From the “Stuff too weirdly mundane to pass as fiction” files. Gawker‘s Adrian Chen sternly warns us “Don’t Post Pictures of an FBI Tracking Device You Find on a Car to the Internet“, and links to a Wired report: “Caught Spying on Student, FBI Demands GPS Tracker Back“:
… Afifi, a business marketing student at Mission College in Santa Clara, discovered the device last Sunday when he took his car to a local garage for an oil change. When a mechanic at Ali’s Auto Care raised his Ford Lincoln LS on hydraulic lifts, Afifi saw a wire sticking out near the right rear wheel and exhaust… A closer inspection showed it connected to a battery pack and transmitter, which were attached to the car with a magnet.
[…] __
Afifi considered selling the device on Craigslist before the FBI showed up. He was in his apartment Tuesday afternoon when a roommate told him “two sneaky-looking people” were near his car. Afifi, already heading out for an appointment, encountered a man and woman looking his vehicle outside. The man asked if Afifi knew his registration tag was expired. When Afifi asked if it bothered him, the man just smiled. Afifi got into his car and headed for the parking lot exit when two SUVs pulled up with flashing lights carrying four police officers in bullet-proof vests.
__
The agent who initially spoke with Afifi identified himself then as Vincent and told Afifi, “We’re here to recover the device you found on your vehicle. It’s federal property. It’s an expensive piece, and we need it right now.”
__
Afifi asked, “Are you the guys that put it there?” and the agent replied, “Yeah, I put it there.” He told Afifi, “We’re going to make this much more difficult for you if you don’t cooperate.”…
__
The agents told Afifi they had other agents outside Khaled’s house. “If you want us to call them off and not talk to him we can do that,” Afifi said they told him. “That was weird. […] I didn’t really believe anything they were saying.”
__
The female agent, who handed Afifi a card, identified herself as Jennifer Kanaan and said she was Lebanese. She spoke some Arabic to Afifi and through the course of her comments indicated she knew what restaurants he and his girlfriend frequented. She also congratulated him on his new job. Afifi got laid off from his job a couple of days ago, but on the same day was hired as an international sales manager of laptops and computers for Cal Micro in San Jose.
[…] __
Afifi’s encounter with the FBI ended with the agents telling him not to worry.
__
“We have all the information we needed,” they told him. “You don’t need to call your lawyer. Don’t worry, you’re boring.”
Much more context at the Wired link.
On the one hand, I agree with Chen that “the level of detail the agents knew about Afifi’s life it details is chilling.” On the other… does it really “help the creeps out” to “post evidence of their shoddy work to the Internet” ? Should we be reassured that the FBI has so little to keep them gainfully occupied that they’re assigning this level of survelliance to 20-year-old business-marketing students in San Diego?
Or is it paranoid to wonder if “they” are pulling stunts like this just so us DFHs will assume our national watchmen are taking their cues from old Cheech & Chong routines?
eric
Just Driving while Dark taken to the next level.
Odie Hugh Manatee
Pretty damned creepy. I probably would have put the bug on a taxi and let them loose tracking it.
And laughed my ass of at it.
c u n d gulag
What the kid should have said:
“Dude, you’re a LOSER! You lost a GPS tracking device?”
I don’t know what bothers me more, the intrusions, or the sheer incompetence of these people. I mean, if we’re going to have a ‘Big Brother’ state, I would want my ‘big brother’ to not be a loser.
ASSHOLES!
All the more reason to not trust this kind of government intrusion into our lives. ‘Call me when you got something there Bud, until then, leave me the f*ck alone.’
Mumphrey
I guess the next Timothy McVeigh is sleeping better tonight. With the FBI following random law-abiding Arab Americans, the white, right-wing, teabagging would-be terrorists will have a free hand. That makes me feel so much better.
I’ve said it before: some congressman is going to get shot before this is all over. With the people who should be following this stuff harassing harmless students, the next Oswald is out there somewhere, just merrily getting nearer to fucking this country up badly.
Omnes Omnibus
@c u n d gulag: There is an element of intimidation in the indiscreet nature of the surveillance. It is as if they are saying, “Yeah, we are watching you. So what?” This attitude was common in Eastern Bloc totalitarian states. It is not a reassuring thought.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
I take this as just another sign of the decline of an empire.
