You say Police State, I say potato. Either way let's discuss surveillance and government overreach.

Oso wrote:

The language in your quoted section makes the point clearly. There is *one* sourced allegation and many unsourced claims.

There are three--the woman with the cast, the woman who came forward, and the five times woman.

edit: I think you're confusing anonymous with hearsay (without even getting it the topic of hearsay).

The Poynter Institute has some enlightening details on journalistic ethics and reporting on the Occupy Movement

Todd Gitlin wrote:

The media ... have fallen back on some of the same rhetorical devices and tactics they used during the anti-war protests of the 1960s. They’ve focused on the outcasts, framed the movement as a crime story and deferred to authorities while doubting the legitimacy of the protesters.

http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/t...

This would seem to support those who claim that we have no real mechanism for evaluating the official statements of the police. I completely agree that we shouldn't assume they are telling the truth without corroborating evidence one way or another.

However, the answer to single-sourced reporting of hearsay as fact is not to choose another single-source and report their hearsay account as factual. Real, useful, reporting would be to investigate, talk to, and look into these rumored reports of sexual violence against female protesters. Would it have killed the blogger to make some phone calls? Even writing that he had talked to a dozen women who can corroborate the claims without revealing their names would have been a step forward.

Oso wrote:

However, the answer to single-sourced reporting of hearsay as fact is not to choose another single-source and report their hearsay account as factual. Real, useful, reporting would be to investigate, talk to, and look into these rumored reports of sexual violence against female protesters. Would it have killed the blogger to make some phone calls? Even writing that he had talked to a dozen women who can corroborate the claims without revealing their names would have been a step forward.

Okay--we do need to have the hearsay conversation.

The witness does not need to be the victim. The story of anyone who witnesses--not just experiences!--something first hand is not hearsay.

I'm usually hesistant to circulate anything from Infowars but this particular article raises some interesting questions and has a direct link to the full version of the leaked eport.

Leaked U.S. Army Document Outlines Plan For Re-Education Camps In America

[quote]A leaked U.S. Army document prepared for the Department of Defense contains shocking plans for “political activists” to be pacified by “PSYOP officers” into developing an “appreciation of U.S. policies” while detained in prison camps inside the United States.[/url]

Follow up to that article

*nm*

Once again I've allowed myself to be baited. I'm putting myself in the penalty box. Sorry.

Oso wrote:

Ok. I am going to sidestep that siderail by pleading nolo contendere to the definition allegations. I won't argue with you and accept your definitions without comment.

Now, can we talk about the actual subject at hand rather than focusing on the people having the conversation?

So when you focus on the definition of hearsay, it's a reason to doubt the reporting under discussion. When I focus on the definition, it's not "the actual subject at hand"?

Before the red pen came out and the conversation delved into a self-appointed editor correcting others without risking an opinion of his own,

If this is directed at me, you missed this post. My opinion is the opposite of yours: we do not have to appeal to assumptions based on entrenched positions in order to decide the matter.

edit:

Oso wrote:

*nm*

Once again I've allowed myself to be baited. I'm putting myself in the penalty box. Sorry.

Again, if this is a passive-aggressive post directed at me, maybe instead of coming to the conclusion you've been baited, you should realize you made a Goldilocks argument where you're telling the people coming to a conclusion one way or the other that they are doing so out of bias because there's insufficient evidence. I disagreed with you. That's not baiting you, that's pointing out that when you jumped into the conversation, you did so without understanding the issues under discussion in my opinion. Which...is exactly what you yourself jumped in to do.

I know this thread has become a sort of catch-all of all inappropriate behavior by law enforcement but police brutality, in my opinion, isn't really evidence of a police state. I'm much more worried about institutional and legislature level changes than I am about police on the street.

I understand your argument, but I think I disagree; it's kind of coming from both ends. The nature of a police state is high surveillance, absence of control of use of authority, and suppression of political enemies. (aka, call them terrorists, and you can do ANYTHING to them, without having to prove anything. In fact, they don't even need to be vaguely guilty, you can just assassinate them with a drone.)

