FBI arrest man over alleged Amazon centre bomb plot
bbc.com
bbc.com
- Guy posts online "Amazon data centers should be blown up"
- Undercover FBI contacts guy "you are totally right. You should do it. Here's a bomb."
- If guy is backing out, he gets coaxed into it further. There is often mental illness involved.
- Guy attempts to use "bomb", gets arrested.
- Charge that should have been making an online threat is now terrorism.
Not saying that he is innocent, of course, but what are the chances that he would never have followed up without the government's involvement? Why not just charge him for making a threat to begin with?
We honeypot criminals-in-the-making under the assumption that if the "good guys" can get the person to prepare for violence resulting in death, the "bad guys" can too. Whether the honeypot is too sweet or unreasonably sticky is an excellent matter for discussion in a court of law (but it's probably worth noting, as a pulse check, that more than 99.9% of the population isn't even in the market for C-4 of any kind, let alone for terroristic ends).
To make it more clear: trying to hack a computer system does not change that system. Trying to convince a person to carry out an attack (via social pressure, provision of materiel, planning, etc.) definitely changes that person.
I mean really, the more I think about this the more ridiculous it gets. Imagine coming up with an online persona to try to seduce your significant other with all your personal knowledge about them, as a form of penetration testing. We rightly view people who do this as being very controlling & insecure - not normal or justifiable behavior at all, and it materially changes your relationship with them regardless of how it turns out!
>Mr Pendley attended the Capitol Riots of 6 January, investigators found, having driven from Texas to Washington DC. Investigators said he told friends he had brought an assault rifle with him, but left it in his car...
>The posts from "Dionysus" that sparked concern spoke of his desire to "conduct a little experiment," which he said would be dangerous and "draw a lot of heat" and could be "dangerous". Asked by another user what the result would be, he responded, "death", according to the court documents.
>The FBI managed to uncover Dionysus's email address, and link that to his Facebook account and real-world identity.
>In late January, Mr Pendley began using the encrypted messaging app Signal to detail his plans to bomb an AWS facility - but the recipient of those messages was a confidential FBI informant, investigators said.
>Over the course of February, Mr Pendley shared his plans, including the type of explosive he sought, potential targets, and maps.
Of course we are getting this report from the FBI files, but it doesn't really sound like this particular person was being drawn into a web, or that they could reasonably just ignore him as a crank. Bombings like these do get carried out after all, in Nashville for instance.
Idk if this guy is mentally ill or not, but he met up with someone who claimed to be selling c4, learned how to detonate and gave him money for them. Idk how much it cost, but I don't know why he would buy them if he wasn't expecting to use them.
Feds have cried terrorist in questionable circumstances way to many times. Now when they say it everyone assumes it's some extremist who they goaded into action.
Except he shouted onto the internet and someone finally said ok I’ve got some bomb. Download signal and contact my bomb dealer.
Scenario A: Intervene on the basis of an online threat. If he gets punished at all, it will probably be very light. Not punitive enough.
Scenario B: Monitor the situation until he starts independently taking concrete action, then intervene. Solid case for full sentence.
Scenario C: Speed Scenario B along with a "helping hand".
This has nothing to do with it not being "punitive enough". If every online threat of this caliber was to be investigated and every person making those threats would get a "light" punishment, then we run into two issues.
First, there simply won't be enough resources. If you look at twitter for the majority of last year, you will find straight up tons of people who made "threats" of a similar magnitude. It would be a giant waste of resources too, given that most of those people are just venting with no actionable plans or ways to make those "threats" materialize. Not even mentioning that we might not want to stick that many random people who just talked vague "threats" online with criminal charges.
Second, those who actually were going to follow through on those threats wouldn't be deterred by "light" punishment that a vague online "threat" like that would carry with it. They would just bs the officer and assure them that everything was good, and the officer would go on their merry way. After all, if there is no proof that the suspect actually has a way of making that threat materialize or has a proven serious intent, there is not much the officer can do at this point. With that approach, you essentially tip off the suspect that they are being watched and suspected, so it would just alert them to be sneakier about materializing their plan.
Not tons of people who actually attempted to purchase a bomb, however.
Without concrete followup it is pretty easy for someone charged with something like that to claim they were just joking or were generally unserious about it.
More like, "I'm going to blow up amazon's data centers, who's with me?"
>- Undercover FBI contacts guy "you are totally right. You should do it. Here's a bomb."
According to the criminal complaint[1], the accused has done a lot of prep himself, including: scoping out the place and making maps, disguising his car, and making some sort of box for directing the explosive blasts.
[1] https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.txnd.346637...
>- If guy is backing out, he gets coaxed into it further. There is often mental illness involved.
This did not happen at all.
Just last year someone detonated an RV bomb at a Nashville AT&T building.
This is called "entrapment" and if caught, law enforcement will face penalties for doing it, and the defendant can't be convicted for the crime.
Most likely because what he said isn't actually criminal, or it would be difficult to convict. In the US generally threats have to be specific and reasonable (I'm assuming the relevant crime would be making terroristic threats). A reasonable person needs to conclude that the statement they made was a threat, and that the threat is credible. The actual post he made (from the article):
The posts from "Dionysus" that sparked concern spoke of his desire to "conduct a little experiment," which he said would be dangerous and "draw a lot of heat" and could be "dangerous". Asked by another user what the result would be, he responded, "death", according to the court documents.
I'm not an expert, but that doesn't strike me as being specific or reasonable. Especially when you consider he was saying this on a militia website, and not saying it to Amazon or an Amazon employee.
Better that the FBI reach people like this early before a bad guy does.
Of course, it is entirely possible that he was just saying this stuff for attention. But then, he might also have actually done it for attention. How does one tell the difference? Well, one way would be to offer to sell him an explosive, and see if he actually buys it.