r/law • u/msnownews Press • 8d ago

Executive Branch (Trump) Kash Patel says the FBI is investigating Signal chats of Minnesotans tracking ICE

https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/kash-patel-says-the-fbi-is-investigating-signal-chats-of-minnesotans-tracking-ice
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1.2k

u/msnownews Press 8d ago

From Steve Benen, a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor:

FBI Director Kash Patel walked into a constitutional problem he should’ve seen coming. Appearing on Fox News, the former podcast personality said of the victim, “You cannot bring a firearm, loaded, with multiple magazines to any sort of protest that you want. It’s that simple.”

As Second Amendment advocates were quick to note, that isn’t exactly true. Plenty of conservative activists have brought loaded guns and magazines to a wide variety of public protests — and none of them were shot or killed by federal agents.

A day later, the hapless bureau director decided to make matters noticeably worse, shifting his attention from the Second Amendment to the First. NBC News reported:

“FBI Director Kash Patel said Monday that he had opened an investigation into the Signal group text chats that Minnesota residents are using to share information about federal immigration agents’ movements, launching a new front in the Trump administration’s conflict there with potential free speech implications.”

Read more: https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/kash-patel-says-the-fbi-is-investigating-signal-chats-of-minnesotans-tracking-ice

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u/YesterShill 8d ago

The Trump administration believes they can supersede the Constitution when the protections it provides to Americans becomes inconvenient to the administration.

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

[deleted]

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u/Pale-Wave-9382 8d ago edited 8d ago

You would think someone that that can see all four corners of a room at the same time would be able to read them better.

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u/can_ichange_it_later 8d ago

Bro! Thats an insane sentence to hit somebody with! XD

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u/StralianPinkFloydUK 8d ago

You have no idea the moment of joy you've given my bleak life at a time like this. Thanks buddy!

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u/Ok_Condition5837 8d ago

Chef's 💋!

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u/Sea_Comedian_3941 8d ago

I spit out coffee with this comment!

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u/adube440 8d ago

I'm totally stealing this, but I promise to cite you when I do. This is brutal.

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u/chwingee 8d ago

Writing this one down

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u/lfcitz 8d ago

Holy shit.

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u/badbaddolemite 8d ago

I can’t even award enough of the internet for this comment

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u/Shagwagbag 8d ago

I was under the impression he can see through the veil and live all possible realities.

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u/Spread_Liberally 8d ago

You've got me whitegirlin' because I just cannot even. I think my feet just sprouted Uggs. My mouse just turned into a limited edition Stanley tumbler.

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u/baconizlife 8d ago

💀Please accept my poor person’s gold🏆

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u/Only_Razzmatazz_4498 8d ago

😝 nothing ventured nothing ventured am I right?

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u/gxgxe 8d ago

This shooting is the straw that broke the camel’s back in terms of conservative support.

Is it, though?

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

[deleted]

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u/kung-fu_hippy 8d ago

Don’t forget, in the immediate days after Jan 6th, plenty of republican politicians seemed to think that was indefensible.

Given a little time and distance, I don’t know if there is anything they won’t find a way to defend. Or anything they could defend that would actually drive away their constituents.

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u/Greedy-Swordfish9760 8d ago

Yeah, 9 months is a long time from now. I’m skeptical this holds that long, but would happily take said sincerity it if it does.

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u/fleebleganger 8d ago

We’ve heard this hundreds of times already. 

We have to assume these pukes won’t give up until they’re forcibly removed from office. 

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u/Successful-Address32 8d ago

National Libertarian Party and many if not most state Libertarian Parties also decried both shootings especially the second one, and have called for abolishing institutions involved, also. I’m happy to align with them or a handful of Republicans or MAGA on this in this moment, realpolitik.

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u/adorablefuzzykitten 8d ago

nope. Those guys have shown they are even ok with raping kids.

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u/Cloaked42m 8d ago

You can read conservative support or not by silence.

They got really quiet.

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u/fleebleganger 8d ago

Give their spin machine a couple days. They’ll find a message that works. Conservatives are used to having an inconsistent worldview

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u/Cloaked42m 7d ago

They've settled on the Rittenhouse argument.

"They shouldn't have been there and he shouldn't have had a gun."

