Facebook and CIA conspiracy theory

Danell Zorn

New Member
My nephew hates facebook. He says that the CIA and Facebook have joined forces to gather information about all of us. He posted a link to my FB page telling me to watch the following link on Youtube: "Close your facebook account". Please watch it and let me know what you think.

 
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It's a joke. It's from The Onion, a satirical web site that creates fake news stories.

Many a true word spoken in jest. Just because it is satirical doesn't mean it isn't true. Think these things should be investigated more before they are written off.

http://www.businessinsider.com/nsa-whistleblower-william-binney-explains-nsa-surveillance-2012-8

"The danger here is that we fall into a totalitarian state," Binney says. "This is something the KGB, the Stasi or the Gestapo would have loved to have had."

Binney details how the top-secret surveillance program, the scope of which has never been made public, can track electronic activities—phone calls, emails, banking and travel records, social media—and map them to collect "all the attributes that any individual has" in every type of activity and build a profile based on that data.

 
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_electronic_surveillance_program
When classified details were leaked to the press at some point in 2005, critics began to question the legality of the program. The crux of the debate over legality is twofold, the main issues being


  1. Are the parameters of this program subject to FISA and
  2. If so, did the president have authority, inherent or otherwise, to bypass FISA.
FISA explicitly covers "electronic surveillance for foreign intelligence information" performed within the United States, and there is no court decision supporting the theory that the president's constitutional authority allows him to override statutory law. This was emphasized by fourteen constitutional law scholars, including the dean of Yale Law School and the former deans of Stanford Law School and the University of Chicago Law School:
"The argument that conduct undertaken by the commander in chief that has some relevance to 'engaging the enemy' is immune from congressional regulation finds no support in, and is directly contradicted by, both case law and historical precedent. Every time the Supreme Court has confronted a statute limiting the commander in chief’s authority, it has upheld the statute. No precedent holds that the president, when acting as commander in chief, is free to disregard an Act of Congress, much less a criminal statute enacted by Congress, that was designed specifically to restrain the president as such." (Emphasis in original.)[32] The American Bar Association, the Congressional Research Service, former congressional representative of New York Elizabeth Holtzman, former White House Counsel John Dean, and lawyer/author Jennifer van Bergen have also criticized the administration's justification for conducting electronic surveillance within the U.S. without first obtaining warrants as contrary to current U.S. law. [29] [33] [34] [35] [36] [37] President Bush's former Assistant Deputy Attorney General for national security issues, David Kris, and five former FISC judges, one of whom resigned in protest, have also voiced their doubts as to the legality of a program bypassing FISA [38] Stanford's Chip Pitts has usefully distinguished between the core NSA eavesdropping program, the data mining program, and the use of National Security Letters to clarify that each continues to present serious legal problems despite the government's supposedly bringing them within the relevant laws.[39]


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Stop and think, please. It would take thousands of folks to monitor what is being posted on FB. Even FB depends on algorithms to 'punish' accounts that violate their rules.

I don't know if someone under investigation could be monitored, but I see a lot of posts that should have the FBI showing up at folks doors and they don't. Look at all the threats against the President that show up on FB, the threats against others. The threats of revolution and such.

Don't forget that anyone that wants to cover their presence can use a proxy as well.
 
Thomas Drake was ultimately convicted on a misdemeanor after a plea deal.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-20064396.html

Drake tried to get the word out. But now, as a result, he has been charged under the Espionage Act of 1917 and if convicted of all charges could spend the next 35 years of his life in prison. The government says he betrayed his country.

"From the government and prosecution's point of view, it's an important case to state that if you're a government person and you signed a confidentiality agreement and you've got a security clearance based on your promise to keep our secrets secret, that you don't get the right as an individual to decide when that secret should be kept or not because you've decided that the government is right or wrong about something it wants to do," Lowell explained.
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Stop and think, please. It would take thousands of folks to monitor what is being posted on FB. Even FB depends on algorithms to 'punish' accounts that violate their rules.

I don't know if someone under investigation could be monitored, but I see a lot of posts that should have the FBI showing up at folks doors and they don't. Look at all the threats against the President that show up on FB, the threats against others. The threats of revolution and such.

Don't forget that anyone that wants to cover their presence can use a proxy as well.
There are agencies which use keyword capture to ID postings of note . . . when the computers locate connections between frequency, word associations and source . . . someone is asked to take a look . . . yes many people are involved but not as many as you might think . . . legally you can capture and store all electronic communication . . . you cannot review it without a court order . . . but if you have reason to believe there is criminal activity the court order is very possible . . . who knows what is possible under the Patriot Act . . .
 
Stop and think, please. It would take thousands of folks to monitor what is being posted on FB. Even FB depends on algorithms to 'punish' accounts that violate their rules.

I don't know if someone under investigation could be monitored, but I see a lot of posts that should have the FBI showing up at folks doors and they don't. Look at all the threats against the President that show up on FB, the threats against others. The threats of revolution and such.

Don't forget that anyone that wants to cover their presence can use a proxy as well.

No doubt you will not be offended if people discount your assurances

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/29/former-marine-facebook-sue-fbi

A former US marine who was taken from his home and involuntarily detained for psychiatric evaluation for posting controversial song lyrics and conspiracy theories on Facebook is to file a civil lawsuit against the FBI and police.