Juicebagger
Hans Gruber: You asked for a miracle? I give you the F.B.I. . .
Jager
I’d like to see the “device” that goes under the hood and taps into the battery. Where exactly could they put it?
They couldn’t put one on most cars without actually breaking into the car to pop the hood. Cars are far too low to do it from underneath. Cars today have very well organized engine compartments, a strange wire would be noticed. I’m not so sure the engine diagnostics program wouldn’t pick up a wired in device. And the issue of actually having to break into your car…
superking
If someone puts stuff on your car, they should be abandoning the property. They can’t come back and try to get it again. He should have kept and made them sue him for conversion or whatever.
Dennis SGMM
Obligatory link to Rockwell, “Somebody’s Watching Me.”
I do wonder if the Hutaree Militia is being surveilled with the same diligence.
Kryptik
I guess this is probably the new norm. Arab-Americans have to presume that the FBI and CIA are watching them, because they just might, might, know someone who’s friends with someone who works with someone that donated money to a charity that was once donated to by someone with a relative who acts as a driver for someone in the Taliban. That or they look ‘sufficiently Muslim’ so they must obviously be a terrorist.
So when do they start surveiling the non-Arab-Americans who look sufficiently Muslim enough to probably register as terrorists to them?
Zifnab
If we don’t GPS tag random swarthy college students, the terrorists win.
Lesley
Sounds like the FBI hired Boris and Natasha.
monkeyboy
There is so much money budgeted to fighting terrorism and so little real terrorism and real suspicious activity going on that the money has to be spent some way.
At least this is better than the undercover recruiting of stupid people to be terrorists so they can be busted.
someguy
This is outrageous that the FBI is going around bullying innocent college students.
So much for hopinchange.
ET
Well as Republicans would say if you haven’t done anything wrong (or you aren’t brown with a middle eastern sounding last name) you don’t have anything to worry about.
Wonder how long it will be before the man with the middle eastern sounding name in the White House is bugged by FBI agents looking under every sofa and potted plant. It’s like the days of dear old J. Edgar again.
Omnes Omnibus
@someguy: “hopinchange?” How clever.
Face
How can they ask for the stuff back? Doesn’t it transfer ownership if it’s on the Scary Brown Dude(TM) ‘s car for 6 months?
Would he been arrested for destruction of property if he had instead decided to dismantle it?
David
Years ago I read in the Village Voice that the FBI had wire tapped a gay drug dealer who used the term “a friend of Dorothy’s” to refer to other gay guys. For months the FBI tried to figure out who this “Dorothy” was.
Kryptik
@ET:
According to most Republicans and Tea Partiers, you’re being redundant.
Citizen_X
@Omnes Omnibus: A Russian friend told me of the KGB, “If you knew that they were watching you, it’s because they wanted you to know.” He said they would take it to stereotypical extremes, including watching someone through eyeholes cut in a newspaper.
Brutal fuckers, but they did have a sense of humor!
Binzinerator
I thought a warrant is needed to do put a tracking device on someone’s car. That whole episode reads like a B-grade movie, including the heavy-handed “We know what you’re up to” bit, so I kinda doubt they bothered.
Of course movie spies never have to go back to recover their tracking bugs.
The Feebs oughta make theirs with a cool self-destruct effect, like that tape-recorder in the openings of the original Mission Impossible show.
Napoleon
If I ever found a GPS tracker on my car I would drive to the nearest place where it would be difficult to visually see me (like a parking deck or rest stop on a high way or something) and move it to another vehicle.
someguy
@Omnes Omnibus:
Well, I thought of saying ‘so much for the magical negro we elected to fix everything.’ But that seemed wordy.
BGinCHI
“Hey man, don’t answer the phone”
“Who is this?”
“Don’t answer the phone.”
