
Questions the FBI Uses to Determine If Someone Is a Likely Terrorist - fraqed
https://theintercept.com/2017/02/13/48-questions-the-fbi-uses-to-determine-if-someone-is-a-likely-terrorist/
======
ucaetano
The questionnaire seems pretty fair, to be honest.

If someone has access to weapons, tried to travel to a terrorist training
camp, has mental instability issues, supports use of violence as well as using
religion as a justification for violence and follows all the ISIS social media
accounts, I'd be pretty worried.

I didn't see any questions about "does the individual holds a significant
distrust of government and institutions?" or "does the individual own multiple
anarchism books?". All the questions are very specific and practical.

~~~
realo
The guy (girl?) you describe in the second sentence is very obvious to
identify. The problem is not there.

I am in Quebec City. A terrorist killed 6 people here a few weeks ago. A
young, quiet, white catholic guy with clean looks. He killed 6 muslims during
their prayers.

Would that questionnaire have identified that young, quiet, white catholic
terrorist killer?

~~~
hackuser
> Would that questionnaire have identified that young, quiet, white catholic
> terrorist killer?

Possibly, but it's difficult to say based on your description, because age,
skin color, general quietness, and religion are not on the questionnaire.

But to your broader point, could a questionnaire be written well enough to
reliably identify all terrorists? If it only significantly improves detection,
I'd think it would be worthwhile.

~~~
pedrocr
The problem with that reasoning is that if you rely on a detection method
that's biased towards a specific target a competent terrorist organization can
profile that method and then have a better than average change of passing
through by behaving in an opposite way. That's why profiling doesn't work all
that well against any sort of sophisticated enemy.

------
BoringCode
Honest question: is this the type of material that should be leaked? Is there
an overriding good to revealing this document to the public?

I lean towards no, but I'd be interested in discussion on this.

~~~
tboyd47
I am a convert to Islam and I say yes, I'm ready for the gap between reality
and "common sense" to close on this topic.

I don't consider it offensive to talk about these issues openly because I am
secure in my knowledge that Islam does not encourage terrorism. I'm more
offended when people sweep it under the rug. When it's about safety, people
have to leave their fears and biases at the door and accept the truth.

A typical person in some parts of America today will look at a practicing
Muslim and automatically see a terrorist, but that's neither helpful nor
accurate. The facts don't support that stereotype, and I think the FBI
understands that. Of course ideology plays a role in detecting threats, but
there are other factors that may play a bigger role, like mental health,
social stability, criminal history, training in weapons, etc. If everyone
understood this, it would lead to more accurate tips by the public to law
enforcement, and the concept of a "Muslim ban" wouldn't be seen as productive.
But the centuries-old narrative of Muslim hordes attacking the West has been
revived, and that is how people see the issue, and that's unfortunate.

~~~
_red
>but there are other factors that may play a bigger role, like mental health,
social stability, criminal history, training in weapons, etc

Sounds like we need some sort of way to vet people coming into the country?

~~~
chillingeffect
At least on my fb feed, it's a far-right trope that refugees are admitted with
no vetting process whatsoever. Enough that I managed to research it and found
this very informative infoposter from the Obama administration:

[https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2015/11/20/infogra...](https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2015/11/20/infographic-
screening-process-refugee-entry-united-states)

note: multiple stages of bio checking, numerous three-letter agencies,
additional steps for Syrians.

I used to post this every other day on fb, but lately I just realize there are
simply groups who repeatedly gaslight each other and aren't interested in
reality. One of them referred to my post as "liberal facts," implying,
apparently, that the government doesn't perform the above screening process
which it claims it does. shrug.jpg

~~~
234dd57d2c8dba
My argument isn't that the USA performs no screening, which is a strawman
argument. It's that the screening process is inadequate. That is a nice
checklist, but it relies on unreliable data such as documents and iris scans.

Unless the government has every present and future terrorist's fingerprints in
a database, how will scanning fingerprints be effective? It cannot be, it
logically does not make sense. This logic is confirmed by FBI director Comey
who told congress the same thing.

Perhaps that is where your disagreements with the "far-right" are stemming
from?

~~~
burkaman
Why do you think it's inadequate, and what would be adequate?

------
contingencies
Access to weapons: most of America, or all of America depending upon whether
shopping is considered access and how 'weapons' are defined.

Has 'trained' overseas: anyone with a passport.

Has 'tried to acquire' bomb-making materials: Reading a book is not illegal.
Clicked on the wrong torrent?

Using encryption: everyone.

Masking internet browsing: everyone.

Showing an interest in terrorist events: everyone.

"participating in activities that simulate military or operational
environments": anyone who has ever been camping/hiking/played an FPS.

Changed appearance or habits? everyone.

Has "experienced a recent personal loss or humiliation"? Many people.

Has a history of mental health problems? A large proportion of the population.

Substance abuse. Almost everyone.

Hold a belief or ideology that supports the use of violence? Oh what, like
"are they a current or former member of the military, politics, or big
business?"

