Hackers Leak List of FBI Employees (vice.com)

puddingebola writes: The hackers responsible for the leaking of DHS employees made good on their threat to reveal the names of 20,000 FBI employees. From the article: "The hacker provided Motherboard with a copy of the data on Sunday. The list includes names, email addresses (many of which are non-public) and job descriptions, such as task force deputy director, security specialist, special agent, and many more. The list also includes roughly 1,000 FBI employees in an intelligence analysis role."

Comments

Asinine

[Anonymous Coward]

This is asinine. There are good reasons why some of the employees of the DHS and DOJ aren't made public. For people working in an intelligence analyst role, an undercover agent, or something along those lines, leaking that information could make those people or their families vulnerable to kidnapping and violence. I understand leaking information about secret or top secret operations, especially when it's unethical and/or infringes on the rights of the people. This serves no such purpose. It's a juvenile action. Just because you have unauthorized access to do something and you have the skills to do so, that doesn't make it right.

Re:Asinine

[DigiShaman]

Some people just want to watch the world burn.

Re:Asinine

[DarkOx]

If operational security was taken seriously or important these organizations would be much much smaller. The more people who know a secret the harder it is to control. If the three letters want to be effective they need to go back to their original mandates and downsize to the minimal number of people required to execute on them.

The FBI tries to be the everything of law enforcement, they should not. In fact they should probably not even have arrest powers. I would argue make them investigators of federal but domestic crimes only. Let them investigate, turn the arrest warrants over to the marshal service to pick folks up.

Re:Asinine

[gstoddart]

This is asinine. There are good reasons why some of the employees of the DHS and DOJ aren't made public. For people working in an intelligence analyst role, an undercover agent, or something along those lines, leaking that information could make those people or their families vulnerable to kidnapping and violence.

But you know what, it really boils down to "if these agencies are going to spy on us, often in violation of the law and our rights ... and then use parallel construction to commit perjury, why should we care?"

I don't disagree with your sentiment, but the reality is the reasons these people don't want their information made public are their own problem. Especially when they show so little regard for us.

Just because you have unauthorized access to do something and you have the skills to do so, that doesn't make it right.

So, when these agencies use Sting Rays, or commit perjury via parallel construction so they can lie about how they got information and deny you legal process, or otherwise ignore the law ... is that right? Because a lot of people disagree that "because we said so" is a valid reason.

Yes, it's reckless and dangerous .. but it seems the kind of thing which is intended to say "not only can we not trust you bastards, you can't even secure your own shit." I can see the point: when law enforcement stops caring about our rights, it's well beyond the point where we should care about them.

There's an awful lot of anger over the fact that law enforcement has taken the attitude of we'll do whatever we can get away with. So, are they entitled to expect anything different?

But let's not pretend that there aren't on-going abuses by these agencies which happen all the time, and which undermine the very rights and freedoms they pretend to be protecting.

Re:Asinine

[MitchDev]

We have a criminal government that loves to wipe its ass with the Constitution when it's convenient for them to do so. The only time they care about the Constitution is when they want to use it to shield them when they get caught.

No one trusts the government because the government no longer cares about the citizens and their rights, and if the government wants to know why so many see them as the enemy, look in the mirror, it's how they treat the American people. Suck when you have to swallow your own medicine, doesn't it?

Re:Asinine

[cbiltcliffe]

This serves no such purpose. It's a juvenile action. Just because you have unauthorized access to do something and you have the skills to do so, that doesn't make it right.

I read it as "You want a backdoor key to every encryption scheme in the world, and you can't even keep your own employee lists safe?"

Re:Asinine

[Chas]

It's not that the government no longer cares about its citizens. It is that they've lost respect for their citizens and, having operated with impunity for so long, have lost their fear of what said citizenry can do when properly motivated.

All they need to do nowadays is keep the majority of us fat and happy and they figure they can do whatever the fuck they please.

And, for the most part, they're right.

Re:Asinine

[liquid_schwartz]

It takes a lot of people to watch everyone all the time.

Re:Asinine

[blindseer]

The federal marshals work for the judicial branch. Their mandate is to search for escaped prisoners and such, people that have already been convicted of a crime. The FBI is tasked with the enforcement of federal laws, which has some overlap with escaped prisoners and such but the federal marshals don't have much overlap with what the FBI does.

The FBI not having arrest powers is an interesting idea. Let the FBI investigate but once it comes time to arrest then let the local sheriff perform the arrest. This works on areas within a state boundary but falls apart in federal districts, territories, and so forth. These areas could have a local equivalent of a sheriff for the purpose of enacting arrests but then they'd be employees of the FBI in every way but name.

If you want to talk about pruning federal law enforcement powers then I propose doing away with the DEA and BATFE. These are enforcement agencies that have powers that overlap completely with the FBI, so roll them into the FBI and do away with the separate agencies. An FBI that is busy with tracking down child molesters, kidnappers, murderers, arsonists, and what not might not then bother with handing guns to drug dealers like the DEA and BATFE has done.

Re:Asinine

[erapert]

I'm going to go ahead and mention the guards at the concentration camps.

