Right, write the same article about Jan 6 and people at the Capitol Building, and few would blink an eye.
In that case, I don't think any any attempts were made to burn it down, or a federal courthouse building which has zilch to do with their grievance and isn't even the right branch of government. Then people ask, how did we get here? When the past year of activism made mobbing government buildings placing them under siege for weeks and trying to burn them down the acceptable norm with little done to stop it or condemn it in the media, its not hard to see why the other extreme might think its their time to shine. The pearl clutching is amusing to me.
Everyone is convinced that bad things only happen to them, and it's a conspiracy to keep them down - while at the same time, applying the same controls to others that they may disagree with....
There are reasons for _everyone_ to be concerned about geofence warrants. It skates dangerously close to restricting freedom of association. We all know that there are bad actors - and often the chance to use extremists to paint everyone of a particular religion, sex or ideology with the tar brush of the extremists.
We don't know - for example - how many people were returned here. Was it 2 devices? 200 devices? 2000 devices? If there was a parade of people in front of the building? If there was just the arson suspects? Maybe only police ones?
These warrants should be called what they are, General Warrants. Something that was abused in our history and deemed to corrupting that they were banned in our constitution.
I do not see how strapping a set of GPS coordinates instead of a city block magically makes the warrany anything other than a General Warrant.
Let me start by saying I do not condone the destruction of government buildings in any way. Full stop.
If there are separate parts of a system -- but all part of the same underlying system -- do you really see them as completely different things? For example, I've heard cops, while arresting someone for marijuana, just "pass the buck" and say, "We don't write the laws, we are just enforcing them."
If you are part of maintaining, propagating, and continuing a system, are you not an equal part of that system and the things done in its name?
I see the three separate branches of government as almost completely different things. While I think drugs should be legalized (or at least decriminalized), the police aren't violating any fundamental human rights by arresting someone for marijuana possession. We need to lobby the legislature to fix the laws.
The fundamental human right to be free and their pursuit of hapiness is most definitely being violated when being detained. A police officer can choose to not detain someone or they can choose to detain someone. It is within their purview.
> If you are part of maintaining, propagating, and continuing a system, are you not an equal part of that system and the things done in its name?
Yes, I think you can make this case. However, it isn't appropriate someone charged to execute enforcement of the law to ignore the laws they don't like. The only valid exception would be laws that aren't legal and therefore invalid.
>” If you are part of maintaining, propagating, and continuing a system, are you not an equal part of that system and the things done in its name?”
Absolutely not, with a key emphasis on the “equal part”. It is totally wrong to assume that I, as a citizen and taxpayer who is just living my life normally, is equally as culpable as a lawmaker or a trigger happy police officer is a fallacy.
The problem is not that is was a BLM riot, the problem is that geofence warrants are effectively a modernized general warrant, something that should be viewed as plainly unconstitutional
They get around it because they have slapped a modern technology workaround over the top of out constitutional protections as they often do, but a warrant under the US 4th amendment is suppose to outline the exact person, place, and object to be searched and seized.
Obtaining Geofence warrant is, and should be unconstitutional any judge issuing such a warrant is unfit to be a judge
I don't know what you want, an article that's happy about geofence warrants? If reading an article about a FOIA response makes you angry, maybe the article isn't the problem.
Edit: to be clear, I did not feel rage when reading the article. I don't want to invalidate your reaction, but I'm not convinced that the article was designed for that.
Reading an article written in such a way as to cause needless flamewars makes me angry. The article is a borderline opinion piece. For instance:
> While some towns saw significant property damage in the wake of the Jacob Blake protests, all evidence shows the attack against the Seattle union building was ineffective and notable mostly as an affront to local police.
The writer is expressing on opinion that the attack wasn't that bad and didn't justify this kind of warrant- not that the warrant should never be used-- just not used to investigate activity related to BLM activity. There is no mention as to the legality of throwing fire bombs at buildings or comment on the justification actually used in the warrant.
The author seems to make a point of minimizing the crime of trying to commit arson with fire bombs because the perpetrators weren’t successful in burning the building down as a rational for why this was somehow an over reach. Seems like a nutty argument.
I came from a country that became dictatorship. Dictatorships never came one day, they always creep in bit by bit. So raging on each small point is the right thing to do.
They didn’t get identifying information on everyone if that’s what you think. They worked with Google to narrow it down to two individuals.
That doesn’t seem like an abuse of a crazy law from patriot act. It’s not like they swatted someone’s apartment for hate speech on Twitter without a warrant, someone tried to burn down a police building.
What you are missing is the fact that Google is protecting rights against the state; but they could just as easily decide to give up all the data instead of anonymizing and parsing it for them.
When corporations are holding the privacy line against the state, there are wolves in the pasture.
It's courts, not corporations. The corporation is protecting the customer because the law says so, and the courts enforce it. This is an example of the system working, not a negative.
I'm a very big privacy enthusiast and you're right. Part of effective privacy law is passing rules to ensure companies (who have more power and financial incentive) protect their customers.
The underlying issue here is that there's an escape valve of law enforcement being ineffective enough to allow people to form organized resistance if things get too bad. With perfect enforcement, there would be no way to ever overthrow a dictatorship, so we don't want perfect enforcement, even though it's not a dictatorship just yet.
