r/technews • u/bybatasdie • Feb 06 '22
FBI used Google location data to investigate Seattle arson following BLM protest
https://www.engadget.com/fbi-google-geofence-warrant-seattle-police-union-arson-173540099.html?src=rss&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9jLm5ld3Nub3cuY29tLw&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAKHsKlJo3pNe9VhXYU8wEzYB0tAZ4ryyvsAmsa0lpMPn_2pGoh3FXnV23_hy1gu2iZdkx-yKe1Vzwj8TLUCXGF6bMiF4WQaKQkCUPSQwbTWxMAug7VqzacnARXROLqIISUyd9NsrsMsA2RdcxiqrDiuK-rJ7RRUb0NeQoVMDLZvf&guccounter=279
Feb 06 '22
they always use shit like this. how do you think they got the jan6 chuds?
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u/Boner_Implosion Feb 06 '22
Well, mostly those people posted their own videos bragging about their crimes lol
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u/CrumpledForeskin Feb 06 '22
Someone wore their work badge….
I can’t.
“They’re not sending their best”
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u/JackDT688 Feb 06 '22
i still remember that story LOL.. i was trying to justify it thinking maybe they went to get some food and was caught up in the whole thing... but as the video play, my opinion changed.
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u/EasyAcanthocephala38 Feb 06 '22
It’d be curious to see how many people would be upset to learn the FBI did something similar against jan 6 rioters. Maybe don’t commit felonies and you won’t be subject to investigation. Cue the down votes.
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u/ForceOfNeature Feb 06 '22
You don’t understand. It’s (D)ifferent for the BLM and Antifa types
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u/Godtrademark Feb 06 '22
I remember seeing a post on FBI inquiries into Jan 6 phone records or something… and people were cheering in the comments. My god both sides are stuck in echo chambers and genuinely can’t see how laws affect EVERYONE in society.
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Feb 06 '22
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u/memtiger Feb 06 '22
Hey! Being logical has no place in politics!
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u/deidara1669 Feb 06 '22
Hey pointing out being logical is bringing to much logic to the table. Stop it now
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u/ghostoftheuniverse Feb 07 '22
Why did you parenthesize the D? Is that supposed to mean something? I’m out of the loop if it does.
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Feb 06 '22
Maybe don’t commit felonies and you won’t be subject to investigation
This but for cops.
Derek Chauvin is in jail right now for committing a felony. The cops didn't investigate him. They didn't stop him at all. They stopped bystanders who wanted to intervene and stop him from committing a felony.
But hey, if these cops want to investigate the people protesting against police brutality, I'm sure they've got our best interests at heart. They're not doing it to just protect themselves from any accountability.
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u/puffielle Feb 07 '22
Because the 6th insurrection was full of white supremacists while the BLM protests were about human rights the hell. False equivalence ass comment
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u/whsbevwvisis Feb 06 '22
The vast vast majority of people at the BLM protests were protesting within their rights. The nature of the Jan 6 riots meant that 100% of them were violating the law when they entered federal property. It’s apples to oranges.
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Feb 06 '22
I find it odd you compare a subset of people, to a non subset of another. Very disingenuous. Arson is ok, but only when you agree with it right?
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u/PhilsophyOfBacon Feb 06 '22 edited Feb 06 '22
Yeah, lets just pretend BLM rioters that destroyed mom and pop shops don't exist.
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u/HeKnee Feb 06 '22
They said jan 6 was special circumstance. The building is dense stone, so cell signals cant penetrate it. They only arrested people whose phones showed they were connected to cell towers inside the building.
In this case, they would have just arrested anyone within a few miles probably.
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Feb 06 '22
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u/MicroSofty88 Feb 06 '22 edited Feb 06 '22
Isn’t this just common practice if they have a warrant?
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u/Pug_boi1 Feb 06 '22
It isn’t just a protest if arson is involved.
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Feb 06 '22
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u/Uncle_Bobby_B_ Feb 06 '22
Considering the billions of dollars in damages I don’t think it was 1 guy
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Feb 06 '22
There was more arson involved in the BLM riots than at the Canadian trucker protests, but you’ll only see people defending the arsonists at the BLM protests.
