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New FBI Operations Manual Increases Surveillance
betterunixthanunix writes "The New York Times is reporting that the new FBI operations manual suggests a broad increase in surveillance. Denoted the Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide, the manual officially lowers the bar of acceptability when it comes to engaging in surveillance activities, including allowing agents to perform such surveillance on people who are not suspected terrorists without opening an inquiry or officially recording their actions. The new manual also relaxes rules on administering lie detector tests, searching through a person's trash, and the use of teams to follow targeted individuals. It should be noted that these guidelines still fall within the general limits put in place by the attorney general."
0 comments, because they're watching
Unconstitutional. Period.
They are running out of things to do, ways to spend/waste tax payer dollars...
Why is the federal government so in love with polygraph machines given the scientific community's near-complete dismissal of polygraphs as valid?
(The cynical side of me says it's because they give superiors and judges a reason to pass their opinion as judgement on someone without any real evidence...)
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Obvious troll is obvious.
With so many terrorists targeting the USA these days, such measures are necessary to ensure the safety and security of the populace. Sad, but true.
With that attitude (real or not), there's really nothing left to protect anymore. Our country is based upon Freedom and when our freedoms, our core beliefs are compromised for safety, then why do we even exist anymore?
America lives in name only - we are no longer a free country and we're the only ones who have to blame for it.
yes, just as the TSA's vigilance has stopped many terrorists including the underwear and shoe bomber. and planes no longer drop out of the sky like hail.
...about this manual it is a good idea to regularly defecate into your trashcan.
So, nothing is really different about what they could do, within the law, they're just being told by their executives that they should do more, within the law.
I see why this should be controversial. It appears that their policy has been not to do everything they could.
As the GOVcorps continues to take money out of the economy/circulation they know this causes stress on the people and want to catch any uprising so to fill the 180 FEMA detention camps across the country. If you doubt the reduction of currency in circulation then where did all the trillions (10+) go that so many countries are doing the bailout dance? Wikileaks showed that Israel has intentionally kept the Gaza strip on the brink of economic collapse.... for their sense of control. the "Trillion dollar bet" of the 90's drained south east Asia. Sept 10, 2001 Donald Rumsfeld stated 2.3 trillion of pentagon spending is unaccounted for and later there seems to be 9.7 trillion of bailout money is "We don't know where it went".... So the US doing the same to its people as Israel to the Gaza strip, simply requires more of the big brother watchful eye...And YES things are intentionally going to get worse.
This behavior by the federal government has been going on for years and will continue to increase in their level of intrusion.
Once local/state organizations are targeted by cyberattacks these rules will begin to apply to local law enforcement as well allowing for a double penetration of our privacy, all for "the good of the community and the country".
Hope and change!
All others aside, why is trash such a big deal? I was under the impression that anyone can look through anyone's trash provided it was on the sidewalk/street.
just a codification of what they've been doing all along since 9/12/2001.
The second casualty in (endless) war is the true Rule of Law.
but they can't find the U.S. $ 6.6 billion" "missing" in Iraq.
Dear F.B.I. : For some prime suspects, try the Washington, D. C. area.
Yours In Minsk,
K. Trout
Anything that brings in revenue and/or power is welcomed with open arms by the pyramid of government. Their goal is to increase the net worth of their business, as proven by history year after year. The more government costs, and the more power over the people, the more lucrative the business of government is for the elite who have the ability exploit that power and cash flow for personal gain.
It's not rocket science. The people who run the business of government work purely for themselves, not you and me. We need to finally accept this cold hard truth for what it is, and set strict limits on the scope of government measured both in revenue and power over the people. Any politician who is opposed to strict limits on his own power and cash flow is simply showing his true colors: greed and self-interest.
Its not a police state and there not all bad.
Hello.
...and I pity the fool digging through my trashcan.
I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.
Allowing FBI agents who are highly trained, to effectively do what they like, without being watched themselves, and with access to massive technical resources is begging for corruption (as if there isn't a lot now;))
You may be wondering why we need such surveillance? The simple answer is... we don't! As the above excerpt says "allowing agents to perform such surveillance on people who are not suspected terrorists" means they are not looking into YOUR private affairs for any other reason then to look into them.
