| ▲ | edot 7 hours ago |
| "Natanson said her work had led to 1,169 new sources, “all current or former federal employees who decided to trust me with their stories”. She said she learned information “people inside government agencies weren’t supposed to tell me”, saying that the intensity of the work nearly “broke” her." Wow. So they're going to plug her phone in to whatever cracking tech they have and pull down the names of everyone who has been helping her tell the story of the destruction of our government. The following question is "what will they do with the names of the people they pull?". I can only imagine. Horrible. Hopefully she had good OPSEC but she's a reporter, not a technologist. I bet enough mistakes were made (or enough vulnerabilities exist) that they'll be able to pull down the list. |
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| ▲ | srean 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| In India we have been going through this the last 14 years or so. Look up Stanswamy [0], an octagenarian jailed on the basis of trumped up charges and planted evidence (most likely with the help of Israeli companies). Journalists held in jail for five years without any charges pressed. Same fate for those who criticize the government too vocally. Now pretty much all of the press is but a government press release with a few holding out here and there. [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/12/13/stan-swamy-h... |
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| ▲ | everdrive 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| It's important to note, that the law is not written such that it's only illegal to share classified information when you have a good president. I think a lot of us are very sympathetic when classified information is released to the public due to public interest, concern regarding government action, etc. But it's still illegal. I'm not making a moral claim here. Rather, people who release classified information without authorization are breaking the law. If I rob a bank to feed my family vs. robbing a bank because it's fun, it's still illegal. A jury might be more or less sympathetic to my cause, but I will still be arrested and charged if the police can manage it. |
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| ▲ | kasey_junk 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | But also note the government is punishing people for legal acts as well. It’s perfectly legal to tell a soldier they do not have to obey unlawful orders, in fact in many cases it’s a requirement. But the us military started court martial proceedings against a sitting congressman person for doing it. | | |
| ▲ | everdrive 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | Well yes, but you can't tell a judge "yes, I broke the law, but it's OK because the government broke the law first." | | |
| ▲ | kasey_junk 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | It’s frequently not illegal to talk to a reporter. Let’s not kid ourselves, this isn’t about classified material it’s about loyalty, so watch what happens to sources that didn’t do anything illegal. This government brought sham charges against the Fed president, what are they going to do to a run of the mill federal employee? | | |
| ▲ | irishcoffee 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | > It’s frequently not illegal to talk to a reporter. Let’s not kid ourselves, this isn’t about classified material it’s about loyalty, so watch what happens to sources that didn’t do anything illegal. It is not illegal to talk to a reporter, it is illegal to share classified intel with someone who doesn't have a clearance and a need-to-know. Do I think they should have raided this persons house? Absolutely not. Is it illegal to share classified information, absolutely. "For my friends everything, for everyone else, the law" or whatever the saying is, applies here. In this case, the reporter did nothing wrong, but the raid on the home of the reporter can be justified according to the law, so it isn't illegal. Should it be? Probably. Legislation is good, rules are good, the classified rules seems to make sense if you subscribe to Hanlons Razor at the least. Sometimes though, laws just don't make sense and shouldn't be codified. For example: MCL 750.335 - "Any man or woman, not being married to each other, who lewdly and lasciviously associates and cohabits together, and any man or woman, married or unmarried, who is guilty of open and gross lewdness and lascivious behavior, is guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment for not more than 1 year, or a fine of not more than $1,000.00." This shouldn't be a law. | | |
| ▲ | Tadpole9181 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | You've misunderstood the parent. They're saying watch out what happens to anyone in the Journalist's book who did not share classified information. You seriously think this administration is going to get a list of 1,200 government employees who are (legally) informing reporters of the goings-on and just... Let it go? Those people are about to get punished. And since we're at the point of an unaccountable, unidentifiable Gestapo going door-to-door and arresting / murdering citizens openly in the streets... | | |
| ▲ | Nicook 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | its pretty clear, even from the journalist's quote, that some of the things they informed her about was not done legally (classified information). Now is overclassification a problem too, yes but that's bureaucracy. | | |
