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Social media giant Facebook has been caught spying on the private messages of its users and reporting people who question the results of the 2020 presidential election to the FBI.

Several whistleblowers from within the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) have reportedly revealed that the Big Tech company has been sharing Americans’ private data with federal authorities.

According to the DOJ sources, Facebook has been spying on the private messages of American users and forwarding their data to the feds if they express anti-government or anti-authority sentiments, or question the 2020 election.

Operatives at Facebook have been spying on users for the past 19 months and transmitting their private information and personal data to the domestic terrorism operational unit at FBI headquarters in Washington, DC, without a subpoena.

Under the FBI collaboration operation, somebody at Facebook red-flagged these supposedly subversive private messages and sent the information directly to federal agents, without the users’ knowledge or consent.

“It was done outside the legal process and without probable cause,” alleged one of the sources, who spoke to The New York Post on condition of ­anonymity.

“Facebook provides the FBI with private conversations which are protected by the First Amendment without any subpoena.”

These private messages then have been farmed out as “leads” to FBI field offices around the country, which subsequently requested subpoenas from the partner US Attorney’s Office in their district to officially obtain the private conversations that Facebook already had shown them.

But when the targeted Facebook users were investigated by agents in a local FBI field office, sometimes using covert surveillance techniques, nothing criminal or violent turned up.

“It was a waste of our time,” said one source familiar with subpoena requests lodged during a 19-month frenzy by FBI headquarters in Washington, DC, to produce the caseload to match the Biden administration’s rhetoric on domestic terrorism after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.

The Facebook users whose private communications Facebook had red-flagged as domestic terrorism for the FBI were all “conservative right-wing individuals.”

“They were gun-toting, red-blooded Americans [who were] angry after the election and shooting off their mouths and talking about staging protests.

“There was nothing criminal, nothing about violence or massacring or assassinating anyone.

“As soon as a subpoena was requested, within an hour, Facebook sent back gigabytes of data and photos.

“It was ready to go. They were just waiting for that legal process so they could send it.”

Facebook denied the allegations yesterday.

In two contrasting statements sent to the Post one hour apart, Erica Sackin, a spokesperson at Facebook’s parent company, Meta, claimed Facebook’s interactions with the FBI were designed to “protect people from harm.”

In her first statement, she said: “These claims are false because they reflect a misunderstanding of how our systems protect people from harm and how we engage with law enforcement.

“We carefully scrutinize all government requests for user information to make sure they’re legally valid and narrowly tailored and we often push back.

“We respond to legal requests for information in accordance with applicable law and our terms and we provide notice to users whenever permitted.”

In a second, unprompted “updated statement,” sent 64 minutes later, Sackin altered her language to say the claims are “wrong,” not “false.”

“These claims are just wrong,” said Sackin

“The suggestion we seek out peoples’ private messages for anti-government language or questions about the validity of past elections and then proactively supply those to the FBI is plainly inaccurate and there is zero evidence to support it.

Sackin is a DC-based crisis response expert who previously worked for Planned Parenthood and “Obama for America” and now leads Facebook’s communications on “counterterrorism and dangerous organizations and individuals.”

In a statement Wednesday, the FBI neither confirmed nor denied allegations put to it about its joint operation with Facebook, which is designated as “unclassified/law enforcement sensitive.”

Responding to questions about the misuse of data only of American users, the statement curiously focused on “foreign malign influence actors” but did acknowledge that the nature of the FBI’s relationship with social media providers enables a “quick exchange” of information, and is an “ongoing dialogue.”

“The FBI maintains relationships with U.S. private sector entities, including social media providers.

“The FBI has provided companies with foreign threat indicators to help them protect their platforms and customers from abuse by foreign malign influence actors. U.S. companies have also referred information to the FBI with investigative value relating to foreign malign influence.

“The FBI works closely with interagency partners, as well as state and local partners, to ensure we’re sharing information as it becomes available.

“This can include threat information, actionable leads, or indicators.

“The FBI has also established relationships with a variety of social media and technology companies and maintains an ongoing dialogue to enable a quick exchange of threat information.”

Facebook’s denial that it proactively provides the FBI with private user data without a subpoena or search warrant, if true, would indicate that the initial transfer has been done by a person (or persons) at the company designated as a “confidential human source” by the FBI, someone with the authority to access and search users’ private messages.

In this way, Facebook would have “plausible deniability” if questions arose about the misuse of users’ data and its employee’s confidentiality would be protected by the FBI.

“They had access to searching and they were able to pinpoint it, to identify these conversations from millions of conversations,” according to one of the DOJ ­sources.

Targetting Conservatives
Before any subpoena was sought, “that information had already been provided to [FBI] headquarters.

“The lead already contained specifics of the information inside the [users’ private] messages.

“Some of it was redacted but most of it was not.

“They basically had a portion of the conversation and then would skip past the next portion, so it was the most egregious parts highlighted and taken out of context.

“But when you read the full conversation in context [after issuing the subpoena] it didn’t sound as bad …

“There was no plan or orchestration to carry out any kind of violence.”

Some of the targeted Americans had posted photos of themselves “shooting guns together and bitching about what’s happened [after the 2020 election].

“A few were members of a militia but that was protected by the Second Amendment …

“They [Facebook and the FBI] were looking for conservative right-wing individuals.

“None were Antifa types.”

One private conversation targeted for investigation “spun up into multiple cases because there were multiple individuals in all these different chats.”

The DOJ sources have decided to speak to The Post and risk their careers because they are concerned that federal law enforcement has been politicized and is abusing the constitutional rights of innocent Americans.

They say more whistleblowers are ready to join them.

Unrest has been building among the rank and file across the FBI and in some parts of the DOJ for months.

It came to a head after the raid last month on former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida.

