Below is my column in the Hill on the need for a new “Church Committee” to investigate and reform the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) after years of scandals involving alleged political bias. In response to criticism over its role in Twitter’s censorship system, the FBI lashed out against critics as “conspiracy theorists” spreading disinformation. However, it still refuses to supply new information on other companies, beyond Twitter, that it has paid to engage in censorship.
Here is the column:
“Conspiracy theorists … feeding the American public misinformation” is a familiar attack line for anyone raising free-speech concerns over the FBI’s role in social media censorship. What is different is that this attack came from the country’s largest law enforcement agency, the FBI — and, since the FBI has made combatting “disinformation” a major focus of its work, the labeling of its critics is particularly menacing.
Fifty years ago, the Watergate scandal provoked a series of events that transformed not only the presidency but federal agencies like the FBI. Americans demanded answers about the involvement of the FBI and other federal agencies in domestic politics. Ultimately, Congress not only investigated the FBI but later impanelled the Church Committee to investigate a host of other abuses by intelligence agencies.
A quick review of recent disclosures and controversies shows ample need for a new Church Committee:
The Russian investigations
The FBI previously was at the center of controversies over documented political bias. Without repeating the long history from the Russian influence scandal, FBI officials like Peter Strzok were fired after emails showed open bias against presidential candidate Donald Trump. The FBI ignored warnings that the so-called Steele dossier, largely funded by the Clinton campaign, was likely used by Russian intelligence to spread disinformation. It continued its investigation despite early refutations of key allegations or discrediting of sources.
Biden family business
The FBI has taken on the character of a Praetorian Guard when the Biden family has found itself in scandals.
For example, there was Hunter Biden’s handgun, acquired by apparently lying on federal forms. In 2018, the gun allegedly was tossed into a trash bin in Wilmington, Del., by Hallie Biden, the widow of Hunter’s deceased brother and with whom Hunter had a relationship at the time. Secret Service agents reportedly appeared at the gun shop with no apparent reason, and Hunter later said the matter would be handled by the FBI. Nothing was done despite the apparent violation of federal law.
Later, the diary of Hunter’s sister, Ashley, went missing. While the alleged theft normally would be handled as a relatively minor local criminal matter, the FBI launched a major investigation that continued for months to pursue those who acquired the diary, which reportedly contains embarrassing entries involving President Biden. Such a massive FBI deployment shocked many of us, but the FBI built a federal case against those who took possession of the diary.
Targeting Republicans and conservatives
Recently the FBI was flagged for targeting two senior House Intelligence Committee staffers in grand jury subpoenas sent to Google. It has been criticized for using the Jan. 6 Capitol riot investigations to target conservative groups and GOP members of Congress, including seizing the phone of one GOP member.
The FBI also has been criticized for targeting pro-life violence while not showing the same vigor toward pro-choice violence.
Hunter’s laptop
While the FBI was eager to continue the Russian investigations with no clear evidence of collusion, it showed the opposite inclination when given Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop. The laptop would seem to be a target-rich environment for criminal investigators, with photos and emails detailing an array of potential crimes involving foreign transactions, guns, drugs and prostitutes. However, reports indicate that FBI officials moved to quash or slow any investigation.
The computer repairman who acquired the laptop, John Paul Mac Isaac, said he struggled to get the FBI to respond and that agents made thinly veiled threats regarding any disclosures of material related to the Biden family; he said one agent told him that “in their experience, nothing ever happens to people that don’t talk about these things.”
The ‘Twitter Files’
The “Twitter Files” released by Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk, show as many as 80 agents targeting social-media posters for censorship on the site. This included alleged briefings that Twitter officials said were the reason they spiked the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story before the 2020 election.
The FBI sent 150 messages on back channels to just one Twitter official to flag accounts. One Twitter executive expressed unease over the FBI’s pressure, declaring: “They are probing & pushing everywhere they can (including by whispering to congressional staff).”
We also have learned that Twitter hired a number of retired FBI agents, including former FBI general counsel James Baker, who was a critical and controversial figure in past bureau scandals over political bias.
Attacking critics
It is not clear what is more chilling — the menacing role played by the FBI in Twitter’s censorship program, or its mendacious response to the disclosure of that role. The FBI has issued a series of “nothing-to-see-here” statements regarding the Twitter Files.
In its latest statement, the FBI insists it did not command Twitter to take any specific action when flagging accounts to be censored. Of course, it didn’t have to threaten the company — because we now have an effective state media by consent rather than coercion. Moreover, an FBI warning tends to concentrate the minds of most people without the need for a specific threat.
Finally, the files show that the FBI paid Twitter millions as part of this censorship system — a windfall favorably reported to Baker before he was fired from Twitter by Musk.
Criticizing the FBI is now ‘disinformation’
Responding to the disclosures and criticism, an FBI spokesperson declared: “The men and women of the FBI work every day to protect the American public. It is unfortunate that conspiracy theorists and others are feeding the American public misinformation with the sole purpose of attempting to discredit the agency.”
Arguably, “working every day to protect the American public” need not include censoring the public to protect it from errant or misleading ideas.
However, it is the attack on its critics that is most striking. While the FBI denounced critics of an earlier era as communists and “fellow travelers,” it now uses the same attack narrative to label its critics as “conspiracy theorists.”
After Watergate, there was bipartisan support for reforming the FBI and intelligence agencies. Today, that cacophony of voices has been replaced by crickets, as much of the media imposes another effective blackout on coverage of the Twitter Files. This media silence suggests that the FBI found the “sweet spot” on censorship, supporting the views of the political and media establishment.
As for the rest of us, the FBI now declares us to be part of a disinformation danger which it is committed to stamping out — “conspiracy theorists” misleading the public simply by criticizing the bureau.
Clearly, this is the time for a new Church Committee — and time to reform the FBI.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. You can find his updates online @JonathanTurley.
The FBI has taken us through the 3 D’s; Deny (gaslighting). But when facts and evidence destroy the gaslighting, then it’s onto the next tactic, Deflect (whataboutism). This is typically a reflexive response to give time to set up the last option, Defend (lawfare). Had they begun with this rather than denial, then they may have effectively diffused the situation. That ship sailed however and no one in good conscience is buying their abuse of power (legal) arguments.
The correspondence between the FBI and Twitter show nothing more than examples of our traditional, longstanding and ongoing federal government and private sector engagements, which involve numerous companies over multiple sectors and industries,” the FBI said in a statement to Fox News. “As evidenced in the correspondence, the FBI provides critical information to the private sector in an effort to allow them to protect themselves and their customers.
While this should be a smoking hot gun (and it is), what makes it worse is that the FBI is openly admitting that this kind of “working together” with private sector companies is normal behavior for U.S. intelligence agencies. The FBI tried to characterize its censorship requests as voluntary ones Twitter technically could ignore, although such “requests” read like commands and courts have long recognized that “requests” from government officials can be in themselves coercive because of the power differential.
https://thefederalist.com/2022/12/22/fbi-admits-it-meddles-in-numerous-companies-not-just-twitter/
Olly, the FBI didn’t “try” to characterize their requests as voluntary, They did make their requests be known that they ARE voluntary.
Even the right leaning publication The Federalist points this out. They are acknowledging the fact that the FBI is taking great care not to violate the constitution. Just because they are going right up to the line doesn’t mean they are intentionally breaking the law as many falsely claims here.
The Cult’s 45 mind is made up, regardless of the facts and evidence. And Turley knows this and uses it.
They are acknowledging the fact that the FBI is taking great care not to violate the constitution. Just because they are going right up to the line doesn’t mean they are intentionally breaking the law as many falsely claims here.
The FBI crossed that line when their “requests” (line) resulted in censorship of factual information (over the line). The FBI knew the Hunter Biden laptop story was legitimate and they failed to provide critical information to the private sector in an effort to allow them to protect themselves and their customers. In fact they did the opposite. This “premier” law enforcement agency, is at a minimum guilty of misfeasance for witnessing a factual story being censored and doing nothing to “protect private citizens” from knowing the truth. (the line) They are guilty of malfeasance by aligning their “requests” or “suggestions” with Twitter’s censorship operations, knowing if Twitter “voluntarily” agreed to censor, that Twitter was then actually participating in a government-approved censorship and disinformation campaign. (over the line.
Only 2 options are available to describe the actions of the FBI in the area of dis/misinformation and censorship; they range from systemic (legal) incompetence to a systemic unconstitutional abuse of power. Only a Lying Troll would work so hard to try and defend them.
“ The FBI crossed that line when their “requests” (line) resulted in censorship of factual information (over the line).”
Nope. Because it wasn’t a request. The fact that it was up to twitter to make the decision on whether that information violated their TOS is what matters. Turley is ignoring that particular truth because it contradicts his false narrative.
“ The FBI knew the Hunter Biden laptop story was legitimate ”
No they didn’t. They didn’t know if the laptops was legitimate back then.
They did make their requests be known that they ARE voluntary. Svelaz
Nope. Because it wasn’t a request. Svelaz
First you characterized them as requests and then when I used your characterization, suddenly they are not requests. You cannot keep your lies straight.
The fact that it was up to twitter to make the decision on whether that information violated their TOS is what matters.
They didn’t know if the laptops was legitimate back then.
They had it for nearly a year. Misfeasance if they suggested the story was not legitimate without verifying the accuracy of their suggestion. Malfeasance if they suggested the story was not legitimate knowing it was.
Now what? It wasn’t a suggestion? A clue? A hint? An allusion? A tip? An ask? A public service? It doesn’t matter what euphemism you settle on to defend the FBI’s actions. The censorship campaign by Twitter was aligned with the FBI’s [insert euphemism] and either the FBI knowingly aided and abetted Twitter’s censorship campaign, or the FBI Clapper[ed] their censorship campaign.
For you to continue to defend their actions under the guise they didn’t violate the law or constitution, reflects either a willful ignorance of basic facts, or more likely a malevolent interest to protect the agency at all costs.
Olly,
“ First you characterized them as requests and then when I used your characterization, suddenly they are not requests. ”
Wrong I characterized them as “requests” as you did. I put it in parentheses because it’s not really a request as you characterized it.
“ They had it for nearly a year.”
Yes they did. That does not mean it was deemed legitimate when they first got their hands on it. The content was not proof of a crime or illegal activity.
It wasn’t a censorship campaign. That’s just Turley’s talking point.
You or anyone else has not been able to articulate without conflating definitions exactly what laws has the FBI violated.
“ For you to continue to defend their actions under the guise they didn’t violate the law or constitution,…”. I’m pointing out the fact that nobody has proved beyond doubt that they broke the law in doing what they did. All that is being offered is speculation and assumptions. Show me that the FBI pointing out to twitter certain content violates their TOS is illegal, how and what law prohibits it.
“ They had it for nearly a year.”
Yes they did. That does not mean it was deemed legitimate when they first got their hands on it. The content was not proof of a crime or illegal activity.
The issue wasn’t whether the FBI knew it to be legitimate when they first got their hands on it. The issue was that the FBI, after having the laptop for nearly a year, decided to [use your preferred euphemism] Twitter that it may violate their TOS. They knew at the time of their [use your preferred euphemism] that the content was according to them, under investigation and the FBI is in the business of investigating potential crimes and illegal activity. Thus their [use your preferred euphemism] was not an accurate [use your preferred euphemism] regarding Twitter’s TOS because what the laptop’s contents actually did not violate the TOS.
