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Comment by omarali | Hacker News Reader

43 pointsomarali13 comments

Somewhat related personal anecdote:

I sometimes hang out at a popular hackerspace in San Francisco.

Recently, a member was kicked out for several reasons, one of them being that he was caught showing a teenager how to use tools like LOIC. He claims that he was just doing this as an educational thing; but a few members who overheard him claim that he was definitely encouraging him to use it for nefarious purposes.

I've been in presence of that member at weekly meetings, and he's definitely amongst the most vocal supporters of Anonymous, offensive hacktivism, etc. I didn't think much of it until I was talking with an older member that I consider trustworthy, who told me he heavily suspected him of being an agent provocateur.

I'm not sure how likely it is, but in the face of events of like that, who knows.

This reminds me of the incident in Florida where a teenager fell in love with an undercover cop stationed in a high school, who did not smoke pot, but after the cop insisted he get her marijuana, he was arrested.

This article talks about that and a bunch of other stings. An undercover cop in NYC tells someone he has an iPhone for sale and he really needs money to feed his daughter.

It's pretty sickening.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/21/teen-falls-in-love-...

I think there's been plenty of times NYPD has baited Muslims in mosques.

And the FBI has been known to do the same thing. Cooking up terrorist plots and hoping people will join them. Ridiculous.

NPR ran a story about 3-4 months ago where they interviewed this teenager in Florida while recounting the story. I couldn't believe my ears.

It sounded like textbook entrapment. Are the police in these areas so desperate for drug-related arrests that they'd use tactics like this? IIRC the case ended up being her word against his on the key points of his conviction. That too rubbed me entirely the wrong way. To first lure him in and then use only one person's testimony to clinch the conviction sounds totally unjust.

EDIT: Link to the This American Life story about Justin's case http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/457/w...

The problem here, while it does create some "criminals" it won't help in the slightest against real threats. It diverts attention from them if anything.

Greenwald has been writing about this for a while.

http://www.salon.com/2012/02/22/nypd_spying_program_aimed_at...

http://www.salon.com/2012/02/28/the_nypd_spying_controversy_...

http://www.salon.com/2010/11/28/fbi_8/

http://www.salon.com/2011/09/29/fbi_terror/

Somewhat related, there's a great This American Life episode on the same kind of subject called "The Convert":

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/471/t...

Sounds a tad over-zealous. I can't blame the NYPD for being interested in Muslim communities though, after 9/11. I don't agree with these tactics, but let's not forget that New York, the US and essentially the whole world were furious about the thousands of deaths, while a good part of the Muslim world was ecstatic...

It also doesn't help that some interpretations of the Quoran promote Jihad, some don't, and it's really complicated or impossible to tell who is thinking what, especially if you aren't muslim.

Today we feel less passionate about 2001, but the consequences of these emotions are still not over.

What I hope humanity will learn from this incident is to try to keep emotions cooler the next time the world feels challenged in this way.

The FBI did the same thing in Southern California. The mosque actually reported the guy to the FBI.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/20/fbi-informant

It's not like muslims need to be "baited".

http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/vubyx/only_a_tiny_m...

Please go back to Stormfront and the pathetic circle jerking of /r/atheism with this hate. This is HN.

Oh come on, really? I thought Hacker News was better than this sort of thing.

What sort of thing? Tons of data with references?

Or are we only allowed positive views about one of the most violent dogmas in the world?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jy9tNyp03M0

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