| ▲ | Tadpole9181 6 minutes ago | parent [-] | | You are responding to a thread with the exact quotes: > But also note the government is punishing people for legal acts as well. ... > so watch what happens to sources that didn’t do anything illegal. So we, in this thread, are talking about what happens to the majority of her sources that are NOT sharing confidential information or committing any crime. |
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| ▲ | alphawhisky 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | No, but you can tell it to a jury. | |
| ▲ | epistasis 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Aren't you arguing against a straw man here? It seems that you can't address the concerns of the comment and are instead saying obvious truths as if that is somehow counter to the person you replied to. | | |
| ▲ | everdrive 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | I didn't intend to. When he said "But also note the government is punishing people for legal acts as well." I read this as "the government is breaking the law" I think instead what that poster meant is was "people who didn't share classified information will be targeted and prosecuted as well." So, apologies for misunderstanding. |
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| ▲ | srean 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46617645 comments that it's only federal employees who are legally bound regarding classified documents, reporters are not. | |
| ▲ | scarecrowbob 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | They can and do make whatever they want illegal, but you're correct not to make a moral claim about it. I'm not making a moral claim, either, but a pragmatic one. At the same time, it's entirely legitimate to look at a set of laws and think "fuck that". Just because you're correct that bad things might happen to folks doesn't mean I have to be happy with it. At the end of the day, having bad laws doesn't make the rest of us cower in fear. Rather, those laws help us understand that the folks protected by those laws (and the systems that they are using to harm us) neither have our interests in mind nor have any legitimate claim to authority. So while your "bad things will happen if I break the law" is maybe pragmatic, consider a similar pragmatic point: "writing laws that folks feel justified in breaking might lead to shifts in how legitimate people see that government". | |
| ▲ | HNisCIS 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I understand what you're saying, but we as a society need to have some sort of baseline above the law and order view of the world. I know a lot of people are either too stupid or too tied up in the propaganda machine but we DEEPLY need to agree on some sort of universal ethical standards as a country or we will die. We used to have at least vague concepts like that but the admin has eroded that in the pursuit of "anything goes" political maneuvering. | |
| ▲ | mingus88 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Soap box > ballot box > jury box > ammo box We are on step 3 | | |
| ▲ | KaiserPro 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I think you (the country, not you the writer) has been on the ammo box for a good number of years. The number of police and public based killing is much higher than comparable countries elsewhere. | |
| ▲ | HNisCIS 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I fear over the past week we've hit 3.99 | | |
| ▲ | immibis 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | The other side is already using box 4. | | |
| ▲ | mindslight 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Yes, this is my problem with references to the ammo box. That exact rhetoric has been with us for decades now, and has in fact helped to get us to the point we're at. Sure, maybe some ICE home invaders will be shot in self-defense while committing their crimes, but we already know how that plays out legally and even in the court of public opinion sadly (Walker/Taylor). So instances of self-defense won't change the big picture, regardless of such self defense options perhaps being pragmatic for those who are likely to be attacked right now or in the near future. So that brings us back to the question of the large scale situation, which IME rests entirely on there being so many people Hell-bent on using the ammo box to "save" the country with the net effect of trashing it. We've essentially got flash mobs of brownshirts, understandably frustrated at how they've been disenfranchised and their liberties taken away, but having their frustration channeled into being part of the problem. Which I'd say comes back to filter bubbles, social media, pervasive and personalized propaganda, etc. Of course freeing people from those filter bubbles is much harder than if we had managed to avoid the corporate consumer surveillance industry from taking hold and strongly facilitating them in the first place. |
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| ▲ | itsanaccount 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | i keep tabs on posts roughly along the lines of "maybe we need guns after all." imo they're usually too late, as guns without training and a group aren't very useful. but i can tell you the number has went up about 4x the baseline in the holiday season. and thats after its doubling after November's elections. this country is a powderkeg and what's worse is i think these provocations are international. the admin seems to want to start a civil war. |