It wasn’t a censorship campaign.
The Twitter files clearly show it was an ongoing censorship operation aligned with what the FBI was consistently “pointing out.”
Show me that the FBI pointing out to twitter certain content violates their TOS is illegal, how and what law prohibits it.
The facts also show that the Twitter censorship aligned exactly with what the FBI was “pointing out.” No matter how much you want to pick the fly$hit out of the pepper, after a year of the FBI having the laptop, it’s either misfeasance or malfeasance.
“ They had it for nearly a year.”
Yes they did. That does not mean it was deemed legitimate when they first got their hands on it. The content was not proof of a crime or illegal activity.
This is the silly moving of the goal posts you are forced to undertake, because your handlers are lying to you, and you aren’t smart enough to know the difference.
With regards to twitter and the laptop. The FBI prepped twitter and all the social media with fake intel about the potential for Russia misinformation ploy just before the election.
When the laptop story hit, All the social media, and regular media buried the story claiming it was Russia misinformation, as the FBI had falsely informed them.
So yes. The FBI is 100% responsible for the cloaking the whole story.
Jonathan: Having been active in the “free speech”, anti-Vietnam war and civil rights movements of the early 1960s and 1970s I know from personal experience the heavy hand of the FBI. Under J. Edgar Hoover the FBI tried to stamp out all these movements as “communist” inspired. This was a time when “free speech” was really under attack by government agencies. So I chuckle when I read your columns about how the “free speech” rights of conservatives are under attack. Have you had 2 FBI gum shoes come to your door, come inside and go through all your reading material (without a warrant) and ask you the names of your associates? Ever had the FBI visit your parents home and warn them about your political associations? I have. Under Hoover the job of the FBI was to root out “Communists” and “Marxists” in the student movements–often resorting to illegal means.
I mention this in passing because some on the political right are making the same claims today. I see the “Communist” and Marxist” hysteria thrown around on this blog. Except now they frequently use the non-sensical word “fascist” to label anyone with whom they disagree. In his hysterical response to the 800+ page Jan. 6 report Donald Trump says: ” These are sick people. These are Marxists. And they’re very dangerous and very bad people”. The ghost of Hoover is alive in Donald Trump!
Now getting to your column. Under AG Garland you don’t see the heavy hand used frequently by Hoover. In the search of Mar-a-Lago the FBI agents weren’t dressed in combat gear. They waited until Trump was gone to conduct a low key search to avoid any confrontation with the former president. In Hoover’s day it would have “Eliot Ness” all over again with the press notified in advance.
You say we need another “Church Committee” investigation of the FBI. For those who don’t recall the Church Committee investigation revealed gross abuses–programs by the CIA/FBI/NSA to open the mail of US citizens without a warrant or notification, covert programs involving the assassination of foreign leaders and the collecting of information on the political activities of US citizens. As a result Pres. Ford issued an executive order banning political assassinations. In 1977 Carl Bernstein wrote a long article saying the relationship between the CIA and the media was far more extensive than what the Church Committee revealed. Bernstein said the Committee covered this up because it would have shown “embarrassing relationships in the 1950s and 1960s with some of the most powerful organizations and individuals in American journalism.”. During that period the CIA, using friendly reporters, planted stories friendly to the CIA’s activities. In some cases they even wrote the stories.
Anyone who went through 50s, 60s and 70s should view the activities of the FBI today with justifiable concern and suspicion. As did Richard Nixon, Trump used the DOJ/FBI to attack his enemies and protect his friends. There is always the possibility a president will misuse those agencies for personal or political purposes. But I don’t see that happening under AG Garland. He has remained independent from political pressures. So the FBI warning Twitter and other social media platforms about “conspiracy theories” is not the same thing as orderly them what to print. If we need another “Church Committee” it would be investigate how Trump tried politicize the DOJ/FBI to further his personal and political goals. Now that would be a great public service.
Dennis: thank you for your thoughtful comments. Since Turley sold his soul to Fox, I really can’t bring myself to read most of what he writes because it so outrageously biased and nothing more than purchased spin: for example, he states as if it is a proven fact that Twitter censors posts because it is somehow controlled by the FBI. You’ve already debunked that, but the disciples still believe it. That’s just one example. Turley also attempts to portray Russia’s helping Trump cheat his way into office in 2016 as some sort of “scandal” against anyone and everyone except the party who’s really to blame–Trump. All of this is a diversion against the outrageousness of Trump continuing to spread the Big Lie, raging against the Constitution, the facts contained in the J6 Committe Report, not to mention the antics of other Republicans like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Bobert and Jim Jordan. It’s the Christmas season–Turley spins facts and echoes whatever story Fox puts out to keep the disciples stirred up, and they believe whatever slop they’re served. I have better things to do today.
DennisMcIntyre, it would seem that someone who has experienced the heavy hand of the FBI would be more concerned about the FBI making “suggestions” to Twitter employees. How now does the FBI turn into a saintly bunch of choir boys who mean no harm. You seem to think that your situation in the past was more dreadful than what is happening today. They got after you as one individual but now they are after half the nation. In your situation it was horrible but the situation of today in your book is trivial. You have turned from a rebel to a compliant servant of the Democratic Justice Department. How ironic. It was just two years ago when you extolled the danger of the Department of Justice under Trump. Such flip flopping only exposes your expertise at carrying water. Step and fetch it.
You have to be a real hack to think that the good folks at Twitter wouldn’t take the recommendations of the FBI seriously. If you think that a Twitter employee never asked himself what will happen to me if I don’t do as the FBI commands you are more of a blathering fool then we already thought you to be. It’s not hard to guess of whom I speak.
TiT, you are simply playing these silly scenarios because they support your conspiracy theory about Twitter employees being “coerced” or “intimidated” by the FBI. None of that is true. Speaking of fools you have not proven or shown what you believe is actually true. Once you get into the details and the proper context our fantasies and theories fall apart.
Yet we know that Twitter didn’t treat the FBI suggestions as commands; they agree with and acted on some, and they disagreed with and ignored others.
We should be very aware of what we are dealing with here. Injustice Holmes and Svelaz want a Team of FBI agents at every morning meeting of every newspaper and television network in the nation in order to keep us safe from the big bad disinformation devil. These are their fondest dreams for the saving of the Fatherland. We have here a couple of fine patriots in a nation they love to hate.
TiT, you make a wonderful liar. All we are pointing out is simple facts that are supported by the law and the constitution. FBI agents meeting with social media on a weekly basis is not illegal. Referring the to certain content is not illegal. Even having a certain number of agents assigned to a particulate platform is not illlegal. What it does seem like is the optics are terrible despite the fact that they are not violating any laws or the condition.
It does make it easier for Turley to push his false narrative and those of the right in making assumptions and speculation about what is “really “ going on. Just like Kari Lake tried to do in court when she couldn’t present any evidence of her claims and all she had as speculation and allegations. She was given the opportunity to offer evidence in court and failed miserably. Turley is engaging in the same tactic. Offering pure speculation and assumptions without a shred of poof.
I’m aware that lying about liberals is one of your favorite ways of trolling.
And lest you wish to pretend that I call all conservatives trolls, no, many are not. For example, Daniel is a good faith discussant, and even hullbobby isn’t a troll. However you, my lying sir, are a bad faith discussant.
While “Twitter files” is a good, compact name for the series of ongoing revelations, a more-descriptive name would be “The remarkable bulk quantity of unconstitutional, seditious crimes that happened right under the corrupt nose of Fat, Do-Nothing CLOWN Bill Barr while Attorney General Barr was giving speeches to religious and police organizations, failing to even pretend to do his job, and claiming that the 2020 election was legitimate, there was nothing to investigate, Trump was lying, and the FBI and DOJ were under control.”
While compact, the name “Twitter Files” just doesn’t conjure the necessary image related to the extraordinary connivance that was necessary to allow all this historic level of nonsense to continue. It seems like everyone at the FBI, DOJ, CIA, State Department, Department of Homeland Security, and many others in the federal government MUST have known that this Barnum & Bailey Circus of illegal nonsense was happening, and yet the people supposedly IN CHARGE of these agencies were doing Sgt. Schultz impersonations: “I know nothing — nothing.”
There may have been worse Attorneys General in the past, but none were quite the useless imposter that Fat, Do-Nothing CLOWN Bill Barr was after being recommended by our ridiculously-corrupt Senate as the gold standard in Attorneys General.
The moral: Never hire an Attorney General that began his career in government as a CIA lawyer unless you want to trade in a constitutional republic for a STASI autocracy with an invisible leader.
Moral #2: Don’t hold your breath waiting for Professor Turley to criticize Barr. Turley is traditionally WAY late to the party when it comes to criticizing the malfeasance of those whose conduct he’s previously endorsed.
It would be interesting to hear Bill Barr’s take on the Twitter Files. Somehow I don’t think we’ll be hearing from him any time soon. His wife made him do it do so that she would be respected at afternoon tea with the girls. Billy the wimp.
Wish I could upvote, but once again this website that accepts my user name and email address for posting comments and replies REFUSES to accept the SAME information when it demands that I log in to upvote a comment or reply.
Here you have summarized the Fox/alt/right “deep state” conspiracy theory concisely: ” It seems like everyone at the FBI, DOJ, CIA, State Department, Department of Homeland Security, and many others in the federal government MUST have known that this Barnum & Bailey Circus of illegal nonsense was happening, and yet the people supposedly IN CHARGE of these agencies were doing Sgt. Schultz impersonations: “I know nothing — nothing.””
Belief in a “deep state” that is censoring social media and conspiring to cheat conservatives out of voicing their positions is one of the narratives Turley’s paid to help promote, and none of it is true. Read Svelaz’s and Dennis’s posts above.
If the government DID actually control what is published, you wouldn’t have Fox, OAN, NewsMax, Breitbart or InfoWars, all of which criticize any media or social media that disagrees with the slop they put out. One of their common themes is to preach that non-Trump media cannot be trusted.
While I have garnered well over 200,000 “likes” at the Fox website (from under 10,000 comments), I am one of the most virulent critics of Murdoch media — Fox and NY Post — that you are likely to find, and I post ALL of that criticism at Fox and the NY Post. I can’t imagine anyone who could criticize Fox as often or viciously as I criticize Fox on a daily basis.
No REASONABLE person would equate what I wrote here with an endorsement of Fox. And I don’t frequent the other outlets you mentioned — NEVER Brietbarf or Infowarts for any reason, and not NewMax or OAN unless they are referenced in something a read at some other site.
You appear to be clueless about the Fox/Murdoch operation. They are the Most-deceptive outlet currently spreading propaganda, because they’ve tricked people into believing what they say now after having lulled them into trusting them in the past, the same way that many democrats today mistakenly think that the democrat party is still the party of Harry Truman and JFK, both of whom would be considered “right-wing nut jobs” by TODAY’s democrat party.
You seem to be as clueless as Professor Turley was back when he was endorsing Michael Avenatti as the democrat party’s Great White Hope, and Bill Barr as an honest broker..
