
Burglars Who Took on F.B.I. Abandon Shadows - philipn
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/07/us/burglars-who-took-on-fbi-abandon-shadows.html?pagewanted=all
======
selmnoo

        Among the grim litany of revelations was a blackmail letter
        F.B.I. agents had sent anonymously to the Rev. Dr. Martin 
        Luther King Jr., threatening to expose his extramarital
        affairs if he did not commit suicide.
    

Hoooooly shit. Wow. They actually did that.

~~~
InclinedPlane
All of this has happened before and all of this will happen again. As bad as
we think the NSA is today the FBI in its "glory days" under Hoover were far,
far worse. McCarthy was far worse. "Existential risk to the republic" worse.

The NSA is not "that bad", yet, probably. But the potential is there, if
anything the potential for badness is far worse and the ability to reign it in
seemingly diminished.

Edit: Also, the fundamental problem today is not the NSA, it's just a symptom.
Even if we completely defunded the NSA tomorrow as well as put every NSA
employee on a rocket and shot them into the Sun it would still not solve the
underlying problem and it would just be a matter of time before we'd be facing
the same issues from some other direction.

The problem is that the constitution has been weakened, in pretty much every
way. But one important aspect to that is the idea that things that happen on
the internet aren't "real" in some basic way that makes the absence of legal
protection of fundamental liberties online acceptable.

~~~
fit2rule
>As bad as we think the NSA is today the FBI in its "glory days" under Hoover
were far, far worse. McCarthy was far worse.

I disagree, 100%. The NSA is far more powerful, and far - FAR - more dangerous
now than the FBI ever was under Hoover.

If you don't think this is the case, I don't think you're really looking
honestly at the situation. In the Hoover/FBI days, we had a chance - the
Operation Snow Whites' and so on. Now, however, there is no such chance: the
NSA has far, far too many safe-guards in place to protect itself, and has
infiltrated - and controls, directly - too many so-called 'peace movements'
and other groups that might have a chance at awakening the sheeple. We must be
more diligent, and with greater resolve to fight back now, than ever before in
history - because we are at the cusp of allowing a seriously evil influence
over the world to have its will - whereas in the 60's and 70's, people were
willing to stand up and fight, now hardly anyone will. At all.

~~~
InclinedPlane
As I said the potential is worse, likely far worse, but right now it's not
quite there (maybe?).

Back in the worst days with Hoover they were actively targeting specific
political activists and basically running black ops against them. We haven't
reached that stage with NSA, as far as I can tell, though the potential is
certainly there.

Maybe you misinterpreted what I said, it shouldn't be an excuse to wait until
things get worse before taking action. The fact that the potential is there
should be enough.

~~~
revelation
I don't get it. If we start with COINTELPRO as the baseline, why would the
current situation be any better?

Nothing happened, the programs continued, the people running it back then are
now happily retired or left the world without a mark on their record. There
were no mass firings of the hundreds of agents directly implicated in these
obviously unethical and illegal things.

The people running COINTELPRO back then to find the communists tutored the
government agents that are now trawling through the massive NSA data to find
terrorists. The capabilities were only expanded.

------
suprgeek
It is hard to conceive of the risk faced by these folks in order to carry out
what was in effect an act of civil disobedience -for no personal gain.

Bravo!

Unfortunately it looks like such courageous folks are the last remaining
defense against absolute tyranny in the United States. One wonders how many
such actions are even possible with the advent of the global surveillance
state?

~~~
joe_the_user
Snowden showed such actions to reveal government surveillance are still
possible.

The bigger question now is whether his revelations can create any change.

~~~
dalek_cannes
> The bigger question now is whether his revelations can create any change.

It will. It will change the acronym involved. First from FBI to NSA. Now from
NSA to something else.

Edit: not a statement of cynicism; merely predicting what the government will
attempt to do.

------
hooande
What strikes me is how little was gained by both sides in this, and how futile
their actions seem in hindsight.