I need to dig up my old C&C records.
cleek
@Binzinerator:
from the article:
—
and as far as his “innocence” and “randomness”: we don’t know either. the article didn’t give enough details to know anything about his innocence or his randomness. presumably the FBI had some reason to track him. it may have been a weak reason, or just a hunch, but they don’t just pick people at random out of the phone book.
no, i’m not saying he’s guilty of anything; merely that we don’t know what the FBI’s reason was.
still. no, i don’t approve of warrantless surveillance of any kind. in fact i’m barely comfortable with surveillance when there is a warrant (because warrants aren’t exactly hard to get).
wilfred
I guess there’s no point in asking AG Holder to look in to this.
Nah. Let’s look forward, not backward.
singfoom
Wait,
They’re putting tracking devices on people’s cars for their roommates stupid blog posts? Yeah, that’s a great use of our tax dollars.
So if you post “Durka durka Mohammed Jihad!!!”, does that get you an automatic tracking device?* At the very least, I hope this was put there with a warrant that was presented to a judge and renewed every 30 days…..
(*Waiting for his tracking device)
superking
@cleek:
The wired article gives more context and states that he is on a watch list and has trouble flying. It appears he is on the watch list because his father moved to Egypt a few years ago while he moved here and sends money back to his two brothers. It also said his roommate wrote a blog post that might have led them to think the roommate was up to something.
singfoom
@someguy:
You’re so right. Obama personally directs each and every FBI Agent. Seriously, can you not hold these two ideas in your head?
1)Institutions as large as the FBI do stupid shit that those above them in the Executive Branch would rather they wouldn’t do.
2)The larger the institution is, the more likely it is to have codified (whether formal or not) codes of behavior. Those codes take time to change even if there is an effort to change it.
Exactly how is a new President supposed to change said behavior in 2 years?
But, way to go on assigning blame for this moronic incident (which clearly belongs to the agents mentioned in the story) to Obama. Because, damn, that guy sucks, right? (OH SHIT, he’s listening to me RIGHT NOW!!)
Omnes Omnibus
@singfoom: It’s already there. They know about your type, buddy.
Steve in Iowa
Personally these surveillance guys sound competent enough that they would never “fall for the banana-in-the-tailpipe” gag. I am so relieved.
singfoom
@Omnes Omnibus: My aluminum foil underpants prevents their tracking me.
Omnes Omnibus
@singfoom: Ouch, is it worth the discomfort?
wilfred
@singfoom:
Well, maybe someone should look into the stupid shit and suggest putting a stop to it.
Mnemosyne
@wilfred:
Corner Stone? NobodySpecial? Why aren’t you here shouting, “Nothing can be done!” at wilfred? You know, when it’s actually appropriate to mock someone because they’re saying nothing can be done to fix a problem.
Given that the current director of the FBI is a Bush appointee, I’m not sure why you think there’s no point in pressuring AG Holder to investigate, but I guess once you decide nothing can be done, sitting on your ass looks like the logical thing to do.
Erik Vanderhoff
San Jose, not San Diego, Anne. They’re only about 500 miles apart, so I can understand the confusion. Santa Clara is a suburb of San Jose.
Interestingly enough, our local paper in San Jose hasn’t picked up this story at all.
someguy
@singfoom:
You fuckers act like everything that anybody in government did in the last administration was Bush’s fault, and most of what the government fucks up still is Bush’s fault, right down to the most trivial thing. But now we can’t blame Obama for the runaway FBI that he doesn’t appear to be doing anything to rein in, 21 months into his presidency? If they were bullying that student ‘legally’ then it was done with a warrant, and DOJ is at fault. If they were doing it without a warrant, then the story should include something about a half dozen agents being placed on administrative leave pending investigation.
What the fuck use is an election if the president isn’t going to take charge of and be accountable for what the executive branch does?
Seriously – at what point do you start assigning at least some blame for what the Executive Branch does to the guy on top? 2013, when there’s a Republican president again, maybe?
Binzinerator
@cleek: Yeah, I saw that after I commented and too late to edit. I agree we don’t know anything about what’s going on there.
And I too think warrant-less surveillance is just horrible.
edit:
I assumed it has something to do with his father being a community organizer who had a connection to people in Egypt (article says he died there).