Your “reply” has all the earmarks of a hired troll who intentionally distorts and extrapolates a comment into saying somthing that it does not say. To that extent, you are not deserving of any reply, and I’m giving you just this one in order to alert others to what you’re doing. Enjoy it because it’s the ONLY one you’re likely to get from me,
For other readers, I’ll close this topic by copying the related Bill Barr comment I posted this afternoon at Matt Taibbi’s Substack:
Two questions I’m still waiting to have answered: What did Bill Barr know and when did he know it?
Those, of course, are the questions people wanted to know about Nixon concerning Watergate. But in this instance there’s NO doubt that the President was kept out of the loop on the Circus of MIsconduct, because Trump never stopped complaining about it, without having many details because he wasn’t allowed by seditious bureaucrats to have access to what those theoretically working FOR him were doing.
So the questions about what did he know and when did he know it go to Fat Do-Nothing CLOWN Bill Barr, whose JOB was to make sure that things done in the Executive Branch were reasonably legal, and who repeatedly claimed that everything was under control, the 2020 election was legitimate, Trump was lying, and there was nothing to investigate.
Please keep an eye out for information about what Barr knew, when he knew it, and anything indicating that all of this unconstitutional spying, lying, and censorship was hidden from Barr. It must be hard to hide things from someone who began his career in government as a lawyer for the CIA. Seems far more likely that Barr either knew or didn’t WANT to know about this historcally record-breaking quantity and quality of federal law breaking.
Excellent synopsis, Professor Turley. I humbly thank you.
The concentration of federal bureaucracies, especially the Pentagon, CIA and FBI, in a single location and under a handful of ambitious autocrats is a serious problem, but that has always been the case. Ever since their founding, the CIA and FBI have abused their authority. J. Edgar Hoover was notorious for this, and Watergate showed Republicans are not immune to misusing these agencies. Now the Democrats are turning these same agencies, including the Pentagon, into their private enforcement arms.
My whole long life has been spent hearing these sad stories, and to my recollection, these agencies were never reluctant to abuse their authority. Actually, they rather enjoyed it, and never more than now.
The experiment is over. The federal bureaucracy needs to be shipped out of D.C. to places where there are juries that might actually convict federal officials for malfeasance. Further, authority needs to be more widely distributed within the federal bureaucracy, making collusion harder.
We could start by shipping the leadership of the FBI to Nome, Alaska. We could even save a cube in an Antarctic research station for that idiot who wrote the FBI’s “conspiracy theorist” statement.
Unfortunately, it’s the Democrats who are now drunk with power, and they’re not about to cooperate. I hope swing-voters figure this out and respond accordingly before it’s too late.
More wisdom from another eminent scholar, Victor Davis Hanson, PhD:
https://amgreatness.com/2022/12/25/what-will-the-fbi-not-do/
Oh, Lord! Don’t let me leave out the IRS.
“ The men and women of the FBI work every day to protect the American public. It is unfortunate that conspiracy theorists and others are feeding the American public misinformation with the sole purpose of attempting to discredit the agency.”
Arguably, “working every day to protect the American public” need not include censoring the public to protect it from errant or misleading ideas”
Turley as usual leaves out the pertinent facts. The FBI ha not been censoring the public. Turley relies heavily on implied purpose rather than real evidence to make his claims. Even with legal reasoning he can’t make the argument he is making now. The Twitter files have made it clear that the FBI is very aware of the optics and they are making very deliberate actions to avoid constitutional violations. As long as they are not violating it they are allowed to to do what they have been doing. Sure some things they do may seem immoral to some, but our laws don’t really make immorality a crime.
Turley loves to quibble on legal minutiae when it comes to defending similar acts by republicans and those on the right. But abandons it when it comes to the left or his narrative tailored for the gullible and easily led.
There is only one reasonable explanation for that comment, Svelaz is a Marxist totalitarian.
Witherspoon, you don’t know what a Marxist is. When you don’t have argument all you have left is insults.
Nobody has been able to articulate or prove with real evidence that the FBI or the other agencies have asked or demanded that certain content be censored. The federalist in their own analysis of the Twitter files grudgingly admit that the FBI is not breaking the law and they are being very deliberate in how they phrase their referrals to social media. They know where the line is and they are deliberately doing things right up to it. Which is completely legal and constitutional. The problem is it drives right-wing nutties and folks like Turley nuts because thy can’t really prove that what the FBI is really doing is illegal. They can only create narratives rife with speculation and assumptions without having to go to the legal argument which surely is not on their side.
You approve of government censorship by surrogate, you’re a totalitarian Marxist. Own it troll.
They are not “censoring by surrogate”. You don’t know what a Marxist is. Learn the difference.
You still cannot articulate or ague why Turley isn’t able to make. A legal analysis of what the FBI is doing. The Federalist did and they admit that the FBI is not really doing anything illegal or unconstitutional. Can YOU argue that their point is wrong?
The Federalist points this out here,
“ For instance, in one Nov. 10, 2022 email, “Fred” wrote, “Hello Twitter contacts,” “FBI San Francisco is notifying you of the below accounts which may potentially constitute violations of Twitter’s Terms of Service for any action or inaction deemed appropriate within Twitter policy.” Four Twitter account names followed, which were all suspended, including “one account whose tweets are almost all jokes,” but the latest of which Twitter considered “civic misinformation.”
Taibbi provided several more examples of the FBI alerting Twitter to accounts that the FBI believed were violating Twitter’s terms of service. Taibbi then provided screen grabs of the offensive accounts while stating that “many of the above accounts were satirical in nature,” and nearly all were “relatively low engagement.”
https://thefederalist.com/2022/12/19/6-huge-takeaways-from-the-sixth-dump-of-twitter-files/
There is no law prohibiting the FBI or any other agency from sharing information or referring certain information to social media.
The choice to censor or remove content is always left to social media. Not the FBI as Turley falsely insinuates.
Steve, stop reading this guys postings. It’s a waste of time.
Every once in a while it’s good to point out to everyone that Svelaz is an unethical rationalizing totalitarian Marxist internet troll.
Witherspoon, unethical? Hardly, pointing out true hard facts about what the law allows and the limits that law enforcement are allowed to go to is not unethical. You don’t know what a Marxist is. Next you will call me a socialist or a communist when the mood suits you. We all; know how emotional you get when you are on the losing end of an argument. At least I’m making an argument you are blathering insults. Making my point is all part of free speech isn’t it? Maybe you would’ve better off making a cogent argument rather than fling insults.
Here we go–a post from a total disciple–just like his alt-right media: don’t listen to anything other than our story. If you don’t see this as the TRUE threat to freedom, then you shouldn’t be allowed to vote. No factual support, no logical reasponse–either name-calling, or saying: don’t listen. Those of us who push back against Turley’s spin don’t tell others not to read what the disciples write. Neither does mainstream media.
Svelaz is unable to understand what is written in black and white. It clearly shows the FBI has gone rogue with considerable help from Democrats.
Below he says you don’t know what a Marxist is. How would he know? He has proven himself illiterate, where Marxism and all the other isms are concerned. He lies to himself and others. A lie is a lie, whether hidden from view or fully seen. Svelaz is demonstrating either his ignorance of the discussion or the naiveté of a six-year-old.
“ Svelaz is unable to understand what is written in black and white. It clearly shows the FBI has gone rogue with considerable help from Democrats.”
LOL! S. Meyer, hilarious as usual. You have not been able tp prove what the FBI did was illegal or unconstitutional. it’s not illegal for them to refer content to twitter nor is it illegal to meet once a week or twice a week or have 80 agents assigned to offer this information.. You have been asked to provide the proof and you run away or deflect with other BS about another conversation. Don’t be a dope.
“You have not been able tp prove what the FBI did was illegal or unconstitutional.”
You continue to be dumb in the stupidity department. First one investigates and then in court one proves what the FBI did is illegal. Nothing is illegal to a dummy.
S. Meyer says,
“You continue to be dumb in the stupidity department. First one investigates and then in court one proves what the FBI did is illegal. Nothing is illegal to a dummy.”
And yet you STILL can’t prove that anything the FBI did was illegal or criminal. Calling people dummy is not an argument. Try again.
Stupid, must be your middle name. First one investigates and then one proves whatever in court.
We haven’t had the investigation.
Calling people dumb is not an argument. There you are correct. It is a comment on the continuous ignorance you purvey. A picture of you would reveal a face with many mouths, but no ears or eyes.
Aww, you are trying to use big words. That’s cute.
S. Meyer–
I have come to suspect that he, ATS and the former Committohonestdiscussion are in the employ of one or more of the alphabet agencies. You know the evidence for it better than I.
The chances that this influential and intelligent blog would have been overlooked by the agencies that saturated Twitter, Facebook, Wikipedia, etc are vanishingly small.
By the way, did you notice how ATS veered away from discussing Covid treatment and vax as if the subjects were radioactive? The latest Twitter files dump shows how aggressively the agencies, and their tools, want to avoid and mute all discussion of them.
https://notthebee.com/article/the-twitter-files-on-covid-just-dropped-and-hoooo-boy-were-we-conspiracy-theorists-right
” in the employ of one or more of the alphabet agencies. “
If that were so, I would have more respect for ATS. As it stands, he sounds like a burned-out old Stalinist where lying and deceit are second nature.
I don’t think he was right on anything significant and wrong on Covid. Maybe he is starting to see his ideas will be revealed as stupid, so he is exiting early.
Maybe.
Svelaz, we now have the evidence in writing that the FBI instructed Twitter to censor facts. One would think that you would be concerned that the FBI used 80 operatives in its coercion of Twitter. You imply that Professor Turley is guilty of cherry-picking the facts when everyone else can see that the Professor is stating the obvious in great detail. You say that immorality is not a crime. Is rape immoral? Is murder immoral? Is theft Immoral? Do the laws make these things immoral and apply punishment for such actions. You have used this “you can’t legislate morality” argument before when it’s obvious that we do indeed legislate against immoral actions. You may not want to legislate against immoral actions but thankfully most of us do.
“ Svelaz, we now have the evidence in writing that the FBI instructed Twitter to censor facts.”
And yet you can’t provide that evidence. Hearsay on you part is not evidence.
80 agents is not a sign of coercion. Having a set number of agents assigned to a task is not proof of co3ercion. You are implying that there is a set number that does not imply coercion. What would that be? 2,4,6,1?
“ Turley is guilty of cherry-picking the facts when everyone else can see that the Professor is stating the obvious in great detail. You say that immorality is not a crime. Is rape immoral? Is murder immoral? ”
Turely IS cherry picking his facts in order to support his false narrative making mere speculation as the truth rather than rely on the actual facts. If he actually did that he would be much more boring and controversial with his current readership.
Immorality is not a crime. You’re confusing physical acts with immorality. Rape is a crime because it involves physical harm and very personal violation of one’s body. The thought of raping someone is immoral, BUT it is not illegal. It’s the same with murder. It’s a crime to actually murder someone, to conspire to murder someone with clear intent is a crime, but thinking of murder is still immoral, BUT not a crime.
The idea of the FBI suggesting certain content be censored is immorall , but not a crime. The FBI actually demanding and ordering content to be censored IS a crime. The distinction lies with what their intent is. The law is very specific about what it considers true intent, coercion, commanding, and asking, suggesting, and refereeing, They are NOT the same according to the law. Those WANTING it to be the same are those that make no effort to learn the distinction.