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| ▲ | clarkmoody 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | The ballot has always been a proxy for the bayonet. |
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| ▲ | SpicyLemonZest 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I reject the current legitimacy of that law. After Donald Trump claimed personal immunity for classified document violations in his interregnum, any prosecutions his government launches based on it are presumptively invalid. | | |
| ▲ | cjs_ac 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | That's all well and good, but the law stands because the administration has more firepower than you. | | |
| ▲ | SpicyLemonZest 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I certainly don't agree that quantity of firepower determines what laws do or don't stand. Ask the federal agents who tried, and failed, to convict a guy for throwing a sandwich at them (https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/dc-sandw...). | |
| ▲ | HNisCIS 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | The American military couldn't handle rice farmers or goat herders, they sure as fuck can't handle the most armed country in history. The question is how many people will side with them vs reality. | | |
| ▲ | ceejayoz 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > The American military couldn't handle rice farmers or goat herders… The American military at the time cared - at least somewhat - about the international reputation of the United States. That may not always be a thing. It may not be a thing now. | | |
| ▲ | HNisCIS 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | The American military is designed to operate away from its shores. One hunting rifle round into the transformer outside of the bases and they're trucking in fuel for generators, a few rounds into the fuel trucks and they have no power. They would have to mobilize massive resources to secure Lockheed and Raytheon facilities from sabotage... Keep thinking along these lines and you realize the situation for them is actually quite dire. | | |
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| ▲ | selectodude 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The American military would have zero problems massacring an unlimited number of rice farmers and goat herders. | | | |
| ▲ | johnisgood 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > The American military couldn't handle rice farmers or goat herders Where can I read more about this? | | |
| ▲ | ceejayoz 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan_(2001%E2%80... | | |
| ▲ | johnisgood 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Yeah, but... the quoted phrase should not be taken literally as a statement about battlefield capability. It was a political struggle for legitimacy, not just territory, and the enemy did not have to win any battles, just avoid losing until the political will collapsed. The thing is, military power does not automatically translate to political success, and guerrilla fighters do not need to defeat tanks and jets, they just need to survive, persist, undermine legitimacy, and exhaust the opponent's political will. So, in this sense, the US was not beaten by farmers, it was beaten by a strategy that made military superiority irrelevant. | | |
| ▲ | SpicyLemonZest 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Absolutely, and I think the domestic opposition strategy here makes military superiority irrelevant. The US government doesn't want to, and would collapse if they tried to, shoot everyone who says that Donald Trump is an illegitimate president and any prosecution he wants to succeed should fail. | | |
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| ▲ | pixl97 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | >The American military couldn't handle rice farmers or goat herders Eh, they killed them by the hundreds of thousands, and were not even trying to genocide them. If the current regime decided to actually just exterminate people our level of technology would make what the Nazis did look like babies playtime. >The question is how many people will side with them vs reality At least 40% of the population given what we've seen so far. | | |
| ▲ | HNisCIS 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | We'll find out I suppose, the Iranian government is currently seeking the answer to that question experimentally. |
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| ▲ | kuerbel 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Usually you would only communicate through secure drop. Looks like the Washington post uses it: https://www.washingtonpost.com/securedrop/ |
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| ▲ | stevenwoo 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| There’s a subreddit dedicated to fed employee opinions so I assume they already identified all active posters by now and the direct contacts are being correlated. |