Comrade Darkness
I wonder if we aren’t seeing witch hunting here. Meaning by that, someone doesn’t like you, you are vaguely swarthy, so all your frienemy has to do is tip off the fbi and they f*ck around with you for a while until they get bored. I really can’t imagine they are doing this totally randomly. Even Boris and Natasha wannabes need some direction in their lives. It’s either a tipoff (which is going to be bogus a huge % of the time) or it’s a data driven half-assed computer match on some profile.
@David: hahahaha. That’s great.
@superking: That would be a great case to take to court. Nope, it’s mine. Sue me if you want it back. And no, you won’t find it in my apartment. And btw, I wrapped it in copper foil so you certainly won’t locate it the normal way.
Omnes Omnibus
@someguy: A question for you: When will you see something that the government has done wrong and not place the blame personally on Obama?
Legalize
The size of that device contradicts everything I’ve learned from the movies, i.e. that tracking devices are actually tiny magnetic things with a blinking red light on them that permit men in suits in a room with a big map on the wall to watch you sit in traffic on the way to the liquor store.
singfoom
@someguy: Hey, asshole. First, start with reading comprehension:
As other commenters will surely say, I’m no fucking Obot. I’ve got my disappointments with his policies and the strategy he’s taken on many things. I get called names like Firebagger here when I talk about my disappointment with the civil liberties record of this administration and tons of other shit.
However, in this case, I was speaking specifically of this incident and I find the idea that you can blame Obama for this absolutely laughable.
As in, I am laughing in your face, falling down on the floor. Looking at you again and then laughing some more. Sure, I would like the AG to stop this, but then you have rulings like this one: http://blog.lawinfo.com/2010/08/27/recently-decided-law-allows-police-to-track-your-car-with-gps/
You know, the one that says they are able to do this without a warrant. I find that absolutely against everything I think this country stands for. But finding Obama personally at fault for the FBI doing something after that Federal Appeals court said they could do it?
Absolutely laughable to blame him for this. (Laughs in @someguys face, falls down laughing, laughs some more)
Jay in Oregon
If it was a DFH commie Democrat, some would argue that it was a feature of the system, not a bug…
someguy
@Omnes Omnibus:
You’re right.
Nothing is Obama’s fault. He’s just a poor little helpless dude, with no power. I shouldn’t have expected more. Like the cessation of our many wars on brown people. Or the closure of Gitmo. Or getting the law enforcement agencies to stop their unceasing war on Arabs. Or any of it.
Sorry. I won’t criticize the president again for anything the Executive Branch does. It’s clearly not his fault. Thanks for keeping me in line – wouldn’t want to criticize anybody for what is clearly – like all other things including the wart on my ass – Bush’s fault.
Juicebagger
No, what’s terrible is that this ‘bad cop, worse cop’ crap is just tacky. Have these college-educated brownshoes been fed a diet of stright Clancy and L&O? Can we at least get some fresh material, because this warmed-over crap sounds better in the original German.
Cris
So, can we be certain that these were actually FBI agents, and not Men in Black?
Punchy
No warrant necy, eh? Wow, I’d hate to be the ex-spouse in a bitter divorce from a FBI employee, or a fellow FBI employee who’s gotten a promotion ahead of jealous others. Not sure I would want them to know how many times a day I visit my local gay Islamic abortion clinic.
Comrade Darkness
@Legalize: Because it is mounted near so much metal and has to reach the satellites from under the car, it needs a lot of power, and a decent antenna. Those just take space. Those bugs in the wall that transmit a few feet to a repeater, those are the tiny movie things you are thinking about, and those are very small. Well, that and movies totally suck suck suck at presenting technology. One of the reasons I can’t stand to watch movies…
@singfoom: You remind me of the usenet days. There was a plugin for emacs email called (if I remember right) “spook”. Since the feds were rumored to be reading everyone’s email (yeah all 10000 or so hippy researchers who were online at the time) it was determined best to foil them by randomly appending 10 words from a long watch list to the bottom of every message.
Xecky Gilchrist
us DFHs will assume our national watchmen are taking their cues from old Cheech & Chong routines?
I was thinking more Notorious Norbert, but yeah, this.