Thank you, Svelaz. Whevever Turley brags about his big family gatherings, shows off the plush surroundings, etc, I can’t help but think that this is the house that is supported by essentially distorting the truth.
We have placed too much hope in political and social reforms, only to find out that we were being deprived of our most precious possession: our spiritual life. In the East. it is destroyed by the dealings and machinations of the ruling party. In the West, commercial interests suffocate it. This is the real crisis.
– Alexander Solzhenitsyn in
“A World Split Apart”
Commencement Address, at Harvard University, 8 June 1978
@54:43 “The communist regime in the East could stand and grow due to the enthusiastic support from an enormous number of Western intellectuals who felt a kinship and refused to see communism’s crimes”
This column popped up in my junk folder. What a smart email system I have. Trump must be very proud of you. As soon as the FBI found out about his connections to a wide variety of bad guys he started attacking them.
Oh you sweet, summer child…
Injustice Holmes, you can’t just say that Trump was attacking the FBI because they found out about his relationship with bad guys without naming who the bad guys are. By not doing so you present an injustice to reality. Regurgitating what you’ve been fed doesn’t make it so. Give it to us plainly Injustice Holmes. Are you in favor of the FBI controlling what you see or not? If so please explain your justification of the actions of the FBI in a more exact manner. If you can.
“ Injustice Holmes, you can’t just say that Trump was attacking the FBI because they found out about his relationship with bad guys without naming who the bad guys are.”
Sure he can, Turley did it with the FBI. What Turley calls “attacks” is merely others using speech to criticize those who are engaging in conspiracy theories and pure speculation about that the FBI is doing. it’s fair game to call them out for that they are doing and the FBI can choose to call out it’s critics for what they are. Right-wing nutties engaging in rampant conspiracy theories justifying their ill informed ideas.
Even the Federalist admitted that what the FBI did was not illegal or unconstitutional. It just looked bad because they were operating right up to the line. They made it a point to acknowledge that the FBI was really pushing it without really violating the law.. it gives political pundits like Turley a great excuse to push their false narratives they have been cultivating for well over two years.
The problem is not the FBI. It’s people like Turely and right-wing nutties criticizing over issues that are not really illegal, but seem to be just by the nature of how the law enforcement agency is threading the needle on this issue. What Turley keeps ignoring is that ultimately the decision to censor or remove content is always left to social media which has a right to under their rules.
This column popped up in my junk folder. What a smart email system I have.
How embarrassing. Kant had those like you nailed.
Enlightenment is man’s release from his self incurred tutelage. Tutelage is man’s inability to make use of his understanding without direction from another. Self-incurred is this tutelage when its cause lies not in lack of reason but in lack of resolution and courage to use it without direction from another. ” Have courage to use your own reason” that’s the motto of enlightenment.
LOL
+1
Whether or not the FBI needs to be reformed, Turley is a partisan hack. Correctly identifying conspiracy theories doesn’t call for any kind of reform. Criticism based on conspiracy theories is not valid.
“Turley is a partisan hack.”
If Turley is a partisan hack, what are you doing on the blog?
Who is the hack? The one who comments honestly, or the one who lies and is continuously wrong?
Russia Hoax
Steele Dossier
Ukraine Hoax
Twitter
Etc.
Even after The New York Times, The Washington Post. and ABC have reported that RussiaGate was a conspiracy and that the Hunter laptop is authentic Anonymous continues to define what is or is not a conspiracy theory for us. There is a political hack among us and it is not Professor Turley. Regardless of the new information that proves that the FBI was controlling Twitter censorship Anonymous still clings to her conspiracy theory argument. The evidence continues to mount but Anonymous still bleats.
It’s interesting that all liberals look like women to you. The bleating you hear is your own.
Hunter Biden should be fired as head of the FBI. His leadership is ruining a perfectly corrupt government agency.
One question that arouses my curiosity sense is whether the FBI, along with the CIA, has complete control over the Biden family, and is using this control to outline the direction for the nation as a whole?
Yes, that is a theory; it has not been proven (yet). However, it’s not a conspiracy, since it didn’t involve any agreement with anyone to commit a crime.
In my opinion, reform of the FBI should entail a few key details. The first is that the US has too many federal crimes on the books. Considering that every crime takes place within the geographical jurisdiction of a police department, a sheriff’s office, a state police department, or a sovereign national boundary (Indian tribal land, for example), the enforcement and prosecution for these crimes should be handled at that level. Regarding crimes that take place in airplanes: Those airplanes were flying about the geographic boundaries of one of the above-mentioned political jurisdictions. Crimes that cross international borders? Okay; there’s a place that there might be a purpose served. But since many of these have a political connection, how can the FBI operate within that realm with a level that inspires confidence? I refer specifically to the Hunter Biden “crimes.”
The second proposal is to limit the FBI to providing assistance to other police agencies in the use of their crime lab with piecing together evidence from crime scenes. This evidence would come from the local police agencies that supply the evidence to the crime lab.
Regarding the concept of the FBI and CIA as being “intelligence” agencies: They have not shown much intelligence emanating from their poor ideas and sloppy ideas that got into some of the heads of the people in charge.
These are some ideas that show what type of change might be helpful if we are to avoid degenerating into a full police state.
When did the FBI change to what it is now? I think it as when Barry was elected president. During his first campaign run, Barry had talked about a 250,000 man federal police force that would supersede other federal law enforcement agencies in absolute power and authority and be every bit as equipped as our military. This police force would be higher up on the pecking order than the FBI. Why has the idea of a super federal police force been dropped? I feel some negotiating was done behind the scenes. Other alphabet agencies realized that they better fall in line or else. Of course this is purely conjecture.
The FBI (and deep state) has always been political.
All that has changed is that it used to be republicans who best protected the interests of the Deep State.
If Trump had been a Neo-Con he would likely still be president.
With few exceptions the opposition of the deep state to Trump is NOT because the deep state has gone all left wing nut.
It is because Trump was a threat to their power.
Trump sought to end the necescity for the US to intervene in mid eastern conflict.
He sought to recognize that Russia was no longer a world power and to diminish our role in NATO, and to diminish the importance of the deep state European and Russia bureau’s.
He sought US energy independence – which was a necescity for all of the above.
The Deep state protects itself. They did so by going after Trump.
I have zero doubt had Bush or Obama actually kept their campaign promises, they too would have been targets.
This is not about left vs. right. It is about protecting and expanding the power of CIA, NSA, DIA, FBI, State department.
9/11 and the patriot act were an absolute bonanza for the deep state.
Now the War in Ukraine is paying dividends for them. Every $1 the US is spending to fight this proxy war in Ukraine, is a $1 in the pocket of some defense or intelligence agency in the US.
One of the reasons there will be no peace in Ukraine is because the deep state does not want peace.
One of the reasons for the FBI fictitious claims of domestic terrorism – is because that is all jobs and power in DHS/FBI.
The AZ AG made an interesting remark a bit ago regarding Hobbs – “those who ride the tiger sometimes find themselves inside the tiger.”
We have 4 forces that are loosely allies today. The woke, the democrats, the deep state, and big business.
Do not be confused into presuming that any one of those is is control, or that they are aligned ideologically.
They are aligned for a common interest – their own power, and against a common enemy – an increasingly libertarian right.
I still believe that there is a distinction between field agents and central office personnel. The latter represents “the deep state”, if you will, and must be investigated and possibly removed. Also, FBI headquarters needs to be moved outside of the beltway. I’m thinking Omaha
I agree with this one 100%
“. . . to investigate and reform the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) . . .”
The law enforcement agency tasked with protecting the integrity of our elections, compromised the elections.
If that is not grounds to clean house, then there is no such thing.
They were not tasked to protect our elections.
They were tasked to protect them from foreign influence.
They found there was none. So they made up a new job of targeting US Citizens.
“ They found there was none. So they made up a new job of targeting US Citizens.”
False.
Speculation is not evidence. They did find there was foreign influence and they were monitoring those efforts thru social media as it’s their job. Especially when social media is open to anyone who wants to see what people are talking about in certain forums.
Certain US, citizens ARE being monitored such as white supremacists groups and other violent anti-government groups with histories of violence and threats. Referring them for more scrutiny from social media is legal.
Not speculating.
Please actually follow the Twitter files.
Twitter was asked multiple times to search for Russian bots, and russian accounts involved in the US election.
They told the FBI they found none.
This is one of the many areas it is evident twitter was acting as an agent of the FBI – because the FBI refused to take no for an answer.
It is their job to monitor foriegn influence. There was none.
I would further note that the FBI has testified in congress that there was no russian social media influence on the 2020 election.
“Certain US, citizens ARE being monitored such as white supremacists groups and other violent anti-government groups with histories of violence and threats. Referring them for more scrutiny from social media is legal.”
Correct, and absent ACTUAL violence, of which there has been none, that is illegal – just as monitoring civil rights groups during the 60’s was illegal. Monitoring has another name – it is called spying, and the US government may not spy on US persons without a warrant.
Regardless, the FBI group here was the “FOREIGN Influence Task Force” – Note the word FOREIGN.
With respect to your other nonsense. Please cite an actual instance of white supremecist violence ?
You also do not seem to grasp that the only anti-government violent group in the US is Antifa.
Regardless, being opposed to the current government is not illegal and not a legitimate basis for FBI intrusion.
The FBI can no more “monitor” various groups that are not happy with the current government, than it can monitor the DNC under Trump.
You do not seem to understand that holding views – especially political views that you do not espouse is still protected freedom.
Even Actual white supremecist groups are still outside the domain of the FBI. Just as Civil Rights and communist groups were.
The government can not target a group because of what they say.
You keep trying to leverage your fear of what others may be saying into a justification for violating the rights of others.
Whether you like it or note – Communists, Actual Nazi’s, Antifa, BLM, are all entitled to speak publicly, privately, on social media free from government interferance and “monitoring”
I would further note that this was more than “monitoring” – The fact that FBI had to request that Twitter provide them information means it was spying by every sense of the word.
It was illegal.
Do you understand that White Supremecists, Nazi’s, Antifa, BLM are perfectly free to organize online or otherwise.
That they can “influence” elections. That should sufficient people vote for them, they can be elected. That they can change laws, even change the constitution.
What they can not do is:
Suppress the speech of others – as the FBI and Social Media were doing.
What they can not do is initiate force against others – which the FBI was doing.
I would suggest reading Brandonberg Vs. Ohio as that is the definitive Supreme court decision on this issue.
“Correct, and absent ACTUAL violence, of which there has been none, that is illegal – just as monitoring civil rights groups during the 60’s was illegal. Monitoring has another name – it is called spying, and the US government may not spy on US persons without a warrant.”
Nope. Just as anyone who can look at their public accounts on those platforms the FBI can do the same. No warrant needed. That has to do with what happened in the 60’s. Which is the FBI illegally tapping phones and questioning others on a group’s inner workings. With social media they don’t have to do much to look at what they are freely saying on social media where anyone can see their posts.
“The government can not target a group because of what they say.”