Also, perfect enforcement is bad for society. Imagine where gay rights would be if we had perfect enforcement back when being gay was illegal.
Apple wouldn't be able to fulfil the warrant as it doesn't collect the kind of data needed to identify users based on their historical location.
Requesting the data from Google has the advantage that it can also include iPhone users who have Google apps or apps using one or more of Google's analytics products with some kind of location access.
The Wikipedia article says Apple has received geofence warrants. It does not say they have provided data in response to them. I do not believe they can since Find My data and Maps search history is end-to-end encrypted.
> Device location services information is stored on each individual device and Apple cannot retrieve this information from any specific device. Location services information for a device located through the Find My feature is customer facing and Apple does not have content of maps or alerts transmitted through the service.
Air Tags:
> The interaction is end-to-end encrypted, and Apple cannot view the location of any AirTag or supported third-party products
Regardless of how moral the goals are of the group. The reality is that BLM is a decentralized group that has actors which freely associate and disassociate fluidly. Because of this, it would be reasonable to assume that this is part of BLM as the overall group are not outing these individuals and are in fact concealing their identities.
Unfortunately, the lack of self policing with the group has lead to this result.
If it were the latter, than I would have expected more people associated with BLM to disown/disavow the violent criminals, rather than making excuses for their behavior.
>Why would officials say that the biggest domestic terror threat comes from __white__ supremacists?
>White supremacists is a real thing.
Your first comment is answered by your second comment. There is no disagreement here. This part is true. White supremacists are currently the biggest domestic terror threat in the United States.
The parent poster deleted their comment, which from memory described their own personal experiences as a resident in a place where BLM held a protest/rally/march/whateveryouwanttocallit.
They were speaking from personal experience and they related an account of events that most of us would equate with the terrorization of innocent people who had no involvement in the triggering event or in the public events during the aftermath.
It doesn't matter when you are defining the truth of a statement whether the event was perpetrated by a lone actor, "a couple of bad actors", or a group organized with the intent to go out and terrorize innocents and destroy property.
The simple truth is that throwing Molotov cocktails is the act of someone hoping to terrorize another person or group. The simple truth is that harassing people in their homes and destroying the property of people who had absolutely no involvement in the trigger event and indeed, rioting in general, are events used to terrorize other people.
No one ever thinks that some of those who become victims would have supported those in the march until their own families and property were attacked and destroyed.
It doesn't matter that you characterize these problems as the actions of "bad actors". It is still true that the things they do are intended to terrorize others and the terroristic events occurred in the context of a BLM event.
BLM will not achieve any of their goals until they can control their processes and the actions of those who come out to support them. Allowing themselves to be associated with terrorist actions will cause their efforts to be set back even further.
Maybe they support one type of terrorism? After all the officials have long engaged with terrorism around the world. With support from their voter base, just think of all the drone strikes and covert actions.
right. The most recent operation where they took down the IS leader does not smell good. 13 civilians are dead including kids and women. Who knows what actually happened where and what's the actual tally, but I don't believe a word coming from Biden's mouth.
I can see this is going to be one of those times were I get crap from both "sides"
Even if it was terrorism, these kind of police tactics should be abhorrent to anyone that desires to live in a free nation. General Warrants are very oppressive and open for wide scale abuse.
Fear should not bring your about willingness to cede your rights to a government promising safety, for you will lose your freedom and your safety
Some of the events that occurred during the protests definitely fall into the rioting category. Terrorism might be a stretch though, and you're conflating all riotous acts with BLM; many were instigated by white supremacy groups (Boogaloo Boys etc.).
Even if it was 100% terrorism, coordinated centrally by one group, it doesn't mean that we discard the laws and constitutional protections enumerated by the Constitution.
1. Issued in relation to attempted arson, which I think we all agree fits closer with "serious crime" than "civil disobedience"
2. The warrant is detailed and specifically identifies two specific subjects, identified through CCTV footage and described in the warrant.
3. Is approved by a magistrate in a federal court.
4. Is issued for a specific location and a specific timeframe (75 minutes).
5. Is for a specific record of movements during the location and time, without account details, before the FBI asks which account details they want to subpoena.
Let's look at the fourth amendment:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized
Is there probable cause? Indisputably.
Was the application made under oath? Yes.
Is there a specific place? Yes, both in terms of space, and in terms of time.
Does it clearly describe what to be seized? Yes.
Has a warrant been issued by a Magistrate after review? Yes.
Sounds good to me. I oppose mass surveillance (fuck you, NSA), but this seems constitutional and reasonable to me.
> False, the warrant asked for data for all devices in a geographic location, they were then trying to use that data to find to individuals.
Page 17: Page 17: "(a) [...] Google will not, in this step, provide the Google account identifiers (e.g. example@gmail.com) associated with the devices"
"(b) [..] The government may, at its discretion, identify a subset of the devices"
"(c) [..] Google will then disclose to the government the Google account identifier associated with the devices
identified by government"
The warrant specifically addresses Google.
> The courts rarely reject any warrant requests, this should give everyone pause for concern
This could also mean law enforcement generally only issues warrants when there is probable cause and legal basis to do so; such as in this case. This warrant being unsealed and public also means the public can review it.
I am absolutely concerned about the encroachment of civil liberties, constitutional rights, and privacy. This specific example is not a battle I would disagree on, or fight.