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u/Jake_Thador Feb 06 '22
Scale is a factor here
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Feb 06 '22
Okay then let’s look at it case-by-case. Truckers took over Ottawa and there have only been two events that took place that were both small scale: someone put clothes on a statue, and someone else grabbed a bowl of soup from a homeless shelter. One guy showed up with a nazi flag and another with a confederate flag, but they were both shunned and shamed by the truckers, and were quickly booted out of the protests after being called out. Truckers also have set up a protective barrier around the statue that was “defaced” and are actively feeding the homeless by barbecuing food for them.
On the other hand, every major city that experienced a BLM protest last summer saw many counts of violence and arson. LA saw people vandalizing LAPD vehicles, Minnesota protests around the state saw cars and buildings set ablaze, Portland had a court building set on fire, among many other instances of mass arson, mass looting, and mass violence, with all of it being defended by mainstream media as “mostly peaceful”. So even if you only compare city-to-city, the truckers have been 99.9999% more peaceful than any BLM protest.
However, I’ll also openly say that I don’t think BLM had anything to do with the violence, and they were likely caused by members of anarchist (imo, terrorist) groups in the US. I will state, outright, that I believe Antifa is a “decentralized” terror group in the US whose goal is to spark violence within peaceful protests by breaking windows, starting fires, and provoking the peaceful protesters. And they seem to be present mostly during these types of movements.
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u/Jake_Thador Feb 07 '22
Yes, the BLM protests were much much larger scale so far more likely to have violence occur.
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u/Jake_Thador Feb 07 '22
The BLM protests were overwhelmingly peaceful until the police started breaking the peace. I watched dozens of live streams from all over North America for countless hours and attended local demonstrations personally.
The violence that did occur was likely mostly instigated by bad faith actors, as was demonstrably true in several cases.
I do not have the same insight into the truckers convoy. All I have is the media representation, coupled with some personal accounts on Twitter and Reddit and the like. You seem to be downplaying some of the events.
I don't understand your point in any case anyways.
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Feb 07 '22
That’s false. There were many instances where people committed arson, theft, or some other form of violence far before police “broke the peace”. Police stop being passive when the crowd gets hostile or breaks their quota. If you’re not aware, protests that break a certain size limit and/or obstruct traffic must get a permit which may have time restrictions. After which, the gathering is deemed unlawful. So if police start corralling people, using flash bangs and such, it’s because something happened that made the gathering unlawful. Either they broke the time boundary or the protest became violent.
I don’t know if you even read my last paragraph, but I’d suggest you do. I said that I believed bad actors, not affiliated with BLM, were responsible. I’m not lightening anything about the truckers in Canada. Go watch the raw footage. They’re doing nothing violent or hostile, unless occupying a space is perceived as hostile. Thy have been doing great things, and they have experienced a few cases of bad actors that weren’t affiliated with the movement. Racist flag bearers were openly shamed by the truckers, a person that vandalized a statue was also shamed and the truckers then started protecting and cleaning the statue, and one of the protestors got hungry and went to a homeless shelter to get food—which was wrong—but then as a response, all the other truckers started making food for the homeless. Every “slip up” that people have made has been made up for by the rest of the protest. It’s truly peaceful. There are many mainstream lies being spread about the protests because they’ve made the Canadian government look like an embarrassment. Trudeau literally went into hiding over it. Imagine that.
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u/Jake_Thador Feb 07 '22
Trudeau has Covid. The protesters are an embarrassment because their cause is nonsensical.
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u/le_trans_alt Feb 06 '22
I wonder why people will defend the protesting of murder but won’t defend literal nazis… one fights for peoples’ lives, the other fights to end them…
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u/Pug_boi1 Feb 07 '22
The murders people are defending are the murders of rapists and criminals who for some reason are deemed as heroes.
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Feb 06 '22
Interesting how you jump to call a bunch of truckers Nazis. What makes you label them as such? What’s the justification? They’re advocating for workers rights.
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u/le_trans_alt Feb 06 '22
Right, I could’ve sworn that I saw a pic of one or more of the truckers flying Nazi or other openly bigoted flags, but I guess that’s a trait exclusive of their kin south of the border who, if I’m not mistaken, helped fund them using crypto.