Juicebagger
Yes, it is terrible that Obama has no power to direct the practices of Executive Branch agencies. Wait, what?
someguy
@singfoom:
And BTW, you think that the ruling in favor of the FBI on the tracking case was the result of briefs filed by the FBI? Sorry, they don’t do their own litigation. DOJ does, and US attorneys. I won’t blame Obama for that, however, since he doesn’t have anything to do with appointing US attorneys or whoever it is that runs the DOJ – another Bush appointee I suppose. I guess career lawyer holdovers were probably responsible for that bad ruling.
cleek
@someguy:
you must be new to lefty blogs.
some of us blame Obama for everything.
NobodySpecial
@Mnemosyne:
Because I’m sure this isn’t the first time the FBI’s been following random people who might be too left of center for the Tea Party, and I doubt it will be the last. Really, if you want some civil rights outrage, you need to manufacture some yourself this time, because anyone who’s been outraged at stuff like ‘state secrets’ and extrajudicial assassination legality thinks that this isn’t anything special anymore.
celticdragonchick
@superking:
I was thinking the same thing.
Also, the moment I found it, it would be introduced to a sledgehammer. If they got it back at all, it would be in a plastic grocery bag.
Mnemosyne
@Cris:
It depends — did either of them look like Alex Trebek?
Juicebagger
someguy: No, it’s a manichean n-dimensional chess game to allow magic sparkle ponies to strike down the bad behavior through the court of public opinion. The Obama administration would never use such nefarious tactics unless it was a totally defensible attempt to undermine the use of such powers, because Congressional Republicans, that’s why.
Mr Furious
@celticdragonchick:
It’s all fun and games until the President personally targets you for assassination.
Mnemosyne
@NobodySpecial:
In other words, nothing can be done, so we may as well stand by and watch it happen.
Fascinating how you guys scream “Nothing can be done!” every time someone wants to try a new political strategy, but when something should actually be done, you shrug your shoulders and say, “Eh, what are you gonna do? Is ‘American Idol’ on yet?”
daveNYC
Behavior at federal agencies is difficult to change, but I’d say that two years should be enough time to do something about it.
After two years, I’d say it’s pretty obvious that Obama is pretty sucktastic when it comes to civil liberties. Better than Bush, but that’s a damn low bar.
NobodySpecial
@Mnemosyne: I wasn’t aware that Third Way style pre-compromise with the right was a new political strategy.
And if you want to excoriate us for not caring anymore, maybe you should have agreed with us on those really serious issues mentioned above, instead of mockery. If you really wanted people screaming about civil liberties, you couldn’t have picked a better way to not do it than the tactics shown on this board.
No, really, you won the debate. 11D chess and all that, and Obama doesn’t really mean to continue bad policies on civil liberties, and it’ll all be straightened out. What, you don’t like victories?
Cris
@Mnemosyne: You’re feeling very sleepy.
Randy P
@Citizen_X: Cold war story. Scientist travels to the Soviet Union. Finds the expected bugs in his room, disables them. Next day when he goes back to his room, he finds several pairs of his pants neatly laid out on the bed with the crotch cut out.
And the bugs restored.
On the other hand, here’s another story where the joke is on the KGB. Scientist travels to the Soviet Union. At his room he gets a knock on the door. A beautiful scantily-clad young woman is there. He turns her down. A little while later there is another knock. A beautiful scantily-clad young MAN is there. He turns him down.
A little while later, another knock. Another, even more beautiful woman. He says to himself “what the hell” and invites her in, where he proceeds to make love to her. With a pillowcase over his head.
—————–
These aren’t jokes. They are actual stories.
JohnR
Round up the usual suspects and have a pointless argument over semantics and (wilfull?) misunderstandings!
Anyway, I wonder if I’m the only one vastly amused that a shrill minority of people are wielding more political power than the presumed large “silent majority” in this country. Of course the difference here is that this shrill minority is (a) fighting for their right to live in a police state, and (b) are therefore backed by the vast resources of those who feel that a police state is Good For Business.
singfoom
@Juicebagger:
C’mon, I’m not saying that the President doesn’t have power over agencies in the Executive Branch. What I’ve tried to repeatedly get across is that institutional momentum is a bitch and that while there’s a valid argument to be made about Obama’s civil rights record (I find it atrocious, especially given that he taught Constitutional law), I find the assertion that he is personally responsible for this episode silly. It’s not blaming Bush and it’s not claiming total innocence in terms of the administration for this, it’s just pointing out that this was an incident that should be laid at the feet of the FBI agents who took this specific action.
