lol. Snooping powers my ass. Take a look at the cases mw talked about. This technique is nothing new and no judge has any motivation to stand up for the rights of accused terrorism suspects against the FBI. It's the same logic that leads to so few justified pardons for the death penalty, no one wants to be seen as soft on crime. And no one has any motivation at all to be seen as lenient towards accused terrorists. The FBI and those pro mass surveillance desperately need to justify their far-reaching methods in the face of public opposition, and, with that much political clout behind it, taking a stand downwind is political suicide. I mean, the Intercept is just quoting the fucking judge (who prosecuted someone in a similar case) about the questionable methods blatantly used, and this brings about doubting the credibility of the news organization?House Speaker John Boehner claimed yesterday that “the National Security Agency’s snooping powers helped stop a plot to attack the Capitol
(emphasis mine)The FBI learned about Cornell from an unnamed informant who, as the FBI put it, “began cooperating with the FBI in order to obtain favorable treatment with respect to his criminal exposure on an unrelated case.”
I only questioned the new organization for their interesting choice of headline and writing style. Based on what the original goals for the Intercept were, I find it interesting that they are reporting with headlines that could literally be pulled from reddit news. It's not as blatant as buzzfeed, upworthy, etc but it's definitely got some clickbaity, fear mongering in there. This is not to say that it is actually a conspiracy theory or the facts are wrong. It just set off my skepticism sensors. As many others have pointed out in this thread, the facts themselves have more or less been reported by other organizations and there's nothing entirely earth shattering here. I still feel like with the lofty goals of the Intercept, a tiny bit more traditional and objective journalism would be seen. After reading the article, before seeing the domain, I would never have guessed it was them. I guessed it was a conspiracy blog or like news week or some shit. That's my only point.
Yeah, I could see myself having the same reaction if I had read it blind initially, with no reference points as to where it had come from. I've previously read about these in some anarchist blogs and news, and those can be quite pugilistic and fear-mongering, depending, so this is one of the more reasonable accounts I've been exposed to. Plus, with that previous exposure, it didn't quite any alarm cells for me that signify conspiracy-esque thoughts, but more like, "oh great, this again." Sorry for the confusion, I thought you were maybe referencing the parts in the article cited or the underlying story as a whole. Also, the "fucking" in my last sentence was a little much.