Hacker News Reader

> Maybe just show up to meet them, with an attorney (of course!) and if they start asking anything serious the attorney tells you to shut up and you leave.

Cooperation is for people who did something and want to create a reason for the government to go easy. The proper course of action here is to politely state that they can deliver a subpoena to your lawyer.

> It sounds to me like the agents were doing their jobs in their normal, properly secretive if a bit ham-fisted way, and this person totally freaked out.

Telling someone's lawyer that you'll interview their client without them by picking her up on the street is more than "ham-fisted."

I hope by now it's clear how hard it is to be "overly paranoid" about our government.

Being paranoid doesn't mean you should speculate wildly about intent. Maybe they also think she's an alien. Maybe they don't. Without more data, spinning around on it won't help and may possibly make the problem worse.

Well, she is a core contributor to Tor, but I don't see any possible reason why the FBI could not say that they just wanted to ask her a couple of questions about Tor to her lawyer(s).

I've been following her on Twitter for a couple of months now, and from me "getting to know her" from social media and her blog, I don't see a possible legal reason to ask her a few questions that could not be shared with her lawyer. After all, like she stated, her work is very transparent, so everything she's working on is available to the public.

Yup. It's impossible to be overly paranoid about any government. Too bad the people who didn't realize this when it mattered are no longer with us because they're imprisoned, dead, or missing. Maybe growing up in the US where such occurrences are rare only because of the humongous population but still happen with regularity makes people soft or stupid or both. Seems to me like parents who fail to teach their children this are doing them a disservice.

Her name is literally Isis, and she is a core developer of Tor. If those aren't enough buzzwords to get the FBI swarming around her house, I don't know what is. I don't blame her for being paranoid, but I don't understand why she refused to talk to them at all. From the post it seems like she was okay with a phone call, but they wanted to meet her in person. So perhaps she was scared of being detained. That makes sense I guess, but if they really wanted to detain her, it would have been easy to do at the airport.

> I don't blame her for being paranoid, but I don't understand why she refused to talk to them at all.

One possible explanation: because "Don't Talk to the Police".

If she wants to find out what they want, then she's going to have to talk to them. Of course, she can terminate the conversation by invoking her miranda rights at any time.

Her lawyer should be able to do that just as easily.

No, if you want to find out what the police want from you, you direct them to talk to your lawyer, you don't talk to them yourself.

Can we all come live in your world? It sounds so much nicer than real life.

Absolutely false, she can ask her attorney what they wanted. It's actually great to see someone following best practices even when it is not the easiest thing to do.

Nope that is her lawyers job not hers.

Everything about this assumes the other side is acting in good faith. There are enough examples, and people formerly in the position of the other side saying the same thing, to make it overly risky to assume this. The incentives are not aligned to encourage law enforcement to make society safer, that's just a byproduct of what they are incentivized to do, which is identify people they can arrest and then do so. Usually this is because the person has broken a law, but that logic can be twisted in many ways depending on unscrupulous agents, or agents that wrongly believe they are doing the right thing even though there is no evidence. There are numerous links all along this thread of the now famous talk by a former law enforcement agent about why it's a bad idea to ever talk to law enforcement without a lawyer present. At a bare minimum, never put yourself in a situation where it's your word against the word of law enforcement, whether they are recording or not (they may misplace that recording, for whatever reason).

>If she wants to find out what they want, then she's going to have to talk to them.

That's one of the worst things one can do and really bad advice.

>Of course, she can terminate the conversation by invoking her miranda rights at any time.

That's already too late. Everything she already inadvertently said up to that point can be used against her.

So much naivety.

> but I don't understand why she refused to talk to them at all

Talking to law enforcement is the job of your lawyer. If law enforcement refuses to talk to your lawyer, is it really that far-fetched to think they may want to do other things outside the bounds of the usual legal process?

I can't up vote this comment enough. Law enforcement are not your friends and they are not on your side. My very close friend's dad has been a cop for 35 years and he has told us this over the years. Want another opinion?

See this from a cop and a law professor https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc

Having a lawyer makes you look guilty! /s

The author links to that video in the article, which shows that she's aware of the games that are played.

They're using bully tactics. Did they have to show up on her family's doorstep? No. Did they really have people watching out for her in five cities? No. Was there any reason they couldn't communicate through her lawyer? No. Did they have to speak to her in person? No. Do they have the right to circumvent her legal counsel (or make threats to do so)? No.

They're just playing mind games, like they're trained to do. Spooks gonna spook.

Yes. Also, unlike "ordinary" police, in the US it's a crime to lie to a federal agent. In her place, I'd be worried that I might accidentally say something that would give them leverage.

This++ I wish more people would know about this one fact than any other.

As others have pointed out, if they just wanted her expert opinion on Tor they could have had the phone call or submitted the questions to her lawyer, which is standard practice by the way.

There is a huge whiff of shadiness about how the agents were behaving. Maybe they had a good reason and just wanted her help, but everything screams watch the fuck out or end up like Aaron Swartz.

You should never talk to the police. Ever. They are never on your side.

I don't think she's being overly paranoid in the slightest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc

Smearing people who work for Tor wouldn't exactly be the worse thing for the FBI.

Good federal defense attorneys will tell you NEVER to talk to the government. EVER. Once you talk to them you're open to a wide litany of charges that they basically can make up if they don't like your answers (e.g., lying to a federal agent, conspiracy, etc.) Here's just one of many articles about it: http://mimesislaw.com/fault-lines/protip-never-willingly-tal... (BTW: I do think she is being a bit paranoid, but I don't think she should talk to them -- it only invites problems.)