Is there secondary blame for the DOJ to argue that position that they don’t need a warrant to track your car? Yes. Am I disappointed in the way that Obama has directed or not directed the DOJ since his term began? Absolutely, in multiple ways….
The way someguy posed it, it’s as if Obama personally directed these agents to do this Keystone Kops bullshit. How many fucking steps up the hierarchical pyramid is he?
But hey, let’s just blame him for everything.
(I never suggested nothing be done..)
Juicebagger
singfoom: Being at the apex is a real bitch, innit? T would be one thing if these agentsx were violating procedural directives and standards, but what makes you think this isn’t BAU?
Comrade Darkness
For the record the three judge panel that rejected hearing the appeal (which lets the lower court ruling stand) are:
O’SCANNLAIN : white male, Reagan Appointee
SMITH, Randy : BYU grad (no race given, so I’m tossing that in there as a substitute) Bush II appointee
WOLLE : Harvard grad (no race given) Reagan Appointee
This is why the Senate republicans are stonewalling 56% of Obama’s appointments. F*cking over the rights of the citizenry requires kangaroo courts and kangaroo courts require old white male Republican presidential appointments.
Link to the case
fucen tarmal
if the fbi ever put a device on my car, i am parking windows down, keys in the ignition, like i am praying for someone to steal it, it would be worth the potential loss of an insurance deductable, just to see if the fbi scrambles the black helicopters to make sure my car remains safe. or better if it is stolen, having established that i am aware that the device is there, see what happens when local cops are put upon, to have to ask the fbi for their records, and give the tip to the local media to publicize the law enforcement ratfucking in progress….
hey i would be doing my civic duty, showing the fbi and others where to find real criminals….
of course, i don’t spend a lot of money on motor vehicles as i consider them one of the worst things in the world to waste money on, so i can afford to be blaise.
Comrade Darkness
(continued from previous post so two links does get me spamboxxed)
For the record Alex Kozinski another Reagan appointee wrote a dissenting opinion to the decision. He’s conservative as hell and Romanian by birth. A blaring reminder that diversity on the courts is hella importante and that should be kept in mind every time the chattering classes get their lily white dander up when a brown gets appointed.
From part of Kozinski’s dissent
Full dissent
Btw, read the dissent, it’s pretty good. Reads like a flaming liberal wrote it. But no, just an actually living a breathing conservative. The rare, non-flaming batshit insane, peeing their pants whackjobs that seem to have taken over the word “conservative”.
Corner Stone
@Mnemosyne:
Mainly because I think you completely comprehension FAIL at reading wilfred’s post.
WyldPirate
@someguy:
He someguy, you have to excuse all of the Obama apologists here. They can’t see for the Obama nutsack covering their eyes nor speak and think intelligibly due to oxygen deprivation from either fellating him or frantically making up excuses when they have a free moment to breathe.
Some of the Obama apologists here are as disgusting as the crazed Bush apologists were. And they’re just as wrong and full of shit as well.
The buck stops at Obama’s fucking desk people.
Socraticsilence
I’m actually kind of curious to see how they would have prosecuted if the kid had sold the bug.
uloborus
You people are weird. My brother was investigated by the FBI. It’s not exactly uncommon. If you do something suspicious (in his case, running his mouth off claiming he knew someone who could buy C4) that falls in their purview, they take a look at you. When they realize you’re not involved in anything they stop looking at you. In this case they pretty much just followed him around a little and got some publicly available information like a change of jobs. Nothing a PI couldn’t do. Apparently they can legally put a tracking device on his car without a warrant now, and I’m not thrilled by that, but that’s not FBI overreach – it’s damage done by Bush’s expansion of security state authority, and it has to do with laws and judicial judgments, not things the FBI took on itself.
This isn’t discrimination. He’s not some random Arab-American. There are very vaguely suspicious things in his record that made them do a mild investigation and go ‘eh’. They don’t wait until they know damn sure someone’s a terrorist to investigate. That would be dumb. They’d never find out who was a terrorist. The conversation sounds unprofessional the way it was described, but have you ever played the game ‘telephone’? Conversations passed through multiple people are wildly unreliable.