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| ▲ | naravara 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I hope Washington Post does a better job of training their reporters than my friend’s former employer did. They sent her off to a certain country with highly repressive speech laws and secret police to interview and survey various civil rights activist groups. They gave her little to no guidance about how to protect herself aside from “Use a VPN to send any documents to us.” They didn’t even instruct her to use an encrypted email provider or to use a VPN for any online work that didn’t get sent to the employer. It’s very fortunate she knew me and I could at least give her some basic guidance to use an encrypted email service, avoid doing any work on anything sensitive that syncs to a cloud server, make sure she has FileVault enabled, get her using a password manager, verify that her VPN provider is trustworthy, etc. |
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| ▲ | gruez 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | >They sent her off to a certain country with highly repressive speech laws and secret police to interview and survey various civil rights activist groups. They gave her little to no guidance about how to protect herself aside from “Use a VPN to send any documents to us.” They didn’t even instruct her to use an encrypted email provider or to use a VPN for any online work that didn’t get sent to the employer. How would those advice have helped? >an encrypted email provider Unless this was in the early 2010s the email provider was probably using TLS, which means to the domestic security service at least, is as safe as a "encrypted email provider" (protonmail?) >FileVault enabled That might work in a country with due process, but in a place with secret police they can just torture you until you give up the keys. >password manager Does the chance of credential stuffing attacks increase when you're in a repressive state? None of the advice is bad, but they're also not really specific to traveling to a repressive country. Phishing training is also good, but I won't lambast a company for not doing phishing training prior to sending a employee to a repressive country. | | |
| ▲ | naravara 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Unless this was in the early 2010s the email provider was probably using TLS It was the mid 2010s yes. And they’re not going to abduct and torture and American citizen out of the blue. The more “intensive” methods are higher cost, the intention is just to increase the friction involved with engaging in the routine and scalable, ordinary forms of snooping. |
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| ▲ | tuna74 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Shouldn't this be basic knowledge for journalist? | | |
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| ▲ | iamtheworstdev 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > The following question is "what will they do with the names of the people they pull?". I'll take a shot at the answer -> Charge them with treason. Because that's the country we live in now, and most of us are just sitting by passively watching it happen. |
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| ▲ | an0malous 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | There’s a good fraction of people, especially on this forum, who are actively encouraging this. Posts that criticize the administration consistently get flagged off the front page even when they’re related to tech | | |
| ▲ | quietbritishjim 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | You are severely misreading why people flag posts about that discuss the administration (whether for or against): they are tiresome to read about, and it doesn't lead to productive interesting discussion (which is supposed to be what the vote buttons are for here). Politics isn't 100% off topic for HN but mostly I come here to get away from it and I'm sure others do too. | | |
| ▲ | MSFT_Edging 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | There is also a conflict of interest for many in the tech space who browse this forum. Many of the technologies we work on are being abused by this administration. IE Flock being a ycombinator startup, Ring cameras giving free access to police and others[1], AI systems being used for targeting dissent, ad-services and the data they vacuum up being bought by agencies to build up profiles for dissenting citizens[2]. We've watched this type of technology even be used to target the families of people in warzones to explicitly perform war crimes[3]. This is a forum of people who have effectively built the panopticon but don't enjoy hearing about how the panopticon is being used. Politics is now interwoven into our careers whether we like it or not. There is no pure technology, everything we work on effects the world for better or worse. Pulling the wool over our eyes to pretend there's a pure non-political form of talking about these topics is childish and naive. [1] https://www.cnet.com/home/security/amazons-ring-cameras-push...
[2] https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/26/tech/the-nsa-buys-americans-i...
[3] https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/09/10/questions-and-answers-is... | | |
| ▲ | quietbritishjim 34 minutes ago | parent [-] | | > There is also a conflict of interest for many in the tech space who browse this forum. Many of the technologies we work on are being abused by this administration. Possibly true. Just irrelevant. I already have far too much exposure to Trump, and I'm not even American. I'd like it not to come up here. You may disagree, and that's fine, but the original question was - why are stories about him flagged. I maintain that the answer, for many people if not nearly all, is simple: ugh, not again. |