If the FBI comes knocking on your door, you have already been tagged, and likely thoroughly investigated for something bad. Or more simply put: There is no good reason for the FBI to pay you a visit. She has every right to be "paranoid."

> There is no good reason for the FBI to pay you a visit.

Conducting a background investigation on someone else applying for a security clearance is arguably a "good" (or at least, not-bad) reason for the FBI to pay you a visit. (Also, criminal investigations in which you are not a target may also be not-bad, depending on the exact circumstances.)

There is no good reason for the FBI to pay you a visit and then refuse to tell your lawyer why they want to talk to you.

Not disagreeing with that, just that the more general comment I was responding to was an overgeneralization.

Many years ago I had an FBI agent call me and ask if he could come and talk to me because he was doing a background check on someone who was going for Top Secret clearance. I said sure. He came to my work, asked a few questions, and then went on his way. Gave me his card just in case I remembered anything he might like to hear. Never heard from him again. Very polite, nice guy.

Seems quite different from this case. The agent you're referring to stated his intentions up front quite clearly.

As far as I can tell the only details revealed by the FBI in this case is that they had some "documents" (without giving any context) for the author to review and answer questions about, and refused to share any details with her lawyer.

I'm not discounting that there are FBI agents who behave properly and politely without pushing the limits of legality, but I also believe there's plenty of evidence to suggest that there are plenty of agents who share none of those qualities (note that I'm not speculating on what fraction of agents are in each bucket, just that both are non-zero).

Typically background check interviews are contracted out now. The FBI should be out of the picture.

https://www.opm.gov/investigations/background-investigations...

In both those cases, there should be no problem with letting the person's attorney know what this is about. If it's a clearance investigation, it's a no brainer. The government has no problem leaving voice mail in Peter's mailbox saying "we're trying to reach Paul because Bob's applied for a security clearance." So this kind of secretiveness is unnecessary.

If it's an ongoing investigation, having the lawyer there is a GOOD THING, because it becomes the lawyer's job to keep his client aware of the repercussions of doing anything to sabotage the investigation.

> ...and this person totally freaked out.

It sounds to me more like old fashioned FBI "bumper lock". This is when they attempt to provoke some sort of action on the part of a person under investigation. This very publicly backfired for them in the anthrax investigation, when one target killed himself under the stress and the other got super pissed off and met them head on with press conferences.

I think maybe appropriately paranoid. If the FBI called me and wouldn't tell me what it was about, I'd be concerned too.

I'll have to dig up the source but anything you say to a federal officer(even if you believed it to be true at the time) that is false is a Felony.

Small stuff that doesn't seem important can fall under this and then they have leverage against you.

basically if you lie you can be charged with "obstruction of justice" or "obstruction of a federal officer in executing their official duties"

It's not a lie though, the distinction is subtle but important.

Something like asking you what the closing stock price for GOOG was yesterday. If you said "I think it was 500" but say it was 505, boom insta-crime.

There's been quite a few examples of the FBI then using the threat of prosecuting the above "crime" in order to get leverage so people will comply with things they may not have usually done.

You should probably read 18 USC 1001 [1]. Your example doesn't work for several reasons.

* The statement is about your belief, not the facts. If you actually believed that, it's not a false statement.

* Even if the statement is a statement of fact and not belief (e.g. "The closing stock price for GOOG was 500 yesterday."), the statement has to be materially false. 500 vs 505? Close enough.

* Even if the statement is materially false or fraudulent, (e.g. the stock price was really 50,000), the falsehood has to be given "knowingly and willfully."

[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1001

Yeah you're right, hence my first note that I'd have to dig up the source :).

Yes, she sounds quite paranoid. More paranoid than is justifiable from the limited communication made by the FBI so far.

That said, this seems pretty unacceptable. Regarding her attorney:

>Five minutes later, Burnett called back and said, “I don’t believe you actually represent her.” Burnett stated additionally that a phone call from me might suffice, but that the FBI preferred to meet with me in person. After a pause he said, “But… if we happen to run into her on the street, we’re gonna be asking her some questions without you present.”

What's wrong with that? The FBI is totally free to walk up to anyone and ask them questions. And yes, they're quite good at finding people since that's a big part of their job.

If they consistently decline to ask those questions to your lawyer, and drop the matter within hours of a foreign country giving you a long term resident worker visa, you're right to be concerned.

Sure, but publishing an opinion piece blasting the FBI for things they did in your imagination is ridiculous. There's nothing wrong with what the FBI actually did.

There is plenty wrong with hinting that they want to take you into their warm embrace without a lawyer present.

That's called getting arrested, if that's what they're planning at all. You don't have the right to set the time, place, and company for your arrest. They'd want a shot at a 1-1 interview. Convincing crooks to spill the beans is a valid part of their tactics. Yes, you have the right to have a lawyer present; they have to stop interrogating you once you ask. You also have the right to not have a lawyer present and answer questions anyway. The FBI of course hopes that crooks are stupid enough to exercise that latter right.

She contributes to Tor. She's like, an enemy of the FBI. Why wouldn't she paranoid?

Well I contribute(d) to Tor (in small, almost meaningless ways like translating it and managing the translations), but I never did anything illegal. In fact, I've never even been to the U.S. Why should I be labeled as FBI's enemy if I never even entered the U.S. and when all I wanted to do is to give something give back to the world by allowing the people of my country to browse the web anonymously?

It's not my fault if someone from any country in the world decides to use the project I helped with in an illegal way.

No.