Speaking for the first time since his release, after a judge ruled there was insufficient evidence to detain him, Brandon Raub said his experience was frightening and that it sent a "extremely alarming" message to Americans.
His case has sparked vigorous online debate over First Amendment rights versus concerns over security.
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Raub, 26, a former combat engineer who has served in Iraq and Afghanistan, was taken forcibly from his home in Chesterfield County, Virginia, by two FBI agents and police on 16 August. He was not charged with any crime. After talking with FBI agents, he was handcuffed and detained in a psychiatric hospital for seven days before a judge ruled on 23 August that there was not sufficient evidence to keep him there.
Woof.

So, Cairenn? What say you now?
 
I remember that Brandon Raub incident. Civilians alerted the FBI to some specific threats he made regarding sharpening axes and chopping heads or something to that effect, but the so called "patriots" or "truthers" or whatever they call themselves don't want you to know that. Did you ever stop to think that maybe they decided to take him into custody because he seemed a bit unhinged?
 
FB is public - anything you say on there is available to anyone to read, including law enforcement agencies. They need no search warrants, they do not have to do it secretly at all if they do not want - it is as if you were standing on the Capitol steps shouting it to the world and they choose to stand in front of you and listen.

Given the long time existence of ECHELON and the ability to automate searches for keywords, it is naive to think that law enforcement agencies are not "browsing" it.

Raub was detained under mental health regulations allowing emergency temporary custody - among his other postings was "Sharpen my axe; I'm here to sever heads."
 
I remember that Brandon Raub incident. Civilians alerted the FBI to some specific threats he made regarding sharpening axes and chopping heads or something to that effect, but the so called "patriots" or "truthers" or whatever they call themselves don't want you to know that. Did you ever stop to think that maybe they decided to take him into custody because he seemed a bit unhinged?
lol, it's right there in the article, actually... he quoted a rap-lyric, "Sharpen up my axe: I'm here to sever heads", from the song Bring Me Down by Swolen Members. How many rap lyrics about violence get quoted on Facebook every day, do you think? Several hundred thousand I'd bet. He also happened to be a 'truther' himself. For posting a violent rap lyric, and being a truther, this officer of the united states military who served at least two terms in two separate foreign nations in service to his country, pictured in the article literally embracing a puppy in a desert, was taken into custody and held without charges, and without being read his rights, for OVER A WEEK. Last time I checked, if someone seems 'a bit unhinged' the customary thing to do is ask them if they're alright, not causelessly detain them for days at a time with no access to legal counsel, and then make an effort to have him groundlessly committed in the long-term.

It blows my mind that folks are trying to defend something so totally fucked up. These are YOUR most basic rights being stepped on here.
 
Some facts on why Raub was released:

Facebook-posting Marine veteran released from hospital - Stafford County Sun: News
Hopewell Circuit Judge W. Allan Sharrett found that a document ordering Raub's transfer this week from a Hopewell hospital to the Salem VA Medical Center was faulty and "so devoid of any factual allegations that it could not be reasonably expected to give rise to a case or controversy."

Raub, 26, was released from the Salem hospital shortly after 5 p.m.

The case raises anew concerns about Virginia's civil commitment proceedings for mentally ill people, proceedings that were overhauled after Virginia Tech mass murderer Seung-Hui Cho underwent a similar process that upon closer scrutiny was shown to be full of deficiencies and miscommunications between caregivers and the judicial system.

Raub's release follows a procedural error, the failure of a special justice to check off on a petition for involuntary admission to a hospital the elemental findings about Raub's mental condition. Sharrett likened the faulty order to an arrest warrant that lists no specific illegality.

The order was signed Monday by Special Justice W. Douglas Stokes, but the boxes on a form designating the nature of Raub's condition were not marked. Court files, however, show that Raub had undergone mental-health assessments shortly after being taken into custody Aug. 16 and was found to be mentally ill and a danger to others.
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It's very easy to get someone hauled off to the looney bin. I had a crazy roommate who would stop taking her medication and slowly slide into crazy. My other roommate and I had to practically babysit her to prevent her from harming herself. Twice we had her committed. The first time we didn't know what to do and called her ex-husband for advice. Her 12 yo daughter answered the phone and she said to call 911! We did and starting explaining "we have a mentally ill woman who stopped taking her medication and---" when the operator stopped us and said she was sending the police out. That's all it took. a 30 second phone call. It really sucked having to do that because she was the nicest person in the world but she was a danger to herself.

The big difference with Raub is he had a PR campaign.
 
Of course there are key word programs, but they have to look at a LOT more than just key words. Take some reasonable key words; attack, plague, cops, shots fired, flu, first responder, North Korea, brown out, grid, food poisoning, recovery, tornado, drill ---I have seen all these listed on a 'the list' of keywords.

Here are all uses I have most likely used in the last year

I need to ATTACK that assh*** that raided me last night, Can you imagine, he thought he could farm me (war game)
The killing of witches and their feline 'familiars' was one reason the rat population grew and that allowed for the Black PLAGUE to erupt. (medieval history)
I called the COPS last night when I heard some SHOTS FIRED fired on the street back of me (telling a friend about something that happened)
I have been lucky, not to get the FLU this year
A friend was telling me about the health issues that one of their friends is having, he was a FiRST RESPONDER on 9/11.
My last package of cancelled stamps included some from North KOREA and CUBA. (ordering stamps for jewelry)
I wonder what happened, we had a BROWN OUT last night and it wasn't even storming
I have to wonder how many of the whinners about oil companies are living off the GRID (complaining about the anti oil folks)
I have to be careful, preparing raw chicken, or I will get FOOD POISONING, I am real sensitive to one of the BACTERIA that are often found in them
When my Dad had his jaw surgery, he was in surgery for over 11 hours and that did not include his time in RECOVERY
That TORNADO that was on the news tossing trailers around was about 5-6 miles south east of me
I bought a new DRILL at the bead show yesterday.