History probably would have ended up in a similar way if Hoover had not
devoted so many resources to spying on Viet Nam protestors and counter culture
revolutionaries. He was really pursuing his lifelong obsession with communism,
which was another political movement that probably would have died without so
much government surveillance. His spying didn't do anything to dissuade Martin
Luther King or other members of the Civil Rights movement. All that effort and
violation of privacy for a difficult to discern impact on history.

Stealing and publishing documents from the FBI didn't seem to have much of an
impact either. There was a temporary public outcry, some commissions were
established and the whole thing was forgotten in less than a decade. We just
wound up in the same situation 40 years later and will most likely end up with
the same results. It takes a mountain of courage to steal from the freaking
FBI, and that group of people deserve credit for standing up for what they
believed in. If only their risk produced a more appreciable reward for
society.

I fear a never ending cycle of surveillance and protest. Chicken and the egg.
The stakes seem higher now, on both sides, but there are no guarantees that we
won't go through the whole process again to achieve the same non-result. We
need to figure out how to use the political process instead of theft to stop
our government agencies from doing things that we don't like. Or else we'll be
reading this same story again decades from now.

~~~
CodeMage
> _What strikes me is how little was gained by both sides in this, and how
> futile their actions seem in hindsight._

To quote Chuck Palahniuk: "On a long enough time line, the survival rate for
everyone drops to zero."

If you give history enough time, it will always look like little has been
gained in terms of eradicating oppression. Sure, some forms of oppression
don't exist anymore, but society evolves other forms as a replacement.

I don't honestly believe we'll ever "figure out how to use the political
process [...] to stop our government agencies from doing things that we don't
like." I think history is like a power game where rules keep changing over
time because one side keeps finding ways to rig the game. Sooner or later,
there's enough evidence that the game is rigged and the other side realizes
that it's futile to keep playing by the same rules and finds a new way to
fight back.

~~~
inopinatus
You are quite right, and there is an older commentator than Palahniuk to
invoke. The original quote comes from John Maynard Keynes in his 1923 "Tract
on Monetary Reform":

 _But this long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run
we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in
tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is past the
ocean is flat again._

Pray that we will always have someone standing up against the surveillance
state.

------
ck2
If the government was scary powerful then, it is terrifying now.

If you've ever protested anything in the USA, regardless if on the left or
right, you can almost certainly count on your name on some kind of tracking,
and they've given themselves legal permission, because they don't have to look
at the data in real-time anymore. They can just store it and look at it later
on demand if they want with frictionless warrants from courts with no lawyer
"for the people" present.

If the government feels you've become an annoyance they can just pop you on a
no-fly list without court review and no-way to get off. And heaven help you if
you go near a border if they've peaked their interest in you, all your data is
theirs without any need for warrant or even a reason.

The government has also learned the secret that if they want to control the
message, they just have to limit media exposure. Release news late on a Friday
and it will be gone by Monday. Control court trials to the point where there
is no audio or video and TV news will almost certainly not cover it. They are
getting incredibly good at this.

The newest corruption since 9/11 is to insist they need super powers for anti-
terrorism, then use them against average criminals. Even worse, if no real
criminals can be found, manufacturer one by constantly harassing some dupe
until they do something half-assed and then roll them out for the cameras to
justify the insane budgets and overeaching powers.

~~~
dreamdu5t
If you've protested something? WRONG. I cannot emphasize enough that they do
not restrict surveillance to suspected protestors or terrorists. They spy on
everyone and every device they possibly can.

EVERYBODY is being spied on right now. There is NO preselection of who gets
spied on and who doesn't. They are using fake mobile cell towers, packet
injection, deep packet inspection, and actively attempt to infect ANY computer
they can in ANY way they can.

They are spying on you right now. They possibly have webcam photos of you.
They possibly have some of your passwords, personal communications, and other
info they try to collect ON EVERYONE.

Don't believe me?
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLT7ao1V8vY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLT7ao1V8vY)

------
tokenadult
I see most of the interesting comments here so far are from a strictly
American perspective, that is just commenting on what was happening in the
United States then or is happening in the United States now. But of course
there is more than one country in the world. In another place I have lived[1]
a supposedly democratic government that in fact was a dictatorship engaged in
comprehensive spying on all civil society organizations--not just the
organizations that were formally opposition organizations--and stifled all
mass media organizations with censorship. That didn't stop a people-power
democracy movement from starting and succeeding in democratizing that country.
I've advised Hacker News participants before[2] that people power democracy
movements to overthrow dictatorships with comprehensive surveillance programs
are not easy, but they can succeed. You and I need mental toughness,
persistence, and courage to be part of the solution, but what better reward
for those virtues is there than expanded freedom (and the dignity of knowing
you did the right thing)? Don't give up. Keep on organizing to gain freedom
and protect civil rights.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5985720](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5985720)

[2]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6336795](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6336795)