So you can have that coming down from on high, with laws saying that cops can do anything they want, but you also have it coming from down below, cops actually doing anything they want.

For the person on the street getting the f*ck beat out of them for being an undesirable, it doesn't matter who authorized it.

Malor wrote:

For the person on the street getting the f*ck beat out of them for being an undesirable, it doesn't matter who authorized it.

Well I think that right there actually backs up what I'm saying. We've always had issues with the police, but I think more often than not they looked the other way rather than officially authorizing it. There definitely could be unofficial authorization but that's something we'll always have to deal with. It's the official nature lately that bothers me.

Underwear bomber was a double agent

Yet another FBI/CIA fabricated threat to scare the sheeple?

Just stop. You are embarrassing yourself now.

Now? You mean interpreting a military police manual laying out rules for detention in conflict areas as being rules for domestic pacification was not over the threshold?

Two things.

#1 - The government has been using fear since 9/11 to affect public mood and elections / policy. So this wouldn't really be news.

#2 - It sounds like from an intelligence perspective this was a home run.

Look, 93, the use of double agents is a valid technique in intelligence and policing. Baiting someone into committing a crime when they don't want to in the first place is a small subset of that kind of work. If you can't distinguish between the two, then you've got a problem with the way you're filtering facts.

One thing to consider is whether Al Quaeda would *like* to bomb US aircraft, and whether they have a record of attempting to do so. If so, then it's plausible that they tried again and were set up, isn't it? Maybe more plausible than the government just making it up? Imagine all the people who have to keep quiet for these conspiracies you keep throwing at us, and ask yourself, are government employees - those that are supposed to be so incompetent at everything they do - really somehow incredibly good at keeping secrets from us so as to harm and mislead us?

Seriously, how far out on a limb should we go to support this kind of conspiracy thinking? Do we actually have to contradict other assertions we might make about government competency in order to accept all this stuff? That just seems like a lot of extra mental work...

93_confirmed wrote:

Underwear bomber was a double agent

Yet another FBI/CIA fabricated threat to scare the sheeple?

Wait, really? DSGamer nailed it, this is a home run. This is infiltration of Al-Qaeda.

This isn't even remotely close to finding a peaceful American and trying to convince them to blow something up. This is legitimate intelligence work.

SixteenBlue wrote:
93_confirmed wrote:

Underwear bomber was a double agent

Yet another FBI/CIA fabricated threat to scare the sheeple?

Wait, really? DSGamer nailed it, this is a home run. This is infiltration of Al-Qaeda.

This isn't even remotely close to finding a peaceful American and trying to convince them to blow something up. This is legitimate intelligence work.

From the page 93_confirmed linked to.

Gordon Corera, Security correspondent, BBC News wrote:

The individual has been described by some as a "double agent". In fact, it seems more likely that he is a straightforward undercover agent who infiltrated the group and not a double agent whose loyalties shifted or who told both sides he was working against the other.

Jayhawker wrote:
SixteenBlue wrote:
93_confirmed wrote:

Underwear bomber was a double agent

Yet another FBI/CIA fabricated threat to scare the sheeple?

Wait, really? DSGamer nailed it, this is a home run. This is infiltration of Al-Qaeda.

This isn't even remotely close to finding a peaceful American and trying to convince them to blow something up. This is legitimate intelligence work.

From the page 93_confirmed linked to.

Gordon Corera, Security correspondent, BBC News wrote:

The individual has been described by some as a "double agent". In fact, it seems more likely that he is a straightforward undercover agent who infiltrated the group and not a double agent whose loyalties shifted or who told both sides he was working against the other.

I always thought undercover agent was the same definition as double agent. You pretend to be on side A but you're really on side B, hence "double" agent.

Edit: Quick google says I was wrong.

SixteenBlue wrote:

Wait, really? DSGamer nailed it, this is a home run. This is infiltration of Al-Qaeda.