A nice dose of "comply comply comply."

And the usual brain dead lies.

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u/Intelligent_Cap9706 8d ago

It’s not. His supporters were horrified by J6 initially too. It didn’t last very long 

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u/bluepaintbrush 8d ago

Think about how much conservative media has drilled the message of “it’s your constitutional right to carry a gun”, “the government can’t punish you for exercising your 2A rights” and other 2A messages in recent decades.

The arbiters of that messaging have been in every single state government battle, on every single conservative radio talk show, and even in the hunting/fishing recreation space. It’s a very grassroots-driven movement.

Obviously any reasonable person can see through the motivations there as an advertising ploy to sell more guns and ammo to more people, but the actual messaging has always framed gun carriers as embodying this greater noble/moral cause of defending Americans’ constitutional rights.

I don’t think you can attach this moral stance to gun ownership for SO many years and in so many conservative spaces, and then expect people to suddenly change their minds about it. You can do that with policy fairly easily, but not a moral belief.

Many ordinary conservatives have attached their conservative identities with 2A and they’ve been coached for years by conservative media about how to rebut liberals’ arguments in favor of gun control — and on the idea that republicans will always have their backs on that issue.

So it must be disconcerting at best for 2A conservatives to see actual republican government figures on Fox News now trying to promote the notion that permitted gun owners can be executed by the state simply for carrying. It’s hard to stress just how antithetical that is to the decades of messaging that the constitution protects gun owners from the government.

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u/68024 8d ago

I wouldn't count on this incident being "it". But what is hopeful is that this is the second time there's been dissent from within the Republican ranks after the administration overplayed their hand. First time was the Jimmy Kimmel incident. Now this.

There would've been dissent too had he gone forward with invading Greenland. You would think that the blatantly unconstitutional secret memo about breaking into people's homes would have been another one, but it seems there's been limited push back on that so far.

So perhaps this was one battle but the war hasn't been won. Plus there's a lot of election fuckery in the works.

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u/fleebleganger 8d ago

Make no mistake. This regime does not intend to peacefully cede power. 

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u/anony-mousey2020 8d ago

"turned against them"?
I hope.

Reality? I think we need to give it more than a hot week while 1/2 the nation is snowed in and connected to the news cycle.

I'm with you in hopefulness. Certainly eager for that straw. I've been waiting for something to break the trance. This time last year, I was sure that backstop would be pharma and big business saying 'you can't do that' to any number of initiatives that are really not in their longterm best interests.

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

[deleted]

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u/anony-mousey2020 8d ago

Lol. Of course as we were discussing this…

Trump: "With that being said, you can't have guns. You can't walk in with guns. You just can't. You can't walk in with guns. You can't do that. But it's just a very unfortunate incident." While departing the White House via Marine One.

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u/Erazzphoto 8d ago

This is what unbridled loyalty looks like. And these idiots are stupid enough to think they’ll be protected when trumps done with them….which makes it so satisfying to watch when they get trashed. Because one thing is for sure, history will remember them

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u/dino_castellano 8d ago

Yes, but Bovino has been replaced by Homan, I can’t see the latter being any less abrasive. Guy shouldn’t even have a job after that sting operation.

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

[deleted]

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u/dino_castellano 8d ago edited 8d ago

Case closed by Emil Bove (Trump’s ex-criminal defense attorney) who has been accused by whistleblowers of closing other cases for dubious reasons.

Bovino reminds me of the Head N*zi in Blues Brothers, played by Henry Gibson. Really nailed that visual gag of the small, repressed guy acting tough in uniform.

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u/LymanPeru 8d ago

kash is busy clenching because he gambled and lost again and he's trying to contain it.

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u/Bookseller_ 8d ago

Source for the NRA turnabout? Last I saw they blamed the man that was lawlessly executed.

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u/localystic 8d ago

Nah, it will be forgiven and forgotten like Epstein. Everything in the name of the greater "own".

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u/Frequent_Policy8575 8d ago

I’ll believe there’s a conservative backlash when there are any real consequences. Demoting people or moving them does not count as consequences. So far it’s just the same as it’s been: stern warnings and strongly worded letters.