They can if what they are saying is considered threats of violence and when they stupidly talk about plots to commit violence on public postings. They can monitor them and place them under surveillance due to the fact that ANYTHING THEY SAY CAN BE USED AGAINST THEM. You don’t have to be under arrest for that to apply. Just as it is threatening the president on social media can get the attention of the secret service and put you on a list to be monitored for potential threats. The FBI monitoring social media is no different. They only act when there is a credible threat.
“You do not seem to understand that holding views – especially political views that you do not espouse is still protected freedom.”
You can still hold those views feely. Nobody is saying you can’t. BUT that doesn’t mean that those publicly held views cannot be viewed by government agencies either. Being scrutinized more closely is not illegal. Just as anyone else can be scrutinized more closely as long as its publicly available information.
“What they can not do is:
Suppress the speech of others – as the FBI and Social Media were doing.
What they can not do is initiate force against others – which the FBI was doing.”
False. They were not doing that. Even the Federalist admitted as much. They were referring information to social media that was in violation of THEIR TOS. They explicitly pointed out every time that the decision, action, was ultimately the social media platform’s. That is within legal boundaries. Because it was right up to the limit it was indeed legal and constitutional. Conservatives and those critics on the right are upset about the fact that they did know they were operating at the very limit of what they could do and they knew it. It’s permissible according to the law. It has nothing to do with immorality which is irrelevant.
“What they can not do is initiate force against others – which the FBI was doing.”
This “force” argument fails for one important reason. The law defines this “force”, coercion, commands, asking, in very specific terms and context in which they are recognized by the law. None of what the FBI did meets those explicit definitions the law requires for it to be a violation of the constitution or federal statutes. The federalist article and the twitter files made it clear that they knew exactly what to say and why. They ARE allowed to thread that needle as long as they don’t violate the law. Again this is exploited by the right by conflating “referring” with “asking”, “commands”, “demands”, or ‘telling” twitter to censor certain content in order to make their false narrative more logical to the more gullible and easily led.
The Brandenburg v ohio case has no relevance to this issue since the FBI is only referring speech to a private entity that may be in violation of that entity’s own policies. That is NOT illegal or unconstitutional. Because the decision to censor rests only with the private entity which the FBI mentions repeatedly in their communications with twitter and facebook. Twitter and facebook have chosen to not follow their recommendations multiple times which disproves the argument that they FBI is “forcing” them to make these censoring decisions by means of coercion simply by being the FBI.
Sevvy:
Well, you’ve ceratinly blue-printed a police state for us. FBI uber alles! The Nazis used the ol’state secuity excuse, too. You’d think our leftists would be a tad more original. But alas they are dumb, dumber and dumbest.
” Just as anyone who can look at their public accounts on those platforms the FBI can do the same.”
You are inaccurate with respect to both the facts and the law.
The FBI does not have the same abilities to monitor others as ordinary citizens.
The police can go to someone’s public facebook page without a warrant.
They can not do so without reasonable suspicion.
Law enforcement in the US may not conduct investigations just because it wants to.
Separately The FBI was asking for Twitter to perform tasks for them that they were unable to do directly themselves.
They were not accessing trivially available public information.
You make broad statements that are rarely even true in the most narrow of cases.
Regardless, this is long ago decided matters. You seem oblivious to the Church Commission in the 70’s that investigated FBI abuses of Civil Rights organizations in the 60’s.
The FBI is barred from sending people to open public meetings absent a complaint that criminal activity is occuring.
Presumably you know that law enforcement has very limited powers to stop people on the street or driving down the roads.
That before they can do so they must have reasonable suspicion.
Law enforcement may not jump into your life – not even the public portions of your life without actual justification.
All this of course ignores the fact that many of the governments requests of Twitter for for non-public information.
“ The FBI does not have the same abilities to monitor others as ordinary citizens.”
Yes it does according to their own policies and the law.
“ Before formally opening any kind of inquiry, agents can search and review publicly available social media and other online information (see Appendix L of the DIOG). After initiating the first level of formal FBI inquiry, called an assessment, FBI agents can record and monitor “public, real-time communications,” such as conversations in a public chat room, if recording is both necessary to the assessment and the least intrusive method to obtain the information.”
Here’s the pertinent Section.
“ 18.5.1.1 (U) Scope
(U//FOUO) Public information is “Publicly Available Information” that is:
A) (U) Published or broadcast for public consumption;
B) (U) Available on request to the public;
C) (U) Accessible on-line or otherwise to the public;
D) (U) Available to the public by subscription or purchase; E) (U) Made available at a meeting open to the public;
F) (U) Obtained by visiting any place or attending an event that is open to the public (e.g., public places); or
G) (U) Observed, heard, smelled, detected or obtained by any casual observer or member of the public and does not involve unconsented intrusion into private places.
(U//FOUO) The phrase “observed, heard, smelled, detected or obtained by any casual observer or member of the public” includes, for example, plain view observations; overhearing a conversation taking place at an adjacent table in a public restaurant; odor detection (by a person, drug dog, or technical device) emanating from a vehicle, in a public place, or from locations to which the employee has gained lawful access; searching property that has been intentionally abandoned, including property discarded in public trash containers or common dumpsters (but does not include a “trash cover” as set forth in DIOG Section 18.6.12).
(U//FOUO) The following are examples:
1) (U)Viewingthevehicleidentificationnumberorpersonalpropertythatisexposedto public view and may be seen when looking through the window of a car that is parked in an area that is open to and accessible by members of the public;
2) (U) The examination of books and magazines in a book store or the purchase of such items. See Maryland v. Macon, 472 U.S. 463 (1985); and
3) (U) A deliberate overflight in navigable air space to photograph marijuana plants is not a search, despite the landowner’s subjective expectation of privacy.”
https://ia801205.us.archive.org/17/items/FBIDomesticInvestigationsAndOperationsGuideDIOG2013Revision/FBI%20Domestic%20Investigations%20and%20Operations%20Guide%20-DIOG-%202013%20Version_text.pdf
“ The police can go to someone’s public facebook page without a warrant.
They can not do so without reasonable suspicion.‘
So can the FBI, even your employer. They do not need a reason to if it’s publicly available information that ANYONE can have access to.
“ Law enforcement in the US may not conduct investigations just because it wants to.”
Yes they can, when they have reasonable suspicion they CAN investigate and that includes a cursory view of publicly available information such as social media.
“ They were not accessing trivially available public information.”
They are. That’s where they are getting all their information from in regards to twitter and facebook. It’s info that everyone else is seeing. There is no law that says they can’t do that. If there is point to it and we can argue on the merits if you can find one.
Your take on FBI policies and the law is neither the law, nor relevant.
We have plowed this ground before.
You remain wrong – and obviously so.
And you continue to define immoral actions.
You constantly try to play games with your arguments.
Are you actually prepared to argue that the FBI is permitted to try to rig elections ?
Because that is what you keep trying to argue.
You keep trying to hide from that fact.
You make excuses that they are allowed to do something about foreign election interferance which is correct, but irrlevant as there was none of consequence in 2020 (or really ever before). And they knew it. But more importantly that is NOT what FBI was doing.
The FBI Task Force on Foreign Interferance was itself interfering in a US election.
There is no scenario in which that is moral – or legal or constitutional.
You keep hiding from that. Regardless, you have giving that imoprality your impramatur.
Then you tried to claim the FBI was acting regarding “white supremecy” – which is just as far outside their jurisdiction as civil rights, or Black Lives Matter.
The FBI. nor our government has any legitimate role in the viewpoints of the american people.
Government is FORCE, we do not use force to interfere with or monitor the disfavored viewpoints of the left or the right.
That should be obvious – but not to you.
You are either a moron or immoral, and that question has already been answered.
BTW law that violates the constitution is no law at all.
Policy that violates the constitution is no law at all.
With respect to the DIOG – please learn to read.
Jumping into the middle of something and pretending there is no predicate is the kind of stupidity that gets you into trouble all the time.
You list a bunch of steps that can be taken before a formal inquiry.
So what ? What you cited did NOT say that an agent can come into the Office one day and Say “I think I am going to go look at Svelaz’s Social Media Today”
When you have read the entire 698 page DIOG then get back to us.
Actually, No don’t. I really do not want to here more nonsense from you like your mangling of the Federalist article.
There is a very easy way to tell that your claims regarding policy, law the DIOG are false.
Because they would be unconstitutional if True.
Honestly are you really trying to compare employers with Police ?
No the police can not go seeking public information for the h311 of it.
You live in this bizarre world were government is constantly looking into everything we do.
The police can not pick a random person on the streets and follow them.
They can not pick a name from the phone book and start investigating them.
“There is no law that says they can’t do that. ”
Not how the law and constitution work.
The government can only do what the constitution permits.
Even assuming the constitution permits something, it STILL must be explicitly directed by law.
The FBI did not just appear out of thin air. It was created by law.
After being created it has been given specific tasks BY LAW.
Monitoring the social media of all Americans is not one of those tasks.
Investigating actual Crimes IS one of those tasks.
“There is no law against” tells us what people can do.
“There is no law permitting” tells us what government can not do.
Take an easy example – Can an FBI Agent start a War between the US and China ?
Obviously no. Only congress can declare war.
Your bizzare “there is no law against that” theory fails quickly and obviously.
The constitution, our systems of laws, even the policies that you rant about are all a tree structured system delegating specifc powers and authorities – starting with the constitution down through individual actors within government.
No one in the executive can excercise powers outside of those enumerated in Article II of the Constitution.
Congress can make no law giving the executive powers beyond those in article II.
The president by executive order can not give those under him powers outside article II
But even if article II conveys a power to the executive – that does not mean it is a power of an FBI agent.
Everything that an FBI agent does must be authorized by the constitution, by law, by his superiors through to the president and by policy.
Another good example would be a police officer walking by a car and noticing an open alcoholic container in plain view. He can infer a crime was committed by the fact that an illegal open container IS in a vehicle without having to justify the intrusion. It’s publicly viewable to anyone including the law enforcement officer. The FBI can look at certain posts or accounts on social media just like anyone else can. There is no expectation of privacy in a public forum such as social media.
Your own example gets you in trouble,
An officer walking along, is not an officer searching social media.
All searches implicate the 4th amendment.
And I do not want to get into your open container laws problems
As a rule – there must be a person in the car.
The container must not merely be opened, but some must be consumed.
There is usually an alcohol content requirement.
Most states have exceptions for bottles of wine being transported home from resturants.
And on and on and on.
I provided you a bunch of cases. They all run against you.
They all also are missing one agrevating element present in the FBI’s actions with SM.
None of the examples I provided involve a search.
All searches by government or at the direction of government involve the 4th amendment.
So you have problems with 2 different constitutional rights.
Please refer to
Carpenter v. United States
for matters regarding expectations of privacy in content held by third parties.
“None of what the FBI did meets those explicit definitions the law requires for it to be a violation of the constitution or federal statutes. ”
Whenever I think you might not be a moron, you go and prove me wrong.
Taking your statement as written – which is obvious error.
Please cite the laws that provide explicit definitions ?
You can’t because you have the entire thin ass backwards.
The constitution sets the constraints of the law. Not the other way around.
You can not change the constitution by changing a law or a definition within the law.
“ Please cite the laws that provide explicit definitions ?”
