Questions the FBI Uses to Determine If Someone Is a Likely Terrorist

https://theintercept.com/2017/02/13/48-questions-the-fbi-uses-to-determine-if-someone-is-a-likely-terrorist/

by fraqed • 9 years ago

96 122 9 years ago

Material for the new Buzzfeed quiz "Are You Likely a Terrorist? Answer These 48 Questions to Find Out!"

BoringCode5• 9 years ago

Honest question: is this the type of material that should be leaked? Is there an overriding good to revealing this document to the public?

I lean towards no, but I'd be interested in discussion on this.

losteric2• 9 years ago

I think it's fair to leak because most of this content is common-sense. My highschool civics class had a project to create a terrorist checklist... we hit at least 95% of this list. So I see absolutely no danger here.

BoringCode5• 9 years ago

I suspected I'd see a variation of this answer in this thread. While on some level it makes sense for some cases (the information is so benign that it doesn't matter if it is leaked), in this case I don't think it quite adds up.

First, while much of the information might be common-sense, it might not be to potential adversaries and I see no reason to provide further aide.

Second, revealing documents like this helps prove what FBI isn't doing. When trying to plan an effective counter to surveillance, it can be just as important to know what isn't be tracked as well as what is. Again, I don't see a public good here.

I simply don't think there is an overriding good that outweighs potential downsides (even if small). Revealing this document does not show moral or legal problems. All it does is fulfill curiosity. Which isn't a good reason for leaking information related to national security.

akhilcacharya• 9 years ago

My highschool civics class had a project to create a terrorist checklist

What the hell?

astrodust• 9 years ago

I think it's more important people are informed about what their activities might appear like to law enforcement than what actual terrorists are going to have to do to cover up their tracks.

Many would-be terrorists seem to only take casual precautions to avoid getting caught. Maybe, like so many criminals, they think they're better than others who have been caught.

It's come out again and again that a lot of these attacks have been planned with nothing more than email, Facebook and unencrypted text messages. There's just too much information out there to sift through and find all the true positives.

If they actually cared about operational security they'd read up on how spies do it. That stuff is pretty much public knowledge if you spend time researching.

mtgx• 9 years ago

Let's phrase in a different but similar way.

"48 ways the CIA uses to determine when to drone strike someone".

Wouldn't you like to know if the CIA actually uses common sense methods to determine when to assassinate someone? By the same token, we should know when the government decides to put people on no-fly lists, and all sorts of other lists.

And before you say that the CIA is an intelligence agency and therefore everything it does must be kept secret, the thing is drone strikes should not be done by the CIA. If you wage war, then it should be done in the open, lest you want a repeat of the Vietnam war (which arguably is already the case with the mostly failed, yet continuing operations in the Middle East]).

Obama actually wanted to give drone strikes to the Pentagon, but of course, Obama as a weakly-minded politician that he was that always compromised to the other side's benefit, eventually backed down and allowed the CIA to handle drone strikes.

If you don't see doing drone strikes (of which thousands were kept completely secret) against 8 different nations by a secretive intelligence agency, then I don't know what else to tell you.

BoringCode5• 9 years ago

If your analogy was true, there would be a stronger moral argument for revealing such information. But it isn't. I'm talking about this very specific case.

tboyd474• 9 years ago

I am a convert to Islam and I say yes, I'm ready for the gap between reality and "common sense" to close on this topic.

I don't consider it offensive to talk about these issues openly because I am secure in my knowledge that Islam does not encourage terrorism. I'm more offended when people sweep it under the rug. When it's about safety, people have to leave their fears and biases at the door and accept the truth.

A typical person in some parts of America today will look at a practicing Muslim and automatically see a terrorist, but that's neither helpful nor accurate. The facts don't support that stereotype, and I think the FBI understands that. Of course ideology plays a role in detecting threats, but there are other factors that may play a bigger role, like mental health, social stability, criminal history, training in weapons, etc. If everyone understood this, it would lead to more accurate tips by the public to law enforcement, and the concept of a "Muslim ban" wouldn't be seen as productive. But the centuries-old narrative of Muslim hordes attacking the West has been revived, and that is how people see the issue, and that's unfortunate.

