Nothing to See Here, Move Along

I am not a fan of either Facebook or Mark Zuckerberg, as my reader(s) are no doubt aware, but credit where credit is due:  They do a very good job of spying on and violating the privacy of their users.

As such it is kind of surprising that they did not have any inkling of the January 6 insurrection, and they did not report this information to the authorities.

Well, it turns out that they did know about the planned insurrection, and they did report it to the authorities, specifically the FBI.

The FBI, it seems did nothing about this, because the misbegotten child of J.Edgar Hoover was too concerned with pursuing peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters to deal with right wing terrorists.

There's a shocker:

A new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) reveals that seven federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies were aware of open source information on social media about “potential violence” planned for January 6, 2021. The report suggests that federal agencies had ample authority and information to anticipate and prepare for a violent assault on the Capitol.

The findings of the report, titled “Federal Agencies’ Use of Open Source Data and Related Threat Products Prior to January 6, 2021,” also raise questions about statements by FBI Director Christopher Wray in previous testimony to Congress. The report states that the representatives of at least two social media platforms – Facebook and Parler – told the GAO that their companies provided information to the FBI “regarding potential violence at the U.S. Capitol on January 6.”

With the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 attack set to kick off public hearings next month, the report may inform several lines of inquiry. Those include the failure of law enforcement and intelligence agencies to take action on the threat, what legal authorizations are already in place for social media surveillance, how those authorities are used in practice, and what technical tools and resources federal agencies need to do their jobs. Looming over all of these questions is a broader set of concerns about civil liberties, and what some regard as bias in the way the federal government failed to act on the threat of violence from former President Donald Trump’s supporters.

………

The GAO also “interviewed representatives from three social media platforms, including two large ones—Facebook and Twitter—and a smaller one—Parler—to determine the extent to which they shared open source information with federal agencies.” While Parler previously revealed to congressional investigators that it sent specific warnings to the FBI about threats on its platform, including threats to kill politicians and the coordination of armed groups, the GAO report is the first to confirm that Facebook shared information with the FBI regarding potential violence at the U.S. Capitol on January 6:

………

While the GAO report initially refers vaguely to “a federal agency” as the recipient of information “regarding potential violence at the U.S. Capitol on January 6,” Parler’s letter was sent specifically to the FBI, the FBI is the only federal agency listed in a table as having “received data from social media platforms” directly, and the GAO goes on to say “Facebook officials noted that they shared information with the FBI before, during, and after January 6.”

There is a potential discrepancy between what Facebook and Parler told GAO about the information they gave the FBI, and what the FBI told the GAO. The report states that “according to FBI officials, the FBI reviewed social media posts, dated November 3, 2020, through January 5, 2021. FBI officials noted that its review of these posts did not reveal information specifically citing the ‘U.S. Capitol’ during this review period.” It is also puzzling that the FBI would come across no such references given that social media was replete with such content and other federal agencies collected and analyzed it (see also the bipartisan Senate report on such findings).

IMNSHO, this comes down to racism and cowardice.  The overwhelming majority of domestic terrorists in the United States over the past few decades has been right wing and white, but the FBI doesn't want to do their job, because the Republicans in Congress complain about them, and because they simply cannot imagine wypipo being terrorists.

Funny How It's Only an Issue Now

There have been problems with the Washington, DC jail for decades, filthy conditions, inadequate food and water, brutal guards, etc., but only now that the white insurrections are detained there has anyone suggested that things be fixed.

No one cares unless it's happening to wypipo:

For several months, a few dozen men being held without bail in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol have loudly and repeatedly complained about conditions at the District of Columbia jail.

Some, through their lawyers, have raised concerns about threats from guards, standing sewage, and scant food and water. A federal judge recently held top jail officials in contempt after they delayed prompt medical care for a Capitol defendant in their custody. Just last week, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, visited the jail and later likened the rioters inside to “prisoners of war,” suggesting that they had been mistreated because of their politics.

None of these allegations of neglect came as a surprise to local Washington officials, many of whom have complained about conditions at the jail for years. Still, at a public hearing this week, some expressed frustration that, despite longstanding problems at the jail, it took the arrival of a small group of out-of-town — and largely white — defendants to finally get anyone to care.