What scares me about these scenarios is how it fabricates durable probable cause on the basis of being in the vicinity of the wrong place at the wrong time. Imagine becoming a felon because the police searched your phone and found a discussion between you and your friend about buying LSD, and discovering that the legal basis for that search was that your phone was in the vicinity of a crime scene a couple of years ago. This is bad news.
There's a simple way around that: any evidence found for crimes, can only be used to prosecute the original crime involving the law why the warrant was issued. Everyone else is offtopic, and therefore discarded. I know, there's parallel evidence, but the fact its possible doesn't mean such should be used.
The US has a similar idea of illegally obtained evidence, its a very common concept. This is different from the above suggestion, which is essentially any unrelated evidence of crimes found while executing an unrelated search warrant is void. For example, a warrant is issued to find documents related to criminal fraud, while searching someone's office for materials related to the fraud they find a pile of illegal drugs. In the above suggestion, they wouldn't be able to prosecute drug violations as they discovered the drugs during an otherwise lawful search but its unrelated to the crime the warrant was issued for. The original search wasn't illegal, just that the second crime wasn't related to the issued warrant.
> Imagine becoming a felon because the police searched your phone and found a discussion between you and your friend about buying LSD, and discovering that the legal basis for that search was that your phone was in the vicinity of a crime scene a couple of years ago.
I fail to understand what's wrong with that.
If you did commit a felony, should you not be prosecuted for it regardless on how it came to light?
(Now there is the question whether buying LSD should really be a felony, but that's a different problem entirely)
Overcriminlization of society leads to people using this defense for more and more drag net style surveillance in order to "catch the criminals"
It has been studied and there is a good case to be made that the average person commits 3 felonies a day, there is no single person in the nation that know every single law, regulation, or ordinance one must follow, and some are written in such away criminal defense lawyers call them "catchall" felonies that are specifically designed for plea agreements, to get people to plead out to a "lesser" offense just so the felony would go away
Since the 90's we have expanded the number of "crimes" that classify as felony as well, when most people think about "felony" they think about violence, this is far from the case today when there are TONS and TONS of non-violence offenses that are classified as felonies.
Beyond drug laws, there are all manner of federal and state regulations that can be a felony
I'm ok with throwing a molotov cocktail at corporate/police property as a response to police killing people and getting away with it.
There are few "reasonable" options for redress or protest when the system itself is guilty and successfully sweeping nonviolent protest under the rug.
Those who feel more instinctive revulsion to intentional property damage than to injustice against human lives are part of the problem and must change. Property is never more important than human life.
I'm not. I don't want mob rule or anarchy. There are plenty of examples of people bringing about social changes through peaceful protests and other means.
If the police exist to steal your money, beat and kill you with impunity the mob rule is already here it just isnt evenly distributed. The molotov cocktails are a trailing indicator.
Violent protest paired with nonviolent (e.g. Malcolm X + MLK/ireland/india) has a better track record of success at bringing about change. The Iraq war protests serve as an example of the failure of nonviolent only (and those protests were huge).
For the white liberal living in safety you can condemn the burned out police station and dead body equally. That's definitely your prerogative.
> I'm ok with throwing a molotov cocktail at corporate/police property as a response to police killing people and getting away with it.
You're OK with someone setting a precinct on fire at the risk of actually killing people inside or in the surroundings? People that might have had nothing to do with whatever crime the police got away with at first place?
You're not seeking justice, you're seeking vendetta, so why are you acting like justice has not been served at first place? You don't believe in Justice anyway.
> No, Im not okay with risking killing people. I was clear that i believe human life > property. Im ok with damaging empty police stations though.
No you don't, you are okay with risking killing people. How did these protester know the police station was empty? They didn't. You condone violence.
> You're placing a higher value on property than on human (black) life.
Liar, these molotov cocktails were not thrown at buildings ,in a attempt at arson, for the sake of black people.
And don't make it about black people, like all that violence was for the sake of black people, it wasn't, it was for the sake of violent individuals who clearly didn't care about the consequences of their actions, actions you condone.
Don't use black people as a shield for your violent ideology.
I stand in support of BLM, as in its core tenet, but I don't support that violence. In fact I think much of the violence associated with these protests are the work of agents provocateur working to delegitimize the movement. And it seems to be highly effective.
This isn't to say that some "real" protesters might not get caught up in the melee once it starts, but it's clear that outside agitators are actively working to destroy it.
It's interesting the number of people who state that they generically "don't support violence" as if there were no meaningful distinction between violence against a person and violence against a window.
Is it that you see an attack on a person as equivalent to an attack on a window?
Or if not, why blur the distinction?
I think that the peaceful anti-Iraq war protests of 2002 serves as a poignant example of what happens when you have a large and entirely peaceful protest. No windows got smashed in London. Only in Baghdad.
I actually dont think I can think of a protest that was that large and failed so utterly in what it set out to do.
I'm stating that some of the violence associated with BLM is coming from people actively trying to discredit the movement. My gut tells me that it's a significant amount.
What I find more interesting is that people who make a point about the violence categorically seem to to ignore this aspect of the matter.
Are you willing to consider that this is happening, and if so, that perhaps that should bother you more?
No, I know some of it is police instigators but i dont think it's done to "discredit" the movement but to rile up and then entrap the peaceful protestors who can then be detained and prosecuted.