"Hey, john... lets watch this bloke. hes bound to do something wrong sooner or later. And when he does, well have all of his phone records, recordings, pictures, video, bank statements... shit... we'll even know how he likes to fuck his wife etc... We'll have all the evidence we need to be seen to be doing something honorable for this country"
But why would the FBI rules and regulations have been relaxed to allow such? Two reasons, firstly, to make those FBI agents think they have the right to do what ever they like. This of course breeds complete arrogance. And when an FBI agent, highly trained, with access to fire arms, and the arrogance to use them, is sitting on your couch in your house, its probably too late to ask this question. He will have murdered you "legally" because he didn't like the way you answered his question.
Secondly, these propaganda "press" announcements are supposed to make you fearful of the FBI and its seemingly unstoppable authority.
"YOU ARE BEING WATCHED... COMPLETELY" "WE HAVE THE RIGHT TO WATCH YOU BECAUSE, WELL... WE SAY SO!"
"Those who swap freedom for security, deserve neither"
I like this line at the very end:
But she rejected arguments that the F.B.I. should focus only on investigations that begin with a firm reason for suspecting wrongdoing.
Is anyone else somewhat appalled that they don't need a "firm reason for suspecting wrongdoing" to waste time and money on an investigation? Add that to everything about this manual, and it kind of seems like the FBI is wasting enormous amounts of taxpayer money running around looking into random BS instead of focusing on serious issues. Even if we forget about the trampling of rights of innocent people here, and forget about them spending our money helping the MPAA/RIAA sue people, the mere fact that they are willing to investigate without a firm reason is bothersome from a "you-work-for-me-and-you're-wasting-time" perspective.
This will create another new source for more unwanted, imbecillic TV shows.
Paywall? Seriously?
The three laws of thermodynamics:(1) You can't win. (2) You can't break even. (3) You can't even quit.
there is no cause for alarm, your elected government
is operating at normal and safe levels to protect you
against threats it has identified to the good of its members, and you
.
this legislation is no cause for alarm, and should be
regarded as normal and regular. Please augment any
feelings of dissatisfaction, fear, or confusion with your
regularly scheduled, preferred docu-drama-comedy sitcom lineups as
provided by your television. Those wishing to consume may do so at
or above their levels of discretionary spending, with or without regard
to this legislation or its details as the legislation has been designed to
be compatible with existing models of american consumerism.
Good people go to bed earlier.
It's getting worse by the day ... http://inthearena.blogs.cnn.com/2011/06/07/daniel-ellsberg-all-the-crimes-richard-nixon-committed-against-me-are-now-legal/ .. "Daniel Ellsberg: All the crimes Richard Nixon committed against me are now legal"
When I read this story in the local paper (probably a NYT or AP version, likely shrunk) it made it sound like that many of these things they've already been doing but that they required "opening an official investigation" or something to that effect, which involved some oversight but a ton of bureaucracy and turning the wheels of process.
The net effect seemed to be that they could continue to do some of this stuff, except it would require less organizational oversight and more personal discretion.
THIS is the part I find shocking. I read a story recently about an IRS agent who makes a point of running plates on sports cars he sees on the streets and then checking to see if the people who own the car list enough income on their taxes to justify the ownership. If it seems fishy, he then does a criminal audit.
Even though the people may be cheating on their taxes, this strikes me as kind of rogue behavior that I'd hope the FBI would be restrained from.
With that attitude, the terrorists have won a decisive victory where the British, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, Russian, German, and many other enemies at some time or another have never had a chance of coming near to.
Am I the only one that ever heard of Rex Stout?
Surprisingly, the FBI waited to give out these new powers to their agents until just _after_ the Congress approved renewal of the PATRIOT Act. Wouldn't want to risk losing a few votes by doing it beforehand, while they were whining about how they needed to keep all the power they had.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
They are always watching you. No matter what you type, text, or tweet, they can and will read it and you will never even know.
After facebook facial recognition technology comes to fruition, your behavior patterns will be analyzed and recorded, and you may be 're-programmed' to fit back in to society nicely. If you fail to comply with the surveillance overlords, you must be prepared for the inevitable consequences.
The 'land of the free and the home of the brave' thanks you in advance for your cooperation.
Have a nice day.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Here we go....
What terrorists? One attack in a decade makes "such measures necessary"?
