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Nearly two years before the U.S. government's first known inquiry into the activities of Reddit co-founder and famed digital activist Aaron Swartz, the FBI swept up his email data in a counterterrorism investigation that also ensnared students at an American university, according to a once-secret document first published by Gizmodo.
The email data belonging to Swartz, who was likely not the target of the counterterrorism investigation, was cataloged by the FBI and accessed more than a year later as it weighed potential charges against him for something wholly unrelated. The legal practice of storing data on Americans who are not suspected of crimes, so that it may be used against them later on, has long been denounced by civil liberties experts, who've called on courts and lawmakers to curtail the FBI's "radically" expansive search procedures.
The government does store information indefinitely that can be used against you later at a more convenient time.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday December 15 2018, @12:54PM (1 child)
Predicting that someone with "risk factors" will commit a major crime: not impossible, but improbable.
Enticing someone with "risk factors" to accept delivery of guns, explosives, or whatever from an undercover officer or confidential informant: much easier. If it requires the FBI to further radicalize the person, so be it. If they get suspicious or it doesn't work, you just move on to the next person on the list until you get a hit.
Predicting the future is a fool's errand. Making the future is where it's at.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday December 15 2018, @06:50PM
It looks good on their statistics, but it is contrary to anything they are supposed to be doing. It pits them in the same class as the crooked mechanics along the highway that put holes in people's tires then overcharge to fix them.
Of course, they're much worse than those "50 percenters" because they destroy lives rather than just take some petty cash.
Meanwhile, the family of the kid that shot up the school in Fla. begged for any sort of mental health services they could get for the kid and they got nothing. That's a lot of kids dead because the feds were too busy subsidizing roadside hucksters to actually do something that might make a difference.