_red• 9 years ago

but there are other factors that may play a bigger role, like mental health, social stability, criminal history, training in weapons, etc

Sounds like we need some sort of way to vet people coming into the country?

ythn2• 9 years ago

I am secure in my knowledge that Islam does not encourage terrorism

There is not a universal flavor of Islam that is accepted by all Muslims. Islam is a decentralized religion with hundreds of factions that all have different interpretations of the Koran and its teachings.

killedbydeath• 9 years ago

Sorry but that narrative has a basis in reality. Islam was started with the goal of expansion and that has not changed enough. Every territory taken over by Muslim rulers underwent subtle or not so subtle islamization. I was born on the Eastern border of the Christian world and the tensions have been very real there for many centuries. My great grandfather was killed for refusing to convert into Islam and some of his murderers were his neighbors whom he trusted and lived with together for ages. This was in an area where my ancestors lived in for many centuries and that was periodically taken over by Muslim countries. There are many examples of peaceful coexistence and the majority of Muslims are great people, but I personally would not raise my kids in a Muslim-majority country.

elastic_church• 9 years ago

its not a hard leap to go from edgy impressionable teenager seeing the moral relativity of "the west" to deciding to take an individual role in the jihad obligation

the "get them back" mentality of the west's constituents is incompatible with "attack anybody occupying muslim lands" mentality

loteck• 9 years ago

Leaked document appears to be from 2013. Have you considered the possibility that the FBI was itself the source of the leak and the questions/methods have since evolved?

BoringCode5• 9 years ago

I'm not sure speculation changes the central premise of the question. Assume that the document was up to date with the latest techniques. Would you still that consider it to be a document worth leaking for the public good?

edit: I will acknowledge that the age of the document does change its impact. But 2013 is pretty recent.

kashkhan• 9 years ago

Are we into precrime now? A criminal is one who is proven in court to be a criminal. Civilized societies use courts to decide the truth, not questionnaires filled out by shady people.

grzm• 9 years ago

likely being the operative word. I'm not defending the effectiveness of these questions, but it's not replacing the legal system.

mamon• 9 years ago

But they are not deciding about someone's guilt or innocence here, just whether or not investigate them further.

jononor• 9 years ago

...before a crime has happened.

crusso4• 9 years ago

A widely acknowledged function of law enforcement is the anticipation of and prevention of crime.

Courts provide some restraint upon information gathering, such as the approval of search warrants - but mostly courts are only involved after an alleged crime has occurred.

burkaman4• 9 years ago

This is not about deciding the truth or convicting criminals. This is "precrime" in the same way that a cop watching someone sneak around an empty house at midnight might identify them as a "precriminal". That's cause to watch them or go ask them what they're doing, not arrest them.

ftlio• 9 years ago

An enemy combatants gets no such treatment. Since we're in a war against terrorism (the state's words, not mine), the legalese has mainly been argued from that distinction.

In an ideal world, it takes a crime to make a criminal. The consequences of commiting a crime are enough to keep most people from committing them. But if your crime involves suicide, what earthly consequence can we invent to reduce the numbers? I'm sure it would be helpful if whatever factors that are developing the perceived rewards of killing a bunch of people could be routed, but other than that, our thinking on the justice system doesn't really net a solution to politically motivated murder suicide. I.e. is this precrime? Under the western ideal of innocent until proven guilty, yes. Do the incentives of that system overcome terrorism? No.

tromp• 9 years ago

Question 48: “Does the Subject take an unusual interest in Terrorist identification quizzes?"

rwmj• 9 years ago

Assuming the list was derived scientifically, then this seems like a pretty sensible and useful law enforcement tool. It can be easily filled in by front line officers and gives them a good idea which lines of investigation to pursue.

ucaetano9• 9 years ago

The questionnaire seems pretty fair, to be honest.

