While some of you might recognize the lyrics of Rockwell’s super hit of the 80’s and laugh, you should probably think twice about before clicking your next hyperlink. It has recently been reported that for some time now the FBI has been using fake hyperlinks to trap suspected downloaders of illegal porn. While I can appreciate the vigilance of our government and them taking the subject seriously, mass emailing it along with spamming the internet with it is a little too Big Brother for me.
First, I see this as blatant entrapment. Federal law makes it is illegal to attempt to access child pornography, whether you get your hands on it or not. While undercover sting operations are nothing new in the world of law enforcement, there is a difference between posing as a buyer of drugs and spamming the internet with “free porn” messages. For example this is akin an undercover cop posing as a hooker and offering her wares to people, then charging them solicitation for merely being curious.
All it takes is simply clicking on the link to validate a search warrant where the FBI can seize all of the following according to news.com
“The search warrants authorized FBI agents to seize and remove any “computer-related” equipment, utility bills, telephone bills, any “addressed correspondence” sent through the U.S. mail, video gear, camera equipment, checkbooks, bank statements, and credit card statements.”
Not only does the FBI not need to find any evidence you have downloaded child pornography, they don’t have to prove you were the one who accessed the link. With the availability of both public WIFI hotspots and the not so hard to access private ones anyone who catches the signal could subject the owner to a raid by federal agents. Also anyone in your household could subject the entire household to being arrested and possibly charged. Beware of what your kids or a soon to be angry family member click on. It certainly will make me think twice about letting the babysitter have net access.
How easy would it be for say a trolling religious nut job to set up actual porn sites and embed the FBI’s link into it to get you for them?
While it is all well and good to claim we are doing this in the interest of protecting kids from child porn hunting weirdos the implication go much further than kiddie porn. If they can get you for that, how soon will they get you for they start offering fake hyperlinks to online pharmacies offering medical marijuana? You wouldn’t even have to be after pot just curious enough to click. If this tactic is legal they IRS and Secret Service could run similar stings on people looking for questionable tax advice. If it is illegal the feds can use this technique and the internet to take down basically anyone they want.
Not only could they play you for the truly illegal the implications of using it under the guise of the Patriot Act is truly scary. Look up the wrong information and G Men might show up at your door and simply make you disappear as a suspected terrorist.
In the end this system is ripe for abuse and hardly flawless. It scares the hell out of me not because I am a potential target, but because so many are once again willing to charge forward with guilt by association.
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Not only that, sometimes those links are disguised as different things! I clicked on some free lipgloss ad and was transfered to a site about child bondage. So what happens if the Feds get ahold of your computer then?
the thing is they don’t seem to care how you got there only that you did when they come in with their warrants. If you can prove how you got there they couldn’t convict you very easily, but that doesn’t mean they won’t bust down the door and arrest you in the first place.
I don’t mind so much them running a sting operation, but there should be some oversight and protections like actively downloading something from specific pages or uploading the same.
I of course dislike the federal definitions of pornography which basically says we will know it when we see it. They also define it as anything that gets you sexually excited, so if you are looking at fully clothed picture of someone and get aroused you have by the feds definition technically viewed sexually explicit material. So all those women adults and minors out there who get excited by pictures of David Archuleta have technically viewed explicit images of a minor and are guilty of child pornography, but those of us who see the same picture and want to throw darts at it we are guilty of nothing.
Good article.
I agree, they’re overstepping their bounds when a person can possibly get in trouble for simply clicking a link. I can only imagine who they will be arresting, if anyone ever ends up arrested due to clicking a random link sent to them: Someone’s grandmother, some young kid trying to get to the nickelodeon website, etc.
I’m pretty sure that they’ll realize how ridiculous it would be to go after anyone clicking a link after the vast majority of their leads direct them to an elderly or young person, or someone else without much internet experience.
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The question is will the practice continue with the next administration. This one has given the FBI carte blanche to do a lot of questionable activities.