sense and gut feelings is how bias and prejudice might creep into their oh-so-perfect system.

It used to be that if a teacher saw a kid get bullied and then punch his bully back, the teacher was empowered to evaluate the situation using their best judgement, and punish the bully while congratulating the bullied kid who stuck up for himself. The system sees a problem with that; the teacher's perception of the incident might have bias and prejudice. The system's solution is to have zero tolerance for any violence and punish both students equally. The system's solution to the possibility of prejudice against one student is to ensure prejudice against both students.

At my school it was worse than that. Any one "involved" in a physical altercation would be suspended. Someone could walk up and punch you and you would be suspended for it. This obviously had a chilling effect on reporting. No more bullying. Problem solved.

Such policies also justify and encourage excessive retribution. If you’re getting suspended whether you fight back or not, may as well cause some real damage to earn it.

> the teacher's perception of the incident might have bias and prejudice.

I mean that's not entirely wrong either. Bullying was still a thing before zero tolerance policies.

Not to say zero tolerance policies are the right solution, but personal bias _is_ a big problem when it comes to enforcement.

Of course. Bias and prejudice is always a real concern. In situations where the teacher gets it wrong and punishes the bullied kid, the kid learns an unfortunate but useful lesson; that some agents of the system cannot be relied on.

But the zero tolerance response to this circumstance ensures the bullied student is prejudiced against, judging him guilty before considering the facts of the individual circumstance. What does that teach the kid? That the system itself cannot be relied on.

to be fair, that's a pretty valuable lesson to learn out here. it would be neat if we had a system we could rely on.

was about to comment the same thing. I teach future teachers, and I always say that_ everyone forgets their school math and chemistry lessons after cramming for the test. What sticks is learning how to survive in an unequal, dysfunctional system where you're the oppressed class, fighting among each other while you can't touch the people in power.

This is how 95% of the world works. In most countries, people are conditioned to "join" the rulers from a very young age, and people who use critical thinking are a tiny minority (often invisible)

Bullying is still a thing.

But they did not establish how legislation has elevated itself from that.

They are right that everyone is biased, what they completely fail to establish is how they improved their own perception. Actions justified because of the presence of bias and prejudice very closely mirror religious dogma by a more objective metric.

> It's (scarily) interesting that they react with actual personal attendance based purely on a very limited set of electronic information.

Either their intel is better than they let on and didnt think they would be walking into an ambush or they are more stupid than we think.

Actually, I think they had no intel. You NEED intel for a judge to order a subpoena—and if a subpoena was issued, the ISP would open their firehose, and overwhelm the FBI with evidence suggesting that there’s nothing to investigate. And having visited extremist sites a handful of times—even if advertantly—is probably not going to meet the threshold for a subpoena.

If the FBI visited me and casually asked about my web history, I would casually ask them to pound sand (as should everyone!). But if the agent was accompanied with someone from my employer, I would eagerly cart up every single device in my home and offer to carry it out to their vehicle (as I fear most would).

It smells like someone is taking massive investigative shortcuts, at very significant cost to the accused. Then again, I can’t even fathom the upside for the FBI.

My gut reaction is simply speed. Why sit at my desk for a few hours reading documents when I can a couple phone calls and be scary for 20 minutes to feel secure in saying “yep - not terrorists”.

Or - you know - “weeeelp, I’ve been sitting at this desk all morning, let’s go talk to someone”.

As commenter below says: Power.

Why spend the extra time and effort, let's just hit the road and totally and completely fuck at least one citizen's opinion of the entire system upon which their life and livelihood depends.

Saves me a couple of hours, and the sun's out. Sold!

Ironically, maybe this will actually radicalise the people they're investigating for radicalisation.

> Then again, I can’t even fathom the upside for the FBI.

The upside is power.

You yourself said as much: "If the agent was accompanied with someone from my employer, I would eagerly cart up every single device in my home and offer to carry it out to their vehicle."

You fear them. Rightly so. The FBI has incredible power, backed by the full might of corporate media. To cross them is to be crushed.

Why would they need a warrant, when Apple and Google climb over each other volunteer every scrap of your private information? Why take the time for a trial, when justice can more efficiently be served by both your employer and your union gleefully ruining you financially upon request?

People have been demanding[1] this for years. Now it's here.

[1] https://xkcd.com/1357/

Apple have famously refused FBI requests.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI%E2%80%93Apple_encryption_d...

>If such background checks were performed, then they either don't have much data or their threat weightings are set to red-scare levels of paranoia. Either way, it's scary.

They're not gonna have anything happen to them if they go tough on (and fuck over an) innocent guy.

They're gonna look bad if they miss a terrorist.

So they have no incentive to not have "red-scare levels of paranoia".

That's true, I still remember the fact that the Boston Bomber(s) were on international watch lists and their home countries warned the US (whichever TLA, may have been an issue of crossed wires) that these guys were on the move, and it was all ignored.

Now, visit a 'bad' website, or somehow be mistaken for someone that visited a 'bad' website, and you'll get some deep personal treatment.

Feds can't win, but it seems to be through their own laziness or incompetence or lack of interagency cooperation.

Or maybe because it's motives, and what level of capture they have over their 'customers'? Seems pretty simple to me. They have a monopoly of service and the only retribution people can take is political which means everything is done on appearance.

Imagine being a muslim in such case. Trying to convince them that this can be a mix-up ( which is possible easily) won't be successful.

Imagine being a muslim and e.g. having a kid visiting those sites.

Or just going there out of intellectual curiosity, like how a leftie might read Main Kampf to check what that shit is.

You can end up in a very bad position...

A couple years after 9/11, my father and I had donated to the Holy Land foundation.

The IRS proceeded to audit me (16 years old) and my $8k a year woodselling business I had with my dad. You tell me.

