Lithuania Was the Country That Secretly Wiretapped the World for the FBI (404media.co) 107
Slash_Account_Dot shares a report: The FBI had a problem. In 2019 the agency was secretly running an encrypted phone company called Anom. Serious organized criminals were using the phones and Anom was gaining popularity. But even though Anom contained a backdoor -- a chunk of code that silently copied every message sent -- the FBI was unable to actually read Anom's messages. The FBI had not obtained legal approval to rummage through that treasure trove of intelligence.
[...] So the agency turned to what court records have described as a "third country," the first country being America and the second being Australia, which ran a beta test of the Anom surveillance operation. The third country allowed the FBI to overcome this legal hurdle. The country hosted the Anom interception server for the FBI, and then provided Anom's messages to American authorities every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. That country "requested its participation be kept confidential," according to a document I previously obtained. The document said the third country was a European Union member but did not name the country itself. "The FBI is neither now nor in the future in a position to release the identity of the aforementioned third country," the document added. That country was Lithuania, 404 Media has learned from a source briefed on the operation but who did not work on it on the U.S. side.
[...] So the agency turned to what court records have described as a "third country," the first country being America and the second being Australia, which ran a beta test of the Anom surveillance operation. The third country allowed the FBI to overcome this legal hurdle. The country hosted the Anom interception server for the FBI, and then provided Anom's messages to American authorities every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. That country "requested its participation be kept confidential," according to a document I previously obtained. The document said the third country was a European Union member but did not name the country itself. "The FBI is neither now nor in the future in a position to release the identity of the aforementioned third country," the document added. That country was Lithuania, 404 Media has learned from a source briefed on the operation but who did not work on it on the U.S. side.
Five Eyes? (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't this the same loophole that the CIA's Five Eyes program is designed to exploit? Given how nobody could care less about that program, I'm just amazed it's taken the FBI this long to join in with the democratic rights bonfire.
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Isn't this the same loophole that the CIA's Five Eyes program is designed to exploit?
That's my understanding as well. I'm surprised Lithuania was used instead of another country already part of the Five Eyes program.
Intelligence v criminal activity (Score:3)
My guess is that the UK agencies that would play that role were warned off it. At a guess because the data would emerge in open court, resulting in GCHQ being forced to discuss how they got it, so exposing them to uncomfortable sunlight. The excuse for Five Eyes is 'national security' and 'terrorism'. This is a different category of offence.
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What is that term they use when criminals don't actually break the law but basically violate it's spirit?
Kind of like "Designer Drugs" which is just another term for "Totally legal drugs that are not illegal or blocked but police don't like".
Otherwise they are illegal drugs....
What is that term called when the government does it?
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Actually the law also includes the spirit and not just the letter in the US. When the government does it, it is usually unconstitutional and someone violating their oath of office... doing those things makes them an enemy of the people and it is called insurrection or treason depending on how they go about it.
At the moment the DOJ and their police arm the FBI are the ones engaging in it so just about the only thing which can be done is impeachment of their officers and the POTUS/VP.
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It"s not a loophole in the Constituton, but a corrupt Judiciary goes along with the crime.
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...to join in with the democratic rights bonfire.
It always cracks me up when people engage in over the top partisanship when their "side" is just as much or more of a problem on the issues they're referencing. I mean, if the Democrats are making a "bonfire" of our democratic rights with the issues you mention then what are the Republican's doing with all of their election denialism and support of people who attempted to alter the outcome of our last presidential election? Trying to create their own sun?
Now dont get me wrong, programs like what the main a
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Ha, ignore my above post. I read the post I replied to wrong!
My apologies!
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Isn't this the same loophole that the CIA's Five Eyes program is designed to exploit? Given how nobody could care less about that program, I'm just amazed it's taken the FBI this long to join in with the democratic rights bonfire.
Five Eyes isn't a CIA program any more than it's an MI5 or CSIS program.
It's an Allied intelligence sharing program started in WWII [wikipedia.org].
It has the potential to be exploited in the same way, and CSIS actually did get caught doing that in 2013 [archive.org], but it's not the point of the program.
