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Comment by surfmike | Hacker News Reader

There can be foreign agents criticizing AI, but not all people criticizing AI are foreign agents.

Trump is painting critics with a wide brush:

"The people that say AI is going to destroy the World, and that Data Centers are bad for your neighborhood, are the same people that said, just a short time ago, that the World would be extinguished by “Climate Change.” That HOAX never worked out for them, and now they’re on to the next one. These people are Revolutionaries, but Revolutionaries for a Bad and Evil Cause. Soon you’ll find out they’re working for people that do not have the best interests of the United States in mind!"

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I don't trust the administration to use the law in good faith, but this article is misquoting the DoJ statement. The articles omits the very relevant qualifier:

The article:

> Last week, the Justice Department instructed “citizens and noncitizens” that anyone furthering the “goals” of a foreign power in “any public activity” — including even “public demonstrations” — must formally notify the government to avoid arrest and prosecution.

The DoJ:

>“If a person acts as an agent of any foreign power to carry out any public activity, including (but not limited to) public demonstrations designed to further the propaganda or other goals of the foreign power, he or she must register with or notify the appropriate federal authorities”

The qualifier here is that the public demonstrations must further the propaganda of a foreign power? If so, that doesn’t seem to be much of an obstacle if the people making the arrest are the ones who decide whether or not a protest is furthering foreign propaganda.

Reminds me of the Christ clowns who stand outside abortion clinics. The money is all traced back to America.

TBH we should support any channel by which America is forced to share money with the rest of the world. Imagine if they had a billion abortion protestors - maybe they couldn't afford data centers.

What exactly is the distinction you see there?

My guess is that they're drawing a distinction between reporting that says:

1. People in general who have opinions that might happen to align with a foreign power's stance.

2. People who are literally "agents" of a foreign power as defined under laws like the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 [0], which often involves being directed/hired/paid.

That'd be a significantly different legal standard. (The constitutionality of FARA-type laws being a separate question.)

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Agents_Registration_Ac...

There's not any question about it: the president already said in no uncertain terms (and probably all caps) that anybody opposing datacenters is a foreign agent working against the usa.

Only a truly naïve person would not have seen this next logical step (prosecutory threats) coming when the preceding step received virtually no opposition.

So the first amendment is suspended for individuals whose opinion/public activity - according to the administration - "furthers the goals of a foreign power".

This rules out protesting any kind of war, tariffs, or even things the administration likes, like demonstrating in support of Israel. Obviously the plan is not to apply the rule evenly, its just an authoritarian lever to silence dissenting speech the government does not like.

Would this not mean that if you oppose the Iran war because it's bad to kill civilians or you want gas prices to go down, that's OK - but if you oppose the Iran war because you're trying to help the Iranian government's foreign policy goals, that's acting as a foreign agent?

(Similarly, demonstrating in support of Israel because you think the US-Israel alliance is good for the US vs. good for Israel.)

I guess that’s a defense you could claim to the judge, at the trial, after being arrested.

That's still incorrect though.

FARA requires coordination with the foreign power. You are perfectly allowed to further its goals unless you have actually coordinated with them.

You have to actually be an agent of the foreign power. You can't be that just because you share their goals.

So I can read the DOJ sentence two ways, I first interpreted it as #1, but it sounds like you took it as #2?

1. "We mean people who at that time qualify as agents under laws like the Foreign Agents Registration Act, we said "acting as" because it indicates a temporary employment status rather than an innate human characteristic."

2. "We are weasel-wording to target all people with similar acts to how agents would act, but who would not qualify under the law we want you to think we'd be drawing authority from."

> We mean people who at that time qualify as agents under laws like the Foreign Agents Registration Act

According to who?

If that's according to the current us administration, then "qualifies as an agent" means "disagrees with the administration".

I empathize with your concern, but as bad as things are we shouldn't assume infinite malice from all federal entities in all circumstances. Not out of kindness or charity, but because it would be a maladaptive strategy for handling problems.

If they try charging Joe-Shmoe under FARA, there's still some chance of loss in federal courts.

No need to assume infinite malice, but given the track record, it would be naïve to assume anything other than a default of malice unless proven otherwise

The evidence in front of us (the malicious words of the person in question) strongly favors malice anyways.

Yes, I feel that it's weasel-wording trying to deemphasize the agent aspects to FUD people into not going to demonstrations.

> There can be foreign agents criticizing AI, but not all people criticizing AI are foreign agents.

Right. The DoJ is demanding the former group register as foreign agents, as they are required to under FARA.

>Trump is painting critics with a wide brush

That's far too kind a description. Donald Trump is a compromised lunatic who's so untrustworthy that he ought not be allowed to run a carnival game.

> There can be foreign agents criticizing AI, but not all people criticizing AI are foreign agents.

Indeed, and it's hard to disentangle exactly how much sentiment is driven by one vs the other.

If we remember back to recent elections and the Russian influence campaigns to boost Trump, the same people were either denying that they happened or denying that they actually influenced anything. Interesting reversal now.

Maybe they shouldn't have dismantled all the task forces and teams meant to study and combat disinformation.

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