I could add many more. but I think my point is made. Even key words would overwhelm the algorithms, they do to FBs all the time.

Look at all the key words that show up here. I am sure that they do use it on SOME account. but not all, by any means.
 
It blows my mind that folks are trying to defend something so totally fucked up. These are YOUR most basic rights being stepped on here.

Exactly.

This has nothing to do with FB really. If something is posted public on there then so be it... but it's about all your emails, tweets, facebook posts, contact lists, bank details, phone conversations everything... all being hoovered up by the NSA and stored Perhaps people have not bothered watching the video's and doing a minor amount of research :confused:

BTW the sharpen axes etc were song lyrics and he is a CTist... Wonder why?:)
 
The big difference with Raub is he had a PR campaign.
You make it sound like he had every reason to be committed, but managed to slip through the cracks thanks to publicity.
"Raub was the subject of an unlawful detention" and the involuntary commitment order "is based almost entirely on information and evaluations improperly obtained during that unlawful detention," lawyers Anthony F. Troy and Brian D. Fowler argued in court papers.
Those lawyers seemed to think an evaluation of someone's mental health taken while they've been unlawfully detained by the FBI with no charges leveled doesn't count for much. The judge seemed to agree. Do you know better?
 
There is a difference between explaining and defending. Pretty much every country has ruels for involuntary detention for psychiatric assessment, and they are almost always contentious when applied and are quite often found wanting in theory or practice or both.

that doesn't mean that the incorrect application of them is a conspiracy. The fact that the law system dealt with this erroneous case (and indeed many others) shows that in fact "the system" can, and usually does, work.
 
That is one of the problems, if you make the laws too liberal, innocent folks will get detained, if they are too strict, you get something like Sandy Hook, where the mom couldn't get him committed. No one will know, but my guess is that she may well have triggered him by threatening to have him committed.

Is there any evidence that they just 'stumbled' over Raub? Or had someone reported him? One of the pro BP guys is sort of an asshat, and he posted a picture of a cartoon bird with a a gun sights cross hairs over it, and he made some comment to a real asshole of a troll, along the lines of 'I love to get squawking birds in my sights". (the guy he said this to has been VERY nasty to me and the other ladies, even to calling us F****** C****, written out of course). Dan reported it to the FBI and Wayne got a visit. He had the screenshots of all the posts and the FBI saw that it was just innocent mocking. In fact they weren 't sure they would have been as patient as he has.

Often folks will not tell you ALL of the story, just what makes them look like a victim
 
There is a difference between explaining and defending. Pretty much every country has ruels for involuntary detention for psychiatric assessment, and they are almost always contentious when applied and are quite often found wanting in theory or practice or both.

that doesn't mean that the incorrect application of them is a conspiracy. The fact that the law system dealt with this erroneous case (and indeed many others) shows that in fact "the system" can, and usually does, work.

It seems like defending to me. Instead of just saying 'they can be found wanting', which is probably very little consolation to the ones who are politically targeted or simply 'dragged in' in the net; if people were to actively campaign against these civil rights abuses in sufficient numbers; things may just change.

The fact that some like it is neither here nor there... it is actually illegal and the government know it and are trying to keep it out of court.

Here is more persecution but I expect 'some' will have no problem with this invasiveness... The Tor Project is designed to protect people from 'Lawful Intercept'... I guess at least everyone who is concerned should be on it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Appelbaum
Jacob Appelbaum is an independent computer security researcher and hacker. He was employed by the University of Washington,[1] and is a core member of the Tor project. Appelbaum is known for representing Wikileaks at the 2010 Hope conference.[5] He has subsequently been repeatedly targeted by US law enforcement agencies, who obtained a court order for his Twitter account data, detained him 12[6] times at the US border after trips abroad, and seized a laptop and several mobile phones.

Appelbaum, under the handle "ioerror", has been an active member of the Cult of the Dead Cow hacker collective since 2008,[7] and is the co-founder of the San Francisco hackerspace Noisebridge with Mitch Altman. He has worked for Greenpeace[8] and has volunteered for the Ruckus Society and the Rainforest Action Network.[9] He is also an ambassador for the art group monochrom.[10]

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And for all those who cite lack of whistle blowers and lack of mainstream media dissent re the OS as evidence that there is no cover up... 'because they would all be coming out the woodwork in droves':

This is how people are treated who dissent and question:

 
Given that you know that the concept of "lawful intercept" exists, I can only assume that your beatification of Applebaum means you approve of illegal hacking.

I do not know why you think it is strange or illogical or undesireable for government intelligence functions to "take an interest" in TOR and the like. Unless of course you believe there is no such thing as a terrorist threat at all??:confused: And also no such thing as organised crime, drug dealing, etc?? Or alternatively you do know they exist, but are happy for law enforcement to be utterly powerless to do anythign about them??

Perhaps theer is a middle ground betwen those you think you occupy - there should be "enough" surveillance but as little as possible for those functions to actually work effectively in those areas?? If so what line do you think can be easily and obviously drawn for those agencies to ensuer they do nto step over?

ATM that line is a constantly shifting one that is usually defined by the courts - eg the Supreme court has recently refused to let citizens challenge the FISA law (link is to the SCOTUS docket opinions so you can read the legal deetails - here's a NY Times article that may be easier to digest)
 
You make it sound like he had every reason to be committed, but managed to slip through the cracks thanks to publicity.

