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https://motherboard.vice.com/read/unsealed-court-docs-show-fbi-used-malware-like-a-grenade
In 2013, the FBI received permission to hack over 300 specific users of dark web email service TorMail. But now, after the warrants and their applications have finally been unsealed, experts say the agency illegally went further, and hacked perfectly legitimate users of the privacy-focused service. [...] "What remains unclear is if the court was ever told that the FBI had exceeded the scope of the warrant, or whether the FBI agents who hacked innocent users were ever punished,"
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FBI Illegally Exceeded Scope of Warrant Against TorMail Users
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And tomorrow will be like today, only more so.
-- Isaiah 56:12, New Standard Version
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday November 09 2016, @01:52PM
A week ago a number of people were lauding the FBI for their renewed investigation of Hillary Clinton's crimes. I demurred, saying that we should wait and see before granting that agency's reputation rehabilitation. Here we are, a week later, and not only has the agency's director done an about-face on Hillary's crimes yet again, but now we're seeing this news.
Trump won't fix the FBI. What ails it is a systemic contempt for the US Constitution and the Rule of Law. But at least we have a little bit of a platform now as citizens to break down the agency's lawlessness and try to salvage something worthy from the wreckage.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 09 2016, @02:16PM
Has it ever been any different? Arguably the FBI has been that way almost since its inception. President Truman famously compared them to the Gestapo in 1945. They conducted illegal surveillance on hundreds of anti-war and civil rights activists in the sixties including most famously Martin Luther King, Jane Fonda, Muhammad Ali, Benjamin Spock, and John Lennon. Now, they are conducting surveillance on just about everyone in the US and most of the world, just because they can. In the old days they would have tarred people with association with communism, and today they use terrorism and child pornography to do the same. J. Edgar Hoover's ghost must be weeping with joy at what his successors are capable of today.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday November 09 2016, @02:18PM
I hated Comey before it was cool. There's no need for the FBI to gain a leg up on encrypted systems, or stockpile exploits.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday November 09 2016, @03:08PM
I liked Comey when he braced his boss, Ashcroft, against Darth Cheney. His recent actions have undone all that.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by art guerrilla on Wednesday November 09 2016, @04:51PM
yeah, me too, kinda...
it did make me suspicious that an insider wss apparently gping rogue, but i wonder that wasnt more some internecine warfare where he accidently did the right thing for some other purpose than to do us hoi polloi a solid...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 09 2016, @05:38PM
Except that he signed off on the rest of the unconstitutional surveillance programs; he only had a problem with one.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 09 2016, @02:48PM
> But at least we have a little bit of a platform now as citizens to break down the agency's lawlessness and try to salvage something worthy from the wreckage.
What does that even mean?
What "platform?"
We've just handed over the levers of turnkey totalitarianism to someone that campaigned on a totalitarian platform.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Wednesday November 09 2016, @03:15PM
We've just handed over the levers of turnkey totalitarianism to someone that campaigned on a totalitarian platform.
And now we have an easy rebuttal to any proposal to increase the power of government. Do you want Trump to get it? And if that doesn't work, do you want Obama to get it? A window of opportunity has come to roll back the crap that has been done over the past few decades. Too many people seem to forget that their side never stays in power forever.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday November 09 2016, @04:37PM
Exactly. I railed against the Patriot Act when Bush & Cheney were pushing it. I railed against it when Obama used it. I was quite afraid of Hillary using it to suppress dissent in America. That potential also exists with Trump, it's true, which is why I would really like to see the police state surveillance unwound.
I don't think that will happen. At least, I don't think it will happen unless paid for with patriots' blood.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday November 09 2016, @04:34PM
I used "platform" in the flint-knapping sense, as a place where you can strike your hammer stone to calve off a piece of superfluous stone. To wit, Comey has given us citizens cause to dress the stone of the FBI, to break off the superfluous and recover the true, underlying purpose of the agency. Or not.
Washington DC delenda est.