It's absolutely about discrediting it -- look at how effective it is, it worked on you. Your words indicate that as far as you're concerned, BLM == violence and destruction, period.
>Your words indicate that as far as you're concerned, BLM == violence
It's pretty amazing that on this thread I have more people responding as if I said something completely divergent to what I said than responding to what I actually said.
If I misread, I apologize and welcome correction. You misread me too, so it happens to all of us.
As far as the quoted text, perhaps I'm painting with a wide brush but I see a pattern here of framing BLM solely in terms of violence associated with it. Being that much of this is manufactured by interlopers I would hope that you would recognize how concerning that is.
Ah, went back to your parent comment and I apologize for my missing your original comment.
In my defense, my point still stands and it's a knee-jerk response to many here who equate BLM with violence, period. The detractors have done an excellent job in smearing the movement.
As to property damage, I recognize that there are understandable situations where that can occur but the real value is in the possibility of shit getting out of control vs mayhem on tap.
Public protest is an important civic action and those that work to undermine it should not be tolerated.
> By your argument, you're okay with these sorts of requests for basically any crime. It seems to me that this kind of sweeping surveillance should only be used in extreme cases.
I’m not familiar with how police departments and prosecutors (or in this case, the FBI and the Justice Department) determine how much effort to put into solving any particular crime. I’m sure they wouldn’t put as much time into solving a misdemeanor as they would a felony, and that they would put even more time into a murder than a regular felony, but I doubt they would have very many rules about whether a specific type of warrant is reasonable for a specific type of crime.
I suspect that once federal investigators are involved, they probably take the position that it is an extreme case and any legal technique is justified.
According to the article they have surveillance camera video showing the incident. That should be time-stamped with a reasonably accurate time and their physical location should be determinable with good accuracy from the video alone.
I do not see why the warrant requests data over such a long time frame. It seems likely to me that you could identify the perps from the mobile phone records by simply limiting the warrant request to 5 minutes before and 10 minutes after the event. There will be less data to sift through and the longer window after the event will allow you to track them to a vehicle or a nearby residence, etc. If the perps were carrying phones then they should be identifiable.
This warrant is overly broad and will pull innocent people into the investigation including people who may not have been participants but who may have only been in the neighborhood while it was happening and just decided to stop and take a few pictures to pass on to people in their social circles. (Social media cancer sufferers unite!).
A crime was committed and it is right to make an effort to locate and prosecute those responsible so that society has an opportunity to hold people accountable for their actions.
Once you dig into this you find another situation where it is true that if event A had never happened, then the likelihood of event B occurring is near zero. This event is the event B and in order for justice to be served, those who were involved in event A need to be held accountable. Committing crimes in an attempt to force accountability will not improve the situation for anyone and will likely only result in someone who would otherwise have enjoyed a happy, productive life being locked up for a crime of passion that should never have happened (event B).
We need technology that erodes the thin blue line serving as a refuge for cowards seeking to escape accountability for their crimes. Molotov cocktails chunked at a police station will never be that technology. I don't know what it looks like but there are some smart people on this forum who may have useful ideas to promote.
Your reply reads like a depressing commentary on the state of our society. I don't agree that we will see a time when police are targeted in their homes and if that ever happens it is likely to be a rare event.
I agree with the part about our political mechanisms since so much of the process of making things work for everyone will require political action and compromises that are likely several years, though hopefully not generations, away.
The first sentence of the last paragraph has likely always been true of any town or city. Then historically, townspeople who desire a stable existence with a rigid set of rules that apply to everyone will seek to install a lawman or peacekeeper. That lawman will be given responsibility for instilling order, enforcing the law, and detaining those engaging in criminal behavior so that the justice system can be used to determine their guilt or innocence and prescribe an appropriate penalty.
Crime in one form or another has been a part of human existence for too many generations to count. Societies have their own mores and define their own set of behaviors that they endorse and that they will sanction.
I see targeting police as a really stupid, monumentally bad move since they are the only ones who can reliably identify the bad actors in their midst. Doing stupid shit like that will only close their ranks and put a target on every law-abiding citizen's back as police become more paranoid than they already have been trained to be.
We should incentivize the reporting of criminal behavior by law enforcement officers and work to open everything to public scrutiny. I don't know what that looks like technologically speaking but there should be tools in place to allow officers to report criminal behavior and the use of those tools should protect the officer reporting the crime since their own life may be at risk.
No matter how much your local police suck, handing out lollipops to reward good cops will never be enough. We need tools that are easy to use, that satisfy the needs of the criminal justice system and enable effective prosecutions. The price of or penalty for non-compliance should be high enough that reporting is incentivized more than the current system of internal whitewashings or cover-ups.
> Doing stupid shit like that will only close their ranks and put a target on every law-abiding citizen's back as police become more paranoid than they already have been trained to be.
We're already in this part. Closing ranks further is just showing people most police force's true colors. Everyone was willing to overlook police abuse as long as it was targeted against minorities but now the average person has had a direct negative experience or has some relative that was railroaded by the prosecution and a lying cop.
> We should incentivize the reporting of criminal behavior by law enforcement officers and work to open everything to public scrutiny.