This is all really disconcerting in its vagary and scope for misapplication.

~~~
SamUK96
I really think you overshoot here on almost every point. The ones that stick
out for me: * Not everyone has trained overseas. In the west/east bubble maybe
that's common, but nowhere else.

* You seriously try defending reading bomb-making books? To imply that reading a book on how to make bombs, without any background need for it like a job related to pyro, etc., is not suspicios is IMHO rediculous.

* Not "everyone" uses encryption. Actually, the majority of web users do not, and less so knowingly.

* Not "everyone" will suddenly and completly change the overall theme of themselves.

* Not "everyone" has recent loss or has been humiliated.

In general, your other points are getting onto something and i somewhat agree.

However, to be honest I don't think a break down approach is the best to gain
incite into the FBI's process. The questions are supposed to be treated as a
whole, not singulars. Each question is not designed to give a yes/no answer;
but rather the end result, suspicion of terrorism, is a complex, non-analytic
function of all the answers

~~~
contingencies
_You seriously try defending reading bomb-making books?_ Yes, because freedom
to seek and impart information is a human right. More practically, if you
start down this path of forbidden knowledge then you wind up at a point where
learning or teaching at all is a banned, inherently political act. What about
reading about physics or chemistry on Wikipedia? An interest in metalwork,
sculpture, jewellery or pottery? Being observed working on "unknown" metal
projects at a makerspace, keeping to yourself, and paying in cash? People
deserve to be judged for their actions alone and not obtuse, politicized
potential interpretations of their interests or past behavior generated by the
secret machinations of the state, perversely nominally on their behalf and in
the name of 'freedom'.

 _the majority of web users do not [use encryption]_. False.

------
nathancahill
Material for the new Buzzfeed quiz "Are You Likely a Terrorist? Answer These
48 Questions to Find Out!"

------
tromp
Question 48: “Does the Subject take an unusual interest in Terrorist
identification quizzes?"

------
swamp40
I'm curious how it's ok for a US company (The Intercept) to publish a Secret
document?

The documentcloud.org file clearly shows: _Contributed by: SooHee Cho, The
Intercept_.

And the documentcloud.org server itself appears to be located in the US as
well.

Seems like something you could go to jail over.

~~~
Godel_unicode
Unlike in e.g. the UK, where the Official Secrets Act applies to the
population at large, the prohibition against leaking or unauthorized
possession of classified information is exclusively applicable to people with
clearances.

Think of a Security Clearance as a scoped waiver of free speech in return for
access to sensitive information. In the US, you have to opt-in to restrictions
on your freedom of speech. Anyone without a clearance is protected by the 1st
amendment, which has no National Security exception.

~~~
swamp40
I see - thank you!

------
rwmj
Assuming the list was derived scientifically, then this seems like a pretty
sensible and useful law enforcement tool. It can be easily filled in by front
line officers and gives them a good idea which lines of investigation to
pursue.

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lowbloodsugar
1\. Did the suspect download the document "Imv-Score-Final"?

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moomin
> "Does the Subject hold a belief or ideology that supports the use of
> violence?”

To the best of my knowledge, the answer to this is yes for every US president
and Founding Father.

Or to put it another way, what a dumb question.

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kashkhan
Are we into precrime now? A criminal is one who is proven in court to be a
criminal. Civilized societies use courts to decide the truth, not
questionnaires filled out by shady people.

~~~
mamon
But they are not deciding about someone's guilt or innocence here, just
whether or not investigate them further.

~~~
jononor
...before a crime has happened.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
While on vacation maybe 15 years ago, I went to a library to get internet
access. When I went to Google, the search dropdown box showed me that the
previous several searches were all about burglary tools. Should the police be
interested in that? (They were. And I don't blame them.)

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dgrealy
Do you not understand the lesson being taught by such an exercise? It sounds
like instead your biases made you think the school civics class would be
teaching students _how to profile people as terrorists_.

You really are an idiot.

~~~
dang
We ban accounts that post uncivilly, so please don't do this on HN again.
Instead, please (re-)read the site guidelines and post civilly and
substantively, or not at all.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html)

We detached this comment from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13639873](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13639873)
and marked it off-topic.

~~~
dgrealy
fuck you dang ban me

------
Alex3917
So is HN considered a terrorist site since it requires a password to submit
stories and post comments?

~~~
ghurtado
Neither of those things are mentioned in the document.

~~~
Alex3917
Question 21) "Has the subject engaged in [...] tradecraft to hide their online
activities contextually different from previous activity? [...] password-
protected websites."

I don't think it's unreasonable to ask whether password-protected websites are
only an issue if they are being used to hide online activities. Or is this a
strict liability thing, where any use of a password protected website is taken
to mean that a user is attempting to hide their online activities.

~~~
Godel_unicode
That's impressive gerrymandering of the text to reach that conclusion. Try and
zoom out a little bit (I know, terribly mixed metaphors).

