
Electronic Frontier Foundation Uncovers Widespread FBI Intelligence Violations - randomwalker
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/01/eff-releases-report-detailing-fbi-intelligence
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ck2
They can get away with all this and more because we have been made to believe
it's okay to be in a state of war for a decade now, because everyone can still
go shopping at the mall.

"Homeland Security" has become such a huge industry, how will we ever get them
to scale it back down and give up all their little ways to violate the people
they are supposed to protect?

~~~
lotusleaf1987
That's exactly why I support having a draft. If everyone of military age had
to worry about being drafted, we'd be much less likely to go to war. As it is,
the burden of war falls on the backs of the poor and uneducated because it's
the best job opportunity they have.

~~~
russell
Wishful thinking. Having the draft did not keep us out of Vietnam (or the
escalation). Eighteen yearolds have no influence on military policy and their
parents buy the patriotic fervor. I am thankful that we dont have the draft
and my son did not have to serve in Iraq or Afghanistan. I wish it were more
difficult to wage war, not easier.

~~~
w1ntermute
> Having the draft did not keep us out of Vietnam

IIRC, the wealthy were able to stay out of Vietnam by going to college.
Perhaps if the children of the influential were drafted as well, things might
be different. Then again, knowing this country, any law reinstating the draft
would not be complete without a loophole for the wealthy.

~~~
russell
Anyone got a college deferment, but were drafted afterward unless they were in
an essential occupation, which did not exempt doctors, lawyers, and most
professions. One way to get out of ground combat was to volunteer for the Navy
or Air Force. I managed to string it out for 4 years, but was finally saved
only by the lottery.

~~~
w1ntermute
> Anyone got a college deferment

Of course, but back then, it was an indirect way of keeping the children of
the wealthy out of harm's way, as manufacturing still had a big presence in
the US. Rather than going to college, the children of the middle class/poor
went to work in factories after high school, and so they could be sent to war.

> were drafted afterward unless they were in an essential occupation

That's good to know. Were there any other loopholes used by the wealthy (there
must have been some)?

~~~
jonah
National Guard. (See G.W. Bush)

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GHFigs
Take with a grain of salt. The "40,000" figure the EFF mentions is entirely
their own. The number of potential violations actually described in the
documents they have is 768.

Is it reasonable to assume that the actual number is 50 times higher? Please
decide for yourself instead of just taking the EFF's word for it.

Also, when considering the scope and scale of these violations, recognize that
little distinction is being made between simple violations of procedure and
scandalous invasions of individual privacy. If you feel that violations of
Constitutional rights are more significant than missed administrative
deadlines, this is an important distinction, one that the EFF's "Big Number"
only serves to obscure. In fact their own report states that the number of
violations involving "violation of the Constitution, the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act, or other laws governing criminal investigations or
intelligence gathering activities" is "almost one-fifth" of the already much-
deflated total.

~~~
Duff
The EFF report talks about how they got to 40,000 on page 12. That estimate
makes several assumptions whose validity is tough to validate. I agree that it
is probably inflated.

The 768 number is based on one release of documents, which only lists reported
incidents. The FBI Inspector General estimated 6,400 violations between 2003
and 2006 based on a statistical sample.

Say the actual number is alot lower -- 10,000 for the period from 2001 to
present. That would mean that like 98% of NSLs (about 40,000 are issued
annually) were proper and consistent with the rules. But that 2% still means
that there was probably 2,000 incidents where serious violations of
constitutional rights were committed by people sworn to protect and defend the
constitution.

~~~
GHFigs
I'm not clear on why your made-up number is better than their made-up number,
but I agree that even a smaller number of that third category is too many.

Specifically, I'm hesitant to assume that the proportions of the EFF's sample
are representative or that they 'scale up' to the number reported by the
Inspector General and beyond. The main reason being while the EFF's sample is
specific to violations recognized and reported as such, the Inspector
General's report is specific to NSLs and _not_ specific to things initially
recognized as violations. The later report cites such comparatively minor
violations as typos which are likely to be under-represented in the IOB
documents, where more serious (and obvious) violations likely over-
represented.

That is to say: there may be several thousand additional violations, but the
proportion of them which are of the (arguably) more benign classes of clerical
mistakes and "overproduction" may be much higher than in the EFF's sample. I
think that 20% is very unlikely to be reflective of the (unknown) whole and I
think the findings in the Inspector General's report[1] support that.

[1]: <http://www.justice.gov/oig/special/s0803b/final.pdf>

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dsplittgerber
The EFF needs a more professional copy-writer.

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jamesbressi
What implications does this have for those who may have been convicted of a
felony based on those 40,000 violations?

Scary thought that chances are... of those truly guilty and convicted, there's
at least one or a few who committed a heinous crime and could now walk from
illegal/improper police work. That's just as scary as violating other's rights
and wrongful convictions.

Another loss for liberty and safety.

~~~
dstorrs
> [criminals going free is] just as scary as violating other's rights and
> wrongful convictions.

I disagree. There will always be evil in the world; one criminal more or less
is a drop in the bucket. What truly hurts a nation is when innocent citizens
cannot be sure that their innocence will protect them from their own legal
system.

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johngalt
Ever since CALEA it should have been obvious to anyone where we were headed.
Only-the-fly remote monitoring capability in of all major telecoms, that the
feds can turn on surreptitiously? Right, I'm sure they will only use it when
they've filled out all the proper forms.

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acabal
Am I just being cynical or am I the only one completely unsurprised by this?

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teepark
creepy that it's down now.

cache:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ZDGnKBh...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ZDGnKBh7N3oJ:https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/01/eff-
releases-report-detailing-fbi-
intelligence+https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/01/eff-releases-report-
detailing-fbi-intelligence&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&source=www.google.com)

~~~
pmorici
Direct link to the actual PDF report;
[https://www.eff.org/files/EFF%20IOB%20Report_Final%20Version...](https://www.eff.org/files/EFF%20IOB%20Report_Final%20Version.pdf)

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raintrees
Just as a humorous aside, my wife and I both chuckled when I read the headline
aloud stating that the FBI had violated intelligence...

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daniel-cussen
While this is definitely news, it's hardly a surprise.

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nik61
From the UK as at 21:25 GMT the EFF site seems to have completely
disappeared...

~~~
westbywest
Also seeing this. Getting "connection reset" errors over HTTP and HTTPS.

