- cross-posted to:
- worldnews@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- worldnews@lemmy.ml
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More fascism.
Party of freedom?
Remember. Everything, and I mean everything, conservatives say is a lie. Because everything fascists say is a lie.
Fascist: “Why yes, I am a Conservative”
🤔
he emailed a lead prosecutor at the Department of Homeland Security, Joseph Dernbach, who was handling the deportation case of an Afghan refugee, identified as H, asking him to consider that the man’s life was in danger from the Taliban.
That was the content of the email. No threat. No crime. Just telling a prosecutor that he is creating irreputable harm to an individual.
Both Google and Meta received a record number of subpoenas in the United States during the first half of 2025 as Trump’s second term began, with Google receiving 28,622, a 15 percent increase over the previous six months.
Bad.
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.
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’?
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.
In this case they “captured it” by being the people it was sent to.
Spooky shit fr
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.
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.
You don’t need AI to flag emails based on keywords… let’s not make everything about AI please.
Later that day, Jon received an email from Google notifying him that an administrative subpoena had been sent to them from the Department of Homeland Security “compelling the release of information related to your Google Account.” Federal agencies can issue such subpoenas without an order from a judge or grand jury, and Google gave Jon, who withheld his last name to protect his family from the government, one week to challenge it.
Laws are supposed to restrict the use of administrative subpoenas, but DHS has used the tool against dissent protected under the First Amendment to the Constitution. Jon could not find who in the agency issued the subpoena, let alone a record of it to show an attorney.
Days later, DHS agents showed up at Jon’s door. A naturalized U.S. citizen originally from the U.K., Jon was worried about potential violence. The agents showed him a copy of the email and asked to see his side of the story. They didn’t know about the administrative subpoena but said they received orders to interview Jon by DHS headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Eventually, the agents agreed that Jon had committed no crimes after he told them he found Dernbach’s email address through a simple Google search. Jon secured pro bono representation by ACLU attorneys, who argue that the government is violating a statute that limits how administrative subpoenas can be used for “immigration enforcement” and that the government targeted Jon for protected speech.
Isn’t an “administrative subpoena” literally just a letter from an agency that says “give us this pretty please” with no actual enforceability at all?
Subpoenas, generally speaking, do not require a signature of a judge and aren’t subject to the same scrutiny as a warrant.
Subpoenas are issued against third parties (in this case Google) to compel the release of information. Google can fight the subpoena in court, but they generally don’t.
The enforceability only comes if Google decided not to comply, at which point they could offer to sell the information to the government or a judge ruled that Google must comply.
Again, most companies comply because they often lack the incentive to not comply.
Today you learned what a subpoena actually is:
If it had enforceability, they would explicitly cite laws to that effect in the subpoena itself. If the subpoena does not have that, it’s almost assuredly unenforceable.
Don’t use Gmail.
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.
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.
look: ANY interaction with a gov is akin to being hunted. they have guns. and use them.
CALL IT WHAT IT IS: intimidation and bullying through hunting a guy down through keyword triggers in an email.
dummys
dummies