“Recent reports about squalid conditions in the district jails are unfortunately not new,” Karl A. Racine, Washington’s attorney general, said at the hearing. Mr. Racine went on to say that “concerns about conditions at the jail received little attention until they were raised by mostly white defendants accused of perpetrating the Jan. 6 insurrection.”

………

The judge, Royce C. Lamberth, tried to get officials at the jail to accelerate the process of providing medical records to Mr. Worrell’s lawyer and after a number of delays, he angrily held the officials in contempt. As part of his contempt decision, Judge Lamberth recommended that the Justice Department investigate conditions at the jail to determine whether the civil rights of any other Jan. 6 defendants had been violated.

Within days, the U.S. Marshals Service, which oversees federal detainees, opened an inquiry into the jail and soon determined, among other things, that there were sewage and water leaks inside and that corrections officers often antagonized their charges, sometimes withholding food and water for “punitive reasons.”

These problems have been known to the authorities for a long time, but when the well off and white are treated like the poor and the black, it's somehow a travesty of justice.

Privilege much?

Yeah, Lihop*

So, now we know that there were specific rports from the FBI that right-wings intended to invade the Capitol on January 6.

Yet more evidence that the passivity of law enforcement in the face of a clear threat was more than just incompetence:

A day before rioters stormed Congress, an FBI office in Virginia issued an explicit warning that extremists were preparing to travel to Washington to commit violence and “war,” according to an internal document reviewed by The Washington Post that contradicts a senior official’s declaration the bureau had no intelligence indicating anyone at last week’s demonstrations in support of President Trump planned to do harm.

A situational information report approved for release the day before the U.S. Capitol riot painted a dire portrait of dangerous plans, including individuals sharing a map of the complex’s tunnels, and possible rally points for would-be conspirators to meet in Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and South Carolina and head in groups to Washington.

“As of 5 January 2021, FBI Norfolk received information indicating calls for violence in response to ‘unlawful lockdowns’ to begin on 6 January 2021 in Washington, D.C.,” the document says. “An online thread discussed specific calls for violence to include stating ‘Be ready to fight. Congress needs to hear glass breaking, doors being kicked in, and blood from their BLM and Pantifa slave soldiers being spilled. Get violent. Stop calling this a march, or rally, or a protest. Go there ready for war. We get our President or we die. NOTHING else will achieve this goal.”

………

Yet even with that information in hand, the report’s unidentified author expressed concern that the FBI might be encroaching on free-speech rights.

We can't do this to Wypipo.

The warning is the starkest evidence yet of the sizable intelligence failure that preceded the mayhem, which claimed the lives of five people, although one law enforcement official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid disciplinary action, said the failure was not one of intelligence but of acting on the intelligence.

………

The head of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, Steven D’Antuono, told reporters on Friday that the agency did not have intelligence suggesting the pro-Trump rally would be anything more than a lawful demonstration. During a news conference Tuesday, held after The Post’s initial publication of this report, he said the alarming Jan. 5 intelligence document was shared “with all our law enforcement partners” through the joint terrorism task force, which includes the U.S. Capitol Police, the U.S. Park Police, D.C. police, and other federal and local agencies.

………

Steven Sund, who resigned as Capitol Police chief, said in an interview Tuesday that he never received nor was made aware of the FBI’s field bulletin, insisting he and others would have taken the warning seriously had it been shared.

“I did not have that information, nor was that information taken into consideration in our security planning,” Sund said.

………

The Jan. 5 FBI report notes that the information represents the view of the FBI’s Norfolk office, is not to be shared outside law enforcement circles, that it is not “finally evaluated intelligence,” and that agencies receiving it “are requested not to take action based on this raw reporting without prior coordination with the FBI.”

Again.  "We can't do this to Wypipo!"

………

The document notes that one online comment advised, “if Antifa or BLM get violent, leave them dead in the street,” while another said they need “people on standby to provide supplies, including water and medical, to the front lines. The individual also discussed the need to evacuate noncombatants and wounded to medical care.”

On Jan. 6, a large, angry crowd of people who had attended a rally nearby marched to the Capitol, smashing windows and breaking doors to get inside. One woman in the mob was shot and killed by Capitol Police; officials said three others in the crowd had medical emergencies and died. A Capitol Police officer died after suffering injuries.