He did have every reason to be committed, or more accurately, evaluated. He made threats that government agents thought serious enough to haul him off. You are trying to make this sound more extreme than it is; crazy people are detained by the police every day. This case got more publicity than it deserved.


Those lawyers seemed to think an evaluation of someone's mental health taken while they've been unlawfully detained by the FBI

His detention was lawful in accordance with the laws of the state he was in. He was involuntary committed to a psychiatric hospital.

Raub was evaluated and found to be mentally ill and a harm to others before the judge ordered his release. His defense attorneys failed to mention that tint detail. I know, right? I' am as shocked as you.



with no charges leveled doesn't count for much. The judge seemed to agree. Do you know better?

Do you know better than the psychologists who said Raub was a danger to others?
 
You make it sound like he had every reason to be committed, but managed to slip through the cracks thanks to publicity.

Those lawyers seemed to think an evaluation of someone's mental health taken while they've been unlawfully detained by the FBI with no charges leveled doesn't count for much. The judge seemed to agree. Do you know better?

This was (it appears from my reading of news accounts) that this was a case of the authorities over stepping and violating the rights of Brandon Raub. It is also a case of the system working. The judicial branch is part of the system and restrained the law enforcement side from violating a citizens rights. The MSM reported this case as well. Something many on this site have accused of being part of the cabal to cover this stuff up. Civil court will now (probably) be used to further embarrass those agencies that over reached.

N.B. Raub was a staff sergeant (E-5) in the picture linked below and not an officer. He also served two tours and not terms. One in Iraq the other in Afghanistan.
http://communities.washingtontimes..../judge-orders-brandon-raub-released-hospital/
 
lol, it's right there in the article, actually... he quoted a rap-lyric, "Sharpen up my axe: I'm here to sever heads", from the song Bring Me Down by Swolen Members. How many rap lyrics about violence get quoted on Facebook every day, do you think? Several hundred thousand I'd bet. He also happened to be a 'truther' himself. For posting a violent rap lyric, and being a truther, this officer of the united states military who served at least two terms in two separate foreign nations in service to his country, pictured in the article literally embracing a puppy in a desert, was taken into custody and held without charges, and without being read his rights, for OVER A WEEK. Last time I checked, if someone seems 'a bit unhinged' the customary thing to do is ask them if they're alright, not causelessly detain them for days at a time with no access to legal counsel, and then make an effort to have him groundlessly committed in the long-term.

It blows my mind that folks are trying to defend something so totally fucked up. These are YOUR most basic rights being stepped on here.

I don't think people are defending THAT. They are not defending the events as you describe them. Of course it's unacceptable that people are detained JUST for quoting song lyrics. Nobody is arguing otherwise.

I think what people are suggesting is the perhaps the way you characterize the situation does not cover all the facts. Perhaps there was a little more to it than just quoting song lyrics?

Consider, there are lots of people who ARE mentally ill, and they get detained because they are a danger to themselves or others. They quite often protest this in a very eloquent manner, and they quite often have friends and relatives on their side. Sometimes the decision to detain may be marginal, or even overreaching, but nonetheless sometimes there are valid and legal reasons for such detentions.

The question here is where this case is on the spectrum. There's a variety of options, none of which we can really tell if they apply or not. It might be that he's being silenced as a whistle blower. It might be a simple overreaction after someone reported the Facebook posts. It might be that he got really angry when people came to talk to him and that escalated to detention. It might be that he was actually acting irrationally and making other threats that we don't know about. It might be something else.

How do you know which it is? Why lean one way of the other? What facts are you basing your opinion on?
 
Yes, Facebook does cooperate with authorities - so does any large technology company that deals with so much personal data. Yes, they use algorithms on all user-generated content, including private messages, that will trigger human investigation if enough keywords are used.
On the other hand, I still think it is quite a step to say they are working in collusion with any of the alphabet soup agencies in particular to snoop on all US citizens, or whatever CTists think they are doing(despite openly discussing this on FB). As the video with Jacob Applebaum shows, parties who wish to keep their communications encrypted and anonymous can easily do so with a few off-the-shelf tools, so it's safe to say that's where the majority of "interesting" conversations are taking place.

With that said, the folks blowing the whistle on various agencies using technologies to snoop on general communications are not deluded. There is significant precedent for alarm around government institutions surveilling civilian communications. I'd like to share some of them with you:

It has been open knowledge among the infosec community for some time that the NSA is very interested datamining large amounts of siphoned internet traffic being stored potentially indefinitely at their new datacenter in Bluffdate, UT(among others throughout the country):
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Data_Center

Supposedly(according to the sources on the wiki page) the facility is capable of storing Yottabytes of information, which is an absurd amount of data.

For reference, according to here there is 27,482 petabytes of data transmitted across the Internet per month, which according to Google's conversion is 2.55955383 × 10-5, or .000025 yottabytes. If true, it's safe to say that they are capable of storing all internet traffic in the years to come for later investigation pretty much indefinitely.

Some additional links regarding warrantless internet traffic siphoning:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Klein
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A

Ongoing EFF lawsuit against the NSA regarding the issue(previous lawsuit, Hepting vs. NSA, was dismissed because of the FISA):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewel_v._NSA

It has been speculated for some time that various intelligence agencies around the globe have been snooping on satellite transmissions:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Echelon

The DHS is also very interested in the applications of large scale data mining, which came to light a year ago with the Stratfor leaks: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trapwire
 
Court files, however, show that Raub had undergone mental-health assessments shortly after being taken into custody Aug. 16 and was found to be mentally ill and a danger to others.
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From Chew's post up there, #13. Raub was released because a box wasn't checked.
 