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Five Eyes [wikipedia.org] isn't a program, and it's not run by the CIA, so ... no? At least, not any more than the NFL is a New England Patriots program.
So basically a criminal conspiracy (Score:5, Insightful)
If organizations like the FBI would be held to accepted legal standards, many of the people there would have go behind bars.
Re:So basically a criminal conspiracy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: So basically a criminal conspiracy (Score:2)
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FBI: outsourcing criminality to sidestep law (Score:5, Insightful)
Does anyone remember when the FBI admitted that their forensics department lied about DNA in hair analysis? [washingtonpost.com].
And then there is the repeated violation of FISA laws by the FBI in abusing the FISA process to obtain wiretapping warrants when they otherwise would be denied through intentional misrepresentation of facts to the FISA courts.
The FBI are the stasi now.
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The FBI are the stasi now.
It doesnt seem to me that you understand the words that you are using. What is happening here with the FBI is absolutely problematic but I think anyone growing up under the Stasi would either be insulted by or laugh at what you've said.
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You describe a high bar to meet :)
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If you are talking about the "Twitter files" there were no warrants issued. There were some odd 200k accounts flagged by the FBI but Twitter did not in fact delete many of them, it was less than 10 if I recall.
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I don't think you actually know anything about the Stasi. Maybe you should Google it first? You're losing touch with reality, lay off the weed a bit.
When something like 2.5% of the working population are FBI informants, in factories and churches and everywhere, and they're looking out for disagreeing with the government, which is criminalized, and you and your family are kidnapped overseas and forcibly returned for the crime of fleeing, then it might be the Stasi.
Crying about Twitter silencing your Iverme
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No. What I'll tell you now though is that you're heavily slanting your subject matter to try to make your point.
I'm not going to take the time to go through your post point by point but as an example.
So you're telling me that the FBI violating FISA laws to issue 200,000 fisa warrants for people who were not under criminal investigation
So in this case what we have really going on here is the FBI going beyond their powers to look into people they had every reason to be looking into just going off this summary
Intent is 9/10 of the law (Score:3)
If the US justice system operates under the principle that 9/10 of the law is based on your intent, then the FBI is guilty because they intentionally set this up knowing that what they were doing was ethically wrong by constitutional standards.
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Continent vs Country (Score:2)
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It's two continents. [oxfordlear...naries.com]
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Depends on how you were taught to define a continent, are there 4,5,6,6 or seven. The six ones use either Eurasia or America and are common in various parts of the world. From wiki,
North America and South America are treated as separate continents in the seven-continent model. However, they may also be viewed as a single continent known as America. This viewpoint was common in the United States until World War II, and remains prevalent in some Asian six-continent models.[15] The single American continent model remains a common view in France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Malta, Portugal, Spain, and Latin American countries.
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9/11: A Memorial to FBI Failure (Score:5, Interesting)
https://www.powerlineblog.com/... [powerlineblog.com]
It’s not the 10 or 20-year marker but that is no reason miss the lesson of September 11, 2001 most relevant in 2023 moving forward: the failure of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. As the people might recall, the bureau also slipped up on the prequel.
In 1993, the FBI failed to prevent Islamic terrorists from bombing the World Trade Center, which claimed six victims. The lessons went unlearned. For all its money, power and resources, the FBI failed to prevent terrorists from hijacking airliners and crashing them into the Pentagon and World Trade Center.
“September 11, 2001, was a day of unprecedented shock and suffering in the history of the United States,” proclaimed The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States. “The nation was unprepared,” notes the 2004 report, including an agency that should have been the best prepared, the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
“The domestic agencies never mobilized in response to the threat,” the commission concluded. “They didn’t have a plan,” and “the public was not warned.” The FBI Inspector General contributed to the report, so FBI incompetence was doubtless worse than indicated. No word about any FBI bosses losing their jobs over the failure, which continued apace.
This looks to be a criminal act (Score:2)
A deliberate attempt to evade well understood legal doctrine... The fruit of the poison tree... i.e. if it's not allowed it cannot be used and it doesn't matter WHO does it.