Coercion;
“ The intimidation of a victim to compel the individual to do some act against his or her will by the use of psychological pressure, physical force, or threats.”
https://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Coercion
Demand;
1) v. to claim as a need, requirement or entitlement, as in to demand payment or performance under a contract.
https://dictionary.law.com/Default.aspx?selected=482
“ The constitution sets the constraints of the law.”
Correct. However it also allows congress to create laws particular to a certain agency and give authority to said agency to create it’s own rules as long as they don’t run afoul of constitutional prohibitions which is what the DIOG does.
The Supreme Court has defined what coercion, asking, and referring legally mean in various contexts regarding government. What the FBI did was not contrary to what the constitution prohibits.
The legal dictionary is not the law.
I asked you to cite definitions in the law.
That is what you claimed you were following.
You are stupidly using definitions that are specific to criminal or civil law.
Not constitutional law. or government.
Not only that you are stupid enough that is even clear in your references.
Finally – go back and review the twitter files – you will find that in many cases even your incorrect definitions are met.
It is getting very annoying dealing with you making stupid and false claims about things you have not bothered to even read.
Start here.
https://casetext.com/case/bantam-books-inc-v-sullivan
Or this
https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=14431043191361725077
Or this
https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=14431043191361725077
“The Supreme Court has defined what coercion, asking, and referring legally mean in various contexts regarding government”
To some extent you are correct,
But you have completely gotten wrong what they have decided.
I provided several cases to you that though not all supreme court cases are all currently “good law”, in which government officials “asked” for something from a third party.
Sometimes with vague threats sometimes without.
The courts have frequently found that when the government party asking – even when they all they do is ask, has the power to make life difficult – even when no threat is made – that request violates the 1st amendment.
Regardless, there are so many hurdles in your way. And this is but one of those.
Please reread the federalist article – you both did not understand it, and you are making things up that are not in it.
I would note that while the actual federalist article is more favorable to me than you, it is still a journalist reporting, it is not the law or constitution.
“ Please reread the federalist article – you both did not understand it, and you are making things up that are not in it.
I would note that while the actual federalist article is more favorable to me than you, it is still a journalist reporting, it is not the law or constitution.”
You didn’t care what it said before, now you do? Yes it is more favorable to you, BUT it also acknowledges the inconvenient fact that the FBI is still not doing anything illegal or unconstitutional. It’s reporting and also a throughout analysis of the facts including the legal realities of what the twitter files don’t deny.
What I care about is that you are constantly misrepresenting things.
I did not care about the federalist article before because I assumed it was incorrect.
What I keep learning over and over is that I should not trust what you claim your own sources say.
With few exceptions, the FBI has no business even suggesting that social media platforms take down posts.
Misinformation is not one of those exceptions,.
There is no “threading the needle”
That is a ludicrosuly stupid claim.
SCOTUS has NEVER said, “You can violate a persons rights, if you thread the needle”.
Either an act violates rights or it does not.
If it does, then either it meets the constitutional requirements for doing so – which for the first amendment is the highest possible standard – Strict scrutiny, or the government action is unconstitutional.
Further governmnt may not accomplish through proviate actors, what it can not do itself.
Even if Twitter may choose to censor posts. Government may not ask Twitter to censor posts that are protected speech.
Separately from this as the evidence which you clear do not follow proves, FBI want far beyond “ask”
It demanded, paid for and threatened.
“ There is no “threading the needle”
That is a ludicrosuly stupid claim.
SCOTUS has NEVER said, “You can violate a persons rights, if you thread the needle”.
Either an act violates rights or it does not.”
The federalist makes that claim and it isn’t wrong. The fact that the FBI deliberately phrases it’s “request’ or “referrals” in such a manner to avoid violating the constitution shows that they know they are within the limits of what is legal AND permissible according to the law and the constitution. By going up to the very limit and NOT violating rights of individuals they are NOT violating their rights. SCOUTS has often pointed out that doing things to the limits of what can be done is still not deemed an unconstitutional violation of one’s rights. Even in the narrowest of interpretations.
“ Further governmnt may not accomplish through proviate actors, what it can not do itself.”
That is not what they are doing no matter how you desperately want to parse it. Sharing information with social media and pointing out certain information that may be in violation of a TOS is not a violation of one’s rights due to the fact that the decision is STILL exclusively the private entity’s to make.
“ Even if Twitter may choose to censor posts. Government may not ask Twitter to censor posts that are protected speech.”
They didn’t ask. You have not provided any proof that they did. Even the twitter files don’t prove that they asked to twitter to censor certain content or speech. A referral is NOT an “ask”. They are not the same no matter how much you WANT them to be so it fits with your wishful thinking.
Show me the evidence that they actually asked. Because in a court of law they would HAVE to show that they literally asked them to censor certain content. Mere speculation and insinuations are not evidence of the claim you are making.
I have no interest in your claims regarding the federalist article – because you have lied about it.
Why exactly am I supposed to do the work off sorting through your myriads of misreprentations and lies to figure out if maybe somewhere in what you have written you have not misrepresented someone – they are merely wrong.
“You have not provided any proof that they did.”
Half the country has read the twitter files.
You can read ?
With few exceptions, whether or not Twitter enforces its TOS competently, or in an even-handed manner, is none of the FBI’s business.
Misinformation is not one of those exceptions.
“ It demanded, paid for and threatened.”
Nope, you have zero evidence for that claim. Show us your evidence John.
What specifically was demanded?
The payments were legally required as it has been explained in another thread. The law required the FBI to pay twitter. Not for censoring but for something else.
Threatened? Please. They didn’t threaten anyone. Show us the evidence if you think I’m wrong.
Again actually read the twittter files.
I beleive there are now 10 separate threads each with about 40 tweets.
The tweets are each about 200 characters of less. Though they often include screenshots or links to primary source materials.
Regardless – it is not very hard to read this.
If you have not read the twitter files there is no reason to listen to your pontifications regarding them.
If you had read them you would know your remarks are full of schiff.
It is very odd that you accept that the FBI is free to prevent Foreign powers from influencing the results of US elections,
But you are perfectly fine with the US government interfering to influence the results of US elections.
The FACT is that it is more legitimate for Russia to try to influence a US election that for the FBI to do so.
The worst possible form of election fraud is that where those in government influence the outcome of their own elections.
That is also the ultimate self licking ice cream cone.
“ It is very odd that you accept that the FBI is free to prevent Foreign powers from influencing the results of US elections,
But you are perfectly fine with the US government interfering to influence the results of US elections.”
It’s very odd that you don’t understand how things work. The FBI is bound to defend the country from foreign influence affection our elections. By countering the information that is used to influence it by exposing it or pointing it out those that CAN do something about it are better informed about what is going on. Nothing says they can’t be made aware of said influence.
Define foreign influence.
Can the FBI demand that Twitter ban the Daily Mail and the Guardian?
Can the FBI demand that Facebook ban all non-citizens?
The FBI is not bound to do anything. If it is not directed by law to do so, then it may not.
Free speech is a principle as well as a constitutional amendment.
I would prefer that the FBI did NOT censor the speech of foreign governments PERIOD – even with regard to US elections.
Ultimately they can not succeed they can only limit.
However constitutional rights are only for US Persons. The FBI is free if unwise to attempt to censor Russia.
Sorry, I forgot, as reported by the FBI as reported by Social media there was no efforts at foreign influence in US elections.
At the same time – Why is it you have concern over this ?
Do you think the Russians have some magical powers of persuasion ?
Do you think if Putin releases an army of bots that guillible people will be persaded to vote for Trump by Hillary as Mr. Potato Head adds ?
The greatest danger in an election is not who speaks or what they say.
It is who and what is silenced.
You and many on the left have noted that the NY Post story was reported on fairly agressively – By Fox, By Breitbart, By Newsmax.
There are few republicans who were not aware of the story by election day, and fully aware that the story was NOT russian disinformation.
But unless you were in the approx half the country that does not left in the left wing nut silo you had barely heard the story and what little you had heard was that it was a right wing conspiracy theory, or Russian disinformation.
Democrats, the DNC, the Media, the Biden Campaign, Social Media, the FBI/DHS other government agencies all conspired to hide the Truth from their own voters.
That is your idea of Democracy ? You do not trust your own voters enough to allow them to hear the truth ?
As Brandeis noted over a century ago – the remedy for “bad speech” – speech that you do not like, is more speech. Not enforced silence.
You are immoral.
You are guilty of rigging an election.
Anyone with the smallest degree of self respect would slink off and hide.
But you continue to try to defend silencing people telling the truth and lying to your own people.
While you are wrong about the law, the FBI was violating the 1st, 4th and 14th amendments as well as the hatch act.
Would it matter if they were not ?
I am not aware of anything like this ever being done in History. On rare occasions small groups of people have prevented a story known only to a few from getting out.
But when before has a major news story from a major news outlet been suppressed successfully to nearly half of people ?
You are not moral, and that is self evident by your own arguments.
You have told us all repeatedly that it is not OK for Trump to conspire with Russians to influence US elections.
Something that did not happen,
But now you are arguing that it is OK for the FBI to conspire with democrats, the DNC, the Biden campaign and social media to influence US elections.
You have no shame, no moral center, not concept of right and wrong.
Why should anyone listen to you ? About anything ?
“ You are not moral, and that is self evident by your own arguments.”
This has nothing to do with morality. Zero. You only bring this up because it’s the easier argument to make.
“ You have told us all repeatedly that it is not OK for Trump to conspire with Russians to influence US elections.
Something that did not happen,”
That did happen. Don’t you remember? Trump very publicly asked Russia to hack into HIllary’s emails and expose the information. They did exactly that, but instead of hacking hillary’s emails they hacked the DNC and proceeded to purposely influence the election at the behest of trump.
“ But now you are arguing that it is OK for the FBI to conspire with democrats, the DNC, the Biden campaign and social media to influence US elections.”
False. I’ve never said that. Don’t start lying now John. The FBI is NOT conspiring with democrats, or the DNC, or the Biden campaign and social media. Don’t put YOUR baseless speculations into my mouth.
“ You have no shame, no moral center, not concept of right and wrong.”
Nope. It’s only because you are clueless about what you are trying to argue. You have provided zero evidence for you claims just as Kari Lake has provided zero evidence for her claims. Speculation, and insinuations are NOT evidence.
“That did happen.”
Nope.
“Trump very publicly asked Russia to hack into HIllary’s emails and expose the information. They did exactly that, but instead of hacking hillary’s emails they hacked the DNC and proceeded to purposely influence the election at the behest of trump.”
You live in alternate reality.
Trump asked Russia to release some of the material from Clinton’s basement bathroom email server to prove what everyone but the FBI already knew – that she had as Sec State compromised National Security.
Todate no foreign power has provided proof they have anything from Clintons basement bathroom email server full of classified information,
despite the fact that we know atleast one foreign power has that information.
The DNC was hacked in July of 2015 and January of 2016. It was done with old Russian hacking tools that every black hat in the world has access to. Todate we do not know who hacked the DNC – and CrowdStrike the only people given forensic access to the DNC equipment has testified that: They do not know who hacked the DNC and they do not know what if anything was transfered from the DNC servers by the hackers.
