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Comment by BLKNSLVR | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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