When the CIA spied on American citizens using pigeons | Hacker News Reader

When the CIA spied on American citizens using pigeons

atlasobscura.com

109 pointsprismatic69 comments

The CIA, FBI, etc. have never been held accountable for their countless crimes. There is every reason to believe they are committing more every day. I honestly have no clue how the American people have an ounce of trust in them.

They got caught lying under oath to Congress, about hacking Congressional computers (to delete files to cover up their torture program) and nothing happened. This is a string argument for the US being no more a country with the rule of law than China or Russia.

It gets far more sordid than that if you're willing to look back to times long enough for classified material to have been declassified. Operation Northwoods [1] is something that somehow was formulated, discussed, and made its way all the way to the top. It was stopped only because one man refused to sign it into action - JFK. Then there was the FBI trying to get MLK to commit suicide [2], and much more.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods

[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI%E2%80%93King_suicide_lette...

Congress doesn’t care about how strictly any agency follows its mandate. Its kind of fortunate that the agencies follow it so closely at all.

When agencies learn how to make their own money, there is even less accountability because they don’t have to beg Congress.

Things would be different if this funding and mandate enforcement process was also delegated to an agency, or maybe better: a court.

We will never know for sure whether these agencies (the NSA especially) do what they want because the elected officials like the idea of getting illegal shit done OR because no sane official can cross them and live. Or rather what the mix is between those two motives. They really are parallel power structures...

The best way to describe the government of the US, and as far as I've read any powerful ruling organization, is they end up running like a mob in that people might disagree with how something was done, boss might not like what enforcers are doing, people are getting politically whackes or punished for doing not exactly what boss told them, but above all else, they will be damned before someone outside the family knows about it. I believe the US IC is no different.

> This is a string argument for the US being no more a country with the rule of law than China or Russia.

As somebody who has lived in the soviet bloc I get goosebumps every time I hear something like this. "Corruption is everywhere", yeah, sure. But how much? This like saying the pacific ocean has water, the sahara desert has water, so there's no difference.

> "Corruption is everywhere", yeah, sure. But how much?

www.lobbyfacts.eu

A lot.

That's nowhere near Soviet Union or modern-day Russia. For starters, there's virtually no reliable economic stats for the Soviet Union, because every level fudged numbers and no-one knew then and even knows today what the actual ground truth was. The TV series Chernobyl illustrates that very well when a high-tech German robot breaks down because Soviet authorities had told Germans "propaganda numbers" instead of true radiation values at the damaged reactor. There was so much lying at every level that eventually no-one knew the truth anymore.

Such level of dysfunction is simply incomprehensible to an average western citizen. The latest documentary series TraumaZone by Adam Curtis gives perhaps the best impression that is possible without personally experiencing it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDA3hIsf7LA&list=PLSjQL8MYni...

The current Russian military fiasco is also a symptom of the same deep dysfunction. Before the invasion began, military units positioned near Ukraine sold their fuel to local population and then ran out of what they had left on the way to Kyiv. Many units were understaffed because they had "dead souls": commanders listed non-existing soldiers and embezzled their pay, thus no-one knows how many actually attacked Ukraine. Latest military radios turned out to be cheap Aliexpress junk that relied on civilian 3G/4G cellular network. Many missiles failed before reaching target because they were unmaintained: a small amount was kept in order for military drills, money for maintaining the rest was embezzled. Body armor is filled with cardboard, helmets can be cracked with bare hands.

Imagine this in every facet of your life. Everything is shit, but if you go around saying it, then you'll eventually get locked up in a psychiatric hospital, because "it's been scientifically proven that Soviet communism is the best system in the world and anyone who doubts it must be mentally ill".

The United States has one of the most fertile grain growing regions in the world. The Russian wheat belt is far inferior. The system of government in USSR and USG at the same time were not that different at the core, but the same bureaucratic decision makers in USG had a lot more flexibility and did not need to exploit the native resources to the same intensity as the USSR was forced to by lack of resources.

Because it's a little more complicated than "entity does bad things = entity is bad". Intelligence agencies have a inherent high risk of abuse by their form and function. This has been true all throughout history and all over the world. But they are also absolutely required. So you accept the risks and try to deal with them as best as you can.

"So you accept the risks and try to deal with them as best as you can."

Dealing with it, would mean there would be consequences. Are there? I rather see they get more and more power. Not exactly how I would reward wrongdoing. (not US citizen, but here in the EU it is pretty much the same)

I honestly don't think I have the information to judge if there are appropriate consequences or not. And it's that way by design, you simply can't have such things in public. Could it all be going very very wrong right now? Possible but not very probable. Intelligence agencies working against the interest of the state leads to quite obvious disasters.