Your solution isn't going to work. No one really "polices the police", and LAPD literally has 18 different gangs within the department. This is why the push for body cameras is so strong- there is no other way than to monitor the police 24/7 and make sure what they're doing is just.
I see targeting police as a really stupid, monumentally bad move since they are the only ones who can reliably identify the bad actors in their midst.
But they don't. They do just the opposite. They get off the hook unless they are caught on video, and even then police and their supporters will make excuses.
They spent decades digging this hole. They will not earn that trust back easily even if they stopped shooting people in their sleep tomorrow. Which they show no signs of.
> It's often the police targeting minorities that leads the minorities to ambush cops moreso than the direct desire to commit unpoliced crime (though after a certain amount time crime does move in if it wasn't already there).
Have you ever lived among people who have committed deliberate violent crimes?
I'm surprised that so many here justify dragnet surveillance (let's call the method by its proper name).
By definition, hundreds of innocent persons will now be in an FBI database and will be investigated. Once you are in that database, you won't get out of it. After all, perhaps you'll be tagged in another dragnet operation.
Even if you aren't interrogated or harassed otherwise, perhaps you'll be searched more often by the TSA or magically stopped more often for "traffic violations". Or perhaps you won't get that job at a government agency.
> I'm surprised that so many here justify dragnet surveillance (let's call the method by its proper name).
I'd agree if it was the government that was survieling location. Instead, it's lots of people who buy mobile devices and agree to be survieled by a software company so their phone can do stuff for them. The government is asking for a reasonable amount of factual data from that non-government company. This is just bog standard police work.
>By definition, hundreds of innocent persons will now be in an FBI database and will be investigated.
People that were proximate to the scene of the crime will likely be questioned, but that doesn't mean they will be investigated as a suspect. The idea of a database that you can never get out of that will lead to you being targeted for enhanced law enforcement is something that shouldn't exist. But it is a different issue than a bog-standard arson investigation.
Incidentally, arson is a really awful crime. It kills a lot of innocent bystanders and often destroys properties that weren't intended to be damaged by the arsonist. I've experienced this twice in my own life, where someone destroyed their property (once to prevent the bank from foreclosing, and once to get a big insurance check) with fire, and ended up killing neighbors when their house was ignited by the fire started by the arsonist.
Your phone communicates over public airwaves. Therefore the government that represents the peoples interests has every right, and I’d say responsibility, to use that to help identify who was in the area of a crime when it occurred.
It’s no different than asking a witness for a testimony.
> By definition, hundreds of innocent persons will now be in an FBI database and will be investigated
I would love for you to tell me how the methodology described in the article allows for hundreds of innocent persons to be inserted in an FBI database and investigated. Because right now, your point is directly at odds with what the article presents, meaning you either didn't read or understand the article, or you have some special knowledge above and beyond what is presented in the article which you should share with the rest of us.
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[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 72.9 ms ] threadIn that case, I don't think any any attempts were made to burn it down, or a federal courthouse building which has zilch to do with their grievance and isn't even the right branch of government. Then people ask, how did we get here? When the past year of activism made mobbing government buildings placing them under siege for weeks and trying to burn them down the acceptable norm with little done to stop it or condemn it in the media, its not hard to see why the other extreme might think its their time to shine. The pearl clutching is amusing to me.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28707974
Nobody responded and I'm not entirely sure why.
Timing probably. What else was active that day that kept the Eye of Sauron from looking in this stories direction? Lots of things can contribute.
There are reasons for _everyone_ to be concerned about geofence warrants. It skates dangerously close to restricting freedom of association. We all know that there are bad actors - and often the chance to use extremists to paint everyone of a particular religion, sex or ideology with the tar brush of the extremists.
We don't know - for example - how many people were returned here. Was it 2 devices? 200 devices? 2000 devices? If there was a parade of people in front of the building? If there was just the arson suspects? Maybe only police ones?
I do not see how strapping a set of GPS coordinates instead of a city block magically makes the warrany anything other than a General Warrant.
If there are separate parts of a system -- but all part of the same underlying system -- do you really see them as completely different things? For example, I've heard cops, while arresting someone for marijuana, just "pass the buck" and say, "We don't write the laws, we are just enforcing them."
If you are part of maintaining, propagating, and continuing a system, are you not an equal part of that system and the things done in its name?
Yes, I think you can make this case. However, it isn't appropriate someone charged to execute enforcement of the law to ignore the laws they don't like. The only valid exception would be laws that aren't legal and therefore invalid.
Absolutely not, with a key emphasis on the “equal part”. It is totally wrong to assume that I, as a citizen and taxpayer who is just living my life normally, is equally as culpable as a lawmaker or a trigger happy police officer is a fallacy.
Trying to burn down a police station is localized mob violence.
They are not the same.
They get around it because they have slapped a modern technology workaround over the top of out constitutional protections as they often do, but a warrant under the US 4th amendment is suppose to outline the exact person, place, and object to be searched and seized.
Obtaining Geofence warrant is, and should be unconstitutional any judge issuing such a warrant is unfit to be a judge
Edit: to be clear, I did not feel rage when reading the article. I don't want to invalidate your reaction, but I'm not convinced that the article was designed for that.
> While some towns saw significant property damage in the wake of the Jacob Blake protests, all evidence shows the attack against the Seattle union building was ineffective and notable mostly as an affront to local police.