Seriously, guys, for police state antics, this is not merely small potatoes, it’s the crumb you find at the bottom of your french fry box.
Demanding the tracking device back is hilarious, but notice they didn’t steal it from him. They went ‘Hey, you’ve got our tracking device. Legally you gotta give it back.’
Omnes Omnibus
@someguy: That wasn’t what I said. My point was that you seem to be one who reflexively blames Obama for everything. It is the flip side of the coin, but way to overreact.
Comrade Darkness
@uloborus: An ordinary FBI investigation require 4 extra muscle cops in half-SWAT gear? Seriously?
This is intimidation. “Investigation” is something one does without jerking the target around personally, dangling the personal shit they learned about you, making veiled threats. None of that is necessary for an “investigation”. Jesus.
gnomedad
Not that the teabaggers will think any of this is a threat to LIBERTY!!!
uloborus
@Comrade Darkness:
No, getting back what is technically stolen government property involves that. And again, you’re hearing a conversation… what, third hand? From sources that are not friendly? Intimidation? Please.
And bear in mind, it’s almost impossible for the FBI to do anything that’s not intimidating. There *ARE* no friendly circumstances to find out you’re being investigated. ‘You live at 1234 Generic Drive, correct?’ sounds like ‘We know where you live.’ In fact, it BECOMES ‘We know where you live.’ by the time it’s passed through a couple of people.
Give me actual evidence that the FBI are trying to intimidate Arab-Americans and I’ll be outraged. This ain’t it. This is a story that just sounds bad but means squat.
Mnemosyne
@Corner Stone:
No, I think I comprehend it fine. And I comprehend what you mean just fine when you start screaming, “Nothing can be done!” every time someone suggests that maybe the current strategy needs to be re-thought.
Mnemosyne
@NobodySpecial:
Yes, it’s all my fault that you’ve decided to curl up into a ball and not care anymore while the teabaggers run rampant. I guess I’ll have to personally apologize to the nation when they win the House since, after all, it was my arguments that it’s a bigger deal for the government to target an innocent guy than it is for them to target the spiritual adviser to the 9/11 hijackers that demoralized all of the Democrats.
The right wing worked for 30 years to cement the position of power they’re in now, and they’re still working on it every day. Why did you think the whole problem would be solved within 2 years?
Kyle
When he found the tracking device he should have attached it to the nearest car with Baja plates. Good luck recovering your Stasi toy from Mexico.
This shit was going on before Bush, but he ramped it up 10x and now there’s so much institutional momentum that it’s going to take a monumental effort amid much kicking and screeching from fucktards about “soft on terrism” to rein it in, if anyone will even try.
Which is why you don’t casually unleash the Security State in the first place.
singfoom
@WyldPirate:
Yes, because noting that there are other external circumstances that should be considered when assigning blame and the proportion of blame to different individuals makes you a crazy irrational apologist.
Have you ever even seen the color gray?
Eat a dick.
Corner Stone
@Mnemosyne:
You continue to surprise me. Every time I think you can’t FAIL any harder you somehow manage to outdo yourself.
Bravo.
Wilfred’s post was that there was someone with power who could *actually* do something about these scenarios, but apologists like yourself refuse to acknowledge that.
When I summarize people to say “Nothing can be done!” it’s because they are commenting that things should be done differently but apparently there is no one with the power to do so.
Mnemosyne
@Corner Stone:
How is my saying, “We should pressure Holder to stop this kind of shit” refusing to acknowledge that there are people with power who can do something about it?
Zach
The curse of fuzzy dunlop
Juicebagger
Apparantly the chain-of-command in the executive branch was conceived by Bill Keane. President Not Me? Attorney General Ida Know?
Bad enough that the pat Juicebagger answer is “but, congress,” now the Chief Executive is powerless in his own branch of government, too.
Mnemosyne
@Corner Stone:
It’s true, there is no magic man who can single-handedly step in and fix things. It will take collective action with lots of people doing a portion of the work, even if that portion is just calling your senator and representative as often as the teabaggers do.