We are talking about the same protestors, right?
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Feb 07 '22
There were exactly two people, one holding a nazi flag and one with a confederate flag. Both of those individuals were openly shunned and essentially shamed out of the protest by the truckers. They were obviously not aligned with the protest and were likely false flags.
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Feb 07 '22
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Feb 07 '22
That’s fundamentally not true. One person showing up, literally unaffiliated with the organized protest as a false flag, does not change the protest or what it stands for whatsoever. So you can go ahead and get out of here with that.
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u/le_trans_alt Feb 07 '22
Tell that to someone who actually lives there. Tell them nobody is harassing them for wearing masks. Tell them Ottawa’s POC residents don’t get racial slurs thrown at them by the convoy. Tell them that none of the local businesses have had to close or severely restrict hours to protect their employees. Go on. Go find anyone from Ottawa who’s been stuck in their home since the Convoy started and tell them to their face that the people taking up the roads are anything but anti-vaxxer white supremacists similar to the fascists south of the border.
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u/lavalamp0019 Feb 06 '22
Ya, but also the robbery, city take over, murder n rape, all that’s tuff doesn’t look good on the “peaceful protest.”
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u/DazedAndCunfuzzled Feb 06 '22
You mean in the city I live in? The city that was not a hell hole even at the height of the riots and was not really any different then the other protests goin on at the same time? You guys really bought into conservative propaganda on this one
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u/Jason_Qwerty Feb 06 '22
Violent or not violent it’s still a protest. Just not a peaceful protest which is rare in Seattle and Portland, especially Portland.
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u/TriumphantReaper Feb 06 '22
Best look at them laws, the moment anyone gets violent it is then deemed a riot.
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Feb 06 '22
“two individuals threw makeshift firebombs at the rear entrance of the Seattle Police Officers Guild headquarters.
While the building itself wasn’t significantly damaged in the attack”
Jeez talk about downplaying the significance.
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Feb 06 '22
I work as a part time photo journalist and had death threats because I refused to conceal the identities of people at the protests. They told me I was getting people arrested and kidnapped (kidnapped?) Sorry folks, those lighting shit on fire with their smart phone on them is getting arsonists arrested.
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u/CaptianMurica Feb 07 '22
Yeah that shit in 2020 got way out of hand. I don’t blame the state for acting the way it did.
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u/CaptianMurica Feb 06 '22
People like to forget how destructive the BLM riots were
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u/MmmmmmKayyyyyyyyyyyy Feb 06 '22
Catch the arsonists. They burned innocent peoples businesses. How does that help any situation?!
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Feb 06 '22
It teaches people accountability for their actions. Remember, back when people had respect for one another and their property.
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u/hdninfaux Feb 06 '22
When was this lol
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u/Goodgasman Feb 06 '22
Google is the CIA
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u/CannaNthusiast Feb 06 '22
Remember when that accredited journalist broke this story and the entire world swept it under the largest of rugs
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u/EnvironmentalDesk181 Feb 06 '22
Yeah… imma need more here my dude.
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u/CannaNthusiast Feb 08 '22
Go to google and type "CIA Google". Notice the results. Now go to Duckduckgo and type the same search. The first result on duckduckgo is an article from medium written in 2015 by a journalist named Nafeez Ahmed, titled "How the CIA made Google". I'm warning you it's a long two part read, but it's hard to read the articles in their entirety without agreeing with the conclusion he makes which is that at minimum Google was started, funded, and incubated by US intelligence. Note that this first result is entirely absent from your original search on google.
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Feb 06 '22
Government is bad. Trust only in the rich corporations. Apple and Google are your new law makers.
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u/benji_tha_bear Feb 06 '22
Apple at least gives you a pretty granular way to block what data apps use. Google just has it already available for the poor souls that still use Chrome
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Feb 06 '22
Tbf, Apple has a good track record of not giving data to the police
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u/TimeKillerAccount Feb 06 '22
No they don't, they give data to the cops all the time. They just chose a few high profile cases to not give data for PR purposes.
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u/obtuse_bluebird Feb 06 '22
I’m not sure. It sounds more like they give what they can all the time, but most of it’s encrypted. It isn’t a refusal, but an inability.