The writer is expressing on opinion that the attack wasn't that bad and didn't justify this kind of warrant- not that the warrant should never be used-- just not used to investigate activity related to BLM activity. There is no mention as to the legality of throwing fire bombs at buildings or comment on the justification actually used in the warrant.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geo-fence_warrant
That doesn’t seem like an abuse of a crazy law from patriot act. It’s not like they swatted someone’s apartment for hate speech on Twitter without a warrant, someone tried to burn down a police building.
When corporations are holding the privacy line against the state, there are wolves in the pasture.
Also, perfect enforcement is bad for society. Imagine where gay rights would be if we had perfect enforcement back when being gay was illegal.
They very likely had the capability: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/02/02/pegasus...
Requesting the data from Google has the advantage that it can also include iPhone users who have Google apps or apps using one or more of Google's analytics products with some kind of location access.
How so? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geo-fence_warrant search for Apple there and maybe provide a link why Apple can't find people that have maps, find my shit or other features on.
https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/law-enforcement-guidelin... https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303
Find My:
> Device location services information is stored on each individual device and Apple cannot retrieve this information from any specific device. Location services information for a device located through the Find My feature is customer facing and Apple does not have content of maps or alerts transmitted through the service.
Air Tags:
> The interaction is end-to-end encrypted, and Apple cannot view the location of any AirTag or supported third-party products
Maybe it's time to separate the two?
https://thehill.com/homenews/media/513902-cnn-ridiculed-for-...
Was this done by BLM or was this independent actors taking advantage of the chaos of the protests?
Unfortunately, the lack of self policing with the group has lead to this result.
BLM was a legitimate protests with a couple of bad actors.
>White supremacists is a real thing.
Your first comment is answered by your second comment. There is no disagreement here. This part is true. White supremacists are currently the biggest domestic terror threat in the United States.
The parent poster deleted their comment, which from memory described their own personal experiences as a resident in a place where BLM held a protest/rally/march/whateveryouwanttocallit.
They were speaking from personal experience and they related an account of events that most of us would equate with the terrorization of innocent people who had no involvement in the triggering event or in the public events during the aftermath.
It doesn't matter when you are defining the truth of a statement whether the event was perpetrated by a lone actor, "a couple of bad actors", or a group organized with the intent to go out and terrorize innocents and destroy property.
The simple truth is that throwing Molotov cocktails is the act of someone hoping to terrorize another person or group. The simple truth is that harassing people in their homes and destroying the property of people who had absolutely no involvement in the trigger event and indeed, rioting in general, are events used to terrorize other people.
No one ever thinks that some of those who become victims would have supported those in the march until their own families and property were attacked and destroyed.
It doesn't matter that you characterize these problems as the actions of "bad actors". It is still true that the things they do are intended to terrorize others and the terroristic events occurred in the context of a BLM event.
BLM will not achieve any of their goals until they can control their processes and the actions of those who come out to support them. Allowing themselves to be associated with terrorist actions will cause their efforts to be set back even further.
Even if it was terrorism, these kind of police tactics should be abhorrent to anyone that desires to live in a free nation. General Warrants are very oppressive and open for wide scale abuse.
Fear should not bring your about willingness to cede your rights to a government promising safety, for you will lose your freedom and your safety
The Boston Tea Party was an act of terrorism, yet we teach it in schools and celebrate it.
MLK was considered a terrorist in his time by many. Now he's widely celebrated.
Jan. 6th was just as much of an act of terrorism. Yet many who condone this molotoving will support that. And vice versa.
Even if it was 100% terrorism, coordinated centrally by one group, it doesn't mean that we discard the laws and constitutional protections enumerated by the Constitution.
1. Issued in relation to attempted arson, which I think we all agree fits closer with "serious crime" than "civil disobedience"
2. The warrant is detailed and specifically identifies two specific subjects, identified through CCTV footage and described in the warrant.
3. Is approved by a magistrate in a federal court.
4. Is issued for a specific location and a specific timeframe (75 minutes).
5. Is for a specific record of movements during the location and time, without account details, before the FBI asks which account details they want to subpoena.
Let's look at the fourth amendment:
Is there probable cause? Indisputably.Was the application made under oath? Yes.
Is there a specific place? Yes, both in terms of space, and in terms of time.
Does it clearly describe what to be seized? Yes.
Has a warrant been issued by a Magistrate after review? Yes.
Sounds good to me. I oppose mass surveillance (fuck you, NSA), but this seems constitutional and reasonable to me.
Page 17: Page 17: "(a) [...] Google will not, in this step, provide the Google account identifiers (e.g. example@gmail.com) associated with the devices" "(b) [..] The government may, at its discretion, identify a subset of the devices" "(c) [..] Google will then disclose to the government the Google account identifier associated with the devices identified by government"
The warrant specifically addresses Google.
> The courts rarely reject any warrant requests, this should give everyone pause for concern
This could also mean law enforcement generally only issues warrants when there is probable cause and legal basis to do so; such as in this case. This warrant being unsealed and public also means the public can review it.
I am absolutely concerned about the encroachment of civil liberties, constitutional rights, and privacy. This specific example is not a battle I would disagree on, or fight.
What you are saying is a reasonable proposal, but it is not how it works now. And it is very unlikely to change in the close future.