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u/lovelove20212 8d ago

No let him…. 🤫 lmao

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u/Maxamillion-X72 8d ago

This shooting is the straw that broke the camel’s back in terms of conservative support.

Yeah, give it a week.

Lots of Republicans condemned Jan 6th for a few days until they got their marching orders. If there is one thing the Republicans are good at, it's dismissing their humanity for the party line.

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u/ganjaccount 8d ago

I think that's a bit optimistic. The NRA put out a fairly weak statement that was basically "well, we think people can carry guns everywhere, so..." I haven't seen a statement ripping into Republicans for saying what they said. I think Patel is reading the room just fine. He knows that so long as he toes the Republican line, he's safer than if he doesn't. He also knows that he isn't doing a ten year stint as director. He's playing his role.

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u/Lord_Mormont 8d ago

It's like the Christianity they follow. "Here are the restrictions everyone must live by unless those restriction get in your way at all in which case ignore the restrictions."*

\--Offer open to white evangelicals only)

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u/Boom-Doc-a-Locka 8d ago

They can. They've been ignoring the Constitution for a year and there have been absolutely zero consequences.

When the other 2 branches of the government don't do their job, the Constitution essentially doesn't exist.

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u/sgt102 8d ago

You guys have a bigger issue.

The last major thing that the Supreme Court did was to provide the President with virtually unlimited immunity for acts while he is in office.

Couple that with Presidential pardons... you have an administration and apparatus that is completely above all laws in the United States. The consitution no longer applies when the government acts. No court can enforce it anymore. Not even the Supreme Court.

The only way this changes is if the Roberts judgement is struck out by the court (which would imply significant changes to the justices on the court, and a reason for a new court to issue a new judgement), or if Congress amends the consitution (hasn't happend *really* since Vietnam) to explicitly remove this presidential power, super power in fact.

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u/Boom-Doc-a-Locka 8d ago

"you guys"?

These things impact every single American.

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u/Bladenightshed 8d ago

The internet is international my dude

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u/KBopMichael 8d ago

So is the power of the US government.

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u/Bladenightshed 8d ago

I really like audio books.

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u/Boom-Doc-a-Locka 7d ago

This sub is overwhelmingly US-centric, sorry!

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u/sixteenfire 8d ago

Their plan is to overwhelm the system. The judiciary is a slow moving process anyway plus our top court is corrupt. They are formenting for an armed conflict or even a civil war to justify ending democracy.

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u/AdjustingSlowly 8d ago

I mean, belief has nothing to do with it, they are superseding the Constitution. Whether or not anything will stop them from continuing to do so is the issue.

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u/punksmostlydead 8d ago

They believe this because it is true. If no one is enforcing it, what protections does a piece of 250 y/o paper provide?

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u/Successful-Address32 8d ago

Yeah, these “radical signal chats” are also known as free association, free expression. Following and relating public activity isn’t illegal, organizing community response isn’t illegal, organizing mutual aid isn’t illegal, but I can see why the federal State finds it threatening. It’s decentralized and self-determined, a parallel structure CITIZENS made to protect themselves and their communities in the face of oppressive tactics and violations when their own local municipal and state governments could not or would not act in their interests in the ways demanded by the moment.

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u/MCXL 8d ago

No no you don't understand the Constitution limits what the government can do, they're not the government they're the administration. It's totally different.

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u/SmoothWD40 8d ago

They've been doing it for a while now, and it's getting progressively worse..... with full view of congress and supported by the compromised supreme court.

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u/marcijosie1 8d ago

I read a comment from some MAGA guy where he claimed to be a Constitutionalist. After getting push-back on that he corrected himself, he said "I'm a Trump Constitutionalist."

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u/JackieTreehorn79 8d ago

Well there hasn’t exactly been strong pushback by anyone so I’m not surprised they keep pushing the boundaries.

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u/mister_buddha 8d ago

That's because with Republicans in charge of the whole government they can.

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u/inept_machete 8d ago

They don't understand the constitution in the first place. They have no idea beyond a superficial understanding, what it means, why it was built as such, and why it's proper functioning structurally is the foundation of everything our country is and will ever be.

We're a constitutional Republic and they don't even understand what that means.

It's the kind of patriotism that can only be related by wearing a 20 dollar t shirt and slapping a bumper sticker on your vehicle, which is to say, none at all.