That's absolutely fucked. The whole story of the Holy Land Foundation being railroaded and labeled as terrorists when all they did was advocate for human rights of Palestinians...it's an incredibly chilling story. To hear that those who merely donated to a worthy cause were also then audited...the outrageous injustice makes my blood boil.

That’s better than my friends who were having their phones randomly tapped

I’ll be the dissenting voice and say this reads like a “sow discord in the US 101”. Why on earth would the FBI bring both the police and a “threat assessment” coordinator from your work to interview you? Why would your workplace ever agree to it? That screams lawsuit waiting to happen.

And on that note, why didn’t you sue your workplace for harassment? Whether you’re religious or not isn’t any of their business and is a protected class.

A decade ago the FBI harassed me at my home waking me up from sleeping twice and at a past employer before on entirely unfounded claims.

They didn't care what the consequences were for targeting someone innocent.

They also made nasty threats like "Someone has to go down for this, and if you help us collect intel on your industry peers we suspect then someone else can be that person"

I told them politely to go die in a fire because I was not about to help them harass other innocent people but it was terrifying none the less that they seemingly had the power to end my whole universe.

I became convinced through that ordeal that the FBI is a deeply corrupt organization that creates pressure to close cases by any means needed.

The OPs post seems totally believable and consistent with stories I have heard from others, particularly if they work for an organization that has the US government as a customer like a defense contractor.

> Someone has to go down for this

The so called "justice" system, I guess.

You're incredibly naive if you think this kind of stuff doesn't happen all the time since 9/11. I personally know several people with similar stories in the US.

You know several people whose employers sent someone to their house with FBI agents to harass them about their religious beliefs?? And none of them sued?

I’m not surprised at all that the FBI is harassing people, I find it incredibly hard to believe a private business would touch the situation with a 4,000 foot pole. They have absolutely nothing to gain and massive liability.

Is it prohibited to visit those websites? I once was interested to understand the way radicals think, to read about their arguments, so I spent some time hanging around some radical websites.

I was visited by the FBI for doing security research that made them at least pretend to assume I was a blackhat they wanted to take down.

Use Tor browser if you are going to research anything a criminal might regardless of pure motives.

If you so much as want to research lock picking, use Tor.

ISP traffic logs can and will be twisted against you in a court of law.

I openly participate in locksport communities and I haven't had any visits from the FBI.

I'm fairly confident that those agencies use context in an automated manner to get any meaningful results.

So "keyword" (could be a word, domain or some other pattern) X may trigger only if Y and Z was already triggered. And some keyword A may only trigger if B was NOT present.

This way you can distinguish doctors, reporters or people studying history or chemistry from those who plan something.

Or e.g. ML applied to patterns over time. Globally.

And yes I do not like it at all, HN is full of people that may likely research some kind of bomb, religion or whatever else out of pure curiosity, but since there are not many such people it can be problem in court one day.

Mix in some Snowden, your hardware stack, gag orders and the fact that we have more laws that anybody can read and you may feel like watching some stupid memes.

OPSEC is about lowering the probability of things going sideways, there are no guarantees either way

To quote a Dartmouth history professor who taught a class on the subject: "if you don't get randomly selected for a search on your next flight you aren't doing your homework"

It's not prohibited but they notice and subject you to harassment by the system at every action with every part of the system that is integrated with their database.

This seems like hyperbole.

Did they have a warrant? Never talk to the police without counsel, refuse all searches without warrants, "we might think you went on a website" is not probable cause, you have a right to an attorney and silence.

Do you work for a government agency or contractor? That might explain why they contacted your employer so readily.

This is why you and everyone should use DNS over HTTPS (DoH).

Next day they might visit you to ask you why you are visiting an opposition party web site.

How exactly is DoH a protection? Wouldn't they just see that as a red flag? Then, get the data from cloudflare or whomever.

Most of the time they log your plain DNS queries. But DoH is encrypted, thus they won't be able to log your DNS queries. Cloudflare is not the only DoH provider. There are many. If you want you can grab a several lines of PHP code and create your own DoH link in another country. Becouse DoH is https they cannot distinguish it from normal https. Of course if the use deep packet analyses tool they will know what website you are visiting but they are not being used widely but are used to target specific people. To sum up; DoH is better than plain text DNS queris.

Please disambiguate acronyms in the absence of context.

> and a 'threat assessment' coordinator from my workplace.

What was the reason for this? What type of workplace?

I'm assuming any workplace which requires a government security clearance to enter and work in.

That's extremely disturbing. Accessing some random website should never cause police to show up. They should never even know what you did. That's like keeping tabs on what books people read and raiding somebody's house because they looked up how bombs are made.

I never use a VPN. That changes today.

You should use Tor instead. With VPN, you just shift your browsing history from one place to another.

Or worse yet, the VPN provider can sell your data.

Build your own VPN https://github.com/hwdsl2/setup-ipsec-vpn

> We are lower middle class white Americans born and raised in the USA and have never traveled outside the country.

I am most curious why you believe that is a defense against radicalization. In the US that is perhaps the most common demographic for radicalization of any type.

Radical to him only goes before Islamic terrorism apparently

It absolutely can.

The only words you should ever say to the FBI "on advice of counsel I am taking the fifth".

This is awful advice for this specific situation.

OP apparently managed to clear up the mistake without much bother by speaking to them (although they were understandably shaken up by the experience). This presumably wouldn't have happened if they'd done what you suggest.

Not speaking to law enforcement outside the presence of your attorney is excellent advice. There's no downside to having the attorney there, and potentially life shattering downsides to attempt otherwise.

On the other hand, they could accuse OP of lying (something that's highly subjective), which is a serious federal crime.

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