~~~
mikeash
My guess is that things will have to get worse before they can get better,
that it's paradoxically easier to democratically overthrow a true dictatorship
than the sort of increasingly-oppressive democracy we see in the US.

I say this because most Americans are generally happy with the system. There
are aspects they dislike, and lots of _results_ they dislike, but there is
still deep respect for the system itself in the people. I think the system may
have reached a point where it no longer works well, but it still gives the
_appearance_ of doing so.

Dictatorships famously have rigged elections to give the regime the appearance
of democracy. However, nobody actually believes it. The dictator wins roughly
99.44% of the vote and everybody knows the election is a sham.

Here, we have pretty decent elections that are mostly fair and well contested,
but which ultimately don't accomplish much. We end up choosing between two
candidates who have few differences when it comes to how they'll handle civil
liberties, elections, third parties, and such. But the vast majority of the
population doesn't see it that way, and so the election, and the system as a
whole, is seen as legitimate even though it doesn't really work.

Worse, the system manages to control public opinion to perpetuate itself. Most
Americans are deeply afraid of terrorism and welcome extreme measures to fight
it. Expressing the idea that we should prosecute terrorists as common
criminals and accept the occasional mass-casualty attack gets you labeled as a
crazy person. This despite the fact that terrorism is a minor threat to our
lives compared to almost every other way we can potentially die, even when you
restrict it to ways you can die by being killed intentionally by other humans.

Just like elections, the propaganda machine is seen as legitimate, unlike in a
dictatorship. In a dictatorship, the state news agency works as a government
mouthpiece and nobody believes what they say. In the US, nominally independent
media organizations work as mouthpieces of the government but since there are
a bunch of them, and they're nominally independent, and they express what
appears to be a wide range of views (which is actually only wide within the
narrow range of what's considered mainstream), people respect them.

I'm not saying that it's hopeless or that we should give up the fight. But I
do think that it's not entirely right to point out successes in overt
dictatorships as proof that the current situation in the US can be fixed. I
may be wrong, but it is _possible_ that the current situation is good enough
to make it far more difficult to actually improve it.

~~~
humanrebar
> We end up choosing between two candidates who have few differences when it
> comes to how they'll handle civil liberties, elections, third parties, and
> such...

I keep hearing this sentiment, but I think it assumes a lot, so I can't agree
with it. Here are some issues I have with this sentiment:

\- There has been dramatic change at the national level, the ACA being an
obvious example of that.

\- To the extent that big changes don't happen, that's due to gridlock, not a
lack of choice.

\- This gridlock is due to a very divided electorate. No political camp can
really claim a supermajority (greater than 65%) of the hearts and minds of the
voters. The U.S. government is set up to move slowly when there isn't
something nearing consensus.

Also, on another point, the typical citizen is not happy with the government,
just tired, apathetic, and fatalist. Happy electorates do not create Occupy
Wall Street and the Tea Party.

~~~
mikeash
Note that I didn't say the two candidates are the same on everything, only on
those certain issues. I agree that there are substantial differences when it
comes to things like health care policy, but those are unrelated to civil
liberties. I voted for Obama twice partly because of his support for health
care reform (even though I don't particularly like his version of it, I think
it's the best we can hope for at the moment), but I had no illusions about how
he'd handle the post-9/11 security state.

Likewise, gridlock is preventing big changes on certain issues, but not these.
There is nearly universal consensus among politicians in both major parties
when it comes to civil liberties and things of that nature. How many members
of Congress want meaningful electoral reform? How many members of Congress
voted to close down Guantanamo Bay? It's not gridlock stopping these things.