………

For weeks leading up to the event, FBI officials discounted any suggestion that the activities of Trump supporters upset about the scheduled certification of Biden’s election win could be a security threat on a scale with the racial-justice demonstrations that followed the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May.

………

Even so, there were warning signs, though none as stark as the one from the FBI’s Norfolk office.

FBI agents had in the weeks before the Trump rally visited suspected far-right extremists, hoping to glean whether they had violent intentions, said a person familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the law enforcement activity. It was not immediately clear who was visited or if the FBI was specifically tracking anyone who would later be charged criminally. These visits were first reported Sunday by NBC News.

In addition, in the days leading up to the demonstrations, some Capitol Hill staffers were told by supervisors to not come in to work that day, if possible, because it seemed the danger level would be higher than many previous protests, according to a person familiar with the warning who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the matter. Capitol Police did not take the kind of extra precautions, such as frozen zones and hardened barriers, that are typically used for major events near the Capitol.

Again, this looks like deliberate malfeasance.

Law enforcement departed from standard protocols in order to empower the insurrectionists.

………

The FBI recently issued a different memo saying that “armed protests” were being planned “at all 50 state capitols” and in D.C. in the run-up to the inauguration, according to an official familiar with the matter, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive law enforcement matter.

They knew that there was a risk of violence, and either because of interference from the Trump administration, or because senior elements of the US State Security Apparatus chose to be on the side of insurrection.

I'm more inclined to believe the latter case today than I was yesterday.

^*Let It Happen On Purpose.

You Know How Indian Workers Sometimes Beat Their Bosses to Death?

If the American workforce were less compliant, this would be happening at the Tyson pig processing plant in Waterloo, Iowa, where managers had a betting pool as to how many employees would get Covid-19.

Honestly, it probably SHOULD be happening:

A wrongful death lawsuit tied to COVID-19 infections in a Waterloo pork processing plant alleges that during the initial stages of the pandemic, Tyson Foods ordered employees to report for work while supervisors privately wagered money on the number of workers who would be sickened by the deadly virus.

Earlier this year, the family of the late Isidro Fernandez sued the meatpacking company, alleging Fernandez was exposed to the coronavirus at the Waterloo plant where he worked. The lawsuit alleges Tyson Foods is guilty of a “willful and wanton disregard for workplace safety.”

………

Fernandez, who died on April 20, was one of at least five Waterloo plant employees who died of the virus. According to the Black Hawk County Health Department, more than 1,000 workers at the plant — over a third of the facility’s workforce — contracted the virus.

The lawsuit alleges that despite the uncontrolled spread of the virus at the plant, Tyson required its employees to work long hours in cramped conditions without providing the appropriate personal protective equipment and without ensuring workplace-safety measures were followed.

The lawsuit was recently amended and includes a number of new allegations against the company and plant officials. Among them:

• In mid-April, around the time Black Hawk County Sherriff Tony Thompson visited the plant and reported the working conditions there “shook [him] to the core,” plant manager Tom Hart organized a cash-buy-in, winner-take-all, betting pool for supervisors and managers to wager how many plant employees would test positive for COVID-19.
• John Casey, an upper-level manager at the plant, is alleged to have explicitly directed supervisors to ignore symptoms of COVID-19, telling them to show up to work even if they were exhibiting symptoms of the virus. Casey reportedly referred to COVID-19 as the “glorified flu” and told workers not to worry about it because “it’s not a big deal” and “everyone is going to get it.” On one occasion, Casey intercepted a sick supervisor who was on his way to be tested and ordered him to get back to work, saying, “We all have symptoms — you have a job to do.” After one employee vomited on the production line, managers reportedly allowed the man to continue working and then return to work the next day.
• In late March or early April, as the pandemic spread across Iowa, managers at the Waterloo plant reportedly began avoiding the plant floor for fear of contracting the virus. As a result, they increasingly delegated managerial authority and responsibilities to low-level supervisors who had no management training or experience. The supervisors did not require truck drivers and subcontractors to have their temperatures checked before entering the plant.
• In March and April, plant supervisors falsely denied the existence of any confirmed cases or positive tests for COVID-19 within the plant, and allegedly told workers they had a responsibility to keep working to ensure Americans didn’t go hungry as the result of a shutdown.
• Tyson paid out $500 “thank you bonuses” to employees who turned up for every scheduled shift for three months — a policy decision that allegedly incentivized sick workers to continue reporting for work.
• Tyson executives allegedly lobbied Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds for COVID-19 liability protections that would shield the company from lawsuits, and successfully lobbied the governor to declare that only the state government, not local governments, had the authority to close businesses in response to the pandemic.

