<story><title>FBI director admits they rarely have probable cause for using NSA collections</title><url>https://www.techdirt.com/2023/11/21/fbi-director-admits-agency-rarely-has-probable-cause-when-it-performs-backdoor-searches-of-nsa-collections/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>kenjackson</author><text>That’s insincere.  Even if you truly believe a catastrophe may happen you may not be willing to risk life in prison because the President doesn’t like your bosses boss.</text></item><item><author>Terr_</author><text>On the subject of FBI&amp;#x2F;NSA&amp;#x2F;CIA insincerity, that makes me think of various post-9&amp;#x2F;11 debates often involving &amp;quot;ticking bomb&amp;quot; Hollywood scenarios.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d like to reiterate that any kind of &amp;quot;OMG there&amp;#x27;s no time we must stop the NYC WMD ASAP&amp;quot; scenario &lt;i&gt;already&lt;/i&gt; has a special exception route: Just commit the necessary spying&amp;#x2F;theft&amp;#x2F;torture crime, and plan for a Presidential pardon after explaining the extraordinary circumstances that totally justified your action.&lt;p&gt;If they aren&amp;#x27;t willing to put their own skin in the game, then the situation cannot be as clearly dire as they claim.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Terr_</author><text>&amp;gt; life in prison because the President doesn’t like your bosses boss&lt;p&gt;1. If the President hates the CIA&amp;#x2F;NSA&amp;#x2F;FBI director that much they tend to get quickly replaced.&lt;p&gt;2. Punishing a lower-level agent with prison doesn&amp;#x27;t seem like an effective way to get revenge on whatever agency leadership the President might hate.&lt;p&gt;You&amp;#x27;re making an appeal to a compound scenario: It isn&amp;#x27;t &lt;i&gt;just&lt;/i&gt; (A) &amp;quot;Hollywood ticking bomb&amp;quot; unlikely, but &lt;i&gt;also&lt;/i&gt; (B) &amp;quot;TV political backstabbing drama&amp;quot; unlikely, multiplied &lt;i&gt;again&lt;/i&gt; by (C) &amp;quot;stupidly baroque form of revenge&amp;quot; unlikely... to get a final probability somewhere near zero-point-zero-zero-not-gonna-happen-LOL.&lt;p&gt;So no, I don&amp;#x27;t think that fantastical hypothetical justifies day-to-day erosion of rule-of-law and civil rights.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Even if you truly believe a catastrophe may happen&lt;p&gt;If someone truly believes it &lt;i&gt;and&lt;/i&gt; they have a reasonable basis behind that belief [0], then surely the morality of saving millions from an atomic fireball or whatever goes pretty dang far in outweighing 1-20 years in federal prison, and they will have ample evidence to make a strong case for getting a pardon.&lt;p&gt;[0] If spy&amp;#x2F;agent&amp;#x2F;analyst dude &amp;quot;truly believes&amp;quot; but for no real reason other than voices in their head, a prophetic dream, hidden scriptures, or alphabet-soup... &lt;i&gt;they are already incompetent and need to be fired immediately&lt;/i&gt; to remove them from that position of authority.</text></comment>
<story><title>FBI director admits they rarely have probable cause for using NSA collections</title><url>https://www.techdirt.com/2023/11/21/fbi-director-admits-agency-rarely-has-probable-cause-when-it-performs-backdoor-searches-of-nsa-collections/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>kenjackson</author><text>That’s insincere.  Even if you truly believe a catastrophe may happen you may not be willing to risk life in prison because the President doesn’t like your bosses boss.</text></item><item><author>Terr_</author><text>On the subject of FBI&amp;#x2F;NSA&amp;#x2F;CIA insincerity, that makes me think of various post-9&amp;#x2F;11 debates often involving &amp;quot;ticking bomb&amp;quot; Hollywood scenarios.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d like to reiterate that any kind of &amp;quot;OMG there&amp;#x27;s no time we must stop the NYC WMD ASAP&amp;quot; scenario &lt;i&gt;already&lt;/i&gt; has a special exception route: Just commit the necessary spying&amp;#x2F;theft&amp;#x2F;torture crime, and plan for a Presidential pardon after explaining the extraordinary circumstances that totally justified your action.&lt;p&gt;If they aren&amp;#x27;t willing to put their own skin in the game, then the situation cannot be as clearly dire as they claim.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ssnistfajen</author><text>If you can&amp;#x27;t justify that risk tradeoff, then it&amp;#x27;s probably not that catastrophic to begin with.</text></comment>