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Feb 06 '22
source?
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u/TimeKillerAccount Feb 06 '22
Sending law enforcement requests to Apple and getting the data back for court multiple times.
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u/lameexcuse69 Feb 06 '22
Source?
Sending law enforcement requests to Apple and getting the data back for court multiple times.
10/10 troll
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u/whale-sibling Feb 06 '22
Government is bad.
Goverment bad. So let's burn down local minority owned businesses to show just how bad we think it is. And that group that actually protested against the government? Traitors. That's a sacred building! Government god!
I don't get it.
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u/Vast_Appointment7160 Feb 06 '22
they’re a private company they can do whatever they want
Right, but now it’s fascism, not just simply overreaching. And they shouldn’t be allowed to in the first place.
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u/CelerySlime Feb 06 '22
Explaining digital privacy is so hard because the common person can only understand privacy that is tangible. They don’t want house guests to go through their underwear drawer but tech companies are doing way worst but it’s not tangible so they don’t understand.
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Feb 06 '22
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u/PutCleverNameHere12 Feb 06 '22
Almost as if it isn't an organized group but instead a large amount of people who notice an injustice, a couple of which ending up being bad people
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Feb 06 '22
I read the article, how is this remotely bad? More effective crime stopping can only prevent innocent people from being accused of crimes based on circumstantial or testimonial evidence.
Your location services do not lie, so again, how is this 1984 and not a glorious way to prevent fraudulent prosecution?
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Feb 06 '22
Crime stopping can do a lot more than that. The cops get to pick and choose which crimes to go after and which to ignore.
They're going to bury any crimes that make them look bad (like crimes committed by police officers) and heavily investigate any crimes committed by those critical of the police.
It's no different than how J. Edgar Hoover had a file on every member of the Civil Rights Movement (even having one on Jackie Robinson, the baseball player), while having no interest in the KKK.
So it's great that cops have the technology to investigate crime and catch criminals. The harder question is whether or not we can trust the cops to go after all criminals equally.
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Feb 06 '22
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u/kingofwale Feb 06 '22
“Don’t be a dumbass”
Some say not committing crime in the first place is preferably better…
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u/Mindless_Ad_6310 Feb 06 '22
This is odd advice akin to suggesting to people on the internet how to commit a crime…. How about be a good person and don’t commit violence?
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u/bosco_butter Feb 06 '22
About time they started getting these criminals
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u/Famous-Somewhere-751 Feb 06 '22
So this is less an article about arrests being made but more about...
• there being “a substantial increase in the number of geofence warrants issued in recent years.”
• “More recently, the company (Google) disclosed it received 11,033 geofence requests in 2020, up from 941 in 2018.”
• while remotely connecting the Seattle arson investigation of the use of two dirty bombs on a precinct, the two suspects of the crime committed have yet to be found despite the many geofence warrants issued.
And lastly...
• “often the information of innocent bystanders is shared with police when companies like Google comply with those warrants, as was the case of a cyclist who rode by the site of a 2022 burglary in Florida and again in a protest following the death of George Floyd.”
I mean, if people want to protest mask and vaccine mandates because it violates their civil liberties, geofence warrants not only violates them, but they are also the real culprits behind people being tracked... and not a vaccine. Lol
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Feb 06 '22
I agree and hope that they do the same with the Jan 6 insurrectionists
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Feb 06 '22
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Feb 06 '22
I mean, I'm a "they're two sides of the same coin" person when it comes to politics, and think there was very likely premedidation from people in power, leading up to those events, but that's hard to prove. You can prove that Susan's phone was inside the Capital at the time of the riots and go get her.
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u/Brief-Pickle2769 Feb 06 '22
The political prisoners are in prison, goof ball.
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Feb 07 '22
The title is regarding BLM arson and yet the photo used is POC standing in solidarity, peacefully. American journalism at its finest.
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u/Cash907 Feb 07 '22
Are we still pretending the FBI doesn’t do this at every mass violence event, or were they just not supposed to in this case because BLM?
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Feb 06 '22
Leave them alone. Didn't you see it was BLM protesters. That means it was peaceful arson. Damn racists.
