AFP Spent $500k Trying to Lock Up Autistic 13-Year-Old on Terrorism Charges | Hacker News Reader

AFP Spent $500k Trying to Lock Up Autistic 13-Year-Old on Terrorism Charges

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45 pointshn_acker24 comments

I suspect this is an example of "when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure". If you're incentivized to rustle up a bunch of terrorists that just aren't there, you're strongly incentivized towards activity that will create terrorists that you can then lock up. Basically harassing lonely people and ruining their lives in the name of security theater. I think people around me, at least, are more scared of mass shootings by my neighbors now than they ever were of people these anti-terrorism programs were actually built to defend against—namely, muslims (at least here in the US, i'm sure australia has its own issues).

EDIT: wording, done editing.

I think the count dankula (guy who taught his dog to do a Nazi salute) case in the UK is a pretty good example of this although on a lesser scale than terrorism charges

The guy (a clown, not genuine problem afaict) makes bad joke, gov goes after him for being offensive, he's now radicalized against a state that has clearly abused him.

> he's now radicalized

now?!?!

Putting the cart before the horse...

Nazis are a weird subject to joke about. If they are the butt of the joke - being made fun of for their ridiculousness - that's okay.

Teaching a dog to make the nazi salute doesn't meet that threshold for me. To me, that's already radicalized behavior masked as "it's just a joke bro, don't get so worked up"...

This is the kind of 'joke' that's only 'funny' to other nazi. Shoving nazism everywhere you can and laughing at other people's discomfort isn't the behavior of a comic: it's the behavior of a nazi.

It's probably not a great resume builder to say "Decided not to move forward." on some things. Maybe it should be.

Yep. The Australian term is "measurement dysfunction" - measure something people do, and it becomes the only thing they do. It's a generic principle - often tragic when applied to politicians and law enforcement.

According to the article, once the case was tossed out by the judge, "Deputy Commissioner Krissy Barrett apparently felt the officers might possibly feel bad about what they’d done, so she took the time to assure them that they were still a valuable part of the AFP’s radicalization program Joint Counter-Terrorism Task Force":

    “It is really important to note that this was a very difficult and complex investigation for everyone involved, and one which threw up many challenges,” she said in the email.

    “I recognise and thank everyone involved for their tenacity, professionalism and commitment to duty.

    “I also use this opportunity to acknowledge the fantastic work that our covert online operatives do, under very difficult circumstances, to keep the community safe.”

The full article title is:

> Australian Feds Spent More Than $500,000 Trying To Lock Up An Autistic 13-Year-Old On Terrorism Charges

AFP stands for Australian Federal Police.

Thanks; before clicking I was confused because I thought about Agence France Press, the French press agency.

I was really turning this over in my head. "Okay, the French are generally humane but they completely lose their minds when it comes to certain forms of non-Frenchness, typically those associated with colonialism. And terrorism is a big deal there, most recently the Bataclan. So maybe there was a person who was, like, ethnically Algerian and autistic, but how in the world could a press agency spend that much money doing such an investigation?!?" Makes so much more sense now.

Isn’t it a good thing that we’re stopping mentally ill kids from shooting up stuff before it happens?

(and no, I’m not saying autism automatically means mental illness or danger to society, so go ahead and save that outrage for someone else)

if you stop something before it happens, no crime has been committed.

> if you stop something before it happens, no crime has been committed.

Attempting to kill people is a crime in most jurisdictions, even if someone stops you before you actually do it.

Planning crimes, is in itself, often criminal.

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

Classic “engineers pretend to understand the law” logic.

Then what are you saying? It's clearly not commentary on the article.

> As the court order overturning the criminal charges noted, officers deliberately steered Carrick away from anything that would have helped him and towards actions that would have seen the rest of his life destroyed.

> The community would not expect law enforcement officers to encourage a 13-14 year old child towards racial hatred, distrust of police and violent extremism, encouraging the child’s fixation on ISIS,” magistrate Lesley Fleming said in the decision.

> officers deliberately steered Carrick away from anything that would have helped him and towards actions that would have seen the rest of his life destroyed.

Now I'm imagining an alternative world where we have a well-funded and dedicated department full of agents who identify people on a "destructive path" like this and covertly steer them toward mental health support, positive influences, and productive hobbies...

I'm sure that would end up being dystopian too. But it would be way better than what we have now.

(Although kudos to the folks who thwarted the planned attack on a Taylor Swift concert recently; clearly not all of the work in this space is bullshit).

Yes, especially when federal agents are the ones to encourage and feed that sort of behaviour in the kid. Then lets stop the feds from committing child abuse.

And how many of those mentally ill kids are going to actually shoot anything up? Very, very, very few, if any at all. So what about everyone else? Just, like, what... fuck em? Hurray we saved people from something we aren't even sure exists??

That's just fucked up, man.

When a kid shots up a school: why didn’t the parents say anything??

When the parents say something: he’s just a confused kid, he probably wasn’t going to kill anyone!

You're advocating for locking up anyone that fits a certain profile.

The vast majority who are going to be innocent.

We've been down this road, it does not end well for anyone.

The formula is to find people who most likely will go through their lives without doing that particular illegal, then engineer circumstances with feds and CIs that don't entrap them but rather give them a perfect opportunity they probably wouldn't otherwise have. Of course then they do it, as seen in a few of the convicted whitmer conspirists.

It's often the ideological equivalent of sending a bunch of skanks to blue ball a bunch of sailors fresh off a 90 day sail after leading them to a lust cliff. Yes it's rape if they act, and it's not entrapment, but we all know there's something at play we wouldn't want the government doing.

Always think of your audience before commenting.

no, sometimes it's best to let them dispense their own rope!

“Stopping” implies that otherwise, he would have… and I don’t think that’s something that could at all be assumed.

And hell, even if he would have—this wasn’t a particularly good way to stop it. For him, his family, or the state.

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