"Concerning:" FBI Sent Its Orders to Twitter Via an App Called Teleport, Where Messages Would Disappear Within 10 Days, and Could Not be Screenshot

They couldn't be screenshot? I don't know how an app would manage that, but David Sacks is a tech king and if he says it, it's legit.

So the FBI was using an app whose features made it impossible to ever later check up on their censorship orders to Twitter. They knew that they were fishing in very troubled waters, so a record of their actions was absolutely necessary for Congress and inspector generals to see, but instead of carefully recording all these interactions and saving the records for later analysis, they took pains to make sure no one could see what they were doing.

Intent to defraud the government of the United States -- a vague charge they've charged others with. Charge them. Fucking criminal scumbags and Stasi agents.

It was a very weird detail," Sacks said, "And it shows the way our government prefers to operate, which is in secrecy." "What basis is there for the FBI first of all even to be engaged in censorship on social media to the extent they were," Sacks said, noting they had an 80-agent team flagging posts for the FBI and other parts of the government. They were the "belly button," the centralized conduit for the surveillance by the federal government of social media posts on a large scale, Sacks said.

"What was the crime that they were investigating here," Sacks declared. This was all coming under the heading of searching for "foreign interference" in elections, a truly nebulous justification. Add to that the instructions were secret, disappearing, Sacks said, "Why isn't that a matter of public record?" He said first of all, it was a violation of the First Amendment if they were pushing censorship, but on top of that, they weren't even being transparent about it. "We have a right as citizens of this country to know what our government is doing, and for them to be engaging in this sort of um, you know, magic trick, where the instructions they are giving are disappearing, it's almost like the cover-up part of this crime."

Elon Musk highlighted this discussion, noting that it was "concerning" that the FBI did this.

Video at the link.

(Sorry, I thought I published at 4:30.)

posted by Ace at 05:35 PM

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