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| ▲ | afavour 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I understand the instinct to remove "politics" from HN but it's fuzzier than that. There were great HN-related conversations to be had around DOGE and what it was (purportedly) trying to achieve with automation, AI, replacing old code bases etc. There was a fascinating discussion about COBOL and what DOGE didn't understand and it immediately got flagged off the front page. Same thing recently with Grok and non-consensual adult content. Folks on HN are well placed to speak knowledgeably about it yet it is instantly voted off the front page. Difficult not to see it as folks plugging their fingers in their ears. And there are folks on here that are flagging things because they paint the administration in a bad light. There are DOGE folks here, there are Palantir folks, etc. etc., I don't think you can dismiss those motivations even if they aren't true for you personally. I think the core problem is that flagging system is too powerful and too anonymous. | | |
| ▲ | JCattheATM 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > There were great HN-related conversations to be had around DOGE and what it was (purportedly) trying to achieve Were there? I just saw people blindly advocating and excusing their incompetence. The discussions were very polarized, not well thought out or supported with evidence, and not remotely productive. At least from what I saw. | |
| ▲ | belorn 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > There were great HN-related conversations to be had around DOGE and what it was (purportedly) trying to achieve with automation, AI, replacing old code bases etc I have a very different impression of those discussions, with more or less half of the comments being flagged and downvoted into oblivion, and the overall mood being very heavy in negativity and hostility. I would like to see great HN-related conversations. Maybe if they disabled donwvotes and flagging, and did some heavy handed moderation against negativity and hostility. A great conversation depend on a safe environment where people feel free to express their genuine views and opinions. | |
| ▲ | Teever 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | The no politics rule on HN is the equivalent of "the suspect smelled like marijuana so I had probable cause to search his car." -- it gives the moderators a plausible reason to remove content they don't want on here while maintaining an air of legitimacy around the removable because thems the rules. Donald Trump has threatened to annex my country. Are posts about that political? Sure doesn't seem like it to me. From my persective this subject seems more like an existential threat then a discussion about policy. But I suppose to Americans it is just a matter of policy and politcs. The incessent posts about Bay Area housing regulations -- political or not? Seems pretty political to me but apparently it isn't? | | |
| ▲ | tdeck an hour ago | parent [-] | | Sorry, your country potentially being annexed just doesn't spark curious discussion. We've seen this with the other 5 countries that were annexed: just a lot of tiresome complaints and people flagging each other in the comments. When I'm hiding in my basement from the Patriot Press Gangs, I want to read about the difference between TCP Reno and TCP Tahoe, not about some boring politics. | | |
| ▲ | SauntSolaire 28 minutes ago | parent [-] | | If you want to talk about a country being annexed, you can go to literally any other website. That's not true if you want to talk about TCP. |
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| ▲ | simgoh 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Politics isn't 100% off topic for HN but mostly I come here to get away from it and I'm sure others do too. I sympathize, relate, and I'm not about to lecture you like some corners of the internet about "the privilege" to try and ignore stuff like this, but it is important to keep stuff like this at the forefront. We continue to experience unprecedented life events. | | |
| ▲ | Levitz 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | On the contrary, there's no need whatsoever to even deal with this since it already happens everywhere else, it's not some niche, subtle matter, it's probably the most talked about subject in the last decade. | | |
| ▲ | simgoh 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | That doesn't really resonate with me because you could make that argument about anything, _especially since_ most of the items that are posted here are links to other websites. There's no need to talk about it here - you could just talk about it at the relevant site(s) comment section. | | |
| ▲ | Levitz 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | No. I'm not saying "There's is some other place", I'm saying "This is everywhere already", and for that reason there is no need for it to be explicitly here. There is by no means whatsoever any shortage of places in which those discussions could take place. The argument is that it should be everywhere, and I staunchly disagree. | | |
| ▲ | lcnPylGDnU4H9OF an hour ago | parent [-] | | > The argument is that it should be everywhere, and I staunchly disagree. The argument is that it should be here, and that is a very reasonable stance. There is no shortage of places where anything can be discussed; that's not the point. "Here", there is a certain expectation around how to comment which makes this place a more interesting discussion forum, no matter the topic. That some topics bring out the worst in some people is not a good reason to make the topic verboten, but instead a reason to be more critical of the commentary under those topics. > Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. That doesn't say "no divisive topics" for a reason. The topics are not what make this place interesting, but instead the rules of engagement are. |