"And it's that way by design, you simply can't have such things in public."

Of course you can. Not the concrete, secret cases, but the mechanisms of oversight, checks and balance, etc.

Make it clear, what is allowed and what is not allowed. And who controls it, so the rules are followed. The freedom of information act for example is a very important thing in this regard. Here in germany we don't have the exact same thing, but something similar. And also a trusted comitee from the parliament, that checks indeed secret cases. And there were special comitees formed to investigate many wrongdoing, related to nazi and islamic terrorism, where the services fucked up big time. But they were fighting uphill battles ("oh they accidently lost important documents again") and achieved little.

It's as simple as "entity does bad things and faces no consequences == system is broken."

What consequences where you expecting to which bad things? And the US system is broken compared to which one?

Nobody trusts them or anything else in the govt if they have a room temp iq.

What does my lack of trust do to the cia or fbi? They both still track my every move. The govt makes laws I despise.

We have no control.

My 3rd grade teacher was into Pigeon Racing. There were always some that never made it home, attrition was higher than you'd think.

That's the reason motorsport teams don't build race cars out of food. Too much attrition.

Heard of horse races?

Horse racing is on a relatively safe enclosed track. Pigeon races are unconstrained by geography and have predators such as hawks. If horse races went through a forest or other rough terrain with significant predators such as bears it would be a better comparison.

I am not advocating for this in any way (the horses have a bad enough time with broken legs and things on traditional racing courses). Just that the two things are not like-for-like, similar to Formula 1 vs cross-country rally racing for cars.

No, that's too much nutrition. Same reason Baby Formula 1 racers never took off.

I'm curious how the shutter was triggered and how many photos the camera could take. I assume that it used a timer?

If it flies it spies: https://birdsarentreal.com/

Reddit has rotten my brain because this is the first thing I thought about when reading this title.

Although, as much as I enjoy the silliness of it, I hope there aren't people that are taking it seriously, the similar "flat earth" joke already backfired.

Don't be so hard on yourself. There was a NYT article about it. Plus it's part of the cultural zeitgeist: government conspiracies and protesting.

The only thing that's implausible is the claim that all birds are spy devices.

It seems inconceivable that some modern spy devices aren't camouflaged as flying birds. A perfect smokescreen would be to widely disseminate the patently ridiculous ("joke") claim that all birds are spy devices, thus muddying the waters.

It's a simple logical shift: "there exists" vs. "for all."

> A perfect smokescreen would be to widely disseminate the patently ridiculous ("joke") claim that all birds are spy devices, thus muddying the waters.

Conspiracies about conspiracies, I like it. Wonder how deep we can go.

Claim that no birds are real to hide the fact that some birds aren't real, said unreal birds actually also spray COVID into the air to infect people to convince the population to take a vaccine which contains tracking chips. (110% /s)

Good one, but I don't think ridicule helps us learn anything here. Historically it's been employed against both true and false ideas.

they charge on power lines!

what about chickens?

Obviously they're purpose is to implant tracking devices in your stomach. Aren't you the least bit suspicious that they're being sold to you by a colonel?

Clickbait. They tested a technology that could be used for espionage by trying it out around a US military installation. It's not like they could instruct the pigeons not to photograph anything outside the property line.

Birds aren’t real!

The real conspiracy is the fake conspiracy was real all along!

This is what I came here for.

Is it legal for the CIA to spy on American citizens?

Does legality matter to the CIA?

What entity could bring meaningful complaints against them?

See for example [0]

[0]https://www.brown.edu/Research/Understanding_the_Iran_Contra...

Summing punishment across all of history would probably total an upscale automobile, zero prison.

That example is the government prosecuting the government for harming the governments interests. Thats not accountability, its infighting.

Accountability would be punishment for crimes against the American people and structural changes that prevent it from happening again.

Congress could defund them or perhaps even shut the whole org down. But I have to imagine a congressman that starts snooping around what the CIA is up to will almost certainly end up mired in mysterious controversy, accusations of malfeasance, etc.

I mean, the FBI once blackmailed MLK -

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

There was also a lot of uproar about abuses back in the 1970s.

Question was about the CIA. The two are not the same.

I'm just pointing out that federal agencies have done much worse, so it should not be terribly surprising if they're caught doing bad things.

