James Comey: Retweets Equal Material Support For Terrorism, But Don't Worry, We'll Only Prosecute Real Terrorists
from the our-track-record-on-terrorism-prosecutions-is-immaculate! dept
Better add that "RTs ≠ endorsements" line to your Twitter profile. Huffington Post's Ryan J. Reilly's coverage of the FBI's efforts against ISIS notes that FBI head James Comey considers retweeting to be material support of terrorism. But that's OK, because the FBI's crew of mind-readers will make sure that anyone who didn't "mean it" avoids prosecution.
"Knowing it was wrong, you provided material support for a terrorist organization or some other offense," Comey said, explaining how the FBI sees these suspects in response to Huffington Post questions during a meeting with reporters last month. "That is the bulwark against prosecuting someone for having an idea or having an interest. You have to manifest a criminal intent to further the aims prohibited by the statute."Yay. "Mental state" and "intent." That shouldn't be any problem to disprove in court. Comey says the burden of proof rests on the prosecution -- which it does -- but this "burden" becomes significantly lighter when "national security" is invoked and the onus suddenly shifts to the defendants, who are put in the position of proving a negative.
Asked if reposting materials alone would cross the line, Comey said the answer would be different based on the individual circumstances.
"It would depend upon what your mental state is in doing it," the FBI director said. "I can imagine an academic sharing something with someone as part of research would have a very different mental intent than someone who is sharing that in order to try and get others to join an organization or engage in an act of violence. So it's hard to answer in the abstract like that."
Much like Comey's certainty that secure encryption backdoors exist, the FBI head is also a firm believer that he and his agency will know materially-supportive retweets when they see them.
Comey said it was "pretty darn clear" where the line was.Eye of the beholder and all that. Not exactly reassuring when the "pretty darn clear" line is being determined by an agency that appears to have created more terrorists in the US than any terrorist organization. Comey talks a lot in Reilly's article about "intent" and "mental state" -- two aspects that have been largely ignored in its counter-terrorist sting operations, which have resulted in the arrest of mentally-incompetent dreamers, senior citizens and a handful of easily-flattered bedroom revolutionaries. When the agency has to do everything but perform the terrorist attack itself, it would appear its definition of "intent" is very fluid... and any considerations about "mental states" completely subservient to its War on Terror desires.
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Filed Under: fbi, isis, james comey, material support, material support for terrorism, retweets, social media
Companies: twitter
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Knowing the FBI they will probably find a way to prosecute people after entrapping them.
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If I try to the be the least cynical possible...which is very difficult for me, we could say the FBI practices.
LMAO, I just said something so dumb, they do so many of these fake terror plots using dumbasses who trade stereo speakers for fake bombs or other BS like that, they're too busy from that to do their real job.
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I'm not defending the FBI, but you try to gin up nerd rage over tedious but correct explanation of standard law and come across as simply ignorant.
This has made me see that anomalies are actually the interesting pieces. Sheesh. -- Was lucky you know who used Youtube rather than actual television to watch the debate last night, else he wouldn't have a DMCA piece.
These topics from The Register would surely be far better:
"Virtually no one is using Apple Music even though it is utterly free"
&
"EFF's Privacy Badger will block snooping ads and invisible trackers"
But for Techdirt those raise troubling conflicts: "free" just doesn't work, and what mega-corps bombards with ads and tracks us?
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Subject lines are not for writing whole sentences but rather to briefly summarize what your post is going to be about. This is why it is called a subject line.
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Re: I'm not defending the FBI, but you try to gin up nerd rage over tedious but correct explanation of standard law and come across as simply ignorant.
And marketing is a pretty difficult minefield for several moral and economic reasons. Even though TD has been decent at disclosures, they certainly still haven't mastered it.
The Register has been pretty vile since most of their pre-MS people left imo. Last I looked at their stories I shook my head at their lackluster approach to neutral journalism and their reality-defying editorials.
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Re: I'm not defending the FBI, but you try to gin up nerd rage over tedious but correct explanation of standard law and come across as simply ignorant.
I still use HTTPS Everywhere, although that extension will become useless in the near future.
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Re: Re: I'm not defending the FBI, but you try to gin up nerd rage over tedious but correct explanation of standard law and come across as simply ignorant.
I'm curious about this comment. Where do they get most of their money from? Last I looked it was mostly from individual donations, but your comment suggests otherwise.
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What would be far more interesting would be a discussion of how and how long such fishing for further data should be allowed to prevent a constant increase in suspect-pools and ever increasing 360 analysis. Particularly the internets extreme traceabilities is making behavioural profiling of every inhabitant in country x a posibility and the trading of such data between the secret services is making them very easy to "venue shop" for weak legislation to avoid checks and balances and make it possible for fellow agencies to import data on own inhabitants etc. Basically the secret services world wide has no boundaries in laws if they have enough members cooperating and enough versatility in legal texts and precedence.
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Probable Cause [was Re: ]
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retweet = endorsement
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Just Trust Me
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[W]hat mega-corps bombards with ads and tracks us?
Pretty much all of them, and even those Android apps that don't want Device ID and Location permissions, for example (the latter of which I can separately deny, anyways), have their Internet access cut because of the visual disturbance caused to me by the flashing banner crap that tends to pop up.
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I'm an atheist/agnostic could care less what happens when I die, but that's the truth about these crazies. Just see how they love to impose things that are both incredibly annoying and senseless on themselves while in public and what they're often caught doing while not doing speeches or fake spiritual healing (although this has been discredited so much they kind of have stopped doing it or at least give it publicity). By born again it means to them they are born again as free from care for others which I guess reduces anxiety in those who aren't born psychopaths.
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Given how the definition of terrorist has been twisted, this means we will use it against people we take a dislike to, because for instance that repost stories and videos about bad cops.
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Enemies List [was Re: ]
COINTELPRO(Citations omitted.)
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"Prosecuting the terrorists"
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Re: "Prosecuting the terrorists"
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Of course the line is 'pretty darn clear'
Black/brown/olive Muslim = ZOMG we caught the next Bin Laden!
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Who is the terrorist here?
So, Comey's statements indicate that he is a terrorist by threatening people exercising their First Amendment rights?
Oops, now he will be after me!
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What does FBI stand for?
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"pretty darn clear"
Wonder if Comey would agree with me?
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Stephen R. Covey
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