I don't think people are defending THAT. They are not defending the events as you describe them. Of course it's unacceptable that people are detained JUST for quoting song lyrics. Nobody is arguing otherwise.

I think what people are suggesting is the perhaps the way you characterize the situation does not cover all the facts. Perhaps there was a little more to it than just quoting song lyrics?

The question here is where this case is on the spectrum.

How do you know which it is? Why lean one way of the other? What facts are you basing your opinion on?
The facts are, what they are doing is ILLEGAL... As JVNK points out... they are hoovering up and storing virtually everything on the net, emails, personal data like contacts, whereabouts, financial, tel conversations ... every last thing on EVERYBODY. Further they are trying to lock people up for decades who are blowing the whistle on their ILLEGAL actions.

Raub is the tip of the iceberg. The issue with him is, he was denied any legal representation, wasn't read his rights... (presumably because they were rescinded) and he was detained for at least a week.

Exactly how easy is it to have someone declared mentally ill or a danger?
What a powerful tool in discrediting people and silencing people.
What are they like after being drugged for a week?
It is very easy to make someone appear deranged.
Can you 'prove' you are sane?

What has happened to the Constitution?

Don't forget, you may well think you are doing nothing wrong but that is not up to you to decide, it is up to others to decide at their leisure, if and when it suits them. They could sit on something for decades and suddenly trawl it out exactly when it suits them.

So you're a bit pissed off one day and you write something you shouldn't and then decide to edit or take it down... years later you could have that come back and bite you and put forward as evidence for anything.

Cairenn even appears in favour of having Mark Taylor's mother forcibly institutionalised and drugged as well as from her posts, lots of other people.

It reminds me of the Salem witch trials where everyone ran around accusing everybody else and the witch finder general was highly delighted and especially busy.

Still, not to worry... you are all obviously upright law abiding citizens, they won't come for you will they!



http://reason.com/blog/2012/07/30/whistle-at-a-whale-spend-seven-years-fig

[O]ur unhinged government, with an obsession like that of Melville's Ahab, has crippled Nancy Black's scientific career, cost her more than $100,000 in legal fees — so far — and might sentence her to 20 years in prison. This Kafkaesque burlesque of law enforcement began when someone whistled.

Black, 50, a marine biologist who also captains a whale-watching ship, was with some watchers in Monterey Bay in 2005 when a member of her crew whistled at the humpback that had approached her boat, hoping to entice the whale to linger. Back on land, another of her employees called the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to ask if the whistling constituted "harassment" of a marine mammal, which is an "environmental crime." NOAA requested a video of the episode, which Black sent after editing it slightly to highlight the whistling. NOAA found no harassment — but got her indicted for editing the tape, calling this a "material false statement" to federal investigators, which is a felony under the 1863 False Claims Act, intended to punish suppliers defrauding the government during the Civil War.

A year after this bizarre charge — that she lied about the interaction with the humpback that produced no charges — more than a dozen federal agents, led by one from NOAA, raided her home. They removed her scientific photos, business files and computers.
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Do you know better than the psychologists who said Raub was a danger to others?
The psychologists who's report was thrown out of court? This is a soldier who was deployed in two wars, and thus has every reason/is entirely entitled to be in less than perfect mental health. Few people are in perfect mental health. This guy was a 'truther', a soldier home from two wars who both held and openly expressed a belief that elements of his government were or could have been complicit in the attacks of 9/11. Being in his particular circumstances, a little paranoia would be entirely understandable as well.

Now think about it. If you're a veteran soldier of two major wars who's coping with the stress of those experiences, while also taking a controversial position against a supposed secret conspiracy at the highest levels of government, and the FBI abducts you in the night and holds you without respect for any of your basic rights, how do you think you're going to perform on a 15 minute psych evaluation..? The judge ruled there were no adequate grounds for holding the guy. That pretty clearly indicates there were no adequate grounds for holding the guy. I'd seem pretty damn crazy too I wager if the RCMP showed up at my door, put me in cuffs, and dragged me off in the night without reading me my rights, then started questioning me about the things I say here on Metabunk.

A few years back I was sitting in the local and gradually shrinking forested area, slurping on tea, reading a book, having a fire. This is one of my favorite activities and has been since I was a kid, hiking/biking out, starting up a little fire and lounging around it for the day. I was rather surprised when a couple of cops came marching through the brush, one an older fellow with a fair bit of scruff, one a younger blond fellow with a pair of those petroleum-pool tinted sunglasses. Apparently I'd let too much smoke show, someone had assumed the worst, and called them in. I tried to be amiable at first, but the young blond fellow, who had all the familiar swagger and smirk of a schoolyard bully, would have none of it.. insisting I was endangering the woods (which I absolutely wasn't) and that I was obviously going to leave the fire burning unattended (which I absolutely wasn't), while also accusing me of being drunk, and of smelling Vodka in my hot thermos of tea (BS to the ninth degree). I put out the fire during all this nonsense, and rose to leave when the blond cop grabbed me at the bicep hard. I made the mistake of flinching and saying 'Don't touch me..!' which put a grin on his face and had him cuffing me behind the back. He then, and I do not exaggerate, went about collecting all the nearby bits of stray trash and stuffing it down the back of my shirt, some of it wet and still containing remnants of old decaying coffee and rainwater. They stuffed me in a cop car, held me for ten minutes, then asked me what I wanted to do now. I stated rather clearly and calmly that I wanted to ask his superior why I was being held against my will and used as a trash can for violating a minor bi-law, and that he should either ticket me, officially arrest and charge me, or let me go. They took my ID, left the car for another 20 minutes, then came back. "Are you still on Antidepressants?" When I was in my early teens I went on the lam for a day-and-a-half, and my parents, being understandably concerned, called the cops... informing them I was on antidepressants at the time. Apparently the incident was still in their computers. "No." I answered. They drove me to the Hospital. There I was held another two hours, the two police-men sitting in the waiting room munching sandwiches while I sat in a small and locked examination room with no access to a phone. A doctor walked in, talked to me for 4 minutes, asked me about 5 questions, sighed tremendously in distinct exhaustion, before letting me go. The scruffier cop who'd been largely silent throughout went so far as to apologize to me, in the only way he could manage given the circumstances.
I filed a complaint against the blond cop, and though it was found he acted inappropriately no action was taken. A few years later he was discharged from the service for, among a long list of other infractions, soliciting sex while on duty.
There's nothing uncommon about law enforcement using mental health policies as a way to avoid the usual processes/paperwork. The FBI was clearly attempting to do just that to this man. That the FBI would engage in such a dubious and even devious effort to lock a veteran away in a mental institution with such rapidity as to have not even properly filled in the blanks as to why It's being done is pretty damn alarming in my opinion.
 
