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Comment by programmarchy | Hacker News Reader

Spies pretending to be gamers online is… a far cry from James Bond. Who are these people.

Every day it's a toss-up which I shout more frequently in my head, given the state of discourse about [any number of topics] in the US:

(1) "life is not a [removed] movie" or (2) "get a hobby/friend; mind your own business". Today, it seems to be the former.

Putting aside my reservations about power, authoritarianism and my trust of the US Government, I'd be pretty shocked and nearly appalled if they didn't do this. Between police forces and the military, authoritarian powers in the US give billions to private companies in the name of espionage and defense. I think there's a certain LOTR-namesaked company that is a known name around here.

Why would the FBI be any different?

The 4th amendment should prevent them from spying on us without cause.

It doesn't apply to private companies, which is probably why they outsource it.

A piece of old paper with some words won’t do anything, we need to ensure the government listens to those words. Lately, I feel like there isn’t much we can do that’s not radical to get them to listen.

That's the reality of a lot of intelligence work. It's not spies doing dead drops, sneaking into homes to plant bugs.

It's collecting and analyzing information.

It's playing online games and trolling for lulz in this brave new world.

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