I’m sorry that your superhero who can fix everything with a wave of his hand will never emerge, but that’s how life works.
someguy
@Mnemosyne:
In all seriousness, appellate briefs don’t get filed without the DOJ front office, DOJ Appellate Section and the Solicitor General’s office signing off on them, or at least receiving notice well ahead of time of the contents. If the position taken by the government was that no warrant is needed – it could not have been something else because surely the defendant was not urging that position – this was a major issue and the position was agreed to by the DOJ front office and its key high level appellate law offices. That’s why it’s maddening to me that nobody is willing to assign blame for this atrocity of a ruling. It didn’t occur in a vacuum.
Vince CA
This hits waaaay to close to home. I’ve taken adult ed classes at Mission College and I have a relative who used to be a VP at CMD.
On the other hand, I’m glad he found a job. It’s no fun to be laid off. But that’s a creepy way of congratulating him.
ruemara
@someguy:
wow. Fuck off.
Corner Stone
@Mnemosyne: You misunderstood wifred’s post, then for some bizarre reason called me out on it. That is why you FAIL.
I do not care what you say Holder should or shouldn’t do. You failed to comprehend the message in wifred’s post. That is what I commented on after your bizarre screeching.
Corner Stone
@Mnemosyne: You are willfully obtuse.
Mnemosyne
@Corner Stone:
So wilfred wasn’t saying it’s completely useless to even complain to AG Holder about this? What was he saying, then, since you can use your psychic powers to determine what he meant.
The message in wilfred’s post was, “There’s no point in even complaining about this because Obama didn’t prosecute Bush war crimes.” I got that from the “look forward, not back” part.
I’m not sure what secret message you were getting from it, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t, “We should flood AG Holder’s office with angry messages about this so he will do something.”
someguy
@ruemara:
Snappy comeback! Who writes your material?
NobodySpecial
@Mnemosyne: How about this secret message?
I don’t expect Holder/Obama to be any much different than Kennedy…or Nixon…or Carter…or Reagan…or any of them.
The executive branch loves to hold powers and rarely gives them back. The FBI is a tool of the executive branch. None of the others curtailed the FBI much regardless of what was done by them, and neither will Obama.
That’s what was meant by ‘hopinchange’. Obama hasn’t rolled back anything related to the executive power grabs under Bush, and he’s not going to roll back anything that was around before Bush, either.
Mnemosyne
@NobodySpecial:
I don’t expect them to do it out of the kindness of their hearts. I do expect that if we can get enough people together to complain about this shit that it can’t be dismissed as a few DFH’s, we can get a little movement. But if we don’t complain about it — and I mean complain every single time — then you’re right, nothing will happen.
In the thread above, TooManyJens highlighted a quote from This Week in Blackness that says what I’m trying to say:
drkrick
@daveNYC:
When was the last President who wasn’t sucktastic about civil liberties? I’d rule out everyone back to Hoover, at which point I don’t know enough to have an opinion. That’s pretty much the modern era. Either being decent about civil liberties is politically disqualifying or we’re looking at a heck of a coincidence.
drkrick
@Socraticsilence:
I don’t think criminal prosecution would be the plan. More like the equivalent of the guy who got the crotch cut out of his pants, only more so. Law enforcement doesn’t need a judge to make your life difficult – look at how many dogs and people they kill with tasers with impunity.
Bernard
that Obama can’t be held accountable, that Bush opened the door and now it’s way too late to say anything, cause you are not a Real American if you do.
phrases like. Strike while the iron is hot, comes to mind. or the barn door is wide open and the horse is long done, also comes to mind.
also, no one can get mad at Obama for being Bush 111. or say anything negative about Obama.
seems just like when Bush was in, though, Obama has an excuse Bush didn’t. though i have no clue what Obama’s excuse is.
in any case, it is fun to watch the Obama nuts call people who criticize Obama as Firebaggers. kind of like that video telling us if we don’t vote Blue Team, Sarah Palin will win! this is 11D chess folks. two different games with two different rules.
my side is better than your side. and i’ve got the proof!!!!!
j
He should have tossed it into a garbage can at a McDonald’s drive-thru and make those Keystone Kops follow a garbage truck all the way to a landfill.