………

The lawsuit claims that while Tyson has repeatedly claimed that its operations needed to remain open to feed America, the company increased its exports to China by 600% during the first quarter of 2020.

They didn't care, because it wasn't Wypipo at risk, it was "Mexicans", and who cares if they die.

These people need to go to jail for a long, long time.

Tweet of the Day

William Greenbladt, a photojournalist, who took this photo of the McCloskey's pointing guns at protestors sent them a $1500 bill because they lifted the photo and used it as a Christmas card. pic.twitter.com/EpdRSp19Hx

— Michael Cali (@cali_photo) November 5, 2020

Not generally a fan of expansive IP protections, but sending an invoice to the S. Louis Ken and Karen for their use of his photograph of them brandishing their weapons epic.

Beyond My Capability for Parody

The Republican National Convention will feature the St. Louis Ken and Karen at their convention.

I just can't:

The Republican Party will hold its convention next week, and apart from some discussion of where exactly President Trump will deliver his address, almost no details have been made public about what it will look like. But on Monday, as Democrats were staging the first night of their convention, The Post’s Josh Dawsey reported this remarkable piece of news:

The St. Louis couple who became famous after wielding guns at protesters on their private street will be part of the largely digital Republican National Convention next week, Trump advisers said this week.

The couple — Patricia and Mark McCloskey — will appear on behalf of the president during the virtual weeklong event and express their support for him, the officials said.

As I said on Twitter, at this point if you told me that Derek Chauvin would be addressing the Republican convention from his jail cell, I’d barely be surprised.

This reality sucks.  I want off.

If it Becomes a Wypipo Problem, ALEC Loses

Arkansas is repealing its ban on municipally owned broadband. because they are sick and tired of getting screwed by the cable and telephone companies:

Pat Ulrich can’t make water-cooler talk about The Handmaid’s Tale or Shrill. “I can’t get Hulu or anything like that,” she says. If it’s on a streaming service, she probably hasn’t seen it.

Her home, in Arkansas, has no broadband internet connection. A cable company once quoted her $44,000 to install one, so she and her husband get mediocre Wi-Fi through a satellite provider. “It’s 20 gigabytes” per month, she says, “no different from using your phone.”

Connectivity isn’t just a problem for the state’s sizable rural population. Ulrich lives in a suburb of Little Rock and commutes into the city each day to work as a web developer for the Arkansas Arts Center. Needless to say, she never works from home.

Arkansas is the least connected of the 50 states, according to BroadbandNow, a group that tracks consumer options. Since 2011, the state has banned cities and towns from building their own networks, outlawing a local solution that has been hailed as an effective way for communities to connect themselves when they don’t have internet providers.

This year, however, Arkansas appears to be having a change of heart. Under the weight of constituent complaints about lousy internet—and after years of waiting for subsidies to goad telecom giants into expanding the infrastructure—the state legislature in February passed a bill to repeal its ban. Republican Governor Asa Hutchinson said he will sign it.

That this is happening at all is significant. That it’s happening in a deep-red state is perhaps monumental.

Arkansas outlawed municipal broadband in 2011 as a wave of other states passed similar laws. It was, in part, a factor of the Tea Party movement, which ushered small-government Republicans into state capitols. By 2018, 21 states had some law banning or restricting municipal broadband; many were cut-and-paste “model legislation” from the American Legislative and Exchange Council, backed by telecom giants. They sought to kill municipal broadband under the belief that “such services should not be offered by government in competition with private-sector providers.”

Yes, the cable companies are so awful that they are getting municipal broadband in Arkansas.

These companies got $250 million from the FCC to build out broadband, and didn't do squat.

They are the most hated businesses in America for a reason, and the ALEC sponsored ban on municipal broadband has become toxic.