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| ▲ | bix6 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I find the political discussions on here interesting and generally of decent+ caliber. Plus so much of what’s happening is tech related / enabled. There’s 30 posts on the front page. If someone doesn’t care about politics why can’t they just ignore that 1 post instead of flagging it into oblivion? | | |
| ▲ | pureagave 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | I agree that it is slightly better than Reddit but often it just turns into a mess that doesn't touch on tech. They are plenty of places for political discussions. HN is a rare great place for tech so personally I'd rather keep it that way. | | |
| ▲ | Levitz 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | I agree that HN tends to have better discussion, but I'd argue it tends to have better discussion precisely because it's not the norm, so there's input from the type of people that loathe the current state of Reddit on the matter, and also the type of people that do like yapping about it 24/7 are absent from it. |
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| ▲ | ceejayoz 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Some people do that, yes. Others do what the parent post described. HN is certainly not a monolith, and we've got our share of loons on all extremes of the political spectrum. | |
| ▲ | throwworhtthrow 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | There are many topics discussed on HN that I find tiresome to read about. For example, diet and fitness topics. You could swap the comments from one article to another and not even notice. That's why I stopped reading them. It's never once occurred to me that I should rather open them up, dive into the comments section, and tell the participants that I'm trying to get away from boring discussions about diet and fitness. | |
| ▲ | NewJazz 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | This is just conjecture | |
| ▲ | mullingitover 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Flagging off news about current events (whether you support the regime or not) is counterproductive to a forum nominally for the startup community. Startup founders need to be aware of the environment they are operating in, so if the current environment is a corrupt fascist authoritarian one then you need to be prepared to operate in that type of business environment. If you now need to bribe certain officials in the regime in order for your startup to succeed, for example, flagging posts about how that's necessary is counterproductive. | |
| ▲ | GJim 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Politics isn't 100% off topic for HN but mostly I come here to get away from it and I'm sure others do too. Whilst I sympathise, it's a bit hard to avoid politics on here, when the tech oligarchs of Silicon Valley are actively supporting a corrupt administration to line their own pockets. A statement of fact that will no doubt earn the ire of many tech-bro's. | |
| ▲ | heromal 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Yeah, because "AI is so great guys!!" is any better. | | |
| ▲ | kgwxd 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Maybe we'll be able to flag more than 1 type of post someday :/ |
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| ▲ | addandsubtract 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Is this thread not about the administration? The FBI currently acts at the will of the White House / GOP / Trump. Stick your head in the sand all you want, but don't betray the people who are standing up against oppression. | |
| ▲ | sofixa 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > they are tiresome to read about, and it doesn't lead to productive interesting discussion (which is supposed to be what the vote buttons are for here). Politics isn't 100% off topic for HN but mostly I come here to get away from it and I'm sure others do too. I don't agree. Crypto scams get discussed at length here for days, but when it's a Trump crypto scam, it gets flagged and disappears. |
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| ▲ | yoyohello13 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It's pretty shocking how many people on HN are ok with government officials killing citizens in the streets, but writing diversity statements is just too far. | | | |
| ▲ | ap99 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Well it really depends on what was leaked. | |
| ▲ | kilroy123 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Sadly, a lot of people in Silicon Valley now subscribe to this "dark enlightenment" nonsense. | | | |
| ▲ | Der_Einzige 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The seeds of fascism are in the hearts of well over 50% of the people around you. | |
| ▲ | billfor 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | It's flagged because its historically not Hacker News. Many of the newer accounts seem to bias towards using this forum as a "reddit" to discuss how much they hate the current administration or their mental issues. The technical "hacker" content is getting less and less -- thank God for https://lobste.rs/.