The psychologists who's report was thrown out of court?

It wasn't thrown out of court. And you didn't answer the question: Do you know better than the psychologists who said Raub was a danger to others?


This is a soldier who was deployed in two wars, and thus has every reason/is entirely entitled to be in less than perfect mental health. Few people are in perfect mental health. This guy was a 'truther', a soldier home from two wars who both held and openly expressed a belief that elements of his government were or could have been complicit in the attacks of 9/11. Being in his particular circumstances, a little paranoia would be entirely understandable as well.

Now think about it. If you're a veteran soldier of two major wars who's coping with the stress of those experiences, while also taking a controversial position against a supposed secret conspiracy at the highest levels of government, and the FBI abducts you in the night

Are you actively trying to discredit yourself or do you think lying to bolster your argument is a valid tactic in debate? There is video of Raub being taken away by law enforcement, you know.


and holds you without respect for any of your basic rights,

Threatening to kill people is not a basic right. Threatening to kill people is against the law. When you break the law, you forfeit your other rights.


how do you think you're going to perform on a 15 minute psych evaluation..? The judge ruled there were no adequate grounds for holding the guy.

The judge, like you, chose to ignore the psychologists' report.
 
The facts are, what they are doing is ILLEGAL... As JVNK points out... they are hoovering up and storing virtually everything on the net, emails, personal data like contacts, whereabouts, financial, tel conversations ... every last thing on EVERYBODY. Further they are trying to lock people up for decades who are blowing the whistle on their ILLEGAL actions.


Er, I was pointing out its possible that they could be gathering vast amounts of some of that information. The interest and technical capability are certainly present for some of those things. When dealing with data in different formats from different sources, all of the information has to be cross-referenced and analyzed by humans to mean anything...it's not as though they just type your name in and see literally everything you've done in reality in the last N days.


It's also worth pointing out that key whistleblowers have successfully defended themselves:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Andrews_Drake
 
Threatening to kill people is not a basic right. Threatening to kill people is against the law. When you break the law, you forfeit your other rights.
Oh, he threatened directly to kill someone? Wow, that is serious. Who? Who did he threaten to kill? That particular accusation isn't mentioned in any of the articles I've read/information on the thread. Or are you referring to the song lyric in which no direct threat was made against anyone's life whatsoever? "Sharpen up my axe: I'm here to sever heads" is not a death threat by any stretch of the imagination. Death is not even mentioned, let alone any specific party being threatened. And when you break the law, or more importantly are accused of breaking the law, you absolutely do not forfeit your other rights. That's why when being arrested, the arresting officers are obliged to read you your rights. Cases where the crimes have been as serious as murder have been thrown out of court because arresting officers failed to read their apprehended suspect their rights.

Do you know better than the psychologists who said Raub was a danger to others?
Nope, but it's the job of the Judge to read that report and decide its validity.
The judge, like you, chose to ignore the psychologists' report.
Then I guess that settles that then, doesn't it? As it's the official function of the judge to 'know better'?
Are you actively trying to discredit yourself or do you think lying to bolster your argument is a valid tactic in debate? There is video of Raub being taken away by law enforcement, you know.
Was it night-time? If so, what's your beef exactly? If not, sue me, I exaggerated a little.
 
Er, I was pointing out its possible that they could be gathering vast amounts of some of that information. The interest and technical capability are certainly present for some of those things. When dealing with data in different formats from different sources, all of the information has to be cross-referenced and analyzed by humans to mean anything...it's not as though they just type your name in and see literally everything you've done in reality in the last N days.


It's also worth pointing out that key whistleblowers have successfully defended themselves:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Andrews_Drake

Sorry... didn't intend misreading what you said.

I thought he was convicted of a misdemeanour as a plea bargain.

He is also a whistleblower. In 2010 the government alleged that he 'mishandled' documents, one of the few such Espionage Act cases in U.S. history. His defenders claim that he was instead being persecuted for challenging the Trailblazer Project.[4][5][6][7][8][9
He is the 2011 recipient of the Ridenhour Prize for Truth-Telling and co-recipient of the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence (SAAII) award.
Content from External Source
The Ridenhour and Sam Adams, obviously not to do with government.

Yes they certainly have the capacity to hoover up all that data... as they pointed out in the video's... they are actually doing it and have been doing so for years... They are spending billions on it.