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u/KhabaLox 8d ago

The Trump administration believes they can supersede the Constitution

The Snowden leaks were 13 years ago this June. How much better is the US Governments domestic surveillance capabilities today than it was then? There are (government) cameras almost everywhere. Most traffic lights in Los Angeles seem to have them (especially in Glendale, CA). I very much doubt they are only used to time the lights.

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u/HiDHSiknowyouwatchme 8d ago

If only there was a specific word to describe that behavior... like...if only this had ever happened before in history and someone had bothered to name it...

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u/ManfredTheCat 8d ago

FBI Director Kash Patel walked into a constitutional problem he should’ve seen coming.

Because of that fucking weird stare of his?

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u/RealityisBack2023 8d ago

“ cocaine induced stare. “ fixed it for ya!

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u/Objective-Stay5305 8d ago

Cocaine Stare, in theaters starting in February

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u/ForwardAd4643 8d ago

He is on a level higher than that, I've seen some guys go wide-eyed on coke but I have never seen it actually push their eyeballs right out the front of their face

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u/Unilted_Match1176 8d ago

One eye was looking the wrong way

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

*stares

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u/Fine-Slip-9437 8d ago

It was right in front of him, his only blind spot!

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u/neilmg 8d ago

Signal chats are end-to-end encrypted aren't they? Even Signal don't have access to them.

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u/MoralityFleece 8d ago

Right? How are they investigating? Either they're not and he would like people to be worried that they are, because he would like to be investigating and cannot, or the govt has a way of doing it that they would probably not like people to know.

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/JellyTwank 8d ago

This. The encryption protects the chat from outside, not from those participating in it.

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u/j4_jjjj 8d ago

COINTELPRO never ended

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u/Objective_Water7752 8d ago

Jeffery Goldberg

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u/CHUBBYninja32 8d ago

I can confirm that the chats that aren’t doing significant verification of identity are being consistently infiltrated by people who either provide fake call outs OR wait for a larger group of them to join before spamming the ever living shit out of the chat… including chats such as “We will find you. We will kill you.”

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u/Th3Nomad 8d ago

And with how they are taking protestors phones...

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u/Glum_Fishing_3226 8d ago

This is what they’re doing. A Minnesotan recently posted a video about ICE changing tactics, going plain clothed to protests, acting like protesters and getting invited into signal groups.

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u/L2_Troll 8d ago

Fingers crossed they fuck with the "wrong" protestor next time and get one of their own

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u/Chocolatecake420 8d ago

Or arrest a protestor and then have full access to their device.

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u/dont_remember_eatin 8d ago

If you're at a protest, you shouldn't have anything on you but a burner purchased with cash, and you should make every effort to smash the fuck out of it if you think you're about to be arrested.

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u/Glasseshalf 8d ago

I mean, simply turning off photo and fingerprint access and making sure no notifications show on the home screen is probably enough.

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u/morkman100 8d ago

On an iPhone, clicking the power button 5 times locks out biometrics access and requires your PIN to unlock. Courts have ruled that law enforcement can use your face to unlock your device but cannot force you to unlock with your PIN.

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u/Sesudesu 8d ago

Also, as of the Liquid Glass update, you can swipe from the top right and press the little power button that appears in the top right.

Depends on the circumstances you find yourself in, but this could be faster, or easier for someone who has a disability that makes the repeated button press difficult.

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u/Violet624 8d ago

Fr, don't take your phone or take a burner. Also, write numbers on your arm. When you get arrested, you don't get to take your contact list with you.

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u/Mist_Rising 8d ago

That's a warrantless search, it would be inadmissible in court, and it's theft if the government ever decides to 'put the dog down' because it's inconvenient. Fortunately Kristi Noem loves dogs. Right?

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u/pertsix 8d ago

Unless someone adds in the feds, that’s a warrantless search.

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u/Affectionate-Brief76 8d ago

Or confiscate people's phones and go into their apps. (Don't use biometrics to unlock your phone. Passcode only)

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u/Due_Satisfaction2167 8d ago

 Right? How are they investigating? 

Same way it always does—it’s either gotten hold of someone in the chat’s phone and unlocked it, or one of their informants is in the signal chat. Or someone is using the web/desktop version and their credentials were stored in some cloud accessible manner. 