This is why we can't have nice things
Who does the constitution apply to? (Score:3)
Few here need the reminder, but... (Score:3)
There is no data security and no privacy except that which you carve out for yourself. At the very least, this means no cloud storage of private information, decent security on your own computers and storage media, routine use of end-to-end encryption online, and all the other measures computer literate people know about. Even so, you can still get into trouble, but at least you're not going to be an easy victim.
Opinion (Score:2)
Congratulations to the FBI for finding a way to work around that pesky Constitution.
Who needs things like founding principles, rights, privacy, etc. Those things aren't important, right?
Yeah (Score:2)
Why was the FBI unable to get legal approval for t (Score:2)
It should be able to get approval when there is reasonable suspicion. I mean they get approval for bugging devices, don't they
Mod points for funny (Score:2)
Lots of them!!
GDPR violation (Score:3)
This sounds like a GDPR violation. As an EU member shouldn't they been fined?
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The GPDR doesn't apply to the government's law enforcement. Interesting loophole, right?
Typically even stronger regulations apply to those in Europe. The UKVI has to ask permission to talk to HMRC (immigration dept to the tax dept).
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Am I mistaken here?
Yes.
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Except defunding the police never happened. The cops are doing a work stoppage because they have been called out for unacceptable behavior. Yes crime is up slightly over the past few years but it isn't a "wave". Since when were the police ever tasked with preventing crime? They're not obligated to prevent or protect anyone.
It was all fun and games when the FBI was investigating hippies, communists, and Black Panthers but now they're looking at right wing politicians who broke the law it's suddenly a differ
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Right wingers and conservatives believe the law should protect them but not bind them, and bind their perceived enemies but not protect those people.
Many observations support the above statement.
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The cops are doing a work stoppage because they have been called out for unacceptable behavior.
Friend of mine in Portland OR was hit as a pedestrian by an uninsured and unlicensed motorist. To their credit, they at least stopped. Portland Police roll out and won't issue a ticket because, "We're short-staffed, remember that when you vote." Of course, they hung out at the scene for the better part of an hour, so how short staffed are they really? How hard is it to write a ticket when you have a suspect who confessed right in front of you? Or call a tow truck to impound the uninsured vehicle sitt
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A pedestrian was hit by a car, and you’re complaining that the cops wasted an hour on him?
An hour was too much?
That’s your proof crime in Portland, Minnesota, Austin, New Orleans, etc, etc has gone up significantly not because of defunding (and lax prosecutors BTW), but is instead due to suddenly lazy policing? Really?
So why not cut the police force even more? Why is Portland instead trying so hard to restore their police force - like most other “defund” cities - many of the b
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Except defunding the police never happened.
No. All that happened is that reporting on the defunding diminished when the crime wave started. The defunding across several cities was even systematically and fairly thoroughly summarized by The Guardian, see its article “These US cities defunded police”.
crime is up slightly over the past few years but it isn't a "wave".
Not “slightly”. PBS: “Minneapolis’ bloody summer puts city on pace for most violent year in a generation” . National Criminal Justice Association: “New Orleans, With Nation's #1 Murder Rate, Faces Crime Str
Re: FBI is the new NKVD (Score:4, Informative)
Florida is just average, a little better than Illinois and California, but not as good as New York which is below the national average crime rate.
Texas is pretty damned bad, and Louisiana and Missouri are dog shit. Then Alaska, holy fucknuts.
Minneapolis is far below the average crime rate, so is Washington, Kentucky, Oregon.
https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/LATES... [cjis.gov]
So your red/blue theory is garbage, and that's all per-capita, so it's weighted towards where most of the people live, like cities. Most of the country is at or near historic lows because that's been the trend. Except for Red Alaska, jeeeeezus.
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Florida is just average
You “forgot” the changes in crime rates, and “forgot” to do it since 2019, which is just before defund.
In essence, in making a partisan attempt to defend defunding the police (which the OP propagandized didn’t occur!), you are excusing the thousands of additional murders that correlate with defunding because there would have been even more fifty years ago.
Note that the majority of Black Americans opposed defunding. The only major demographic that widely supported it was whi
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Oh, and what you're calling a "wave", you can set the chart as far back at 1985, you have to squint to see the bump in 2020 for most states.