Israel, Northern Ireland and Spain are laughing. Ok, snickering, you don't laugh about the schoolyard bully, even if you learn that he's afraid alone in the dark. Home of the brave, my ass.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
"if you're not doing anything wrong, you've got nothing to hide"
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Your government at work....
The surveillance society, like that in the novel 1984, continues to relentlessly expand, but most of us don't need to worry. Even though our emails, phone calls, purchases, banking, and records of most every thing we do and places we go are being stored and data-based indefinitely, most of us needn't be concerned. Why? Because most of us are insignificant harmless sheep, that's why. The only time we'll need to be concerned with this issue is if at some point we decide to try to think for ourselves and voice an idea that is unpopular with our rulers, expose corruption, or set right an injustice. Otherwise, don't worry, be happy.
"Every object the individual uses, every transaction they make and almost everywhere they go will create a detailed digital record. This will generate a wealth of information for public security organizations, and create huge opportunities for more effective and productive public security efforts." - EU Council Presidency paper
"The technotronic era involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled society. Such a society would be dominated by an elite, unrestrained by traditional values. Soon it will be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen and maintain up-to-date complete files containing even the most personal information about the citizen. These files will be subject to instantaneous retrieval by the authorities." - Zbigniew Brzezinski, political scientist, geostrategist, and statesman, United States National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981
"The technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny. And there would be no way to fight back, because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know." - U.S. Senator Frank Church, 1975
"About 90% of Americans are walking around with a portable tracking device all the time, and they have no idea." - Christopher Calabrese, lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union's Washington office, What Your Cell Phone Could Be Telling the Government, By Adam Cohen, 2010
"The new rules make clear, for example, that if the person with such a role is a victim or a witness rather than a target of an investigation, extra supervision is not necessary."
Ah, wow. Another example of potential bad guys getting more rights than victims/witnesses. Making something up here- "Oh, he was a victim of wire fraud. Let's go investigate HIM!" The whole article is scary (and I probably just make some list by saying that). We know that are rights have been eroding due to things like the Patriot Act, but now they going to just release agents to roam wild with NO supervision. Every group has a few bad apples; what are the odds that at least some in the 14,000 agents are going to abuse these new rules? Ever see "Unlawful Entry?" IMDB- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105699/
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
That reminds me of when kids are little and you tell them you can see a lie on their tongue and ask them to stick out their tongues and they refuse, looking all guilty. Lie detectors work as well as that test.
Never submit to a lie detector test, ever. It is the worst pseudo science mumbo jumbo.
I voted for Obama because he said he'd put a stop to this kind of thing. And protect whistle-blowers. And hold polluters to account. And not let lobbyists near the White House. And close Guantanamo. And....
Greatest bait-and-switch EVER.
"Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice ... won't get fooled again." -- GWB.
There are other ways to deal with universal surveillance. I mention some here: :-) "
http://www.pdfernhout.net/on-dealing-with-social-hurricanes.html
"And our second biggest advantage is that our communications are monitored, which provides a channel by which we can turn enemies into friends.
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
always leave a friendly note in my trash, "Dear Mr Fed, nothing to see here, please enjoy sorting through my 2 week-old snot rags".
Sometimes, if I think they may be getting bored, I shred it first so that they have to spend some time reconstructing it. If I think they're getting really bored, I write it on the 2 week-old snot rag, and then shred that.
I also like to leave copies of the US Constitution on shredded CDROMs in my trash.
Fun times.
Then leave, or fight, or STFU. Who needs whiners?
Um, no. It's not the terrorists who won. It's the tyrants in government. The question is whether they can make it stick.
Another source of anti-polygraph info. 60 Minutes did an anecdotally interesting test. In addition, let's look at this from a (politically motivated?) prosecutor's perspective. We can presume the prosecutor is politically motivated, not truth or justice inclined, because of the insistence on using a scientifically unreliable instrument. Say the accused is:
*Since the prosecutor will now take the position that polygraphs are unreliable and use other evidence to convict.
I did not know that slashdot , the 'educated' gathering forume, are zombies similar to that of a book 1984.
Like parrots repeating what they are told and they don't even think for themselves.
Lets just say that 911 was caused by a beared mullah in a cave, well then, 100000 people die from car accident, why not have investigation to such proportion with cars, streets and traffic?