“The most frightening thing is the combined power of Big Tech colluding with the enforcement arm of the FBI,” says one whistleblower.

“Google, Facebook, and Twitter, these companies are globalist.

“They don’t have our national interest at heart.”

This just in: "Private messages" sent through a corporation's money-making platform are not private.

Next up: Water is, in fact, wet.

quote:

“Facebook provides the FBI with private conversations which are protected by the First Amendment without any subpoena.”

First, the FBI didn't take the messages, they were given to the FBI. That is not a 1st amendment issue. I'm sure the Facebook EULA allows them to do so.

If everyone on FB who spouted off about the election is being surveilled by the FBI, they must be really, really busy!

I wish I could say I'm shocked by this, but, sadly, I'm not. Meta (nee Facebook) has a history of playing loose with its users' data and privacy.

For those who may not be aware: Additional popular Meta tech properties: Instagram, WhatsApp, and Oculus VR.

I wouldn't touch any of them with a ten foot pole.

I seriously don't know who one should message about the 2020 election not being on the up and up.

If you want to argue, that's what the groups are for.

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:
This just in: "Private messages" sent through a corporation's money-making platform are not private.

And not protected by the First Amendment, which operates only against the government.

Not that this means we should love Facebook, but the assumptions underlying this story are false.

This is fake news.

I did notice that Slay News (the printer of this story) has an Editorial Standards tab, and a brief review of it indicates that this story violates their own standards in several ways. This is clearly a source with an agenda.

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:
This just in: "Private messages" sent through a corporation's money-making platform are not private.

Next up: Water is, in fact, wet.

Could Gmail,or Hotmail do the same as Facebook, or is that different?

Facebook is no bueno on many levels and people who use it and love it don't realize they are the product that's being sold, marketed and manipulated.

Never set up the private messenger because I heard it was easily hacked. Doesn't matter I shut down my account a month ago. Should have done that years ago.

No need to worry...Rest assured it's all on the up & up when it come to the FBI

quote:

Originally posted by wcb6092:

Could Gmail,or Hotmail do the same as Facebook, or is that different?

It’s a private company and not the government and don’t need a search warrant to go thru your mail etc…so yeah. Your rights only protect you from the government.

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:
This just in: "Private messages" sent through a corporation's money-making platform are not private.

Not the issue at all.... Facebook 'can' do this, but my bet, the government (FBI) went to them and ask for this info (which Facebook happily provided) which I truly believe presents a legal issue for the government. This just seems more of the government knowing they can't do this legally, so they go and have private companies do it for them.

quote:

Originally posted by bigdeal:

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:
This just in: "Private messages" sent through a corporation's money-making platform are not private.

Not the issue at all.... Facebook 'can' do this, but my bet, the government (FBI) went to them and ask for this info (which Facebook happily provided) which I truly believe presents a legal issue for the government. This just seems more of the government knowing they can't do this legally, so they go and have private companies do it for them.

Yes, but FB could have told them to pound sand, and should have. They chose not to, and that is a reason to dislike FB, but doesn't make it illegal. Apple, judging by their recent talk and actions might well have told the FBI that it wouldn't comply.

The government relying on 'mercenaries' armed with keyboards & algorithms to perform a service for which they'd otherwise be in violation of the US Constitution for undertaking!

Mercenary - One primarily concerned with material reward at the expense of ethics...

@Bigdeal- I agree, FB can do whatever they like with the data but you are spot on that they are behaving as the government by proxy. So many ex-government people are going to the private businesses that are shaping public perceptions. McCabe in some news outlet, the former head of the Secret Service going to Twitter. there are too many examples of this, and it does not bode well.

quote:

Originally posted by jhe888:
Apple, judging by their recent talk and actions might well have told the FBI that it wouldn't comply.

Ah, but then Apple turned around and bowed to pressure from a different government initiative, planning to put on-device content scanning in iOS, iPadOS, and even Mac OS. (Extensive set of articles surrounding the issue here: CSAM). The uproar was so great they "suspended" the program to reconsider it, but haven't abandoned it. Part of the software was already installed in iOS and iPadOS 14, at least, before Apple even announced their plans.

Governments, including our own, are bound-and-determined to leverage "our" digital devices to achieve a level of intrusiveness never before possible.

quote:

Originally posted by jhe888:

quote:

Originally posted by bigdeal:

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:
This just in: "Private messages" sent through a corporation's money-making platform are not private.

Not the issue at all.... Facebook 'can' do this, but my bet, the government (FBI) went to them and ask for this info (which Facebook happily provided) which I truly believe presents a legal issue for the government. This just seems more of the government knowing they can't do this legally, so they go and have private companies do it for them.

Yes, but FB could have told them to pound sand, and should have. They chose not to, and that is a reason to dislike FB, but doesn't make it illegal. Apple, judging by their recent talk and actions might well have told the FBI that it wouldn't comply.

Anyone that believes social media is on the side of the users in anything is blind. You have to presume that everything you do is monitored, possibly sold, and now provided to any government agency for review. You have zero rights as regard to any social media company as they have surely protected themselves with the TOS.

Now the other side of that coin is, does the monitoring of posts by a government agency constitute a violation of rights.

1A, 5A, or any other constitutional right.

There may well be a constitutional issue, free speech is allowed without governmental redress or suppression by 1A, maybe even 5A because if you knew the government was being supplied your comments, you wouldn't say certain incriminating things.

It could be adjudicated that a government agency, actively viewing speech by US citizens in this case, will result in the suppression of speech.

How many people that watch this activity by social media and then decide they will no longer be able to express their concerns, feelings, ideas because big brother is watching with the idea of jailing them for expressing their thoughts.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out, for now, we all know some of the trigger words and phrases to avoid, and everyone should be aware that PM's aren't private...