So that's all fine and maybe hackers should just change be a reddit forum, but don't take it personally or be surprised if 15 old accounts are flagging your posts. I say this noting that the account you posted from is only 9 months old. | | |
| ▲ | Sparkle-san 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | We historically haven't had an administration like this either. People need to get over politics creeping into their every day life because that's what it's actually doing. We're at the point where the government is using tech to police and surveil the public and many of the CEOs of tech companies are openly coordinating with the President. Tech is politics at this point. | |
| ▲ | jyounker 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Sadly politics in the US has reached the point where it is impossible to separate, particularly if you're involved in any kind of business. | |
| ▲ | SpicyLemonZest 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Hating the current administration is one of the top technical issues on my mind. There is a substantial chance that all US-EU software collaboration is going to get blown up in the next few months if Trump makes good on his threats to invade Greenland, just as international trade has been reoriented around his illegal tariffs and responses to them. When Trump decides to destroy your life, as he's destroyed so many others, I hope you'll find supporters who aren't so determined to ignore the inconvenience as you. | |
| ▲ | rtp4me 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Wow, thanks for this! I normally don't login to HN and comment anymore due to all the reddit-style comments - especially the constant hate for the US and the President. Thanks for giving me another outlet to review tech-related stuff. <logging off now> |
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| ▲ | bregma 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Don't be ridiculous. Charging someone can be fraught. They will simply and quietly disappear. | | |
| ▲ | baggachipz 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | But I would think they'd like to publicly make an example of them. So, disappear most, publicly flog the rest. |
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| ▲ | cmiles74 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Denaturalize and deport? https://www.npr.org/2025/12/24/nx-s1-5649729/trump-administr... | |
| ▲ | lawn 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Or they'll have ICE take them and they'll be deported or made to disappear. Some might even end up dying. That's how the US is right now. | | |
| ▲ | cdrnsf 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | They also lie to local police. There was a case here where they drove erratically to try and make it look like a legal observer rammed their vehicle. They hit him twice, called the local police, lied to the police and then said observer provided his dash cam footage and was released. Will ICE face any repercussions? Nope. | | | |
| ▲ | mikeweiss 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | That only works if they aren't U.S citizens... Which if they're working for the gov means they are. This administration is creative they will find other more 'legal' ways for retribution so the punishment sticks. | | |
| ▲ | cultofmetatron 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > That only works if they aren't U.S citizens Ice has already summarily executed two US citizens. one literally on camera and broadcasted to the world. | | | |
| ▲ | rozab 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | ICE just summarily executed a US citizen in the street with the full support of the administration. | |
| ▲ | mikeweiss 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | This clearly struck a nerve. What I was trying to say is I doubt they will use ICE for retribution here... My bet is they will use the FBI and simply arrest the sources. I'm aware ICE has detained U.S citizens and also killed citizens on the street. | |
| ▲ | ryandrake 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Practically, what is stopping them from black-bagging and deporting citizens? Congress? The courts? | | |
| ▲ | TitaRusell 33 minutes ago | parent [-] | | That's just it. In theory Congress watches the watchers. But half of Congress sucks Trump's cock and the other half is literally denied the right to do their job. |
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| ▲ | gvedem 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | This would only be true if ICE cared to obey the law, which they do not. They are not observing even the most basic facsimile of due process or probable cause. Protesting them is being treated as grounds for brutalization or arrest. They are actively flaunting their contempt for the Constitution while "conservatives" cheer from the sidelines. | | |
| ▲ | anon84873628 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | Instead of calling them "conservatives" we should be calling them reactionaries. They want to erase the progress of the 20th century. |
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| ▲ | lawn 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Don't be so gullible. There are quite a few examples where they did detain US citizens, even claiming that the papers they had weren't good enough. The president has also multiple times said that he will strip people of citizenship. Yes, it's not exactly legal but they're doing illegal shit all the time and nobody's stopping them. | | |
| ▲ | lokar 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | There are many documented cases of them detaining natural born US citizens for close to a month. |
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| ▲ | sneak 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Nah, ICE is snatching and robbing US citizens too, even when they have ID on them. My (US citizen) friend got taken last month and driven hundreds of miles to another state simply for speaking spanish in public. | |
| ▲ | joering2 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | What difference does it make whether they are US citizens or not? At least DHS is not interested in finding out. And there has been plenty US citizens deported under DHS. https://www.congress.gov/119/meeting/house/118180/documents/... https://www.propublica.org/article/immigration-dhs-american-... | | |
| ▲ | andsoitis 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | > And there has been plenty US citizens deported under DHS. Are you sure? Do you mind linking to information / reporting about that? I have not seen any. | | |
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| ▲ | srean 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | ICE is now close to being Trump's private police, funded by tax payer's money and beyond accountability. | | |
