
Declassified memos show FBI illegally shared spy data with private parties - shawndumas
http://circa.com/politics/declassified-memos-show-fbi-illegally-shared-spy-data-on-americans-with-private-parties
======
CWuestefeld
One wonders: is there ANY point at which the Congress or even the Courts will
step in and say that the abuse has been excessive? Is there really any
threshold, and they're just waiting to see if we reach it? I'm really starting
to believe that there's no limit at all. It's the proverbial frog in hot
water.

~~~
philipov
If I were in charge of an intelligence agency, I imagine the most interesting
targets of surveillance would be congresspeople and judges.

~~~
rhizome
The people most able to take your surveillance toys away.

~~~
mschuster91
But unlikely to do so when they're threatened e.g. by "someone" leaking
evidence of "transgressions"... e.g. sexual encounters with
affairs/prostitutes, excessive drinking, inappropriate conduct with minors,
clandestine meetings with "sponsors" (aka corruption)... and Congressmen (or,
politicians in general) are not exactly known for ethical behavior, which
makes them all extortionable.

A lot of this kind of "searching for evidence" can already be done using
existing surveillance infrastructure, I believe it was called LOVEINT after
the Snowden leaks.

------
adrian1973
'“If we require our agents to write a full justification every time think
about if you wrote a full justification every time you used Google. Among
other things, you would use Google a lot less,” a lawyer told the court.'

Wow. _Of course_ performing a search through such private information should
be done with far more care than is taken in a typical Google search. Except to
this guy.

------
exabrial
"This same declassified FISA ruling also held that Obama’s NSA conducted
improper searches of “upstream” surveillance data on Americans for years" -FTA

------
nstj
I'd never heard of Circa (circa.com, the publisher of the story) before, so
did a little digging. Apparently it's owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group [0].

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_Broadcast_Group](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_Broadcast_Group)

~~~
PKop
[http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-
world/national/articl...](http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-
world/national/article152948259.html)

(Yes they are citing the circa article... but hey, they think it's legit
enough to cover)

------
Mendenhall
Whats interesting and very telling is the medias coverage of this.

~~~
narrowrail
Or lack there of. They're busy getting hysterical over the _highly_ damning
allegations of the day that is our current 'NightmareTV' political situation.

Because the Obama admin was implicated in it, the coverage seems to be broad
in Republican circles (i.e. Fox News). I wish us non-tribal people could form
some common-sense, bipartisan group.

Edit: added less ambiguous descriptors.

~~~
tehwebguy
No one outside HN and reddit ever seemed to give a shit about this stuff, even
in the Bush years.

All the noise I've tried to make about this and no one ever cares. The South
Park episode about this was painfully dead on.

~~~
mercer
Which episode was that? I don't generally follow South Park but occasionally
watch particular episodes.

~~~
tehwebguy
"Let Go, Let Gov" \- S17E1 on Hulu (Plus?) here
[https://www.hulu.com/watch/538488](https://www.hulu.com/watch/538488)

------
Nursie
Are we ready yet, to say that everything that's been predicted about this
stuff has come true?

Mass information gathering and mass classification of government information
has led to, AFAICT, every accide tal breach and malicious actor scenario the
"paranoid" privacy advocates said it would.

------
redleggedfrog
And...no one goes to prison.

------
haltingthoughts
Great, now we can sue them. Oh wait, there's that whole sovereign immunity and
standing problem

------
dang
Url changed from [http://hotair.com/archives/2017/05/26/fbi-illegally-
shared-s...](http://hotair.com/archives/2017/05/26/fbi-illegally-shared-
surveillance-data-americans-unauthorized-third-parties-federal-contractors/),
which points to this.

------
djjdiud
52 points 2 hours and this is on page two.