And again likewise, there's no real division in the electorate on these
issues. There's lots of division over things like tax policy and health care
and such, but not much over civil liberties.

~~~
dragonwriter
> How many members of Congress voted to close down Guantanamo Bay?

Most recently, a majority of the Senate -- almost entirely Democrats, though
three Republicans joined -- and 174 members of the House, also mostly on party
lines.

So, not exactly the best example of an issue where the parties are aligned.

> It's not gridlock stopping these things.

Well, except that, at least in the case of closing the detention facility at
Gitmo, its _exactly_ Republicans in control of the House blocking the position
that the Democratic-controlled White House, the Democratic-majority Senate,
and Democrats _in_ the House all support.

~~~
mikeash
Do you have a pointer to that most recent vote? Everything I can find has
solid majorities of both houses voting against closure or transfers, although
it is indeed not as solid as I made it out to be in my previous comment.

~~~
dragonwriter
House vote: [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/14/guantanamo-bay-
clos...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/14/guantanamo-bay-
close_n_3438347.html#)

Senate vote: [http://swampland.time.com/2013/11/20/rand-paul-aids-
surprise...](http://swampland.time.com/2013/11/20/rand-paul-aids-surprise-
guantanamo-bay-win-for-obama/)

Both on the 2014 National Defense Authorization Act

~~~
mikeash
Thanks, my searching didn't turn that one up. Seems that opinion on this one
is moving somewhat. Like you said, bad example.

~~~
dragonwriter
I'm not sure how much is a change of opinion and how much of it is an erosion
of the decision by Democrats to simply deny the issue to Republicans after the
Administration fumbled the political optics (or, arguably, was a victim of
deliberate, highly-placed sabotage from within on the political optics) to
focus on other areas; if you look at the politics of the 2009 vote, it wasn't
that both sides were opposed, it was that the Republicans were opposed and
doing a full-spectrum attack, and the Democrats collapsed after the
administration -- which was pushing to close Guatanamo -- showed incoherence
with the testimony of FBI Director Mueller raising concerns of attacks in
America if prisoners were transferred to the US. Even simultaneously with the
near unanimous votes to block funding for closing Guatanamo, you see many of
the Democrats who voted to block funding saying that they supported closing
Guatanamo and would vote for it given a _specific_ closure plan that addressed
security concerns.

I think the gaps _always_ been there, but a very specific event threw a monkey
wrench in the political viability of the Democrats pursuing what was clearly
their preference all along.

------
junto
I wouldn't put it past the current government to try and push through a new
bill so that they could remove the statute of limitations in cases like this
where "national security was compromised", so that they can now still
prosecute the "traitors".

I also wouldn't put it past the current government to use that new power to
then posthumously prosecute Mr. Davidon who "died late last year from
complications of Parkinson’s disease".

Call me cynical, but nothing that USG does to further "protect" its "national
security" would surprise me anymore.

~~~
jessedhillon
Given that _ex post facto_ laws are specifically prohibited in the
Constitution, that sounds fantastically farfetched even for this thread.

~~~
accountoftheday
Ex post facto, such as the retroactive changes in CA tax law?

~~~
twoodfin
Way back to _Calder v. Bull_ in 1798, the U.S. Supreme Court has held that the
_ex post facto_ restriction applies to criminal law, not civil matters like
taxation.

Unusual retroactive taxation could face a due process challenge, but the basic
"pass a tax law January 20 that extends backwards to January 1" kind of
retroactivity has been upheld several times.

~~~
mindslight
Just because the Supreme Council condones something does not mean that it is
consistent with the Constitution (which is itself only relevant because it's
USG's purported charter).

~~~
jessedhillon
_Just because the Supreme Council condones something does not mean that it is
consistent with the Constitution..._

Assuming that by "Supreme Council" you mean "Supreme Court" \-- that is
_exactly_ what it means. There is no way to determine whether or not a thing
is in accordance with the Constitution _other than_ to ask a court to decide.
It's called The Rule of Law.