It's more of a walk. We didn't infiltrate al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda, ala 9/11 al-Qaeda, doesn't exist anymore. All that's left are numerous, independently operating groups that our government labels al-Qaeda. This operation only affected a cell of AQAP, or al Qaeda Arabian Peninsula.

Our support for the existing Yemini government will likely come back to bite us in the ass because they are not only fighting al-Qaeda, but a succession group in the south and Shia rebellion in the north. That's because the same dude has been in power for 30 years while the country has remained at the bottom of just about every development index (sound familiar?). We're not helping any by propping up another douche dictator and his corrupt government in the Middle East.

Malor wrote:
Baiting someone into committing a crime when they don't want to in the first place is a small subset of that kind of work.

That framing is appalling. That's creating "crime" that, by your own admission, wouldn't have otherwise happened. You are, in other words, jailing (or even killing) people that would otherwise be innocent, except that they were lied to and manipulated by the government.

That's one of the more ridiculous things I've seen you accept and justify. I continue to believe that you don't draw your moral lines anywhere near where you think you do.

There is a pretty clear line we can draw between a legitimate sting operation and an unethical entrapment scheme. The line usually has to do with the target's intention or willingness to commit a crime and whether or not the law enforcement agency only provided opportunity or active coerced the victim into the crime.

In this case, the BBC article suggests there was a preexisting cell with a bomb-maker that the Saudis provided with an agent who was able to get on a US bound flight and pretended to be willing to blow him/herself up.

If this had happened in the US, I'd guess that the bomb-maker/ringleader would have been picked up and prosecuted for the USS Cole bombing, not necessarily manufacture of the new underwear device. In Yemen, he was assassinated by a drone. Which leads us to the fact that this was a Saudi intelligence operation that took place in Yemen. It is somewhat more difficult to make a case that the US is a police state when we assist in foreign operations outside of US jurisdiction. Yemen, with its internal civil war, is a legitimate war zone and not a place where the rule of law is enforced.

We're not helping any by propping up another douche dictator and his corrupt government in the Middle East.

Quote for truth. Can we really not have learned from Diem, Somoza, Batista, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, etc, etc, etc.

Baiting someone into committing a crime when they don't want to in the first place is a small subset of that kind of work.

That framing is appalling. That's creating "crime" that, by your own admission, wouldn't have otherwise happened. You are, in other words, jailing (or even killing) people that would otherwise be innocent, except that they were lied to and manipulated by the government.

That's one of the more ridiculous things I've seen you accept and justify.

OG_slinger wrote:
SixteenBlue wrote:

Wait, really? DSGamer nailed it, this is a home run. This is infiltration of Al-Qaeda.

It's more of a walk. We didn't infiltrate al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda, ala 9/11 al-Qaeda, doesn't exist anymore. All that's left are numerous, independently operating groups that our government labels al-Qaeda. This operation only affected a cell of AQAP, or al Qaeda Arabian Peninsula.

Our support for the existing Yemini government will likely come back to bite us in the ass because they are not only fighting al-Qaeda, but a succession group in the south and Shia rebellion in the north. That's because the same dude has been in power for 30 years while the country has remained at the bottom of just about every development index (sound familiar?). We're not helping any by propping up another douche dictator and his corrupt government in the Middle East.

The point is that this is exactly what you want to do. I would be a lot less vocal about police-statey stuff if the US was doing more of this and less of spying on its own civilians. This is classic intelligence gathering. It can be troublesome when the government practically shoves someone into committing a terrorist act. This has happened. The government has used informants to move along a group that might have stayed dormant only to jail them later. So Malor is right that that happens.

But overall what you sighted, 93, seems like intelligence 101. They did what they were supposed to do.

That framing is appalling. That's creating "crime" that, by your own admission, wouldn't have otherwise happened. You are, in other words, jailing (or even killing) people that would otherwise be innocent, except that they were lied to and manipulated by the government.

That's one of the more ridiculous things I've seen you accept and justify.