Strong disagree. It should always be surprising, and the people that designed and uphold the systems that allow for this should be held accountable. The world does not lack agency.

I'd agree with you that it should be surprising. I don't think it is, but it definitely should be.

Well, they're both shit

Indirectly, yes. They can use foreign intel agencies to spy on Americans; they can use third parties (Twitter, Facebook, cellular networks, your cars, and all data brokers) to spy on you, thanks to the third-party doctrine.

This is one of the astounding loopholes revealed by Snowden's revelations.

The US government could not spy on Americans without a warrant. But they convinced themselves that mass surveillance was legal as long as the USA did not search their own database on Americans without a warrant. And making the whole thing available to other https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes was also OK.

So analysts in England got all the data. And nothing about UK law says that THEY can't do searches on Americans. So they do. And if they find anything, they can give the USA an affirmation that they know that person X is up to no good and crime Y is likely to turn up if they do a search of A, B and C. That affirmation is sufficient under the 4th amendment to get a search warrant from a judge. Armed with said search warrant, the USA can now search the database, verify what they are told, and then they have probable cause under which they can take further actions.

And so they convinced themselves that by simply outsourcing the initial search, they could conduct unlimited surveillance on Americans and still have satisfied the letter of the Constitution.

Was that a Snowden revelation? Isnt it the whole point of the five eyes to skip over local law?

This wasn't even a Snowden revelation. James Bamford, Dana Priest and William Arkin had a steady stream of articles and books about all the 5 eyes stuff, way before Snowden's case.

That they could spy on Americans was not a Snowden revelation.

The scale of information that we delivered to them for this purpose, was.

> The US government could not spy on Americans without a warrant.

Reagan's EO12334 suspends the 4A for people subject to background investigations for government work. They have an entire domestic surveillance apparatus to monitor such people. Once in place it's easy to extend that to everyone else.

Five Eyes makes the official legality moot.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes

The pigeons released in the US were Five Eyes, not American?

Saying yes is the same poor argument as "the 2nd amendment was only intended for weapons from the 18th century" and "the 1st amendment doesn't include communication over telegraph, or radio waves." It would basically be "security from unwarranted search and seizure doesn't extend to cameras and the internet."

Bruh introducing unconstitutional evidence is so 20th century. Parallel construction is the hot new thing and bypasses those pesky issues.

That is what a strict originalist reading of the Constitution would conclude - the same reading that decided the Constitution doesn't support a right to privacy because the word "privacy" doesn't appear anywhere in the document, and that the Second Amendment can only be interpreted under the rules of 18th century English. Either we believe the Constitution is a living document and that the context of modern society matters in its interpretation, or we don't and that only what was comprehensible to the specific minds of the Founding Fathers in their time, place, idiom and cultural context is legitimate. Since we've clearly decided as a society that originalism wins out, we should stop being hypocrites about it and accept the consequences in totality.

General relativity was unknown to the founders, so GPS is unconstitutional? I can dig it

Well an originalist reading has not concluded that.

Are an originalist? Why purport that they believe something that they do not, when you yourself dont believe in the thing you're purporting either?

Obviously that reading isn't sufficiently originalist, merely another example of radical judges making up laws out of thin air.

The text of the Constitution says what it says plainly, and obviously the Founding Fathers meant for it to say exactly what I read.

> The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects ...

Ha! See that? _Papers_. Guess these electronic records are free game!

No, this is specifically prohibited in the original charter. However, on multiple occasions, they’ve either violated the charter or weaseled around it, including recently: https://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-and-h...

In practice yes. In theory, no way. What is the 4th amendment if not protection against spying without a warrant?

> The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

"parallel construction" and third-party doctrine are two loopholes wrt 4A.

Loopholes ultimately built upon government agents willingness to commit perjury when questioned about the truth.

The people who sign affidavits don't commit perjury, because the people who sign affidavits and those who lead parallel construction are at least two links apart. The way it happens like this: X tells Y to look out for A's vehicle on I-15. Y calls another agency to check on A's vehicle. Now another agent C from another agency leads the investigation. X is totally out of picture in these prosecutions.

They are not loopholes. They are convoluted processes designed to obscure their illegality, providing those who enable such a grotesque violation with plausible deniability and blame dispersion.

To what I imagine was everyone’s surprise, no one in the US really cares about 4a anymore. Nothing has changed since Snowden (in fact, the powers have managed to convince vast swaths that Snowden is the bad guy!), and it is pretty common knowledge that 4a is out the window with parallel construction and asset forfeiture…but it all still keeps churning.

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