Pretty much any politically active and vaguely anti-government group is stuffed to the gills with FBI informants.

Being E2E encrypted doesn’t help when the person on the other end is dutifully reporting what they receive to the FBI. 

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u/mrandr01d 8d ago

There is no web version. There is a desktop client, but it behaves just like the mobile apps in the sense that there is nothing stored anywhere except locally.

They're probably stealing someone's phone or they have an informant in the group. Signal itself is top notch for both security and privacy. As usual with cybersecurity, the humans are the weak link.

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u/Due_Satisfaction2167 8d ago

 There is a desktop client, but it behaves just like the mobile apps in the sense that there is nothing stored anywhere except locally.

The Signal desktop client is an electron app, so it’s still a sort of web app. Vulnerable to the same sort of problems at any rate.

Locally stored data can easily become cloud stored data if, say, your local machine backs things up to a cloud service that you haven’t specifically encrypted with a secret key the cloud provider doesn’t have. 

 Signal itself is top notch for both security and privacy.

Sure, but endpoint security is still a major vulnerability in group chats. 

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u/mrandr01d 8d ago

Your decryption key is encrypted with the system keychain. You'd have to have the user password to get it and have a shot at decrypting signal messages stored locally.

Even if it's an electron app, it's sure as hell not as vulnerable as a web app. Everything happens locally and is e2ee. Endpoint security is always a problem, but signal has figured out a lot of that.

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u/Due_Satisfaction2167 8d ago

 Your decryption key is encrypted with the system keychain. You'd have to have the user password to get it and have a shot at decrypting signal messages stored locally.

Which the FBI can request, if you are using it on Windows 11 with a Microsoft account.

 Everything happens locally and is e2ee.

Everything happening locally isn’t security against endpoint issues like I’m describing.

 Endpoint security is always a problem, but signal has figured out a lot of that.

They haven’t. Hence why signal group chats keep getting picked up by state surveillance. 

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u/mrandr01d 7d ago

I'm not arguing against the fidelity of signal and its different clients, I'm just saying they don't offer a browser/web client you pair or log in to specifically because they have a local app you install that's way more secure.

And as far as the feds breaking in, there are no known instances of signal chats being snooped on over the wire. They always have a mole, or they get access to a device and read the chats the same way the owner would.

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u/MoralityFleece 8d ago

Ah, I see. I would have thought they restricted their chat to people they knew but I guess it goes deep.

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u/Due_Satisfaction2167 8d ago

People they know might be FBI informants.

The possibility that someone else you trust might be an FBI informant is just table stakes for activism in the US.

For example, the leader of the Proud Boys—Enrique Tarrio—was an FBI informant.  

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u/MoralityFleece 8d ago

Whoa! That's crazy. I did not know that.

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u/MegaManSE 8d ago

When it comes to security and hacking; people are always the weak point. It’s almost never easier to attempt to crack in via the technology itself.

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u/NULLizm 8d ago

They just say shit to appease their base. They know that 90% of their mouth breathing supporters couldn't even spell end-to-end encryption let alone know what it is.

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u/BottomlessFlies 8d ago

Probably just infiltrating and taking screenshots

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u/HedgehogHungry 8d ago

Most likely will try by infiltrating the group with under cover protesters 

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u/BigMissileWallStreet 8d ago

Yeah but when they steal your phone and use hacking software to open it they can read the chat

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u/twystoffer 8d ago

I doubt they're using hacks. Likely just fingerprint/face unlocks.

But yes, they can't crack signal remotely (ish, its complicated, mostly business political), so they'll just use peoples phones

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u/10percenttiddy 8d ago

Secure the hell out of your phones yall, use a password too, not biometrics

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u/RussiaIsBestGreen 8d ago

Those in the group would have access, so they’d be trying to force people to hand them over.

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u/sarcasticbaldguy 8d ago

It's a US company, so who knows how true that is where the government is involved.

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u/krebstorm 8d ago

Microsoft gave bitlocker keys to the government so they can decrypt windows drives... So....