Why no have TSA on every traffic light?
Honey bees kill more people than the boooooogy man in cave. Why not TSA or feds spend their time catching honey bees ?
Go ahead and read 1984. /. is just bunch of parrots repeating cnn/fox and typing it .
But then again
sad. Truley sad to lose such a freedom in once called home of the brave land of free.
Just out of curiosity, would it be okay if we canned TSA so we'd all be free to carry firearms on to planes? Seems like a basic American right to me. How about battering rams to open cockpit doors, Americans won't be truly free unless they have this basic human right. Sticks of dynamite, the American Constitution would be travesty if these weren't allowed on.
Ummm...I am a bit confused about the reference to hail though. Are planes falling like hail in your area? Maybe you could contact your local sheriff. I'm sure s/he'd know what to do about that. Personally, I think you should get a crash helmet, it won't stop the big pieces but you could like it with tin foil for protection.
Well, Mr. AC...
I shall from now on clean the toilets, THEN clean your coffee mug and keyboard...WITH THE SAME RAG!!!!
It's never a good Idea to piss off your cook or janitor. ;-)
signed,
Your Janitor
Special Agents with the IRS are expected to find some of their own cases. The thinking is that if a Special Agent understands how illegal tax avoidance works, he'll recognize it when he trips over it in daily life. SAs are allowed a bit of flexible time and access to (mostly, though not exclusively) public information sources to try to develop a case before it becomes an official case.
This isn't nearly as nefarious as it seems. Markers of illegal tax avoidance are sometimes so obvious that something really should be done.
Much of this sort of thing doesn't work out, of course. When I was an Officer (not an Agent and not a Special Agent) I helped do a background check on a prominent local businessman who had not paid taxes in the past. His tax liabilities had been written off as uncollectible. There's an automated check that happens yearly but if he had gone a few more years without paying the statute of limitations for collection would have run out.
Then he started appearing in local TV commercials in a quarter-million dollar car. When a local businessman starts prominently featuring such a bauble in his commercials, the obvious and by far most often correct assumption is that he's just putting it in the commercials to write it off. An "OI" (Other Investigation) form was filled out, dropped in a folder, and we were covered to do a compliance check on the local celebrity in question.
It turns out that his business had taken off quite well in the previous couple of years. He had paid off all his old debts, going back years, and was completely current in all ongoing obligations.
The OI form (which was literally a half-page, nearly blank form intended just to create a record of why we were looking at things we're not supposed to under normal circumstances) got a short sentence explaining that all was well. Then the folder went off to the federal records depository.
Does that really seem all that sinister?
I'm retired now but I occasionally run into situations that simply stink. From the retail establishment that doesn't close the cash drawer (to keep transactions off the books) to the apparently-no-job guy with the big family from Mexico who pays cash for a million-dollar home and idly tells the realtor that he's buying so he'll feel safe, to the employment agency that smurfs all their accounts offshore every night through banks on Indian reservations - there are lots of situations where it's obvious that there's no *normal* reason to do business that way.
If you're an IRS SA and one of those situations slaps you in the face you'd be crazy to not make a cursory check to see if there's an investigation to be made.
As for the "routine checks on fancy cars" - let's just say that one of the most obvious markers of funny business is too much car. Guys are just stupid like that.
The US is following a well worn path of history for empires.
Stage 1: Rebellion/Founding phase
Stage 2: Idealistic phase
Stage 3: Consolidation phase
Stage 4: Expansion phase
Stage 5: Golden Age
Stage 6: Over expansion phase
Stage 7: Inward/Xenophobic phase
Stage 8: Repression/Autocratic phase
Stage 1: Rebellion/Founding phase
Anytime the ruling class treat their citizens as the enemy, rebellion will sooner or later follow. The Arab world proves this. Though, it seems that Americans have a high treshold for being repressed, probably due to the social opium of mass media and entertainment.
10E10^100 interesting words and or phrases.
DEA meatsack
Project gamma tango
NEA
PETA
DES
NSa project talent tangerine
Rotten Amygdaloid
Oscar Mergatroid
Beat Under Control
Joylon West is a nazi
No elephants died in the making of the CIA
EAT MORE MEAT
MKumbrella
Fist of God
Technoeroticgodhood
Meme
Elvis is a patriot
Dood 41
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty