Re:FBI Misused Spy Database, FISA Court Says
by NoMoreNicksLeft on Saturday May 20, 2023 @04:02PM
(#36015065)
Throwing agents in jail can't and won't solve the problem. What happens is that the agents who avoid jail grow bitter... they were the "good guys" after all, and only doing "what needed to be done".
So to see friends and coworkers punished for it makes them bitter. They double down in their resolve. Instead of changing behavior, they double down and promise themselves to be more careful to avoid punishment.
Additionally, at some point in this cycle, they decide that those in charge, the ones punishing them, are more akin to impostors who have infiltrated government and are twisting it into something it shouldn't be. They begin their own loosely-organized "resistance", and seek to undermine the very checks and balances that miraculously allowed a few FBI agents to be punished for transgressions.
In their own heads, you see, they're the heroes.
Reform is impossible, once the organization has grown large enough to develop its own anti-reform "immune system". Which, I suspect, is almost a 100 years old at this point.
> how can they prevent tax dollars from funding ongoing criminal activity?
Don't pay your taxes. If your landlord were using your rent money to murder undocumented immigrant children, would you ask "but how can I make sure he just buys his groceries with that rent money"?
Hell no. You just stop giving him the money. Or maybe you just keep handing it over and whining "there's nothing I can do". I dunno.
So to see friends and coworkers punished for it makes them bitter. They double down in their resolve. Instead of changing behavior, they double down and promise themselves to be more careful to avoid punishment.
Additionally, at some point in this cycle, they decide that those in charge, the ones punishing them, are more akin to impostors who have infiltrated government and are twisting it into something it shouldn't be. They begin their own loosely-organized "resistance", and seek to undermine the very checks and balances that miraculously allowed a few FBI agents to be punished for transgressions.
In their own heads, you see, they're the heroes.
Reform is impossible, once the organization has grown large enough to develop its own anti-reform "immune system". Which, I suspect, is almost a 100 years old at this point.
> how can they prevent tax dollars from funding ongoing criminal activity?
Don't pay your taxes. If your landlord were using your rent money to murder undocumented immigrant children, would you ask "but how can I make sure he just buys his groceries with that rent money"?
Hell no. You just stop giving him the money. Or maybe you just keep handing it over and whining "there's nothing I can do". I dunno.