Feddit (Beta)DHS Hunts Down 67-Year-Old U.S. Citizen Who Criticized Them in Gmail
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Jo MiranThat was not criticism.
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How mind-numbingly idiotic the DHS can be?
Man sends email to DHS.
Agents later show up, show him the email he sent, and demand he present “his side of the story”.
My dudes in idiocracy, WHAT THE ACTUAL LIVING FUCK DO YOU THINK THAT EMAIL WAS?
Let me help you out: that was “his side of the story”.
Oh, wait a moment. They didn’t show up to gather more information - because that’s idiotic - but to threaten him with their mere presence, and deter any further emails…
Yup, it’s not “this meeting could have been an email”, it’s “this meeting could have been a gunfight”.
In the articles I’ve read, it seems that his use of ‘Russian Roulette’ and ‘Taliban’ in his email is a big part of what triggered all of this.
Tinfoil hat: what if AI is flagging these emails based on keywords, which sets off the domino effect leading to this ‘investigation’? Given that he used a Gmail account, is it Google that is sending this info to this administration?
In light of all of the info gathering/stealing that is going on in this administration, I wouldn’t be surprised if this were true. They indeed want to terrorize people, and stunts like this are likely to become commonplace imo.
That shit was happening before GenAI was a thing. The NSA captures every bit of web traffic in the country.
The only thing that’s surprising is that they weren’t already sharing this information across agencies.
This is the background I need, thank you.
It’s pertinent to assume nothing is safe, however it’s ever more important to exercise and defend our right to free speech.
Keep in mind that Lemmy isn’t safe either. Anyone with their own instance can see your full comment, post, and voting history even if you’ve deleted it, and your IP address.
It’s basically a guarantee that the feds have their own instance capturing everything.
With the insane volumes of data collected by the TLAs, the problem is always relevance. If they have any tool sensitive enough to flag a threat, the false-positive rate is likely to be astronomical. So it doesn’t really meet its claimed purpose, but it’s really effective as an indiscrimate tool for oppression.
Yeah, I sold that over 20 years ago
You don’t need AI to flag emails based on keywords… let’s not make everything about AI please.
It’s not Google sending this out. It’s literally the NSAs data center flagging it. And if you think your email is safe just because you host it then I got another thing to tell you about how the internet works.
Guy asks them to show some “decency,” which is so horrific to them, they basically say “we’re going to come for you too.”
100% Nazi shit.
That was the content of the email. No threat. No crime. Just telling a prosecutor that he is creating irreputable harm to an individual.
Bad.
Don’t use Gmail.
…and that’s why I don’t host my email in the US or on US-owned servers. Fuck that!
if you’re planning to do that, do it from a ip like from a library/coffee shop and use a different device or a public computer(university, or laptop from a library
DHS
Hunts DownInterviews 67-Year-Old U.S. Citizen…I’m all for publicly shaming these dummys, but seriously, let’s use accurate language instead of sensationalism.
ETA: Didn’t know that disagreement made me a nazi. Good to know.
It’s not normal or proper for the DHS to subpoena information about citizens who express an opinion to government officials. This is transparently an action undertaken to intimidate. The language used in the headline conveys the meaning much more clearly than a “neutral” (read: complicit) phrasing would.
Didn’t say it was normal. And, again, all for publicly shaming these dummys, but “Hunt Down” does not, in fact convey what actually happened. Words have meaning, and this headline is intentionally sensational.
And it’s apparently “complicit” to say otherwise. Noted.
But that is exactly what happened, and it’s what the article is about. “Hunt down” is an idiomatic phrase in English, and it would be not at all unusual for me to, say, hunt down a USB adapter in my office. Leaving that detail out of the headline would be burying the lede.
Are you thinking his email included his home address and an invitation to come debate? Unless it did, seems like a pretty accurate headline to me.
Are you seriously simping for ICEatzgruppen?
I had no idea that’s what I was doing, but apparently we can only critique the nazis and not anyone else or we’re nazi simps.
Noted.
(also, fuck off)
It is using “hunt” in the digital sense. They didn’t know who he was or where he lived. They had to force Google to give them his info, which they then used to find his physical address.
Do you think he signed his email with his full name and home address?
Do you think it takes anyone with any semblance of IT knowledge more than a few minutes to dox someone online? Much less someone using gmail? Much less a 67 year old whose email was probably John.Smith.Hometownname?
And that is called hunting. Using specialized skills and tools to locate and approach a target in its home environment is hunting.
You say you aren’t apologizing for DHS here, but you are fighting really hard against a VERY common use of the word hunt because it makes DHS look bad.
dummies