VIPS A non-partisan well respected private cyber security that was the Bane of the Bush administration, analyzed the Wikileaks DNC emails and concluded they were leaked not hack. They were transfered off the DNC servers at a rate faster than can be accomplished over the internet.
They were most likely transfered from DNC servers to a USB stick.
Regardless none of this had anything to do with the Trump campaign. The FBI concluded in July of 2016 that the Trump campaign had nothing to do with the DNC emails. The Mueller team tried again to connect that to Trump and failed.
conspire: to act in harmony toward a common end
Hobbs asked the Judge to Sanction Lake for the very reasons you claimed.
Thompson refused.
His response was that Lakes claims were legitimate, they just did not meet the standard of proof required by law.
He is incorrect about the standard of proof.
Regardless, it is a FACT that Lake provided plenty of evidence.
The JUDGE concluded her evidence fell short on TWO factors.
She did not proof the scale of the problems she identified were sufficient to alter the outcome of the election.
She did not prove the problems with the election were intentional.
I would strongly suggest that you watch the video fo the entire hearing – it is readily available on Youtube.
The only way you can reach the conclusion that the problems were not intentional and more than sufficient to tip the election is willful blindness.
Regardless, lake is appealing. It is a tough appeal, because appeals courts rarely reconsider factual findings of trial courts.
Something the 11th ct of appeals got thoroughly wrong in the Trump case. And if Lake gets an appellate panel as willing to reconsider findings of fact by lower courts she will win easily.
Regardless, Thompson awarded Hobbs legal costs – that is standard in AZ.
But refused to sanction Lake specifically because the case had merit.
Please familiarize your self with the actual facts.
Brandenburg V. Ohio defines what speech is protected and what is not.
Protected speech is outside the domain of government in anyway.
FBI may not even ask a private entity to censor speech that is protected.
You are engaged in a ludicrously stupid and immoral argument.
Can FBI agents monitor your FB profile and then ask you to change your hair color ?
Of course not. The FBI is not the hair color police.
Govenrment is not free to voice oppinions on anything it pleases.
YOU tried to justify the actions of the FBI by claiming they were protecting us against acts of violence.
If that was actually what they were doing that would be true.
But it is clearly not, and your own arguments constantly discard that claim – only to circularly return to it when cornered.
People have liberties, rights. Governments have powers. Those powers are limited to those specificed in the constitution and those necescary and proper to perform those enumerated powers.
Monitoriing your hair color or making a request regarding it is not within the legitimate powers of government.
Nor is monitoring constitutionally protected speech.
Let me remind you AGAIN fo the definition of fascism – “everything in the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state”
If you do not wish to be called a fascist, quit being an apologist for fascism.
I would note that you are LITTERALLY echoing the Nazi’s.
Socialism does nto require that government own everything.
It works just as well with all private actors doing its bidding – exactly as the Nazi’s did with businesses during WWII.
You have said that the Nazi’s were not on the left because “capitalism” continued to exist.
The Nazi’s relationship to business was no different than what you are defending.
The FBI says Jump and Twitter says – how high ?
“ Protected speech is outside the domain of government in anyway.
FBI may not even ask a private entity to censor speech that is protected.”
The FBI wasn’t asking. You keep getting hung up on that false claim despite no evidence proving your claim correct. They CAN refer or share information that a private entity can choose what to do with it. That is perfectly legal and constitutional.
“ Can FBI agents monitor your FB profile and then ask you to change your hair color ?‘
They CAN monitor your FB account, but they are not asking you do change your hair color. YOU are adding that action which is false.
The rest of your nonsensical ranting about Nazism and fascism serves no purpose other than pure drivel because you don’t have an argument.
Your arguments are heavily reliant on speculative assumptions based on hearsay of others and on evidence. I have posted actual rules, regulations, laws supporting the fact that the FBI did nothing illegal or unconstitutional. You keep going back to the morality argument because you can’t argue on a legal footing. That much is obvious. I believe that is called a red herring.
Violating other peoples rights is ALWAYS about morality.
You are not moral.
If you were you would slink away and hide.
AGAIN – please actually read the twitter files before you make a fool of yourself.
At various times the FBI asked. Demanded. paid for, and threatened Twitter.
Nor was the FBI the only govenrment agency doing so. DHS was involved, ODNI was involved. DOD was involved.
Even more agencies were involved with the supression of Covid information – and the Biden WH is particularly was forceful and threating repeatedly demanding that 12 people it deemed the source of 85% of all Covid Mis-information be silenced ASAP.
It is notable that many of those 12 people were virologists, and epidemiologists – many with credentials superior to faucci’s.
That they were posting published medical studies – often from the CDC itself, and that they were not posting Misinformation, but actually correct information.
It is nazi and fascit regimes that act in this way.
Of course it is relevant.
Of course you want ot hide from that.
Facists do not want to be called out as facists.
Asking that you change the color of your hair is more benign than asking that you be silent or only speak truth as defined by the state.
It is not the FBI’s job to police the polices of private actors.
I would further note that the speech censored did NOT violate twitters polices.
You clearly have no familiarity with the facts.
We are past this all being done in secrecy.
It has all been drug into the open.
We know that while Sometimes Twitter acted gleefully, and sometimes reluctantly that nearly always it was being asked to and then acting on requests to censor speech that was fully compliant with Twitters TOS.
“ It is not the FBI’s job to police the polices of private actors.”
They were not doing that. Sharing information with private actors is not policing their actions. You certainly have a very twisted view of reality.
“ I would further note that the speech censored did NOT violate twitters polices.‘
Some of it wasn’t. Your oversimplification of the facts are attempted to avoid the truth. Twitter could choose to censor some content or accounts based on the totality of the evidence. It was not just about one single tweet or claim. Just as Elon Musk has violated his own rules twitter was within it’s rights to ignore theirs. Nothing in the s constitution or the law prohibits them from doing that even if it’s morally wrong or unfair. That’s just a simple fact not an endorsement from me mind you.
“ We know that while Sometimes Twitter acted gleefully, and sometimes reluctantly that nearly always it was being asked to and then acting on requests to censor speech that was fully compliant with Twitters TOS.”
They weren’t “asked”. That was never done. They were referred to certain posts and that is different from being asked. The FBI couldn’t ask them to censor something, but they could point out something that they could look at and decide whether it met their TOS or not or choose to do something about it of their own accord.
Svelaz, your argument is nonsense.
Lets try this a different way.
If the FBI is wasting an enormous amount of time searching through SM accounts looking for things it wishes to “share” with SM.
With no expectation of action – then that part of the FBI is wasting money and should be defunded.
The FBI exists to enforce the law. Not to “share interesting things on Facebook”
The FBI is not some Teen spraying the world with interesting things it has found.
It exists for a purpose – to enforce OUR laws – not its warped interpretation of SM TOS’s.
There is no legitimate law enforcement purpose to “sharing”.
Law enforcement is INHERENTLY a DEMAND. Two of the 3 cases I sent you did not involve law enforcement agencies.
If you receive communications from the FBI that communication MUST be in some way related to the only legitimate purpose of the FBI – law enforcement. The FBI does not “share” it demands, it warns, and there is always an implicit threat.
The courts long ago determined that all encounters with law enforcement have an element of coercion in them.
Government generally, law enforcement specifically does not “share”. It threatens – often very politely.
If a police office goes to a pawn shop and says – “just letting you know, there was a jewelry store robbery last night” – is that sharing ?
I can assure you the pawn shop owner got Two messages from that “sharing”:
Call the police if someone tries to pawn jewelry.
The police are watching and if you are caught with stolen jewelry we will prosecute.
There is absolutely no legitimate law enforcement purpose to just “sharing”.
Let us separately presume – because none of the material the FBI share had anything to do with any legitimater law enforcement task, that this was Just FBI “Sharing” content that was not illegal but might (though usually did not) violate Twitters TOS.
In that case Twitter is receiving an illegal government subsidy. the FBI is acting as a content moderation facility for Twitter.
Private actors can do that.
But government actors may not – atleast without specific authorization of the law.
This involves spending money – so it must not only be authorized by Congress, but legislation enabling the FBI to subsidize Twitter must originate in the House of representatives.
And finally it almost exclusively benefited a single political party it is therefore unconstitutional and a violation of the Hatch Act.
It is obvious from your own arguments you know you are wrong.
You tried to claim the FBI was acting about Foreign election interferance – that was false.
Then you claimed they were allowed to based on threats of violence and domestic terrorism.
When that is easily dismissed,
You revert to the FBI enforcing Social Media Terms of Service – something obviously not their job, and something also false,
As even Twitter noted that most if not all FBI requests were speech that did not violate there TOS.
Finally you are arguing that the Government can ask anything of private companies – so long as it is just asking.
While that is clearly wrong, what they certainly can NOT ask, is that private companies participate in rigging an election.
“ It is obvious from your own arguments you know you are wrong.
You tried to claim the FBI was acting about Foreign election interferance – that was false.
Then you claimed they were allowed to based on threats of violence and domestic terrorism.”
Nope. You’re conflating two very different things and ignoring the context in which they were argued. That is a deliberate mischaracterization on your part.
The FBI CAN act on foreign election interference WHEN it involves domestic sources acting on their behalf. That is well within their purview. They are also allowed to monitor KNOWN domestic groups with well known histories of violence and domestics terrorism, also within their purview.
“ You revert to the FBI enforcing Social Media Terms of Service – something obviously not their job, and something also false,
As even Twitter noted that most if not all FBI requests were speech that did not violate there TOS.”
False. The FBI is not enforcing social media terms of service. You’re deliberately lying on that. Referring to information they see openly and publicly on social media to their attention as possible violations of their TOS is not illegal or unconstitutional. You have yet to cite any law making that illegal.
Most of their speech did not violate their TOS BUT the totality of the evidence was being considered, not just a single tweet or post. Multiple violations that were ignored in the past were considered and they absolutely could change their mind according to their TOS.
“ Finally you are arguing that the Government can ask anything of private companies – so long as it is just asking.‘
Technically they CAN ask certain things but not what you are claiming. They are NOT asking twitter to censor certain content. You have never provided any evidence to back up that claim. Speculation and insinuations are not evidence.
They are not rigging elections by “asking” as you are falsely claiming without evidence. Referring certain information IS allowed and legal. Their is a very precise distinction between asking and referring which you are not willing to recognize due to the fact that you have no evidence that they are asking a private entity to censor certain content. Show your evidence of your claim.
Kari Lake made a lot of claims and she had a great opportunity to show her evidence. She did not produce any evidence in court except pure speculation and hearsay. Just like you.
“The FBI CAN act on foreign election interference WHEN it involves domestic sources acting on their behalf.”
The moment a US person is involved a FISA warrant is required.
Have you learned nothing from the collusion delusion ?
Do you have a FISA warrant for this ?
Your hypothetical Did not happen.
“The FBI is not enforcing social media terms of service. You’re deliberately lying on that. Referring to information they see openly and publicly on social media to their attention as possible violations of their TOS is not illegal or unconstitutional. ”
They are not, they are.
Make up your mind. You are contradicting yourself.
What law authorizes the Actions of the FBI ?
Government does not exist to do whatever it wants.
You have things backwards.
Whatever the FBI does must FIRST be authorized by the constitution, Then authorized by specific law.
