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That was not my assumption, and I don't see how what I wrote would give you that impression. Can you explain why you are interpreting it that way?
But either way, how exactly would that change anything? My objection, and the DOJ's, is that the SPLC was telling donors that it opposed a white nationalist rally, while in reality they were secretly promoting and helping to facilitate that rally. That the SPLC was not solely responsible for the rally does not mean they didn't spend money they promised would oppose the rally to instead secretly promote and facilitate the rally. Can you explain otherwise? What am I missing?
Likewise with your other two points on informants - can you explain how a high up informant being more useful somehow refutes the fact that the SPLC paid for and promoted and facilitated things they explicitly told their donors they opposed? How does facilitating transport to the rally oppose it? How does paying someone and supervising their racist posts oppose that exact person's racist posting? To be honest I don't see a connection at all, can you point it out for me?
I agree that paying people to snitch is more effective than not paying people and expecting them to snitch. I agree that getting people to snitch can be an effective way to dismantle an organization. I can even maybe see how giving over a million dollars to a fundraiser for a group you are fighting might make sense, like there is at least something there. But that is not all of what the SPLC is accused of doing, so I am going to ask again - in what sense can the SPLC be said to be working against a man when they are directly funding him and indirectly funding his organization? The SPLC says "here is a bad guy we oppose", the SPLC says "here is the donate button to oppose the bad guy", and then the SPLC goes and gives that money directly to the "bad guy". Huh?
Also not seeing the relevance of law enforcement here. While law enforcement using a technique may be a testament to that technique's effectiveness, it does not follow from that statement that the SPLC should do the same. The SPLC is not a law enforcement agency, and there are a lot of things inherent to law enforcement agencies which are not inherent to the SPLC. Those differences preclude the SPLC from operating in an at all similar manner.
If you are just trying to convince me that it is effective to pay informants, you don't have to. That was never questioned by me and I apologize if I gave you that impression because we are in agreement on that point. But I am also going to point out that your link really undermines that position. Did read any of it?
Like here is a quote from Rep. Hice:
This is not a quote in support of CI programs.
Even looking beyond the contradictions I don't see the relevance of the point and I don't see how this supports anything else you have said. How exactly does a House Oversight Committee reprimanding law enforcement for "inadequate oversight over the CI program" and " fail[ing] to sufficiently review, authorize, and implement controls for CIs’ activities and payments" support your position on the acceptability of the SPLC's informant program? If it is at all applicable, would it not be directionally arguing that what the SPLC did was not acceptable? Actual law enforcement agencies with Congressional oversight clearly have huge issues with their CI program, and given that the SPLC has zero external oversight of any kind should we not be more skeptical of their CI program?
Refer back to how informants are used elsewhere like the DEA. Federal officials paying a drug informant to give them information on drug deals is not interpreted as them "secretly promoting and helping to facilitate" taking drugs. Heck, even if the DEA helps an informant or cop stay undercover by providing drugs, we know contextually that this is not a pro drug action.
You can disagree with them as to whether or not the strategy is effective here, but "I don't think their idea works as well as they hope" isn't the same as fraud.
Again, whether or not it's actually effective is a different question. It's not fraudulent to do a dumb idea that you genuinely think could work. If Tom accepts money on Kickstarter to make a new indie movie sequel, tries out a new editing technique for it and it turns out the sequel sucks because of that, Tom didn't commit fraud. Backers can be upset that the movie sucked but unless it was caused by purposefully wasting the money for something else then there's nothing illegal there.
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