If someone has access to weapons, tried to travel to a terrorist training camp, has mental instability issues, supports use of violence as well as using religion as a justification for violence and follows all the ISIS social media accounts, I'd be pretty worried.

I didn't see any questions about "does the individual holds a significant distrust of government and institutions?" or "does the individual own multiple anarchism books?". All the questions are very specific and practical.

zeroer6• 9 years ago

Using encryption? Seems pretty dubious.

Also, camping and survivalism? These seem fairly orthogonal as well.

ucaetano9• 9 years ago

There's nothing indicating that any of those factors by itself would make you a person of interest.

And I'd guess the FBI would be a really bad service if "uses encryption" or "camping" by itself would be considered as a strong signal. The noise would be too big.

Now talk about someone who has a history of violence, takes long camping trips with a large arsenal, suddenly dropped all non-encrypted means of communication and is obsessed about books on chemical warfare and terrorist attacks. If it were your call, would you dedicate attention to that person?

mehwoot• 9 years ago

Presumably none of this is taken in isolation. If all you do is use encryption and camp I doubt they're going to think you're a terrorist.

ythn2• 9 years ago

How many non-technical people do you know that use encrypted email on their personal email accounts?

There's nothing wrong with using PGP, for example, but if I found out my totally non-technical neighbor was using PGP, I would probably still give them the benefit of the doubt, but I would raise a flag in my mind and watch for other flags.

tetha• 9 years ago

Actually, I looked at the encryption question specifically. The question is: "Has the subject engaged in or discussed tradecraft to contextually hide their online activity different from previous activity?"

So, if you're always encrypting everything, the answer here is no. Dude always encrypted everything, dude still encrypts everything.

They are flagging if you suddenly start using an encrypted communication service for specific things, as another indicator something's going on. That's fair enough imo.

realo• 9 years ago

The guy (girl?) you describe in the second sentence is very obvious to identify. The problem is not there.

I am in Quebec City. A terrorist killed 6 people here a few weeks ago. A young, quiet, white catholic guy with clean looks. He killed 6 muslims during their prayers.

Would that questionnaire have identified that young, quiet, white catholic terrorist killer?

surfmike• 9 years ago

Perhaps not. Anders Brevik in Norway definitely checked a lot of the boxes in this questionnaire though.

ucaetano9• 9 years ago

Most of the questions are not religious-related, but related to violence, mobilization, etc. So if the young, quiet white catholic terrorist was doing any of those, he could be identified.

My guess is that the Columbine shooters could be flagged by the questionnaire.

But it's just a wild guess.

loeg2• 9 years ago

Does a test have to have 0% false negative rate for it to be useful? (I don't think so.)

burkaman4• 9 years ago

If he truly was a completely ordinary person by all outward appearances, then no questionnaire would identify him, and this one doesn't aim to. I don't know much about the Quebec suspect, but it seems like many of the Ideology, Research And Planning, and Social sections might have applied to him. I don't think this questionnaire is biased towards one type of terrorist.

In fact it seems like the whole point of this is to help agents identify less obvious suspects, so they don't only focus on the guy who keeps traveling back and forth from Syria and retweeting ISIS.

hackuser• 9 years ago

Would that questionnaire have identified that young, quiet, white catholic terrorist killer?

Possibly, but it's difficult to say based on your description, because age, skin color, general quietness, and religion are not on the questionnaire.

But to your broader point, could a questionnaire be written well enough to reliably identify all terrorists? If it only significantly improves detection, I'd think it would be worthwhile.

noobermin5• 9 years ago

To be fair, the Quebec terrorist would have been caught on a couple of these items, but not all. Yes, this questionnaire would catch radical islamic terrorists but not the right-wing terrorist you mention, so it is only effective for a class of such possibly violent individuals.

tn13• 9 years ago

A young, quiet, white catholic guy with clean looks.

Has media called him a terrorist even after he has done all that ? I doubt that. He was probably identified as a person with mental health issues.