The point is, all that data can be accessed at any time, even decades hence. They can go back over every aspect of your life, even stuff you cannot recall or access yourself.

Also, there was already an adequate, (in fact far better) system, designed and built by Binney called Thin Thread which concentrated on likely threats.

BTW, I don't see too many... (or even one), debunker addressing the FACT that it is ILLEGAL
 
Oh, he threatened directly to kill someone? Wow, that is serious. Who? Who did he threaten to kill?


People. He threatened to kill people.


That particular accusation isn't mentioned in any of the articles I've read/information on the thread. Or are you referring to the song lyric in which no direct threat was made against anyone's life whatsoever? "Sharpen up my axe: I'm here to sever heads" is not a death threat by any stretch of the imagination. Death is not even mentioned,

Cutting someone's head off won't cause death? Gee. Biology sure has changed a lot since I went to school.


let alone any specific party being threatened.

A specific person or persons don't need to be identified for it to count as a threat.


And when you break the law, or more importantly are accused of breaking the law, you absolutely do not forfeit your other rights.

No, when arrested, and before conviction, you lose your right to liberty, amongst others.


Nope, but it's the job of the Judge to read that report and decide its validity.

A Judge will decide a report's validity only in that it was properly submitted to the court and the people making the report are qualified to make it. He ignored the content of the report and ordered Raub's release based on the previous judge filling out a piece of paper incorrectly!


Was it night-time? If so, what's your beef exactly? If not, sue me, I exaggerated a little.

My beef is you intentionally lied about the circumstances of Raub's arrest. He was interviewed by law enforcement for 45 minutes before they decided to arrest him and it was done in the middle of the day. You did not exaggerate "a little"; you made it sound like the Gestapo rounding up Jews. When will kooks realize that lying and exaggerating "a lot" has never helped their cause? If you want to convince people to correct an injustice then stick to the known facts. But now I am puzzled why someone who couldn't care less about nonchalantly throwing out lies could become so outraged about some nut getting arrested?
 
Cutting someone's head off won't cause death? Gee. Biology sure has changed a lot since I went to school.
No someone was mentioned. He could be talking about culling the spring chickens for all you know.
Under state criminal codes, which vary by state, it is an offense to knowingly utter or convey a threat to cause death or bodily harm to any person. It is also an offense to threaten to burn, destroy or damage property or threaten to kill, poison or injure an animal or bird that belongs to a person.
It's not a death threat if it's not specific. You don't charge someone with conspiring to commit arson for posting 'The roof is on fire, we don't need no water let the motherfucker burn.' Claiming that "Sharpen up my axe: I'm here to sever heads" is a death threat is equally ludicrous. No actual roofs were being threatened with immolation, no actual people were being threatened with decapitation. It is not a death-threat. They didn't even charge him/attempt to charge him with uttering a death-threat. You're making this 'death-threat' business up.
A specific person or persons don't need to be identified for it to count as a threat.
more often than not they most certainly do for any charge of a death threat to hold up in court.

A Judge will decide a report's validity only in that it was properly submitted to the court and the people making the report are qualified to make it. He ignored the content of the report and ordered Raub's release based on the previous judge filling out a piece of paper incorrectly!
Huh? This is what the judge had to say:
"The petition is so devoid of any factual allegations that it could not be reasonably expected to give rise to a case or controversy," the order from W Allan Sharrett said.
doesn't sound like 'Ooop, you failed to dot the I's, to the trash with your case..!' to me.

My beef is you intentionally lied about the circumstances of Raub's arrest. He was interviewed by law enforcement for 45 minutes before they decided to arrest him and it was done in the middle of the day. You did not exaggerate "a little"; you made it sound like the Gestapo rounding up Jews.
lol, woah, hold on there a second. I didn't -know- the circumstances of his arrest, other than what information I've been given access too via this thread. I knew he was arrested by the FBI, wasn't read his rights, and was held for seven days. The FBI did still come along and cart the guy away against his will, they just did it in the daytime, and not in the nighttime... which I admittedly included for dramatic effect.
When will kooks realize that lying and exaggerating "a lot" has never helped their cause? If you want to convince people to correct an injustice then stick to the known facts. But now I am puzzled why someone who couldn't care less about nonchalantly throwing out lies could become so outraged about some nut getting arrested?
lol, really? I suppose the difference between night and day IS night and day, but aren't you going just a little overboard here? Now I'm a kook, and this veteran is a nut, and my apparently egregious moral error of switching night for day (having had no idea which it had been) renders my outrage at the abuse this man suffered somehow hypocritical or something? How is my mistaking the time of day worse than you fabricating charges?
 
Sorry... didn't intend misreading what you said.

[...]

Yes they certainly have the capacity to hoover up all that data... as they pointed out in the video's... they are actually doing it and have been doing so for years... They are spending billions on it.

The point is, all that data can be accessed at any time, even decades hence. They can go back over every aspect of your life, even stuff you cannot recall or access yourself.

Also, there was already an adequate, (in fact far better) system, designed and built by Binney called Thin Thread which concentrated on likely threats.

BTW, I don't see too many... (or even one), debunker addressing the FACT that it is ILLEGAL

To be clear, I'm not condoning the practice either. It's important to be aware of these things, but equally important to be aware of their limitations(I guess I didn't expand enough on this). Things like your whereabouts, financial transactions in cash, and your contacts are not at risk here really.

What they are hoovering up are packets, the standard unit over information exchange on the Internet. By themselves they don't mean a whole lot. There is a lot of work that goes into going from raw packet data to mapping out a particular person's activities. The way the Internet works by nature makes it very difficult, they really have to start with something and know what they are looking for to properly mine the traffic and get anything meaningful out of it(if they are indeed collecting all Internet traffic that passes through the US).

