Hacker News Reader

Comment by netsharc | Hacker News Reader

The FBI has been doing a lot of prodding people to say they hate the country, and then telling them to do a bombing, and then providing them with a (fake) bomb, and then telling the public "We caught another terrorist!": https://www.hrw.org/report/2014/07/21/illusion-justice/human...

Also reminds me of the Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping plot: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/02/gretchen-whitmer...

View on HN

I like to call this the “dissident loophole”. What they really want to do is round up dissidents to protect the status quo, but punishing thought crime directly is just the right combination of unconstitutional and a bad look (though McCarthyism showed us we’re not always above that). So instead they will use social engineering to drag people over the line into minor acts of terrorism so they can be arrested, thus snuffing out future seeds of dissent.

You see this a lot in policing as well. Where people that seem “demographically criminal” to law enforcement are funneled into drug violations as an excuse to round up people they want to round up anyway.

Another example: https://theintercept.com/2015/11/19/an-fbi-informant-seduced...

If the new person in your friend group suddenly wants everyone to commit an act of terror, chances are they are an FBI agent.

Well, that or they are dumb and the FBI is watching them already.

>Well, that or the feds got them on something else and promised leniency if they become an "informant" and goading you into some bigger bust is part of the deal

Fixed to reflect typical federal government procedure.

how about if someone xeno just has to get latched into your life, no matter how much of an arsewhole you act like.

in my experience people dont want to socially invest in unknown people, unless a friend, family, social group vouches or introduces you.

when you get a clingon, its almost always no good.

I have to say that if someone is far enough gone that they can trivially be convinced to bomb innocent people then I'm fine with this type of entrapment. Great work, go ahead and lock them up for life.

They are banking on precisely this kind of “common sense” rationalizing of removing civil rights.

The civil right to be willing but currently unable to commit terrorism?

The civil right not to be led by the nose by a government agent to commit a crime. They are relying on people doing exactly what you're doing here - convincing themselves that if it was possible to lead them into it then they deserved it so the ends justify the means.

Yeah I get your point, and I generally agree for minor offenses like buying drugs or prostitution or whatever. But if someone can trivially be convinced to murder a bunch of people then the world is better off with them locked away.

I do see what you're saying. However this debate isn't unique to this specific scenario. The exact same reasoning can be applied to other violations of due process. Historically that was viewed as a particularly dangerous slippery slope and thus we have the concept of fruit of the poisonous tree, despite that this can easily result in (for example) a mob boss walking free. Perhaps caution is warranted when considering abandoning well established principles?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit_of_the_poisonous_tree

Reply on news.ycombinator.com