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FBI: Burning Man Testing Ground For Free Speech, Drugs ... and New Spy Gear
v3rgEz writes: The 29th annual Burning Man festival kicks off this week in Nevada's Black Rock Desert. Among those paying close attention to the festivities will be the FBI's Special Events Management unit, who have kept files on "burners" since at least 2010. One of the more interesting things in those, files, however, is a lengthy, heavily redacted paragraph detailing that the FBI's Special Events Management Unit gave Las Vegas Police Department some specialized equipment for monitoring the week-long event, as long as LVPD provided follow up reports.
I'll bet a lot of people love the fact that all this "free speech" will be taking place hundreds of miles out in the desert, where it's completely disconnected from most of the electorate. Kind of a self-imposed "free speech zone" like the kind we'll enjoy seeing miles from the upcoming (D) and (R) national conventions.
Has free-thinkers and weirdos ever caused an actual revolution? Changed the course of government that they were able to rid it of corruption and incompetence?
So why put all this effort in monitoring them?
It can't make them feel better. It seems to only make those in authority more paranoid than before. It makes them jump at their own shadow to think that someone, somewhere that might be different from them is plotting against some abstract institution.
Why exercise this kind of authority over people that aren't doing anything disruptive of their lives?
They're out in the desert not hurting anyone and trying to feel normal for a few minutes. The best thing you could do is ignore them and concentrate on troubles you can do something about. Like poverty or something.
But that's the point. Poverty and other societal issues present as difficult things to solve. Those problems involve changing some base portions of how our society functions. So here we see the real reason for this sort of harassment. To make it look like something is being done about the ever present other.
So have we come full circle where the FBI just keeps files on everybody?
This sounds awfully creepy, and smacks of an organization obsessed with tracking everybody they can.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I thought you hippie potheads were supposed to be mellow.
So, what, I guess this is stingrays on drones overhead? Collect IMEI numbers of every person there, drop them in their little database of "umamerican agitators"?
I mean, that's always what it is, right?
"Drugs" is that magical code word for "the dangerous evil of non-conformity of decent hard-working American values, like having no problem with g-men goons watching every move you make? Fuck the FBI and its gang of morally-bankrupt thugs.
Sounds like if you are going to burning man, you need a burner phone for the event. I am guessing they are setting up a Stingray device and capturing communications at the event. Simple paid for cash burner phone, and you defeat a lot of that. Or better yet, just don't turn your phone on and avoid the whole mess.
From the article linked in the summary:
In addition to the FBI files, requests were made for arrest reports and fines. Either surprisingly or unsurprisingly, there's not a lot in them - but if you were wondering just what it is you'd have to do to get arrested at Burning Man, the answer is physically assaulting a police officer.
While I have no problem believing that some paranoid drugged-up neo-hippie might conceivably attack an FBI agent, I also have no problem believing that a dipshit FBI agent would choose to interpret a touch on the arm from a overaffectionate drugged-up neo-hippie as "assault". If there hasn't been a riot, murder spree, or terrorist attack in previous years, the FBI has no legitimate excuse to be involved. Let local law enforcement handle it, unless and until they feel the need to call up the feds. This is just another example of fascists keeping tabs on the long-haired freaky people because they happen to have long hair and happen to be freaky, and Joe Button-Down doesn't like it.
Freedom of speech applies only to the government. You can say any crazy, racist, xenophobic stuff you want to "speak your mind," but a private company like NBC is not obligated to transmit your message.
If you reply, do so only to what I explicitly wrote. If I didn't write it, don't assume or infer it.
Any counterculture gathering that doesn't attract FBI watchers just isn't trying hard enough. I used to think it was insidious. Now, I think the feds just want a cushy week or two watching the scantily clad.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
I would expect pot use to be pretty open, but perhaps officially frowned upon by organizers owing to its illegal status in Nevada and Federally.
You can't fight the system by fighting the system. Fighting the system makes the system stronger.
If you protest, they send the police.
If you riot, they send riot police.
If you revolt, they send the army.
None of the above is theoretical. Read up on Anarchy.