A Canadian journalist like Tarak Fatah might get flagged as terrorist though he is an kick-ass islamic reformer. Tarak Fatah has extensively travelled in hotbeds of Islamic extremism, he is associated with and has engaged all the Islamic mullahs and currently runs a TV series debate with mullas titled "Fatah Ka Fatwah".

It is hard to catch terrorists by filling up questionnaires. Some of those questions however are obvious indicators of a threat. If you already know a person has travelled to a different country to participate in violence, I am not sure why you need to fill anything else.

bobdole1234• 9 years ago

- access to weapons - has mental instability issues - supports use of violence as well as using religion as a justification for violence

sleepingeights• 9 years ago

The FBI is a predominantly white organization, over 88%<?> white. The rest are minorities used as pawns and analysts for infiltration and analysis of their respective ethnic populations. There's no way they're going to actively justify and develop a program to target other white terrorists/attackers/etc... They're just like the local police force except with bigger brains and some college degrees.

edit: I'd imagine the Canadian equivalent is the same since the US and Canada share a common background and approach in dealing with perceived threats to their "white supremacy".

backtoyoujim• 9 years ago

To be fair that describes a lot of people in the US Military.

noobermin5• 9 years ago

No, but take a gander at 21). Does using encryption, "password-protected websites", IP Anonymization make me a terrorist? I think that describes a significant fraction of people here.

Sure, that should be taken in context to the rest of the questions, but should that even be a flag? Should we regularly detain and question pentesters now if they have a middle-eastern background?

Godel_unicode6• 9 years ago

That's hardly the only question like that. Many things on this list would, if taken in isolation, not be indicative of terrorist leanings. I'm assuming that's why there are many questions on this list.

darawk4• 9 years ago

No, but that isn't the only question on the list. Encryption combined with fundamentalism, tactical training, and a keen interest in prior attacks is definitely a red flag in my book. And the use of encryption/privacy software definitely strengthens that case.

Alex39172• 9 years ago

So is HN considered a terrorist site since it requires a password to submit stories and post comments?

ghurtado2• 9 years ago

Neither of those things are mentioned in the document.

zeroer6• 9 years ago

Well, the document did mention using encryption, and HN is served over https ...

Alex39172• 9 years ago

Question 21) "Has the subject engaged in [...] tradecraft to hide their online activities contextually different from previous activity? [...] password-protected websites."

I don't think it's unreasonable to ask whether password-protected websites are only an issue if they are being used to hide online activities. Or is this a strict liability thing, where any use of a password protected website is taken to mean that a user is attempting to hide their online activities.

crusso4• 9 years ago

I'm pretty sure they mean sites that only allow approved members to see their content.

Additionally, one positive answer on a list of 48 questions doesn't equal "terrorism".

emidln2• 9 years ago

TIL my Magic: the Gathering forum for combo decks is a terrorism board. Guess we probably should stop naming decks Blitzkrieg and Spanish Inquisition.

swamp402• 9 years ago

I'm curious how it's ok for a US company (The Intercept) to publish a Secret document?

The documentcloud.org file clearly shows: Contributed by: SooHee Cho, The Intercept.

And the documentcloud.org server itself appears to be located in the US as well.

Seems like something you could go to jail over.

Godel_unicode6• 9 years ago

Unlike in e.g. the UK, where the Official Secrets Act applies to the population at large, the prohibition against leaking or unauthorized possession of classified information is exclusively applicable to people with clearances.

Think of a Security Clearance as a scoped waiver of free speech in return for access to sensitive information. In the US, you have to opt-in to restrictions on your freedom of speech. Anyone without a clearance is protected by the 1st amendment, which has no National Security exception.

swamp402• 9 years ago

I see - thank you!

lowbloodsugar• 9 years ago

1. Did the suspect download the document "Imv-Score-Final"?

moomin• 9 years ago

"Does the Subject hold a belief or ideology that supports the use of violence?”

To the best of my knowledge, the answer to this is yes for every US president and Founding Father.