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Oh, and what you're calling a "wave", you can set the chart as far back at 1985, you have to squint to see the bump in 2020 for most states.
That’s extremely disingenuous. You mysteriously forgot to start with 2019, which is just before defunding, and instead picked a time thirty five years before. You are also conflating specific defunding areas into state wide numbers to further hide the difference.
The specific New Orleans and Minneapolis examples comparing to 2019 that I provided are far more relevant and typical - similar examples are easily found for other defunding cities like San Francisco, Austin, etc. For further evidence, almos
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Re: FBI is the new NKVD (Score:4, Interesting)
The FBI whose Republican leader investigated Hillary Clinton for a full year, made a completely ahistorical statement to the press about her case and then re-opened the case in a week before election day, made another statement in an act that possibly put the election in the bag for Trump, who then fired said director, installed his handpicked director who now served under Joe Biden still?
I'm not saying the FBI ain't got problems but the DNC ain't getting their money's worth...
But it's all the deep state amirite?
Re: FBI is the new NKVD (Score:1)
"There are big differences. The FBI us operating far past its legal boundaries."
That is NOT a difference. Cops do that as SOP.
"Furthering the DNC's political goals is higher priority than enforcing laws that are in line with the US Constitution."
You forgot about the FBI planting a bomb in an environmental activist's car already? You people with your short memories...
"The "defund the police" chants have resulted in massive crime waves."
The attempts to defund police come from massive waves of crime committed
Hypocrisy == Cuckservatives (Score:1)
Point out conservative hypocrisy and you get a downmod from a conservative who knows he is morally bankrupt, and his ideas cannot withstand scrutiny.
Remove a conservative from a social media platform for incitement of violence and he cries and cries about how he's being silenced.
You lames can't make up your minds about what kind of shitheels you want to be, which is why the rest of us believe you're every kind of asshole.
Want to change that? Try ditching the hypocrisy.
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I'm leaving HSV because of the training center.
You can leave HSV, but it will never leave you.
Re:FBI is the new NKVD (Score:5, Informative)
I'm leaving HSV because of the training center.
Abolish the FBI TODAY.
Why do you want to abolish the FBI and what would you replace it with?
Re: FBI is the new NKVD (Score:1)
Re: FBI is the new NKVD (Score:4, Insightful)
An organization that is democratically controlled.
Like one directly answerable to the elected POTUS on a daily basis, answerable to the elected Congress via the power of the purse, as well as the (admittedly unelected) judiciary?
Seriously, what do you want to change? Do you want to vote for the FBI Director? The Director of every Federal law enforcement agency? Like you (may?) vote for Sheriff? Because Sheriff's Departments never abuse civil liberties?
Re: FBI is the new NKVD (Score:2)
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Cool, now do local sheriffs.
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Many/most places DO in fact, elect their local sheriffs.
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Since the Constitution doesn't really empower the federal government to legislate individual behavior... why replace it with anything?
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A1S8: "The Congress shall have Power .. To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian Tribes."
Since 1943, this power has been interpreted by every SCOTUS makeup (this isn't a "liberal" vs "conservative" thing) to include any imaginable human activity, unless they're explicitly blacklisted from legislating that topic (e.g. establishing religion or infringing the right
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You forgot to include the Common Defense and General Welfare clauses (A1 S8) in your comment. Historically, those have done a lot of legal heavy lifting.
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States;
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"You forgot to include the Common Defense and General Welfare clauses (A1 S8) in your comment."
No he didn't. It has been determined that like the preamble these give a descriptive purpose for how the taxes must be used and the reason for levying them but does not confer any sort of additional legislative power.
Like most of the Constitution [which was not written by attorneys] you don't need any legal training to read this. It is in common [if dated] English and means exactly what is appears to at a glance.
Re: FBI is the new NKVD (Score:2)
The general welfare was and is a very broad brush. A reasonable person reading that would interpret it as meaning the well being of the citizenry.
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A reasonable person interprets it as the general good but this is WHY they have been granted the previously mentioned powers, not the power to do anything they believe is for the general good.