The low-level people are the edifice of tyranny. The super genius evil mastermind has nothing without henchmen. Politicians and tyrants have nothing without jack-booted thugs. And our little self-righteous think-of-the-children tyrant wannabes in the west are nothing without the army of "low-level people" keeping the surveillance state running.

The low-level people just shrugged and violated the law and everyone else's privacy this whole time. Now all-a-sudden they feel exposed and endangered when the same is done to them?!

The Golden Rule applies just as much to low-level people and tyrants as it does to children in a school yard and adults on the street.

Re:Yawn

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, we release the truth about the chemtrails and aliens every day. It's just the the chemtrails and alien mind rays make you forget that you just read all about it.

Re:Yawn

[Thanshin]

What I'd like to know is the truth about chemtrails and aliens.

And also chemtrails.

Not the brightest in the bunch?

[unencode200x]

Stealing and publishing the information of 1,000 FBI agents including ones that work in intelligence seems like a good way to get 1,000 FBI agents motivated to bust you.

Backdoors

[linuxwrangler]

And yet there are people who still think these folks could keep an encryption backdoor secure. They can't even keep the front door closed.

The best part about this...

[thedarb]

Is we can use it to start making a hiring blacklist for the private sector. Refuse to ever employ anyone who's ever worked for the FBI. Hopefully this list can grow to include NSA, as well.

Re:The best part about this...

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

a) Intentions aside, FBI/NSA have some of the smartest people working for them. Why exclude them from the private sector?
b) Blacklisting them will ensure that they continue to work for the FBI/NSA or other government agencies, defeating the whole intention of your point
c) None of these people set the policies, or make the laws. Why are you hating on them so much?

Re:The best part about this...

[MBasial]

I think the idea is that some of us suspect that people who "leave" the NSA to work at Google, etc., have not exactly cut all ties to their "previous" employer. You don't need a backdoor if one of your people walked in the front door with a suitably-edited resume and got hired. Those of us who object to illegal techniques like parallel construction see people who are willing to violate the rights of their fellow citizens as undesirable hires. Knowing who used to work for agencies where unethical practices are commonplace is a useful filter. I know I wouldn't hire James Clapper, at least ... (rubs face with hand) ... not wittingly.

Re:public servants

[alvinrod]

Only so far as it relates to their position. Just because you work for the government doesn't mean your personal contact information or medical records should be released to the public.

However, documentation produced as a part of their job should certainly be available to the public and I would argue that we shouldn't need pesky FOIA requests in order to access it. Obviously rough drafts that have not been officially released or cases under active investigation have a reason to be excluded, but beyond those cases, there's no good reason to keep it secret other than the government wanting to keep hidden that which they'd prefer the public not see.

Encryption backdoors

[Anonymous Coward]

Hai guise! You can, like, totally trust us to keep safe the keys for your encryption backdoors on your phones. Just ignore the fact that we can't even keep simple HR data secure. *waves hands* We totally know what we're doing when we propose encryption backdoors. It's safe!!1!

Makes sense

[HalAtWork]

We should have complete transparency at the federal level, this makes it easier.

Re:Don't blame every individual

[gstoddart]

these people ... show so little regard for us.... when these agencies use Sting Rays, or commit perjury...not only can we not trust you bastards... So, are they entitled

Wow, that's a nice hack job of a quote you did.

Most of the people on that list aren't doing any of the the hings you complained about. You just lumped every individual law enforcement officer, undercover agent, secretary, and janitor who work for the FBI under one umbrella.

I'm not advocating it, I'm not condoning it, but I sure as fuck understand it.

The problem is, the agency as a whole has raised the ire of a lot of people. It's not like you can only target the people who do this stuff, and it's not like they give a shit.

The problem is, when they use things like Sting Rays or other blanket surveillance crap, suddenly other innocent people can end up on their radar without any legal basis other than "while we were listening to everybody else we saw this and then suddenly investigated you for fun". They do this shit to us already.

So, are we supposed to extend a courtesy to law enforcement they won't extend to us? Because that's some pretty wishful thinking.

because then me and 30,000 other innocent people who work for this company suddenly get on your shit list, and you think it is okay to release our personal data.

You're not on MY shitlist, I'm not the one doing this stuff.

But I'm afraid I can understand why someone who is angry at the FBI isn't willing to extend a courtesy to the rest of the members of the FBI that, as an agency, they don't extend to us -- because they don't concern themselves with our rights while they do this. These people work for an agency which is doing some things which are fairly widely known to violate your rights, bypass the Constitution, and ignore the letter and spirit of the law.

Which means the people lashing out at that agency aren't discriminating between the janitors, and the guys running the programs -- any more than the FBI are worrying about the rest of us.

Illegal blanket surveillance doesn't prune out the innocent people either. Parallel construction to lie in court about how they came to be looking at you violates your right to due process and the right to see your accuser, instead of someone who has fabricated a story after the fact to make it look like they didn't break the law -- you know perjury.

I have a hard time seeing this as some egregious offense against their rights while they do the same to us.