The other system is called, "internet randos and other people with Ron Paul
signs in front of their house decide what the Constitution means." I'll take
the first one, thank you.

~~~
mindslight
So then according to your viewpoint, the text of the Constitution is an opaque
blob to anyone besides the SC. Since there's no way for an individual to judge
for themselves whether the government's charter is being followed, we must
simply accept any decree from the ruling council of nine. This does not sound
like "The Rule of Law" to me.

~~~
mpyne
You can have your own _opinion_ all you like. The one the government will
operate by (with certain historical exceptions...) is the Supreme Court's.

~~~
mindslight
Well obviously. The problem comes about when someone wishes to rule out the
idea that the SC can make faulty judgments _by construction_ (usually because
they wish to keep believing that USG has not failed horribly at its design
goals).

~~~
jessedhillon
_The problem comes about when someone wishes to rule out the idea that the SC
can make faulty judgments by construction..._

That's what it fucking means to be supreme! There is literally no higher
authority unless you want to start shooting people! If you don't like a
Supreme Court ruling you can only petition the court to reverse itself or
amend the Constitution. By definition, the Supreme Court is the highest legal
authority, ergo if they make a "mistaken" ruling (according to whom?) there is
no higher legal authority to express that conclusion. So yes, _by
construction_ no power exists to override the court, only to amend the
Constitution. Faulty judgments are part of the system, the rule of law is the
system whereby you agree to operate within this system, even when rulings are
made which you personally object to.

~~~
mindslight
_Whoosh_. You're doing the equivalent of conflating legality and morality -
separate your perspective from than of USG. The point isn't that an arbitrary
person's opinion of constitutionality directs the actions of USG. It's that
there's an independent notion of constitutionality outside the opinions of the
Supreme Council. By acknowledging this divergence, we illustrate one aspect
USG's corruption (and gain insight to how it occurred) and can weigh whether
it is time to reboot the failed system by external means.

~~~
jessedhillon
You began this discussion by saying that a Supreme Court decision can be
unconstitutional -- practically a contradiction in terms, and also legal
statement. Now you're trying to switch subjects and say you were talking about
morality the whole time? Morality is utterly irrelevant and subjective. I
don't care about what you think is moral, that's why we have a Constitution in
the first place: so we don't have to pick which moral code to observe!

~~~
mindslight
No, I began by saying that the SC can declare something "constitutional" when
it (the "something") is obviously not.

(Funnily enough, I was implying that your original judgment of
constitutionality was irrelevant as to what could happen. A point which you
then went on to make hard about others' judgments of constitutionality, but
mostly restricted to post-SC-decision disagreement)

I said nothing about morality specifically, just that the phenomenon of
conflating it with legality is an analog of what you seem to be doing:
assuming that the truth of something (in this case: "constitutionality") is
fully captured by how the government judges it.

~~~
jessedhillon
That is tautologically true, something you don't seem to understand. The
Constitution defines the methods by which to determine whether an act conforms
to it. Whatever you think is "obvious" is a) not obvious, and b) irrelevant
unless you are prepared to establish your interpretation by force. The word
"constitutional" means that a thing is aligned with the Constitution, and the
Constitution defines the method for making that determination as the court
system. Ergo, constitutionality is determined by the supreme court. Apart from
that, what you have are commonplace observations made by lay people about how
they think the world should work. Strangely, you seem to think these are
universally agreed-upon beliefs, apparently for no other reason than because
you and people like you agree. You also think the rest of us should regard
your beliefs on the Constitution at least as highly as we do the rulings of
the court. Again, for no other reason than because you hold them and they are
"obvious." You apparently have never heard the word "subjective."

All you seem to be saying is "everyone has an opinion as to what is
constitutional" to which I can only say, Yes and they can express it at the
ballot box, seek office, or strive for a relevant appointment. Apart from
that, tell it to your wife because nobody else cares.

The flippant and cavalier manner with which you would declare something
unconstitutional is staggering. Had you any level of meaningful understanding
as to what it takes to determine the constitutionality of a thing, I think you
would have a better appreciation for the nuance involved. At least you would
have a more interesting position than simply reiterating that everyone has a
right to an opinion.

~~~
mindslight
Your thinking process has been thoroughly pwned by the idea that changing the
individual cogs comprising USG suffices, such that nobody should ever judge or
hope to deprecate the entity itself. So, adieu.