Not a big surprise given how pro Government HN commenters can be.

~~~
Shivetya
I would not claim HN readers are pro government, they are frighteningly pro
government when those they do not agree with are in the cross hairs.

this is exactly how the system gets to be so abusive. government, politicians
and those in power, manipulate the system by playing off the fears, desires,
and hatred, of the constituency.

what those who frequent sites like this need to learn is to see that
manipulation for what it is and stand firm against it regardless of who is the
target. wrong is wrong, it does not become magically right if someone you
don't like gets taken down. when they go we all go.

the danger specific to FBI is that it has become way to political in recent
years due in part with how the Department of Justice has. Organizations with
powers such as these should have all political leanings minimized if not
actively sought out and ended.

~~~
narrowrail
Sure, you have the tribal-ists that are anti-Trump or anti-Obama, but I find
there are many civil libertarians on HN. In 2013, during the wake of the
Snowden release there must have been 3-5 threads per day.

I don't feel qualified to assess the inner workings of the FBI, but there
appear to be no checks on this surveillance power with any teeth. We need to
fix this immediately. It should not be a partisan issue.

------
killin_dan
Oh lord, this is so shocking! /s

Why is state intelligence even a thing? The military is capable of gathering
all of the defensive intelligence that we need to protect ourselves.

These state cowboys are out there making deals and cracking my WiFi to see
what porn I'm watching in the name of counter-terror.

Nonviolent threats do not necessitate or validate state intelligence imo.

~~~
SomeStupidPoint
Because the military isn't supposed to act domestically under normal
circumstances, to prevent other kinds of abuses.

So we have a federal police organization separate from the military,
theoretically trained to obey the rules of domestic operations (eg,
constitutional protections). And it is that police organization which handles
intelligence about, eg, terrorism and foreign spies that originates inside of
the country.

There are some caveats about cooperation between different agencies, but I'm
not going to try and defend those as they currently exist -- the domestic
police _shouldn 't_ have access to some of our spy apparatus that doesn't obey
domestic laws.

However, there _is_ a legitimate reason to have a domestic police force
separate from the military, and a legitimate need for them to have _some_
intelligence operations, to eg crack terrorist rings and track spies.

~~~
nickpsecurity
"So we have a federal police organization separate from the military,
theoretically trained to obey the rules of domestic operations "

Interesting enough, its power came from public relations, military and
intelligence-style operations against its opponents under J Edgar Hoover. The
story you told came as propaganda supporting that. I agree with separating
military and law enforcement plus different procedures. It's just that the FBI
was more like a foreign opponent shoring up power for itself, esp its leader,
than a traditional LEO w/ federal power given for legitimate reasons. Then, it
kept and expanded on that power despite how it achieved it in the first place.

------
ak4g
Here's the actual source document.

[https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/icotr/51117/2016_Cert_FI...](https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/icotr/51117/2016_Cert_FISC_Memo_Opin_Order_Apr_2017.pdf)

It appears to be proper judicial oversight of national security operations.

Unsurprisingly, having the rule of law applied even in the pursuit of those
who seek to end it is smeared by those who would prefer to weaken the United
States' national security and the institutions of liberal democracies the
world over.

~~~
dang
> _Unsurprisingly, having the rule of law applied even in the pursuit of those
> who seek to end it is smeared by those who_

Please don't post grandiose ideological rhetoric here. It's flamebait, and
we're trying to avoid what that leads to.

~~~
SomeStupidPoint
I've mentioned it before, but it seems that the mods only enforce this rule
(and similar ones) very selectively: precisely those times that "grandiose
ideological rhetoric" disagrees with groupthink. This comment is no more
grandiose, ideological, or rhetorical than hundreds I've seen recently on a
myriad of topics.

I think the very notion of "flamebait" is an Orwellian euphemism for not
agreeing with popular sentiment: it's not mere disagreement, it's _flamebait_
, so of course we must censor it!

I'm very curious: what are the statistics on times you've applied this rule to
comments you agree with versus those you don't -- or do you always disagree
with "flamebait"?

~~~
pyre
> "flamebait" is an Orwellian euphemism for not agreeing with popular
> sentiment

Well, there's also the manner in which you present yourself and your argument
that counts for something. It's flamebait if it is presented in such a way to
do nothing but start an argument (i.e. not constructive).

