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For some background as to why people like Appelbaum or Poitras might be so paranoid, here he is describing the harassment he has suffered at the hands of US border agents in the past (because of being involved in the Tor project):

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/4/20/we_do_not_live_in_a http://www.democracynow.org/2013/6/17/long_before_helping_ex...

This sort of impunity to harass civilians who have not committed any crime is something you'd expect in a police state, not a functioning democracy. Sadly it seems the UK and US have now joined the ranks of countries who employ this sort of harassment routinely at the border.

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It's not paranoia when it's actually happening.

He purportedly has video of the bag men. When he was in the US his girlfriend woke up to another bag man watching her through night vision goggles, presumably while his partner installed bugs in the apartment while Appelbaum was out of town.

> It's not paranoia when it's actually happening.

Totally agreed there: There's no level of security policy measures that would make this guy paranoid.

Wait she woke up to someone in her bedroom with night vision goggles on? Did she tell them to GTFO?

My understanding is that they were outside the bedroom window and she, terrified, tried to pretend she was still sleeping until they left.

Sometimes that's not about surveillance either. It's about making sure that they are seen through the window -- to instill some fear to their target.

[Edit] Hmm, seeing some comments below, I see this thing even has a name:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi#Zersetzung

That's some scary shit there. Vivid mental images. Do you have source? I'd like to read more about this experience from first-hand account.

That IS Guerilla Strategy then. Crazy. I hope he has videos about it and publishes these. He should install a 6th Alarm that shoots an electrified fisher-net and can shoot with a taser gun, in case the owner is detected too near.

It's interesting that I learned what guerilla strategy is from a robot in a science fiction movie.

Scene from the movie "Red Planet" from the year 2000: http://youtu.be/GltSAI25gaA?t=5s

Story in this scene: The reason why the AMEE didn't kill the Astronauts, was because it wanted leave a wounded back, to demotivate the moral of the others, so that they choose worse strategies to fight against AMEE's plans. One of the Astronauts asked, why didn't she kill all of us and only wound him. The other guy said: It's because she knows all about "Guerilla Strategy" and she applies that to reach her goals. She punctuated him, so that he will die, but slowly, which is to break our moral.

> bag man watching her through night vision goggles

Pretty sure the "bag man" idiom doesn't mean what you think it does.

My mistake. I meant something along the lines of black-bag-job-man.

'You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.'

- Inigo Montoya

>For some background as to why people like Appelbaum or Poitras might be so paranoid

Paranoid? He seems perfectly lucid -- people that have lived under dictatorships, right wing political turmoil or "real existing socialism", know exactly what he's talking about.

Sadly, it now happens, all the more often, in Western "democracies" too.

Perhaps it should have been 'might appear to be paranoid', but I didn't mean it as an insult; rather as a description of the lengths they have to go to to protect their work. Sometimes they really are out to get you.

Yeah, I don't think working on the Tor project is the reason. Tor was originally created by the US government.

Maybe not, though he did think it was at one point, and said he wouldn't stop working on Tor because of it (there's some on that in this transcript), but the interest might have been more because of wikileaks and a desire to infiltrate that network, not sure on the exact dates of all the stops, and after the Manning leaks wikileaks would probably be the main interest.

Whatever the reasons, I don't think it's justifiable to stop, question and search someone repeatedly like this without suspicion of a crime. If he's guilty of something, he should be charged, if not they shouldn't be using border agents for fishing expeditions and confiscating laptops/phones etc.

The harassment is primarily because he was suspected of involvement with Bradley Manning and Wikileaks.

He really should familiarize himself with The Moscow Rules.

It's not. The US naval research lab still helps develop it.

You are assuming that the fact that one part of the US government works on something implies that another part may not take a special interest in someone outside government that is involved with other aspects of it.

I don't see why you'd jump to that conclusion at all.

(Note that I have no opinion about this specific situation)

I'm not saying border harassment is OK, but it's a pretty big stretch to say the experience of Poitras or Appelbaum is an example of routine behavior. Both of them have a seriously adversarial relationship with the US government, it's hard to imagine anything between them and the government is routine.

Again, not saying border harassment is right, but I'm not sure it's part of a backslide away from democracy either. Up until relatively recently, openly going after the government of a world power and then frequently traveling there would result in a lot more inconvenience than some questioning at the border. Even in the "free world", I can't imagine many countries that would completely ignore things like that. Poitras and Appelbaum talk a lot about Germany, but if they focused on the German government the way they focus on the American government, I wonder how friendly German border folks would be to them.

i find comments like this a bit odd.

didn't it used to be the case that america was the good guy because they tolerated dissent?

these days it seems to be that "america is probably no worse than anyone else".

well, ok.

[edit:] and that's ok; i think it's what "we" (non-americans) think. the trouble is that you're not just one more bully. you're the strongest one in the room.

Well I think there is a significant amount of room between having no problems at all and being "probably no worse than anyone else", but even the second option is a point worth making in these kinds of discussions because the implication always seems to be that America is especially bad from both a historical and global perspective (something I don't think is very accurate). We have room for improvement, but such improvement seems more likely if we're realistic about our problems.

I think it is quite a bit worse than "just anyone" else.

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