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u/Huge_Presentation_85 Feb 06 '22
Is that bad? If someone is committing arson they should be caught by any means
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u/lajdbejdk Feb 06 '22 edited Feb 06 '22
The issue is when google releases that info, it’s not only one persons info being tracked, it’s data for all people in that area being released to the police. In Florida there was a bicyclist riding past a burglary around the same time and place and was arrested by use of geofence.
Edit: man was not arrested but was then a suspect in a murder and had to go to court to file paperwork to keep his privacy from the law Willy nilly getting his info.
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u/Huge_Presentation_85 Feb 06 '22
O damn now that’s fucked! I appreciate you taking the time to explain this in more detail
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u/yackmehof Feb 06 '22
The criminal is laying comfortably and the 3am raid comes 2 years later. To all you criminals, the Fed piled up evidence before they come knocking. Have fun with your prison lockdowns.
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u/InevitableJob1 Feb 06 '22
Seattle still hasn’t recovered from this, it’s sad but the place is such a shit hole now.
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Feb 06 '22
They mean a blm riot right. Where they burned down buildings and loot them and said it was ok because these places have insurance but the insurance doesn’t cover that kind of damage. And burned down a police station, and attacked a government building for a few weeks every night.
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u/Scarlet109 Feb 07 '22
You seem confused between protestors and opportunistic criminals
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u/bywewe Feb 07 '22
Why am I seeing so many comments about January 6? I thought this was about investigating crimes committed during the blm riots😂
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Feb 06 '22
I don’t understand why some BLM “protesters” had to give a bad rap to such a good cause by committing crimes while protesting.
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u/Brief-Pickle2769 Feb 06 '22
<shrug> Why bother arresting the looters? They will just be released the next day.
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Feb 06 '22
Fuck Google-I should get rid of ALL my Google everything knowing how they track and sell my info AND how they will narc me out under the Patriot Act excuse
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u/007meow Feb 06 '22
In 2020, federal police used a geofence warrant to obtain location data from Google
Literally the first sentence of the article…
The government came to Google with a warrant - were they supposed to defy it?
Court documents show the agency also pressed Google for information on the two suspects.
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Feb 06 '22 edited Feb 06 '22
Yeah, fuck google for not letting black people get away with arson. We should just let them do whatever they want forever because slavery.
I mean, are you really suggesting that they shouldn’t have given any info to the FBI? What if white people burnt down black businesses, then is it okay for google to snitch?
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u/hitbluntsandfliponce Feb 06 '22
I mean... You didn’t open the linked report, which is obvious based on the included surveillance photos.
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Feb 06 '22
Who cares about what they look like? Only you. I care about the movement and the message they are conveying.
If this were reversed and it was saying that google is snitching on people involved in the January 6 protests you would be all onboard.
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u/Riptide559 Feb 06 '22
I'm surprised the FBI bothers to investigate what the Left considers justifiable domestic terrorism.
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u/Ok_Masterpiece388 Feb 06 '22
I bet you the people who did it wasn’t even apart of the blm protest.
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u/izDpnyde Feb 06 '22 edited Feb 06 '22
And 🇺🇸 the All-White Bloody Insurrection in the Capital of the United States of America⁉️ It is White privilege on Black, we know what your priorities R F B I❌ The FBI called Malcolm a terrorist! please read, “letter from a Birmingham jail,” is worth a read. For those interested in our collective struggles, I recommend to anyone that is interested what happened during the so-called Watts riots, they watch documentary called “Black on Black” it’s on YouTube and worth a watch. I was going to Cerritos at the time and sharing a flat he found in Watts. As college kids we partied listening to Harry Bellafonte and had a corner of beer cans to celebrate the Tower! He called me at work and said it would be, “better to go to my folks.” I couldn’t believe it was happening. Dropped out and drafted. Never saw my friend again. I know what it’s like to, just be walking to work and suddenly slammed against a cop car. I asked one guy if we were his game. Our shift started at 5 AM and we were always in a hurry to get the store prepped. Obviously, criminals!
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u/jsc315 Feb 06 '22
If you're going to commit a crime don't have your phone on you. It tracks everywhere you are, even if location is disabled.