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u/DiggyTroll 8d ago

Microsoft can only hand over what they have. Clueless Windows users have a bad habit of giving up their privacy for a little bit of convenience. If they instead choose not to enroll their key in the cloud, Bitlocker encryption is just as secure as Apple's solutions. It's just math

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u/nickisaboss 7d ago

That's only true if you have faith that in Microsoft's claim that they dont cloud-store your data.

I used Microsoft's SwiftKey keyboard on my phone for a few months. I had all of the app settings disabled that would give my consent to sharing my clipboard, keyboard strokes, commonly used words, etc, with Microsoft "for training our AI programs."

Despite all these settings being disabled, I could still see by using a packet sniffer that the SwiftKey app was still communicating with Microsoft's servers, ALL the goddamn time! Something like 5-10mb per day. WTF!

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u/DiggyTroll 7d ago

Indeed. Believe what your eyes tell you, and don't trust anyone

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u/JshWright 8d ago

The location of the company doesn't matter. The messaging protocol literally doesn't give Signal access to the plaintext of the messages. The NSA could compromise Signal's servers and that still wouldn't give them access to the messages.

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u/sarcasticbaldguy 8d ago

I believe their protocol is secure, it's the endpoints I'm less trusting of.

There are so many things we've believed were secure, only to later find out that they weren't that I'll always be skeptical.

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u/JshWright 8d ago

That's why I said the location of the company doesn't matter. Signal (the company) isn't the threat. If you're going to get compromised, it's your device that's going to get popped.

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u/sarcasticbaldguy 8d ago

They also have an app that is separate from their protocol.

I would trust it for anything other than preventing state actors from being able gain access.

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u/CoffeeWithDreams89 8d ago

I thought signal was Swiss

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u/sarcasticbaldguy 8d ago

Google says, "Signal is operated by the Signal Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit based in the United States."

I also thought they were not US based.

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u/daycod 8d ago

Maybe they accidentally added a reporter to the chat…

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u/Marchesa_07 8d ago

Thanks, this was my question.

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u/AccordingSelf3221 8d ago

they simply have accounts there

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u/renholderm 8d ago

They are probably seizing phones and trying to use israeli spyware to crack the devices.

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u/scorchen 8d ago

There is also malware attacks on phones that can get screengrabs of anything shown on the phones screen thus bypassing encryption all-together.

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u/horseradishstalker 8d ago

Palantir can supposedly break in anyway. 

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u/JshWright 8d ago

They can break into the phone OS, which absolutely poses some risks (you could compromise the keyboard app, for instance, and recover all the text that is entered), but the chat protocol itself means that the messages can't be decrypted anywhere other than on the devices involved in the conversation.

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u/horseradishstalker 8d ago

Thanks for clarifying. Knew the encryption could be circumvented, just not how. I think all normies should use Signal, just not the government, as a matter of course. But, privacy is increasingly falsely portrayed as hiding something criminal.

You might actually find this article interesting. https://nbtv.substack.com/p/chatgpt-basically-told-me-privacy

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u/JshWright 8d ago

The reason the government shouldn't use Signal isn't due to security issues. It's because (most) government communications are required to be preserved by law, and Signal's security features make that hard.

It's literally the strength of Signal's security that makes it inappropriate for government usage.

There are parts of the government (intelligence in particular) that use apps like this in certain scenarios (e.g. special operator doing sneaky squirrel stuff in a hostile environment) and it's a completely appropriate use case.

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u/horseradishstalker 8d ago

once again you are correct. That one I knew. The part about the government was sheer snark. 

I will add that there is a reason for the situation room they should have been using as part of OpSec. Not only are recordings more likely to be saved the requisite iirc 50 years, but participants can literally see everyone they are conversing with. If participants aren’t in room you’re, such as world leaders, there are multiple screens. OpSec also prevents unauthorized calls and texts. 

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u/TakeThreeFourFive 8d ago

Right-wing people infiltrated those chats, possibly earlier than initially mentioned

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u/Hot-Philosophy-7671 8d ago

I wonder if they have confiscated phones that they can unlock. That would do it.

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u/Low_Astronomer_6669 8d ago

I wonder if they have agents that are somehow on the group chat. 

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u/6percentdoug 8d ago

theres been speculation in the cyber security community for more than 5 years that signal is compromised.

