[bediger4000]

The "Snowden Associate" in the title is Bart Gellman, a long time Washington Post reporter who's covered national security issues in some detail for years and years. Just looking at his Wikipedia entry, he's been a thorn in the side of the DoD and other authorities forever.

This is not to make light or, or poo-poo his concerns or the counter-measures he takes, but rather to note that he should be watching his back after a career like that. Like Ben Franklin once said, "Never charge someone more money than it costs to kill you."

[makeitdouble]

> "Never charge someone more money than it costs to kill you."

This is so clever, while being completely impractical when dealing with governing entities. Depending on where you live, pricing a service for your local police could become a very difficult exercise.

[whatshisface]

There is no real evidence that the NSA kills its enemies or even that the CIA does when those enemies are American citizens.

[sha256sum]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hampton

Context: “ In 1967, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) identified Hampton as a radical threat. It tried to subvert his activities in Chicago, sowing disinformation among black progressive groups and placing a counterintelligence operative in the local Panthers organization. In December 1969, Hampton was drugged, shot and killed in his bed during a predawn raid at his Chicago apartment by a tactical unit of the Cook County State's Attorney's Office, who received aid from the Chicago Police Department and the FBI leading up to the attack.”

[ratsmack]

I suspect there are many more that we'll never hear about. The three letter agencies have the expertise and manpower to make anyone's death appear accidental or from natural causes.

[ncmncm]

There was the recent Rolling Stone reporter whose car was jimmied to stick the throttle at maximum, killing him in an "accident". No investigation.

Nobody will be prosecuted for that.

[neal_jones]

Not that I’m expecting this kind of situation in my life, but I wonder if there would be any workaround in this situation? Could you shift out of gear? Turn the car off? Deploy a large cartoon parachute?

Of course if an agency like this wanted me dead I’m sure evading one attempt would only prolong my life shortly.

[Retric]

Cars breaks as a rule can out power their engines, it’s why they can stop faster than they accelerate. It’s one of those tropes you see in movies but it’s a terrible assassination method that basically requires someone to make multiple mistakes.

There several ways around it from going to neutral to turning off the engine or even crashing is generally survivable, but they depend on the car and roads. Aka I don’t know what would work in a Model T.

[ncmncm]

He must have tried all of those things he could, in the time he had.

[whatshisface]

That's a local PD killing someone, we know they do that a lot. People also get swatted, the FBI is not the only group of people who sends out local PDs in a way that gets citizens killed.

[sha256sum]

Are you saying it’s irrelevant that federal agencies targeted this person because local PD fired the shot?

[boomboomsubban]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki

[whatshisface]

So I guess Obama ordered the death of a citizen of his own country. So much for my defense.

[stuxnet]

They got his 16 year old son two weeks later, also a US citizen.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Abdulrahman_al-Aw...

[boomboomsubban]

While I'm not ignoring Obama's role in the attack,

>the strike was carried out by Joint Special Operations Command, under the direction of the CIA.

The CIA assassinating an American Citizen.

[the_only_law]

> The CIA assassinating an American Citizen.

Oh they’ve done much worse to US citizens, and got away with it.

[ncmncm]

This one right out in public, though. They have got brazen.

[gentleman11]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_attempts_on_Fi...

[chrononaut]

Fidel Castro was an American citizen?

> .. that the CIA does when those enemies are American citizens.

[smingo]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamal_Derwish