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What you're describing is called "textualism" and isn't as solid or accepted as you seem to believe. You seem to be implying that Congress can only make laws regarding taxes and items explicitly enumerated in Article 1, Sections 8 and that's just plain wrong.
If I'm misinterpreting what you're saying, please correct me.
Remember the 10th amendment (Score:2)
'The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.'
That's RESERVED to the state and the people. Not may be exercised by the Federal government if Congress agrees.
Sadly the 10th is the amendment most ignored in modern jurisprudence...
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Those listed in A1 S8 are what are referred to as "enumerated" powers. There are still implied, resulting, and inherent powers.
For example, the First Amendment says:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
But, if the only thing Congress had the right to make laws over was what was explicitly enumerated in A1S8, then this amendment wouldn't be necessary because laws around the mentioned subjects aren't in A1S8.
See: https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S1-3-3/ALDE_00013292/ [congress.gov]
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Actually if you read the debates of the founders you'll find that they generally did not believe the amendments were necessary and might be detrimental for this very reason. Beyond that it is entirely possible that congress could pass legislation for the purpose of collecting taxes which had the result limiting or impairing the right to bear arms or limited free speech and assembly.
In fact, they did exactly that with the unconstitutional gun control framework in the US.
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"The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States;"
In clearer modern English:
"The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excise, and pay Debts to facilitate providing for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States;"
This is the power given explicitly:
To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excise
This is implicit because obviou
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No he didn't. It has been determined that like the preamble these give a descriptive purpose for how the taxes must be used and the reason for levying them but does not confer any sort of additional legislative power.
To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.
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Yes, the description of why congress was given the authority to tax is not a foregoing power.
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"Since 1943, this power has been [mis]interpreted by every SCOTUS makeup"
Fixed that for you.
"And that means you are guaranteed to lose any legal dispute (though not necessarily every philosophical dispute) over the matter"
No, that means I would have lost a court dispute in my parents and grandparents time but not necessarily tomorrow, next week, and certainly not in my grandchildren's time. The current supreme court has corrected several points at which the court wasn't ruling according to the Constitution
The constitution is what SCOTUS says it is (Score:2)
Which means that when the current court reverses precedent they have every right to do so - and whinging about it shows severe ignorance of history, as school desegregation occurred because SCOTUS reversed the legitimacy of Jim Crow laws.
And then we have:
'The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.'
That's the 10th amendment - one notable for being ignored by everybody most of the time.
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Why do you want to abolish the FBI and what would you replace it with?
A new branch of law enforcement that isn't allowed to investigate anyone with an R in front of their name.
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I'm leaving HSV because of the training center.
How is herpes relevant to this discussion?
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estonia is not clean either
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I am sure Poland and Lithuania, two countries who have very high opinion of the US and in the past 18 months are *very, very* pleased to be under the umbrella of US and NATO protection are worried about our opinion on their compromised ness.
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$290M and $142M to Poland and Lithuania respectively in terms of foreign aid which is not chump change isn't exactly world changing either.
Here's the thing, we don't have to pay the, we have aligned interests. Generally their enemies are also our enemies (for them mainly Russia) so they don't have to be bribed to help, they likely want to help.
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$290M and $142M to Poland and Lithuania respectively in terms of foreign aid which is not chump change isn't exactly world changing either.
It doesn't have to change the world, it just has to affect areas which benefit the wealth, power, and influence of a couple dozen people in each country who steer the policies which "earn" US "aid". $142million is plenty for bureaucrats to work with.
Here's the thing, we don't have to pay the, we have aligned interests... they don't have to be bribed to help
That's not an either/or. We pay them because we have aligned interests, and we have aligned interests because we pay them.
Lots of people claim they truly love their job and don't do it for the bribe (paycheck). Which is a very easy thing to say when you're rece
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We pay them because we have aligned interests, and we have aligned interests because we pay them.
This ignores the entirety of each countries geopolitical and economic circumstances though. If we paid Poland and Lithuania $0 in foreign aid we would still have aligned interests. The interests come first, your Iran example kinda proves that outright. We used to have a strong relationship with Iran when we shared a common geopolitical enemy, when those interests changed no amount of money would put those back in order. If money was the answer we could just buy our way into world peace, Israel/Palestine