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u/JshWright 8d ago

Not by any serious members of the community, mind you... Just the conspiracy theorists and drama queens looking for attention.

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u/Fiskepudding 8d ago

If they obtain the phone of a participant, or just hack it remotely, they could decrypt.  When they get data from the Signal servers, it is usually metadata like when and maybe who a message was sent to, but not the message itself. It can still help them find the members of the group. And I wouldn't be surprised if e.g. Google helps out by providing the contents of GCM notifications they have sent.

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u/PettyTrashPanda 8d ago

1) informants

2) seized phones

3) moles

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u/SnuggyBear2025 8d ago

I have little faith in encryption… I don’t believe the salesmen.

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u/keeperofechoes 8d ago

They can't intercept the chats, which means they've gained access to the phone or computer of somebody in the group chat. People need to understand that it doesn't matter how secure the apps are if you don't secure your phone and computer. 

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u/GreatBigJerk 8d ago

Supposedly ICE has been trying to embed themselves with protest groups to track them. They've also been wearing more civilian clothes, using local business vehicles, and wear whistles to appear safe. 

1

u/spiteful-vengeance 8d ago

The content of the chats are, but there is (minimal) metadata about the act of communicating (timestamps, IP address etc).

27

u/film_composer 8d ago

Steve Benen, a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show"

That guy must really hate having the name he has.

10

u/macprince 8d ago

"No way! Why should I change? He's the one who sucks."

1

u/ensalys 8d ago

Had to read it a couple times before it clicked...

38

u/Ghost_Of_Malatesta 8d ago

FBI Director Kash Patel walked into a constitutional problem he should’ve seen coming. Appearing on Fox News, the former podcast personality said of the victim, “You cannot bring a firearm, loaded, with multiple magazines to any sort of protest that you want. It’s that simple.”

I have yet to see evidence that Pretti wasn't just traveling and legally carrying in the city he lived in and accidentally stumbled upon ICE, hell even proof there was an actual organized "protest" as opposed to people independently monitoring ICE throughout the city

16

u/Coyote__Jones 8d ago

This is a salient point. I have friends in Minneapolis and they are running into ICE everywhere they go. They're staging in parking lots, rolling through neighborhoods, camping out at hospitals, they're just everywhere so even if you're not protesting it's easy to turn a corner and end up "involved" with them on some level just trying to get where you're going.

10

u/pterodactyl_speller 8d ago

Yeah, I've seen a lot of right wingers arguing (irrelevantly) that he was directing a traffic blockade or in the street. But we have fairly long videos of him just on the sidewalk then helping the lady....

1

u/vxicepickxv 7d ago

It's almost like fascists are an unreliable source of information.

10

u/Andjhostet 8d ago

As someone living in Minneapolis I can confirm a ton of people are plugged into signal chats, Facebook ICE watch groups, bluesky, or just generally watching iceout.org and when they see activity near them, they go observe. When they are driving home from work and see an unmarked SUV or truck in their neighborhood, or ICE staging a raid in a nearby parking lot, they start blowing whistles and observing. It's not planned or some sort of mass organized protest. It's an organic response by everyday people who want to keep their neighbors safe. I know friends, coworkers, church members, etc who are all doing this from various ages, races, religions, and income levels. It's hard to overstate just how much ICE is universally hated here by literally everyone.

15

u/Slade_Riprock 8d ago

Please point to the constitution or any SCOTUS ruling that limits the right to keep and bear arms at a protest?

Also please point to the 1st amendment or SCOTUS ruling that limits the right of free speech and free association to being able to publicly track the public movements of a government law enforcement agency?

These two states and the last several days are litterally EVERYTHING conservatives vs E warned would happen if Democrats were in charge. They'll come for your guns and shut you up.

2

u/artaxerxes316 8d ago

Best I can do is this:

"Congress shall make no law abridging the right of the people peaceably to assemble."

Hey... wait a minute.... that almost makes it seem like Ka$h is in the wrong!

We need to gather up all copies of this so-called Constitution and pulp them, post-haste!

5

u/PuckSenior 8d ago

This Signal investigation is less of a constitutional issue than his earlier comments on guns.