[1] https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onrechtmatig_verkregen_bewijs
I fail to understand what's wrong with that. If you did commit a felony, should you not be prosecuted for it regardless on how it came to light?
(Now there is the question whether buying LSD should really be a felony, but that's a different problem entirely)
Overcriminlization of society leads to people using this defense for more and more drag net style surveillance in order to "catch the criminals"
It has been studied and there is a good case to be made that the average person commits 3 felonies a day, there is no single person in the nation that know every single law, regulation, or ordinance one must follow, and some are written in such away criminal defense lawyers call them "catchall" felonies that are specifically designed for plea agreements, to get people to plead out to a "lesser" offense just so the felony would go away
Since the 90's we have expanded the number of "crimes" that classify as felony as well, when most people think about "felony" they think about violence, this is far from the case today when there are TONS and TONS of non-violence offenses that are classified as felonies.
Beyond drug laws, there are all manner of federal and state regulations that can be a felony
https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/google-geofence-locatio...
Even fitness app data has been used to finger the wrong person.
https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/7/21169533/florida-google-ru...
It’s only a little Molotov cocktail, no big deal, hope nobody dies in the ensuing fire that will by the way cause huge property damage.
After all they are marginal actors and single person or home isn't large scale damage?
There are few "reasonable" options for redress or protest when the system itself is guilty and successfully sweeping nonviolent protest under the rug.
Those who feel more instinctive revulsion to intentional property damage than to injustice against human lives are part of the problem and must change. Property is never more important than human life.
Violent protest paired with nonviolent (e.g. Malcolm X + MLK/ireland/india) has a better track record of success at bringing about change. The Iraq war protests serve as an example of the failure of nonviolent only (and those protests were huge).
For the white liberal living in safety you can condemn the burned out police station and dead body equally. That's definitely your prerogative.
You're OK with someone setting a precinct on fire at the risk of actually killing people inside or in the surroundings? People that might have had nothing to do with whatever crime the police got away with at first place?
You're not seeking justice, you're seeking vendetta, so why are you acting like justice has not been served at first place? You don't believe in Justice anyway.
>You're not seeking justice
You're placing a higher value on property than on human (black) life.
No you don't, you are okay with risking killing people. How did these protester know the police station was empty? They didn't. You condone violence.
> You're placing a higher value on property than on human (black) life.
Liar, these molotov cocktails were not thrown at buildings ,in a attempt at arson, for the sake of black people.
And don't make it about black people, like all that violence was for the sake of black people, it wasn't, it was for the sake of violent individuals who clearly didn't care about the consequences of their actions, actions you condone.
Don't use black people as a shield for your violent ideology.
This is literally and precisely what I am against.
>And don't make it about black people
It is about the correct response to people who get away with literal murder.
>like all that violence was for the sake of black people
Or for murdered people who did not receive justice.
>clearly didn't care about the consequences of their actions, actions you condone.
This is precisely the problem. What are the consequences if a cop murders someone and gets off?
If the state does not ensure consequences for the guilty then is the state not guilty?
And if the state is guilty, what should its punishment be?
A sampling of such here: https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/10/08/protests-provocateur...
This isn't to say that some "real" protesters might not get caught up in the melee once it starts, but it's clear that outside agitators are actively working to destroy it.
Is it that you see an attack on a person as equivalent to an attack on a window?
Or if not, why blur the distinction?
I think that the peaceful anti-Iraq war protests of 2002 serves as a poignant example of what happens when you have a large and entirely peaceful protest. No windows got smashed in London. Only in Baghdad.
I actually dont think I can think of a protest that was that large and failed so utterly in what it set out to do.
I'm stating that some of the violence associated with BLM is coming from people actively trying to discredit the movement. My gut tells me that it's a significant amount.
What I find more interesting is that people who make a point about the violence categorically seem to to ignore this aspect of the matter.
Are you willing to consider that this is happening, and if so, that perhaps that should bother you more?
It bothers me but I consider it a separate issue.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/not-accident-false-thug...
It's pretty amazing that on this thread I have more people responding as if I said something completely divergent to what I said than responding to what I actually said.
It's a bit sad, kind of like being on cable news.
As far as the quoted text, perhaps I'm painting with a wide brush but I see a pattern here of framing BLM solely in terms of violence associated with it. Being that much of this is manufactured by interlopers I would hope that you would recognize how concerning that is.
In my defense, my point still stands and it's a knee-jerk response to many here who equate BLM with violence, period. The detractors have done an excellent job in smearing the movement.
As to property damage, I recognize that there are understandable situations where that can occur but the real value is in the possibility of shit getting out of control vs mayhem on tap.
Public protest is an important civic action and those that work to undermine it should not be tolerated.
> something that can't really cause large scale damage
What planet are you living on?
I can see making a case that nothing justifies it, as a principle, but not sure I agree that Molotov cocktail is just a harmless toy idea.
> These are very marginal actors doing something that can't really cause large scale damage
Just curious how would we know that? It’s nice if it was true, of course, but is it?
I’m not familiar with how police departments and prosecutors (or in this case, the FBI and the Justice Department) determine how much effort to put into solving any particular crime. I’m sure they wouldn’t put as much time into solving a misdemeanor as they would a felony, and that they would put even more time into a murder than a regular felony, but I doubt they would have very many rules about whether a specific type of warrant is reasonable for a specific type of crime.