Some things working against them:
  • People move - It's possible to connect to the Internet in an increasing number of places. Throwaway PPM cell phones and free wifi access points make things particularly complicated. Not only that, public WAN IP addresses can change - some ISPs change them regularly. Even further, services like Tor make it exponentially more difficult for someone to correlate a packet with a particular person trying to communicate with a particular server
  • Encryption - Unless the NSA has a functioning, useful quantum computer, they won't be cracking modern encryption anytime soon(read: before the heat death of the universe)
  • Anonymity - a lot of people don't realize the only reason Facebook and other sites have so much data is about them is because they willingly give their data to Facebook

There's also the sheer scale of the data we're talking about here. Even with the computing capacity available to them, unless they can significantly narrow the search set traversing entire haystack for a needle is going to be time consuming.
 
People. He threatened to kill people.
Cutting someone's head off won't cause death? Gee. Biology sure has changed a lot since I went to school.
A specific person or persons don't need to be identified for it to count as a threat.

Here is the song... quite in depth lyrics... i.e. more than 1 or 2 lines repeated over and over like the usual crap...still crap to me but no worse than a lot of other 'gangster' songs.

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/swollenmembers/bringmedown.html

"Bring Me Down"
(feat. Saigon)

[Intro: Saigon]
You ever get the feelin
No matter what they do, no matter what they say
Know you'll make it, some day

[Chorus: Saigon - singing]
They'll say I'm a killer
I feel I'm as high as I can be
And now they gon' die as high as me
I can't be no realer
Y'all ain't gon' bring me down [3X]
I can't be no realer; y'all ain't gon' bring me down

[Saigon]
You know the feelin when your back is up against in the wall
People say that they love you but you ain't convinced at all
Tell 'em they full of shit and they'll tell you you're insecure
Calling you immature, does that make sense to y'all?
You ever feel like it's you against the whole world?
Like everybody is schemin even your own girl
Your homeboy seem to be countin your money
Tell em you ain't got it and he lookin at you funny
I'm feeling like I probably need to either leave the game alone
or either be the G to bang the chrome to get his name known
How does the Saigon story end? How?
Know what they're sayin for now?

[Chorus]

[Mad Child]
When Mad Child step on stage, I cause hysteria
Now they won't let my crazy ass back in America
Eagle labeled me as an illegal evil immigrant
I'm far beyond the magic of a wand inside a wizard's fist
Sharper than the hand of Edward Scissor's, I'm a wiz at this
Hotter than the desert but I'm colder than a blizzard kid
Harder than a prison bid, with God I'm never hesitant
My business it isn't as amazin as it's ever been
As long as God allows me to be clever it will never end
Sharpen up my axe and I am back, I'm here to sever heads
Compulsive obsessive, I'm also aggressive
My mouth is the message, my life is a lesson, my pulse is a blessing

[Chorus]

[Prevail]
If there's Hell below we're all gonna go; yo Curtis Mayfield
God and the devil still tryin to level the playin field
Some people sayin that this life is all about free will
I'd rather have free rent, and never pay these bills
That's why I'm thankful every day that I'm blessed with these skills
And Mad is still alive after swallowin all those pills
I ride for Saigon, New York to the Hollywood Hills
(The Greatest Story Never Told) is now yours to reveal
I feel like helium balloons are stuck up on the ceilin
Trying to make that breakthrough before I catch deflated feelings
Dying with a heart full of regrets is not amazing either
I'll just see the gatekeeper, or you meet the Grim Reaper

[Chorus]

[dub version of Chorus]

[Chorus - echoes at the end]
Content from External Source
Now on it's own... it is not illegal... if the words are taken out of context... it is not illegal, I do not have to quote the whole thing.

If they are taken out of context and put into a new context then the 'whole thing' i.e. the lyrics and the new context, would need to be 'a threat' for it to be a 'statement of intent'.

That was apparently not the case.

If there is someone out there stupid or mentally deranged enough to post a clear threat, then I would say they need a visit from the police and if necessary the police would naturally have the power to arrest them.

But we do not know what the rest of it said or why he was arrested. He claims they had no reason to arrest him and you and I do not know either way. It seems odd that it took 7 days to assess him and I would have thought he should have been read his rights and those rights would include access to counsel.

This does seem to be detracting from the main issue, although I did bring it up as an example of an alleged breach of civil rights, which I must admit there is no shortage of such instances in the U.S and which are very concerning.

Obviously no one would be complaining if he was a genuine nut, intent on harm... in fact if he is and the system has released him... they will get it in the neck for releasing him.
 
Definitely an outspoken conspiracy theorist. Nothing about his posts scream 'requires immediate hospitalization without consent' to me. His 'revolution' and 'civil war' rhetoric is pretty tame compared to what one often sees coming out of the 'tea-party' end of things.
 
Definitely an outspoken conspiracy theorist. Nothing about his posts scream 'requires immediate hospitalization without consent' to me. His 'revolution' and 'civil war' rhetoric is pretty tame compared to what one often sees coming out of the 'tea-party' end of things.

I agree. I suspect that the detention came from more than just that. However the point is that there's a little more to his Facebook posts than simply quoting some song lyrics.
 
lol, woah, hold on there a second. I didn't -know- the circumstances of his arrest,


OMFFSM!

There is too much injustice in the world to fight without first making people you are trying to sway to your side fight to uncover the truth.

I'm out.
 
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