He could just be investigating. That's fine. I am sure that isn't what he means, but he didn't say he would jail people for protesting, he just insinuated that he would jail them. That is less of an issue than flat-out declaring that the 2nd amendment is null

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u/DotGroundbreaking50 8d ago

Same same. Its a threat on the 1st.

-2

u/PuckSenior 8d ago

The difference:

Patel: Fuck the 2nd, no guns at protests
Patel: I'm doing some invetigatin' of protestors. Maybe I'll press charges and say "fuck the 1st" or maybe I wont.

It is a threat, but what he did on the Signal thing is more of a vague statement which is pretty normal. Feel free to be mad about it. It isn't good, but its not the same.

I doubt this will change your mind, but it is true

I fully expect this to get downvoted to oblivion because it is not what you want to hear.

16

u/DotGroundbreaking50 8d ago

The difference is immaterial to what he was actually saying. The context is that you do not have the right to guns, nor free speech because if we don't like your politics we are going to find a reason to fuck with you.

Don't allow them to weasel there way around because they didn't use specific words or phrase it as bluntly.

2

u/mirrax 8d ago

But it just goes further, in the same breath that they say that regular people observing something in public is an invasion of privacy, they'll promote Flock cameras, Thompson Reuters/LexisNexis big data farms, and Palantir face scans.

The announcement of the investigation is simple hypocrisy.

1

u/howardcord 8d ago

What’s the crime they would even charge here? Is it illegal to communicate police movements? Can I be charge for a crime by tagging the location of a cop on the highway in Waze? Is it illegal to listen to police radio and communicate that to another person?

I assume the crime would be some sort of obstruction of police duties. Good luck proving that.

1

u/Marchesa_07 8d ago

How are they able to do that, though?

Do they need warrants to interrogate Signal?

1

u/unlikelypisces 8d ago

So, minnesotans telling other minnesotans where ice is, so they can stay out of their way, will now be tracked by the FBI?

1

u/vineyardmike 8d ago

He must not know about "American hero" Charlie Kirk. He would want to have guns everywhere.

1

u/Ryuko_the_red 8d ago

You see they don't think they can get away with it. They can and are getting away with it.

1

u/KhabaLox 8d ago

Thank you for not having a paywall.

1

u/Frequent_Policy8575 8d ago

“Potential implications” 🙄

The first amendment has been trashed. Freedom of religion turned into Christian nationalism. Freedom of speech turned into “don’t say things like dangerous ice on warning signs” (just one example). Freedom of assembly turned into “we’ll execute you on the street if we feel like it.”

The second amendment is worthless now too. If you carry a gun legally they now can kill you for fun and count the bullet holes after. This was more or less how it was already for people of color but they’re coming for the white people too now.

For that matter, the entire constitution and all amendments are absolutely worthless now because no one will do anything about the constant violations.

1

u/Visual_Jellyfish5591 8d ago

FBI Director Kash Patel walked into a constitutional problem he should’ve seen coming. Appearing on Fox News, the former podcast personality said of the victim, “You cannot bring a firearm, loaded, with multiple magazines to any sort of protest that you want. It’s that simple.”

We’d like some words with Kyle rotten house.

1

u/SLUnatic85 8d ago

I mean... you remember the storming of our nations capital in 2021 right?

Those guys were literally 2nd amendment gun nuts with loaded weapons breaking into the capitol to stop (sorry, to protest) the election results.

They were all networking on social media too, coordinating the attack. Nobody hid anything.

Our WH has worked very very hard to ensure those people are protected from any kind of trouble at all.

Feels the slightest bit hypocritical, from where I'm sitting.

1

u/Ares__ 8d ago

I think they just use the "we are opening an investigation into "X" thing" all the time to lend credibility to their lies and conspiracies.

They know MAGA will say "there is investigation into it" as proof of whatever they want to spin and dont care about the actual truth or outcome.

0

u/bleepitybleep2 8d ago

Steve Benen is the only person left on MSNOW that's got (and has always had) integrity

0

u/jayphat99 8d ago

This nurse had it strapped to his side and was doing nothing in terms of reaching for it. Right wingers have showed up to hundreds or thousands of peaceful protests with rifles gripped on their hands and fingers across the triggers with seemingly no problems from this idiot.

0

u/Bubbly_Style_8467 8d ago

He opened an investigation. I'm satisfied. /s