I suspect that once federal investigators are involved, they probably take the position that it is an extreme case and any legal technique is justified.
I do not see why the warrant requests data over such a long time frame. It seems likely to me that you could identify the perps from the mobile phone records by simply limiting the warrant request to 5 minutes before and 10 minutes after the event. There will be less data to sift through and the longer window after the event will allow you to track them to a vehicle or a nearby residence, etc. If the perps were carrying phones then they should be identifiable.
This warrant is overly broad and will pull innocent people into the investigation including people who may not have been participants but who may have only been in the neighborhood while it was happening and just decided to stop and take a few pictures to pass on to people in their social circles. (Social media cancer sufferers unite!).
A crime was committed and it is right to make an effort to locate and prosecute those responsible so that society has an opportunity to hold people accountable for their actions.
Once you dig into this you find another situation where it is true that if event A had never happened, then the likelihood of event B occurring is near zero. This event is the event B and in order for justice to be served, those who were involved in event A need to be held accountable. Committing crimes in an attempt to force accountability will not improve the situation for anyone and will likely only result in someone who would otherwise have enjoyed a happy, productive life being locked up for a crime of passion that should never have happened (event B).
We need technology that erodes the thin blue line serving as a refuge for cowards seeking to escape accountability for their crimes. Molotov cocktails chunked at a police station will never be that technology. I don't know what it looks like but there are some smart people on this forum who may have useful ideas to promote.
I agree with the part about our political mechanisms since so much of the process of making things work for everyone will require political action and compromises that are likely several years, though hopefully not generations, away.
The first sentence of the last paragraph has likely always been true of any town or city. Then historically, townspeople who desire a stable existence with a rigid set of rules that apply to everyone will seek to install a lawman or peacekeeper. That lawman will be given responsibility for instilling order, enforcing the law, and detaining those engaging in criminal behavior so that the justice system can be used to determine their guilt or innocence and prescribe an appropriate penalty.
Crime in one form or another has been a part of human existence for too many generations to count. Societies have their own mores and define their own set of behaviors that they endorse and that they will sanction.
I see targeting police as a really stupid, monumentally bad move since they are the only ones who can reliably identify the bad actors in their midst. Doing stupid shit like that will only close their ranks and put a target on every law-abiding citizen's back as police become more paranoid than they already have been trained to be.
We should incentivize the reporting of criminal behavior by law enforcement officers and work to open everything to public scrutiny. I don't know what that looks like technologically speaking but there should be tools in place to allow officers to report criminal behavior and the use of those tools should protect the officer reporting the crime since their own life may be at risk.
No matter how much your local police suck, handing out lollipops to reward good cops will never be enough. We need tools that are easy to use, that satisfy the needs of the criminal justice system and enable effective prosecutions. The price of or penalty for non-compliance should be high enough that reporting is incentivized more than the current system of internal whitewashings or cover-ups.
We're already in this part. Closing ranks further is just showing people most police force's true colors. Everyone was willing to overlook police abuse as long as it was targeted against minorities but now the average person has had a direct negative experience or has some relative that was railroaded by the prosecution and a lying cop.
> We should incentivize the reporting of criminal behavior by law enforcement officers and work to open everything to public scrutiny.
This isn't working.
But they don't. They do just the opposite. They get off the hook unless they are caught on video, and even then police and their supporters will make excuses.
They spent decades digging this hole. They will not earn that trust back easily even if they stopped shooting people in their sleep tomorrow. Which they show no signs of.
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/592816-video-shows-...
Have you ever lived among people who have committed deliberate violent crimes?
Although frankly, the solution is simple. Use 24hr burner phones and never when making outside contact with someone...
By definition, hundreds of innocent persons will now be in an FBI database and will be investigated. Once you are in that database, you won't get out of it. After all, perhaps you'll be tagged in another dragnet operation.
Even if you aren't interrogated or harassed otherwise, perhaps you'll be searched more often by the TSA or magically stopped more often for "traffic violations". Or perhaps you won't get that job at a government agency.
I'd agree if it was the government that was survieling location. Instead, it's lots of people who buy mobile devices and agree to be survieled by a software company so their phone can do stuff for them. The government is asking for a reasonable amount of factual data from that non-government company. This is just bog standard police work.
>By definition, hundreds of innocent persons will now be in an FBI database and will be investigated.
People that were proximate to the scene of the crime will likely be questioned, but that doesn't mean they will be investigated as a suspect. The idea of a database that you can never get out of that will lead to you being targeted for enhanced law enforcement is something that shouldn't exist. But it is a different issue than a bog-standard arson investigation.
Incidentally, arson is a really awful crime. It kills a lot of innocent bystanders and often destroys properties that weren't intended to be damaged by the arsonist. I've experienced this twice in my own life, where someone destroyed their property (once to prevent the bank from foreclosing, and once to get a big insurance check) with fire, and ended up killing neighbors when their house was ignited by the fire started by the arsonist.
It’s no different than asking a witness for a testimony.
I would love for you to tell me how the methodology described in the article allows for hundreds of innocent persons to be inserted in an FBI database and investigated. Because right now, your point is directly at odds with what the article presents, meaning you either didn't read or understand the article, or you have some special knowledge above and beyond what is presented in the article which you should share with the rest of us.