"Prediction: within 10 years, Windows will be a Linux distribution." Me, 7-6-2016
"Increasingly the FBI is reverting to fascism and keeping files open on everybody just because they can"
They've always done that. America is a constant struggle against fascism.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Maybe they dont have an obligation to protect the principals of free speech but their actions certainly dont lend themselves to the idea of free speech. You can censor stuff and not be a government and if you do you are acting against free speech. I dont see how corporate control over speech is any better than government control, so XKCD can suck a dick on this one.
Well, you can't fight the system by being downtrodden and revolting. The system is excellent at overcoming people in that position, because that is how it maintains power day after day.
Real change starts in the places that the system is poorly designed to control, often from within. That's why real change is driven by the middle class and rich people. It does sometimes get out of control, like in the French Revolution. At that point, it becomes whoever can reassert order by force.
The only exception is when it is so bad that *everyone* revolts, but most people fear that scenario more than a police state because you don't really know where the battle lines are and so you and your family end up in a bloodbath that you aren't safe from anywhere.
About Trump and NBC/Univision. They are corporations, and if they believe someone working for them (being paid by them/etc) is not speaking to what that company's focus is, there is no reason for them to keep said person. Said person can go and talk all he wants elsewhere. Or even be in reports and interviews by the the organization/company that dropped said person. Additionally, dropping said person when the company knows they will be inflammatory makes business sense. Have reports on said person's craziness, but not actually pay said person. Thereby drawing lots of attention through their network, increasing their market share and profits. Again, you are fully free to say you don't like Vanilla ice cream, but I can say you are crazy all day long too. Free speech works both ways. As long as you are not jailed because you spoke out against vanilla ice cream, its all gravy (or chocolate syrup maybe?)!
Freedom of speech applies to everyone, else you don't have it. The First Amendment only (in theory) protects your freedom of speech from government reprisal. However, anytime someone faces consequences for their speech, whether from the government or private parties, it interferes with their freedom of speech, primarily through self-censorship.
Remember, government has never stopped someone from speaking their mind. That's entirely self-censorship. Even regimes which would execute you for your speech relied on self-censorship rather than having you followed by someone who would cover your mouth if you said the wrong thing. Private parties use exactly the same method to suppress speech as the most repressive regimes -- encouraging self-censorship because speech has consequences.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Whao there, isn't NBC one of the companies entrusted with a section of the public airwaves? The same airwaves that the poster you are responding to is prohibited from broadcasting on, such that they may have the privilege of doing so, for commercial benefit, but also to benefit us all, as they are our shared resource?
Seems a government subsidized company would be a valid target for some criticizm for the messages they choose to carry or not on our medium.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
something seems fishy to me. 540 miles away, almost 10 hour drive. Why is LVPD getting spy gear for this event?
They are being absurd. It's hard to see anybody at burning man using phones or internet devices for drug purchases and sales. You have 70,000 people in a signal-free desert, with the occasional wifi point. People are walking around in bright colors and costumes and interacting in real life.
Nevada treats the drug use that is there as a chance to extort recreational drug users from out-of-state. Basically (for most drug offenses) they catch a lot of nonviolent out-of-state offenders and offer the choice between a serious criminal conviction with a very low fine and a tiny conviction (maybe even a civil offense) if they pay a much larger fine.
However, anytime someone faces consequences for their speech, whether from the government or private parties, it interferes with their freedom of speech, primarily through self-censorship.
The term "consequences" is too vague to be useful in this context. Every action has consequences in some form or another. Your freedom is not impacted unless those consequences include a change in your legal status, e.g. loss of property, or restrictions on your (non-aggressive) behavior or movement. In particular, your freedom does not extend to how others choose to think of you (reputation) or voluntarily interact with you. The freedom of speech is not infringed simply because someone else does not choose to help you distribute your message. Neither is it infringed by your own choice to impose self-censorship. It would be infringed by a threat of involuntary fines or imprisonment based in any way on the content of your speech.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
It was episode 10, airing in September 2003. Oh, and I hope the FBI can find burning man, unlike Lt. Dangle and his crew.
FBI must have been watching too much CSI of late. Black Rock Desert is about 500 miles outside LVPD's jurisdiction (and 140 miles outside Reno, for you Reno 911 fans). Plus, it's Federal land, overseen by the BLM. The FBI would actually have more jurisdiction there than LVPD ever would.