Or to put it another way, what a dumb question.

contingencies3• 9 years ago

Access to weapons: most of America, or all of America depending upon whether shopping is considered access and how 'weapons' are defined.

Has 'trained' overseas: anyone with a passport.

Has 'tried to acquire' bomb-making materials: Reading a book is not illegal. Clicked on the wrong torrent?

Using encryption: everyone.

Masking internet browsing: everyone.

Showing an interest in terrorist events: everyone.

"participating in activities that simulate military or operational environments": anyone who has ever been camping/hiking/played an FPS.

Changed appearance or habits? everyone.

Has "experienced a recent personal loss or humiliation"? Many people.

Has a history of mental health problems? A large proportion of the population.

Substance abuse. Almost everyone.

Hold a belief or ideology that supports the use of violence? Oh what, like "are they a current or former member of the military, politics, or big business?"

This is all really disconcerting in its vagary and scope for misapplication.

SamUK96• 9 years ago

I really think you overshoot here on almost every point. The ones that stick out for me: * Not everyone has trained overseas. In the west/east bubble maybe that's common, but nowhere else.

* You seriously try defending reading bomb-making books? To imply that reading a book on how to make bombs, without any background need for it like a job related to pyro, etc., is not suspicios is IMHO rediculous.

* Not "everyone" uses encryption. Actually, the majority of web users do not, and less so knowingly.

* Not "everyone" will suddenly and completly change the overall theme of themselves.

* Not "everyone" has recent loss or has been humiliated.

In general, your other points are getting onto something and i somewhat agree.

However, to be honest I don't think a break down approach is the best to gain incite into the FBI's process. The questions are supposed to be treated as a whole, not singulars. Each question is not designed to give a yes/no answer; but rather the end result, suspicion of terrorism, is a complex, non-analytic function of all the answers

contingencies3• 9 years ago

You seriously try defending reading bomb-making books? Yes, because freedom to seek and impart information is a human right. More practically, if you start down this path of forbidden knowledge then you wind up at a point where learning or teaching at all is a banned, inherently political act. What about reading about physics or chemistry on Wikipedia? An interest in metalwork, sculpture, jewellery or pottery? Being observed working on "unknown" metal projects at a makerspace, keeping to yourself, and paying in cash? People deserve to be judged for their actions alone and not obtuse, politicized potential interpretations of their interests or past behavior generated by the secret machinations of the state, perversely nominally on their behalf and in the name of 'freedom'.

the majority of web users do not [use encryption]. False.

ridgeguy• 9 years ago

"You seriously try defending reading bomb-making books?"

I occasionally read bomb-making books. In part because I once had a job that involved explosives, so I'm interested in high energy engineering, and in part because I'm curious about how IEDs are constructed, so as to consider how one might detect and defeat them.

I don't have a current employment need for this information. I'm simply curious as a matter of physics, engineering, and keeping myself informed about technology that influences events to some degree.

Given my interests, it appears that you'd shop me to the authorities because you regard those interests as suspicious.

That's unhelpful to society, to say the least. And illustrative of your misapprehension of actual risk.

mimg• 9 years ago

> Showing an interest in terrorist events: everyone.

What they meant by the question is not what you believe it to be... interest != concern. I would say almost everyone has a concern but not an interest.

> Substance abuse. Almost everyone.

Sure. I wouldn't say almost everyone.

contingencies3• 9 years ago

Depends on your definition of abuse. I would consider many people's caffeine, alcohol, nicotine or sugar habits to be abusive to their overall health.

dgrealy2• 9 years ago

Do you not understand the lesson being taught by such an exercise? It sounds like instead your biases made you think the school civics class would be teaching students how to profile people as terrorists.

You really are an idiot.

dang• 9 years ago

We ban accounts that post uncivilly, so please don't do this on HN again. Instead, please (re-)read the site guidelines and post civilly and substantively, or not at all.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13639873 and marked it off-topic.

dgrealy2• 9 years ago

fuck you dang ban me

Questions the FBI Uses to Determine If Someone Is a Likely Terrorist

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