April 14, 2022

FBI Documents Expose Bureau's Big Jan. 6 'Lie'

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/jan6-fbi-social-media-privacy-black-lives-matter-1337565/

In the aftermath of the Jan. 6 insurrection, the FBI told Congress and the American people that the agency had failed to prevent or fully prepare for the worst attack on the U.S. Capitol in more than 200 years in part because it lacked the authority and capabilities to more aggressively monitor social media, where much of the planning for the insurrection took place.

As FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress last summer, the FBI had circulated intelligence materials and other resources before Jan. 6, but the agency had limits in what it could and couldn’t gather from social media. “When we have an authorized purpose and proper predication, there are a lot of things that we do at social media and we do do,” Wray said, “but [what] we cannot do on social media is, without proper predication and authorized purpose, just monitor just in case on social media.”

Wray added, “Now, if the policies should be changed to reflect that, that might be one of the important lessons learned coming out of this whole experience. But that’s not something that currently the FBI has either the authority or certainly the resources, frankly, to do.” Since Wray’s testimony, the bureau has sought to ramp up its online surveillance capabilities, including by entering into one of the largest social-media monitoring contracts of any federal agency.

Yet internal FBI records obtained by Rolling Stone show that, well before Jan. 6, the bureau already engaged in ongoing and widespread tracking of Twitter, Facebook, Telegram, and other social-media platforms. The new documents suggest the agency has all the authority it needs to monitor the social-media platforms in the name of public safety — and, in fact, the bureau had done just that during the nationwide wave of racial justice protests in 2020. Critics of the FBI say that the bureau’s desire for more authority and surveillance tools is part of a decades-long expansion of the vast security apparatus inside the federal government.

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April 10, 2022

The epitome of snowflake-ism...

https://www.nashvillescene.com/news/pithinthewind/reclaim-brookmeade-park-member-files-ethics-complaint-over-being-called-white/article_8a11fb40-b827-11ec-845d-9703fa63017a.html

A group of West Nashvillians filed an ethics complaint against a Metro councilmember for describing them as "white people," "loud white people" and "affluent white people," saying the terms are slurs. The complaint aimed at District 16 Councilmember Ginny Welsch was filed by a member of Reclaim Brookmeade Park, a group that formed in response to a growing homeless encampment at the greenway.

"We were angered, embarrassed and appalled at being referred to as a 'white people!' by a sitting council person!" reads the complaint, filed by Tim Tomes, a board member of the group. "We consider that a racial slur! Wonder how things would have gone if I was another ethnicity?"

The complaint mentions Welsch, who is also white, describing the group members as white on social media and says she misrepresents their mission. "Does she realize her social media comments could actually put us in danger?" it reads.

Tomes filed two complaints, one on behalf of Reclaim Brookmeade and one as an individual, though the language in both is near identical.

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