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” -- Buckminster Fuller
Corporations normally can't use deadly force nor can they incarcerate.
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
^^^ summarizes it nicely.
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
They are reverting to (continuing with) their Jedgar Hoover days.
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
Freedom of speech does not mean, and never has meant, freedom from consequences. You have every right to slander someone and they have every right to sue you for it.
If you reply, do so only to what I explicitly wrote. If I didn't write it, don't assume or infer it.
>>Do you believe that free speech creates an obligation in others to help spread said speech? >>Free speech does *not* mean anyone else is required to help you spread what you say to a wider audience. I think that a person who is for free speech has an obligation not to interfere with anyone else's speech. You have miscategorized this issue to imply "Someone allowing a view they don't like to exist is going through extra work to enable someone else's speech" That's not how the internet works. It's more work to be a censor than to "help spread" speech. If anything people are going out of their way to destroy the expression of competing viewpoints; killing ideological diversity. While I dont think people have an obligation to provide a platform for views they hate, I hold the people who do just that in the highest respect. If you really believed in free speech you would too. >>Do you believe that free speech creates an obligation in others to listen to said speech? Nope but it certainly creates an obligation not to interfere with other people's right to listen. (Which is what you pro-censor crowd are afraid of anyway) When you censor you aren't just hurting the person speaking. You violate every person who could have heard it as well. You took their right to choose what to listen to away from them. >>Free speech does *not* mean anyone else is prevented from saying that what you are saying is good/bad/ignorant/insightful/beautiful/ugly. I agree with this point as it stands. See my first point.
>>Do you believe that free speech creates an obligation in others to help spread said speech? >>Free speech does *not* mean anyone else is required to help you spread what you say to a wider audience.
I think that a person who is for free speech has an obligation not to interfere with anyone else's speech. You have miscategorized this issue to imply "Someone allowing a view they don't like to exist is going through extra work to enable someone else's speech" That's not how the internet works. It's more work to be a censor than to "help spread" speech. If anything people are going out of their way to destroy the expression of competing viewpoints; killing ideological diversity. While I dont think people have an obligation to provide a platform for views they hate, I hold the people who do just that in the highest respect. If you really believed in free speech you would too.
>>Do you believe that free speech creates an obligation in others to listen to said speech?
Nope but it certainly creates an obligation not to interfere with other people's right to listen. (Which is what you pro-censor crowd are afraid of anyway) When you censor you aren't just hurting the person speaking. You violate every person who could have heard it as well. You took their right to choose what to listen to away from them.
>>Free speech does *not* mean anyone else is prevented from saying that what you are saying is good/bad/ignorant/insightful/beautiful/ugly. I agree with this point as it stands. See my first point.
Except what they are paying for is only available to them because the government has decided to license it to them. License, as in, they pay for it, its still not fully theirs, and it can come with terms. Hell already does.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
As an outsider, I find it amusing that you use Donald Trump as a counter-measure to idiocracy, when in fact he is one of the prime contributors to it.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Are A Criminal Class
I am curious how the heck LVPD is involved. Reno is 450 miles from Vegas and Black rock is an additional 125 miles north.
By comparison Albany, NT is 150 miles from NYC. The distance from Cleveland OK to Ny, NY at ~450 miles is about the same.
Salt lake City is alto about the same 450 miles away and the reach of the FBI and IRS from SLC to Nevada is legendary.
One potential connection is cell phone tracking Friends report that BM has cell coverage for the first time in their memory of the event.
It is possible that cell phone intercept technology is the draw that reaches to Vegas. It that is true the lack of warrants
could be enough to force dismantling of all FBI and State cell phone abusive tech.
For those that monitor such things technologically the BR is so far from interference that an audit of intercept
and methods would be easy to gather with passive tech. There are enough tech folk there and yes some astoundingly
rich folk that technology and litigation would not be the abusive asymmetric context that allows abuses to continue.
Some are also aggressive and dismissing or dropping of charges would not be seen as a win as much as it would
seem to be an opportunity to play.
The good news is I have no privileged information on this and my words are highly speculative and as /. says mine.
I might like to use this as the nut of a fictional novel so all rights reserved world wide.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.