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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 think it is funny that anyone is shocked at the fact a "gathering" that involves drug use and pyrotechnics is being watched. The fact that they have never came in and raided the event shows that the FBI really is not going in for busting up free speech.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
"Why exercise this kind of authority over people that aren't doing anything disruptive of their lives?"
Because, fear.
>> 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?
In 1776, yes.
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.
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.
>> 1776 was a bunch of rich people convincing the poor to fight for them
That wasn't the question. It was whether "free-thinkers and weirdos ever caused an actual revolution?" Whatever class theory you hold, you can't deny there was something strange about our founding fathers - a little too obsessed with freemasonry or whatever, but they definitely all had a screw loose to think they could take on the greatest empire the world had ever known (the British) for the greatest prize ever known (half the world) and completely redefine government as we know it at the same time. And yet these "free-thinkers" (hello democracy) and "weirdos" (Greece was awesome, amiright?) pulled it off, and the world is better for their success.
Franklin was definitely a weird free-thinker.... and he probably single-handedly ensured the victory of the revolution by sleeping with the bored housewives of Paris' rich and powerful.
I can't really think of any other of the founding fathers as being weird, tho.
"Prediction: within 10 years, Windows will be a Linux distribution." Me, 7-6-2016
>> I can't really think of any other of the founding fathers as being weird, tho.
That's the strange thing about modern times. Guys who risked their lives, their families and everything they had on an idea are now considered stodgy and mainstream, whereas some random dude with tattoos, dreads and an iPhone working a zero-risk job at Taco John's is considered to be a "free thinker."
Read up 'em - you might be surprised.
fought off several aggressors (including the British again in 1812)
When England was in the middle of squashing Napoleon, the USA decided it was time to invade Canada. And you classify the British as the aggressors ?
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"
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...
You don't know people very well then. As Lord Macaulay observed in his The History of England from the Accession of James the Second,
You see it is not enough for prigs and busybodies that they're not involved in any way in the things you do that give you pleasure; their problem is with you enjoying something they don't enjoy, or perhaps understand.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
With blanket-surveillance of the Internet, informants have lost their critical role.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.