| ▲ | jimt1234 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Close? That's been the case since ICE started rocking face masks and getting deployed only to "blue" cities. | | |
| ▲ | srean 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | It seems our down-voters disagree. Quite an interesting phenomena though, how affiliations color some unarguable facts. Many clearly believe that ICE agents are doing the right thing, they got what they voted for. |
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| ▲ | toss1 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Nonsense. You are seriously mistaken if you think mere legality will stop them. This regime has already illegally stopped, assaulted, arested, jailed, and/or deported multiple US citizens. They now stop people and demand they show citizenship papers, and the AsstDirFBI has said people must carry proof of citizenship at all times, and if not, ICE are free to abuse you under the presumption you are an illegal. We are already under a "May I see your papers, please?" Nazi-like system. Except without the superficial politeness of the "May..." and "...Please" and seeing the face of your accusers who hide behind masks. | |
| ▲ | rambojohnson 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | oh how naive you are... do you not watch the news / go outside? |
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| ▲ | actionfromafar 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/13/us/prosecutors-doj-resign... | |
| ▲ | AnimalMuppet 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | If you've got a way for us to not just passively sit by and watch it happen, well, we'd all love to see the plan. | |
| ▲ | immibis 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Charging with a crime is so last decade. Nowadays they just shoot people they don't like. | |
| ▲ | expedition32 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Ironic that the orange man is telling Iranians to risk their lives. | | |
| ▲ | lokar 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | His policy is very consistent and clear. He does not care about the form of government, how they treat the population etc, only that they show deference to him (personally). |
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| ▲ | parineum 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | That's always the country we've lived in. If these people were caught, they'd always have been punished. What they did is extremely illegal. The issue is with the manner of obtaining evidence, not with the crimes being pursued. |
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| ▲ | Traubenfuchs 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| You must accept that 3 letter agencies have full root access to any Tim Apple or Google device and will use it if they already went far enough to do an FBI raid on a reporter. |
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| ▲ | snowwrestler 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I don’t have to accept any assertion in the absence of evidence directly supporting it. | | | |
| ▲ | HumblyTossed 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | This isn't hyperbole. They literally went to the king with gold in hands. There's no WAY they didn't open up their platforms to him. | | |
| ▲ | luddit3 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Appeasing a moron with a shiny, valuable object is low effort. Covering up and adding a backdoor to Apple's widely used iOS is not in the same ballpark. | | |
| ▲ | beeflet 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | They don't need a backdoor. They can push whatever update to the OS they want. They have a front door. |
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| ▲ | Traubenfuchs 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > They literally went to the king with gold in hands. Exactly what I was thinking about when I was writing my comment. I can understand that big corpos are not our friends and are purely money driven, but publicly bribing the president with gold is on a level no one ever expected. Right in line with the Fifa peace price. | | |
| ▲ | derektank 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | IDK, the FIFA world peace prize was completely unsurprising to me. It’s a massively corrupt institution and has been for decades. It’s out of the norm in a US context, for sure, but that kind of thing is penny ante for an organization whose Wikipedia article has multiple subsections on corruption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA?wprov=sfti1#Corruption | |
| ▲ | fhdkweig 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | And don't forget the $400 million airplane that is probably filled with listening devices that will feed info to all of our enemies. |
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| ▲ | DetectDefect 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | What is especially insane is people STILL praise Apple for championing "privacy" - after Snowden, after China, after Trump ... the well-engineered sunk-cost fallacy is just too potent to resist, I guess. | | |
| ▲ | Traubenfuchs 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | Magical end to end protection in Meta and Apple (chat) software to protect you from… whom exactly? MAYBE non US governments? They probably have deals with all the big governments allowing them to spy on their own people at least. |
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| ▲ | fwip 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Counterpoint - if they have full root access to any phone, why did they need to do the raid? | | |
| ▲ | kuerbel 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | To intimidate other reporters | |
| ▲ | beeflet 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | So they don't burn their 0day | |
| ▲ | iAMkenough 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | The same reason federal agents wear GoPros. Security theater, and to send the message that journalists should not pursue stories like this that put the federal government in a less-than-favorable light. |
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| ▲ | embedding-shape 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I'm afraid Snowden was so long time ago, that the most vocal people don't even seemingly know about it, so yet again, we're in a period of time where assuming Apple/Google has full access to anything you do on your device, is seen as conspiracy theories. People seem to forget the past so damn quick, it's a wonder we humans manage to accomplish anything at all at this point. |
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