What the hell are you talking about? I didn't "justify" or accept baiting there, I agree with your statement that bad stings put the innocent in jail. I *noted* that of sting operations, a small subset are criminal in nature - that is, some of them are *caused* by the government and should be tossed out of court. And you turn that around and say I *support* that? Jesus, even when I post something factual that *agrees* with your position on something, you read it the opposite way?

My argument was that it's more likely that stings are legitimate than not, even while some stings are bogus. Come on man, if you ever feel the need to retract something, this would be the time.

Robear wrote:
That framing is appalling. That's creating "crime" that, by your own admission, wouldn't have otherwise happened. You are, in other words, jailing (or even killing) people that would otherwise be innocent, except that they were lied to and manipulated by the government.

That's one of the more ridiculous things I've seen you accept and justify.

What the hell are you talking about? I didn't "justify" anything there, I agree with your statement that bad stings put the innocent in jail. I *noted* that of sting operations, a small subset are criminal in nature - that is, some of them are *caused* by the government and should be tossed out of court. And you turn that around and say I *support* that? Jesus, even when I post something factual that *agrees* with your position on something, you read it the opposite way?

My argument was that it's more likely that stings are legitimate than not, even while some stings are bogus. Come on man, if you ever feel the need to retract something, this would be the time.

I get what you're saying here, Robear, but that's really not how your previous statement reads. I parsed your sentence pretty much the same way that Malor did-- you said, "Baiting someone into committing a crime when they don't want to in the first place is a small subset of that kind of work," and that really reads as if you are fine with that, at least within the context of the rest of your previous statement-- to paraphrase, "baiting someone into committing a crime they otherwise would not have committed is a subset of a valid technique in policing and intelligence". Now, phrasing it as you just did above, I can understand what you were getting at.

To be honest, the third line makes no sense to me in the context of that statement: If A is valid (positive), and B is a subset (part) of A, then logic would say that B is also positive. I don't think "subset" implies what you meant it to, and that's what Malor, I think, was responding to.

WipEout wrote:

To be honest, the third line makes no sense to me in the context of that statement: If A is valid (positive), and B is a subset (neutral part) of A, then logic would say that B is also positive. I don't think "subset" implies what you meant it to, and that's what Malor, I think, was responding to.

Yes. I got the point being made, mostly from the context of previous posts, but the wording was...confusing, if not plain wrong.

Look, 93, the use of double agents is a valid technique in intelligence and policing. Baiting someone into committing a crime when they don't want to in the first place is a small subset of that kind of work. If you can't distinguish between the two, then you've got a problem with the way you're filtering facts.

Then what distinction did you think the third sentence was drawing?

Let me put this another way. Malor didn't say "Hey, Robear, do you *really* mean to say that entrapment is legitimate"? He just unloaded on me. I see your point, but on his part there's no assumption that I'm not an authoritarian, which is beyond ridiculous. I've been hounded on that for years by him, and it's incredibly tiresome.

OG_slinger wrote:
SixteenBlue wrote:

Wait, really? DSGamer nailed it, this is a home run. This is infiltration of Al-Qaeda.

It's more of a walk. We didn't infiltrate al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda, ala 9/11 al-Qaeda, doesn't exist anymore. All that's left are numerous, independently operating groups that our government labels al-Qaeda. This operation only affected a cell of AQAP, or al Qaeda Arabian Peninsula.

Our support for the existing Yemini government will likely come back to bite us in the ass because they are not only fighting al-Qaeda, but a succession group in the south and Shia rebellion in the north. That's because the same dude has been in power for 30 years while the country has remained at the bottom of just about every development index (sound familiar?). We're not helping any by propping up another douche dictator and his corrupt government in the Middle East.

Sure, I guess by home run I meant "They accomplished what they set out to do." Whether that's the best thing to do is another story but it's not police state related nor a failure.

Well, that's cool. I don't see you guys taking it to mean I condone bad things, just that I phrased it confusingly. I'm happy to clarify; I just don't enjoy being smacked around for it.