Anything that is not, is illegal.
“Most of their speech did not violate their TOS BUT the totality of the evidence was being considered, not just a single tweet or post. Multiple violations that were ignored in the past were considered and they absolutely could change their mind according to their TOS.”
You keep vascilating between FBI was not enforcing Twitters TOS and then that they are.
Regardless, it is not FBI’s job.
How Twitter enforces its TOS is between it, and its users – not the FBI, your entire Totality of Circumstances argument is at best Twitter’s business not the FBI. Further it was clearly NOT how Twitter was operating.
You keep making up claims that have no bearing on the facts.
Totality of circumstances is a legal doctrine that is inapplicable here.
The courts allow totality of circumstances to be considered when each individual factor does not meet reasonable suspicion, or probable cause.
It is not applicable to criminal prosecution – a prosecutor must prove each individual element of a crime beyond a reasonable doubt.
Totality of circumstances is also used in court to allow individuals to meet tests that are otherwise bright lines they can not meet.
Regardless, it does not apply here.
“Multiple violations that were ignored in the past were considered and they absolutely could change their mind according to their TOS.”
First please read the twitter files – this did not happen.
But accepting it as a hypothetical rather than a factual claim, it does not conform to Twitter or the rest of SM’s actual policies and procedures.
Further a TOS is a contract – worse it is a contract of adhesion. There is no “changing your mind”.
You are making up arguments.
You are unfamiliar with the actual facts.
You are not even trying to make your arguments conform to the facts.
You are just struggling to concoct some loophole that gets you out of a legal and moral bind.
That is not going to happen.
Outside of the wing nut left, most people understand that there are very few circumstances in which censorship, particularly political censorship is moral or justifiable. None of those involve providing a digital public forum for free speech.
Regardless, Government has no legitimate role in censorship – particularly political censorship – outside the very limited speech that is actually criminal.
Any effort to silence opposing voices is “rigging the election”.
Doing so broadly is worse.
Doing so through government is worse still.
Not only was this and effort to “rigging the election” – it was successful.
Attempting to rig the election by silencing the truth is always immoral.
Merely trying to silence the truth is always immoral.
The actions of the Media, Social Media. the Democratic Party, the DNC and the Biden Campaign are all immoral.
They do not however appear to be illegal. They are still “rigging the election”.
Further those who are willing to commit one obviously immoral act are presumed to be willing to do others – such as actual voting fraud.
Ordinary people do not and should not trust those who act immorally.
No one should trust you.
I doubt many do.
You have been caught constantly just making things up.
In this debate alone it is clear you have never read any of the twitter files reporting and releases.
Yet you make factual claims that are just wrong about what occured and no one who read the actual twitter files would make the errors you do.
Where this clearly becomes illegal is with the FBI.
Government may not use – not even Ask others to do what it can not do itself.
And govenrment may not censor political speech – even FALSE political speech.
This was NOT acting inside the FBI’s counter intelligence operations. Those are strictly limited to foreign actors.
Even encountering a US person requires getting a FISA warrant to proceed
Both the FBI and the entire government is forbidden by the Hatch act from participating in politics.
The FBI may investigate actual violations of US election laws.
US persons publishing lies, opinions, facts, about elections are all protected speech of the highest form.
The FBI has Zero business at all of any kind anywhere near the political speech of others.
That is the most protected form of speech that there is. It is completely protected from government even if it is FALSE.
The FBI’s actions were illegal, unconstitutional and immoral.
If foreigners can influence american elections merely by posting on social media, then this means the Daily Mail and The Guardian are interfering in American elections.
I have no problems with the Daily Mail or the Guardian, or RT, or Putin’s social media accounts exponding on US elections.
There is one and only one group that may NOT hold opinions regarding US Elections – and that is US Government.
A third party agent of government does not cease to be an agent of government it they occasionally say no.
If an FBI paid informant says “No I will not wear a wire to this meet” – do they cease to be an agent of government ?
NO!
“ A third party agent of government does not cease to be an agent of government it they occasionally say no.”
Twitter was not a third party agent of government. They were not contracted by the FBI to do certain work. You’re just making up another avenue to justify your failure of an argument. One which still has no evidence to support.
“ If an FBI paid informant says “No I will not wear a wire to this meet” – do they cease to be an agent of government ?”
An FBI informant signs an agreement with the FBI they CAN’T say no once they do that. Twitter has no such agreement or contract. Your analogy is no comparison.
“Twitter was not a third party agent of government.”
Of course they are.
“They were not contracted by the FBI to do certain work.”
Actually they were – again you are unfamiliar with the facts.
They were paid for work. A contract, is offer, acceptance, exchange of value.
When you contract with the government you are ALWAYS an agent of government.
“You’re just making up another avenue to justify your failure of an argument.”
Look in the mirror.
The facts are all established – though it is celar you have not read the twitter files and are just making up your own facts to suit.
“One which still has no evidence to support.”
Except the actual evidence which you are hiding from.
“” If an FBI paid informant says “No I will not wear a wire to this meet” – do they cease to be an agent of government ?”
An FBI informant signs an agreement with the FBI they CAN’T say no once they do that.”
Sometimes informants have a written agreement they sign, usually not.
Regardless, they always remain free to say no. Where an informant is receiving some benefit – money, or avoiding prosecution for a crime.
they may lose that benefit. But many informants receive no benefit.
Regardless, people are free to breach contracts all the time, and sometimes that has consequences.
“Twitter has no such agreement or contract.”
Of course they did – you remain ignorant of the facts.
The relationship of Twitter to the government at one time or another reflected every possible combination of bad conduct.
Twitter was asked,
it was paid under agreement
it was threatened.
it was overtly coerced.
It rarely said no,
Most requests/demands did not violate Twitter’s TOS.
The content censored acting for government was constitutionally protected political speech.
Almost all of Twitters censorship benefited on party.
Please actually read the Twitter files before embarrassing yourself further.
I guess facts do not matter to you.
Are you ever going to have the slightest familiarity with the facts regarding things you comment on
Never happen. Lots of friends in high places.
First, let’s be clear. The Field Offices were not involved in infowarfare. The problem exists in HQ. It’s likely more specific than that — the Counterintelligence branch. They can insinuate themselves into domestic affairs using the “defensive briefing” (warning American actors about foreign undue influence).
A big problem concerns the training these agents receive in PsyOps at Quantico. It’s infowarfare training, ostensibly to better equip in detecting and thwarting foreign-advesary infowarfare. But, do the students have to take an oath swearing that they will not use what they have learned proactively to deceive their fellow Americans?
I doubt it. The way the Hunter Biden laptop was handled by the FBI / intel sector “has all the earmarks of Quantico PsyOps training”.
We desperately need a unit created within DOJ/FBI that is vetted for political neutrality — the place where agents can go to for advice when facing into a sticky wicket. It’s also the “go to” for whistleblowers who see covert political meddling happening under the guise of casework.
“A big problem concerns the training these agents receive in” college and throughout the culture. They are taught to reject principles, and live by: The ends justifies the means. Fundamentally, it is that unprincipled approach to life that needs to be reformed.
Let’s be clear, headquarters is getting big time protection from big people in high places. I don’t see a change of leadership coming that’s going to change that. The ruling class goes on. God bless America.
The issue is the intersection of Counter intelligence and law enforcement.
Government agencies – FBI included are relatively free to do as they please in the domain of counter intelligence – SO LONG AS that work does not intersect with US PERSONS. When a counter intelligence activity encounters a US person, the constitutional rights of that US person must be respected. I.E. the much more restrictive rules of a criminal investigation must be followed.
The Entire Purpose of the FISA court is to deal with that intersection. When the FBI encounters a US Person in a counter inlelligence operation, They have 3 choices:
Mask the identity of the US Person, and do not follow leads involving that person.
Get a FISA Warrant, which allows counter intelligence to follow leads on that US person.
It should be noted that a FISA warant actually has a lower standard than a criminal warrant.
A FISA warrant is for a Counter Intelligence not Criminal investigation.
Get a Criminal Warrant
What we have with respect to Twitter is a Counter Intelligence group within the FBI targeting US Persons without either a criminal or FISA Warrant. That is unconstitutional.
While it is pretty self evident from real information on 2016 and 2020 that the Foreign “threat” to our elections is actually non-existant.
That to the extent that foreign nations attack US elections it is primarily to annoy, not to accomplish anything which is far beyond their ability.
The Evidence is that there is no justification for an enormous FBI Task force dealing with foreign social media influence on US elections.
But even presuming one is justified. The TFTI has gone far beyond its legitimate scope.
Excuse me, but, Field Offices we’re definitely involved, namely, the San Francisco field office!
Reform? Abolish the FBI!
Amen!
Lets start by Defunding them.
For all you history buffs
This Day in History – Dec. 26, 1862: 38 Dakota Men Were Executed by Order of Abraham Lincoln
This Day in History: Dec. 26, 1862 — On the day after Christmas, on Dec. 26, 1862, 38 Dakota men were hanged in the largest mass-hanging in U.S. history. The executions were ordered by President Abraham Lincoln.
Any doubt that have been tremendously serious misconduct by the FBI?
If you harbor any kind of doubt then you are blind to reality.
Turley is right….time for a new broom at the FBI….one that is not beholding to anyone at the FBI.
Come 2024 we have a chance to see that happen if we get a strong Republican with backbone win the Presidency….and the Republicans control the House and Senate.
It is a process that needs to happen…..clean out the rot in the Federal Government at the DOJ, DHS, IC, and the Military.
Congress needs to enact legislation that effectively deals with continuing oversight and find ways to hasten the review and investigation of issues at every level of the Federal Government.
I saw firsthand how the Church Committee and its results changed matters for the good and know such a repeat is needed today.
It won’t be pretty but then government’s operations are akin to Sausage Factories…..the end product is what counts.
Responding to Steve Witherspoon:
There are “totalitarian” wings of both parties.
The George W. Bush administration is really hard to beat with their policies.
Everyone should study the “Joseph Nacchio case” (former CEO of Qwest Communications. This happened about 6 months before 9/11.
Agreed, this is not a “party” thing, this is a “power” thing. The two parties are a distraction to keep us lowly citizens choosing up sides. Anyone who defends this behavior is being played or just plain stupid.
I always thought that the job of the FBI was to arrest criminals and not attack all their detractors as “conspiracy theorists”. It is disturbing to me that it worked to despoil Trump even as he campaigned in 2016 and again as he prepared to take office and was led by Comey through that process and then they continued to undermine his administration under Wray and withheld such important material as the Hunter Biden laptop during the 2020 campaign (virtually a 5th column). I also agree that certain members of congress held the FBI’s hand or provided the guiding hand as it perpetuated its harassment of Trump. Of course Trump is an easy target since his personality and narcissism is so off putting to many people and that seems to justify any action to take him down.
I’m not sure a Church committee would do the job. You may have to repeal the Patriot Act and put in place an investigative group untouched by the FBI with extraordinary powers and reach. I feel it would result in investigations that permeate congress, the FBI and the intelligence community and Homeland Security. All need reform, shrinkage or outright decapitation.
I think we established in the post WW2 era that “just following orders” is not a defense. There are legal and illegal orders and you’re supposed to know which they are and refuse the illegal ones.