~~~
jessedhillon
Stay in school.

------
joshfraser
It's interesting how history repeats itself. This is the story of how we ended
up with the FISA court. The lesson for us is that need to be careful that
whatever reforms we make to fix the NSA won't be used in even worse ways in
the future.

~~~
rdtsc
It likely will be. The bad side-effect is that they have now measured exactly
what the tolerance to this is -- t\it wasn't that bad a of a reaction from the
general population. HN/Reddit and other communities are too small compared to
the general population. Now what can happen, is they can be more brazen in
their actions and take it up a couple of more notches, as the saying goes.

For example, they know that we know, so no need to expend much effort hiding
their tactics and methods. You do something they don't like? They can clearly
just send an agent or make a phone call. You did something undesirable but not
necessarily illegal, well they might go back 2 years and listen to how you
confessed to your partner that you cheated on your IRS taxes that year. You
might get a "friendly" reminder from them about that conversation and what it
could do if IRS got that info.

Another level of this is people start assuming they are omniscient and
omnipotent in gathering information. They become the de-facto record keepers.
If there is a dispute about a fact, they can chime and say that well "on
Friday, November 15, 20:30, you made a phone call and you confessed to this
crime". Whether that happened or not, might not matter, what matters is that
they could make it up and many will take their word for it.

~~~
sdoering
I don't know, how it is in the US, but here in Germany, the "normal" media
reports the same narrative, that the general public does not care.

I can only say, that a great lot of people I know and heard of, do care but
often times, they do not know, what to do and what can be done.

So do not buy into this narrative. Fight against it, as (at least to me) it
does not seem to be true.

But I believe, that your dystopic view might be(come) true. Sad, but true.

------
pedalpete
I'm surprised that this hasn't been referred to regularly throughout the whole
current NSA revelations. Or have I just missed it.

Really looking forward to reading the book.

~~~
a3n
You can start now:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens%27_Commission_to_Inve...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens%27_Commission_to_Investigate_the_FBI)

Follow the links out from there.

------
forgotAgain
Interesting that, if done today, analysis of a few months worth of meta-data
would show exactly who they were.

Edit: Also interesting that today they would be called home grown terrorists
instead of anti-war activists.

------
oinksoft
By taking no credit, they ensured the story would be about the documents and
not the burglars.

~~~
oskarth
Counterpoint: Snowden vs Manning. It's not that simple.

~~~
oinksoft
They're both examples of how not to do this sort of thing in that regard.

~~~
Joeboy
To be fair, the key difference is that these guys got away with it. If they
hadn't, I hope they'd have the level of notoriety and support Snowden and
Manning have had. But I agree that it would be better to focus on the facts
and issues rather than the individuals involved.

~~~
mpyne
> To be fair, the key difference is that these guys got away with it.

The other difference is that "these guys" didn't do anything else _but_ find
the evidence they needed to prove the types of spying the FBI was up to.

It's not as if they copied out all of the FBI file cabinets and only then
revealed evidence of spying, _along with_ disclosing lists of known Soviet
spies under watch by the FBI.

------
Taek
As I read more about this, I wonder if there has yet been a powerful intel (or
otherwise secret) government organization that hasn't abused its power in some
major way. Without organizations that can keep secrets, you lose a lot of
options (such as undercover operations, and surprise nuclear defence systems),
but I wonder if you can't draw parallels to open source.

When your government is "closed source", the risks are higher as there are
less checks and balances. But maybe, like many open source efforts, keeping
the government entirely transparent would increase efficiency enough to make
up for the types of operations that you can no longer undertake.

------
pistle
Organized civil disobedience was ineffective.

------
strathmeyer
Am I the only one who gets an auto-play video and then an uncloseable popup
that prevents me from pausing or muting it??

~~~
ersii
Yeah, the video starts automatically. I didn't get a popup window at all. I
have no blocking mechanisms activated besides what's already in stock Mozilla
Firefox.

