loyolabenson

The FBI has recently adopted a novel investigative technique: posting hyperlinks that purport to be illegal videos of minors having sex, and then raiding the homes of anyone willing to click on them.
Undercover FBI agents used this hyperlink-enticement technique, which directed Internet users to a clandestine government server, to stage armed raids of homes in Pennsylvania, New York, and Nevada last year. The supposed video files actually were gibberish and contained no illegal images.
A CNET News.com review of legal documents shows that courts have approved of this technique, even though it raises questions about entrapment, the problems of identifying who's using an open wireless connection--and whether anyone who clicks on a FBI link that contains no child pornography should be automatically subject to a dawn raid by federal police.
Roderick Vosburgh, a doctoral student at Temple University who also taught history at La Salle University, was raided at home in February 2007 after he allegedly clicked on the FBI's hyperlink. Federal agents knocked on the door around 7 a.m., falsely claiming they wanted to talk to Vosburgh about his car. Once he opened the door, they threw him to the ground outside his house and handcuffed him.


rest of story here


FBI posts fake hyperlinks to snare child porn suspects | The Iconoclast - politics, law, and technology - CNET News.com






I don't agree with child pornography, but this is entrapment.

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CorrectAD

i'm not clicking that link, FBI man.

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HarveyJ

Yeah, a few of us over at DomainState are talking about this as well.

As much as pedos (read 4chaners) need to be beaten senseless, I'd rather have a just, fair and transparent legal system.

This also raises other issues.
I mean, what if your computer has been trojaned and is being used as a proxy, or part of a bot-net?

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yoink*gasp*

I think it depends where these links were posted. My WordPress blogs get spammed all the time by these CP links and shit, and one time I accidenrly clicked one instead of the "spam" button. I x'ed out of that shit as soon as I could, but what if that was a FBI link? I get fucked for that?

Lame.

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KSRothwell

This takes Rickrolling to a whole new level.

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Xrproto

...now where to find these links to cloak.

Send them all back to everyone in law enforcement cloaked and watch them raid themselves.

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ffblueocean

"entrapment"

--- what kind of respectable person would want to click on that to begin with?

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yoink*gasp*

LOL that's really the point behind the whole thing. But, what really scares me is that it's easy as hell to cloak a link. That could turn out really bad for people, especially if they clicked a cloaked link.

It doesn't matter if you're found guilty or not, even being accused of having anything to do with CP fucks your reputation up and down.

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LazyHippy

This is worrying. Start with sex offenders, no one complains. Move onto drug dealers.. then users.. few complaints. Next thing ya know there's dodgy parking meters and tickets given out when they think that you think you've overstayed regardless of whether you have or not...

This is fuckin thought-crime... 1984 shit. Or minority report if ya prefer ... (cult <- for Tom Cruise)

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alexb

So it's the FBI who's been spamming my blog?

Glad I have akismet.

Janaic

Perfectly legal. I don't have the source, but in one of my criminal justice textbooks, a story revealed that a man was sentenced to 25 years for planning to rape a fictitious child. The FBI was involved when a someone decided to portray her/him self as a minor, and became involved with an older man.

HarveyJ

As yoink*gasp* says, you just cloak the links, and people don't know any better.
And then you go to the slipper slope, with drugs, etc. Plenty of respectable people use drugs to take the edge off, but only celebrities get to get away with it (is it just me, or is willingness to be caught doing coke off a transsexual hookers back almost a job requirement to being a Hollywood star these days?).

It's the precedent that this sets that really worries me.

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JohnCJackson

Maybe so, but it doesn't change the fact that no actual crime was commited.

Thought crime, Pre-crime whatever you want to call it, no matter how disturbing, is something that should not exist.

It used to be that law enforcement helped prevent crime ( or at least that was a premise) and were "friends" of the people in the community- only to be feared by criminals. Now law enforcement CREATES crime out of thin air in some cases and should not be trusted by innocent people.

MadamJovy

I am never clicking any link you ever put up ever...

John, I get your point... but if you have anything more then a peanut in your brain & are a respectable person... you wont click on those links.

However, I do understand the whole cloaking issue. That sucks.

darbsllim

Kind of an iffy topic because child pornographers and pedofiles get -rep from me...but this is beyond constitutional.

They should be going after the MAKERS of this shit, not trying to lure people in and arrest them for viewing it.

Not only that - but the fact that they are arresting people via means of a Rick Roll, for something that could easily been have a misclick - is sickening.

Is this the FBI overstepping their boundaries, or testing ours?

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cardine

Look out for the FBI's new Thought Police division!