In 2021, Thiel, a top tech investor and Trump megadonor, began a secret life as a confidential FBI informant.

The FBI’s recruitment of Thiel as a CHS puts him among the bureau’s most prominent assets, but he is not alone among right-wing figures who have collaborated with the bureau. Trump himself offered to help the FBI fight organized crime in Atlantic City in the early 1980s. Truth Social, the Trump-owned social-media company, has quietly tipped the FBI off to users who threaten violence, even as it seeks to cash in on their anger. At least two of the rioters who showed up to storm the Capitol on January 6 were also FBI informants, as was Enrique Tarrio, the Proud Boys leader who was sentenced to 22 years in prison for seditious conspiracy and other felonies stemming from the Capitol breach. Tarrio reportedly served as a source for federal and local law enforcement, assisting with the prosecution of more than a dozen people.

  • ElleChaise@kbin.social
    3·
    11 months ago

    May be an obvious thing to everybody else, but what do you mean by spook? Where I’m from we’re careful using that word.

      • meco03211@lemmy.world
        2·
        11 months ago

        I was thinking less “spy” and more “fingermen” like in V for Vendetta but more secretive.

    • totallynotarobot@lemmy.world
      6·
      11 months ago

      What’s the implication/meaning where you’re from? And where is that (if you’re comfortable sharing) so we all don’t put our foot in it when travelling there?

    • possibly a cat@lemmy.ml
      1·
      11 months ago

      Stirner gives some examples:

      "Here would be the place to let the haunting spirits drift past, if they didn’t have to come out again further on in order to vanish before egoism. Therefore, let’s give only a few more notable examples of them, in order to immediately lead into our attitude toward them. For example, above all, the ‘Holy Spirit’ is sacred, the truth is sa­cred; right, law, the good cause, majesty, marriage, the common good, order, the fatherland, etc., etc., are sacred.

      Man, your head is haunted; you have bats in your belfry! You’re imagining big things and painting for yourself a whole world of gods that is there for you, a haunted realm to which you are called, an ideal that beckons to you. You have a fixed idea!

    • Omega_Haxors@lemmy.ml
      16·
      11 months ago

      It’s a slur, similar to gl**ie has a racist origin but people think calling themselves a lefty means they can’t be racist so use it anyway.