# The FBI is either apallingly stupid or abominably malicious (re: pedophile hunts) **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 21, 2008, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fbi-is-either-apallingly-stupid-or-abominably-malicious-re-pedophile-hunts/442200 "2008-03-21T06:06:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fbi-is-either-apallingly-stupid-or-abominably-malicious-re-pedophile-hunts/442200/21 "2008-03-21T15:02:23Z")
[QUOTE=Ponder Stibbons] Really? It’s not obvious? :dubious: Look, it happens on message boards all over the internet all the time. Even on this one. Someone posts a link that looks something like this: Click this! It’s just a funny cartoon! (Or whatever) So you click it and it’s not at all a funny cartoon, but something else meant to startle you/annoy you/etc. Come on, man, you can’t have been on the internet more than two weeks without accidentally clicking some link you didn’t mean to. Sure, over the years you’ve learned to avoid clicking on such links, but you can’t say you never have. [/QUOTE] So what you’re saying is because there are multiple plausible explanations for the event, and many of them are reasonble, we can conclude zero, zippo, absolutely nothing at all? I’m sorry, but that’s not so. We would never be able to CONVICT someone on that evidence, of course. But the mere fact that a possible innocent explanation exists doesn’t destroy all evidentiary value. Consider an officer that witnesses what appears to be a street drug transaction. It could be any number of things. All he knows is person A and person B exchanged items. A could have owed B a debt. They could have been exchanging phone numbers or Tootsie Rolls. But merely because it could quite plausibly have been any number of legitimate events doesn’t mean we hear the officer’s observation and say, “That’s zero evidence of anything.” Does it? ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fbi-is-either-apallingly-stupid-or-abominably-malicious-re-pedophile-hunts/442200/22 "2008-03-21T15:03:37Z")
[QUOTE=Zebra] It is evidence, but not enough, IMH-non lawyer-O, to grant a search warrant. Why? Well, there are reasons a person may click that sort of link that don’t mean they want kiddie porn. For instance, I may see a link to something I think is questionable on this website. I could click that link, and then, if I found something ‘bad’ I would then report it to a moderator. I wouldn’t report a ‘suspected’ bad link because I don’t want to waste the moderators time. Or I may see a link titled “see little kids have sex” and think that it is some sort of joke. Or I may wish to view the site and then notify the FBI. But since the link just goes to a dead page, without kiddie porn, I would not take any follow up action that would indicate that I was not after the kiddie porn. [/QUOTE] And what is the standard of evidence required to grant a search warrant? ---
**Author:** ![neutron\_star](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/51bf81/32.png) [@neutron\_star](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/neutron_star)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fbi-is-either-apallingly-stupid-or-abominably-malicious-re-pedophile-hunts/442200/23 "2008-03-21T15:05:16Z")
[QUOTE=Derleth] Read the bolded part a few times. Some asshole could put the link in a message board post or an email passed around the Internet or into the Javascript of a webpage and trick you into incriminating yourself as a pedophile. [/QUOTE] Is there any evidence to suggest that anyone who wasn’t involved in the investigation knew the link was a trap? ---
**Author:** ![flight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbce88/32.png) [@flight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flight)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fbi-is-either-apallingly-stupid-or-abominably-malicious-re-pedophile-hunts/442200/24 "2008-03-21T15:09:31Z")
[QUOTE=Bricker] So what you’re saying is because there are multiple plausible explanations for the event, and many of them are reasonble, we can conclude zero, zippo, absolutely nothing at all? I’m sorry, but that’s not so. We would never be able to CONVICT someone on that evidence, of course. But the mere fact that a possible innocent explanation exists doesn’t destroy all evidentiary value. Consider an officer that witnesses what appears to be a street drug transaction. It could be any number of things. All he knows is person A and person B exchanged items. A could have owed B a debt. They could have been exchanging phone numbers or Tootsie Rolls. But merely because it could quite plausibly have been any number of legitimate events doesn’t mean we hear the officer’s observation and say, “That’s zero evidence of anything.” Does it? [/QUOTE] We may be able to conclude more than zero, but that is not necessarily enough for a warrant. To take your police officer example, I would think that him seeing two people exchanging something would be nowhere near enough for a search warrant. If the exchange took place on a highly frequented drug corner and the police had an informant that said one of the guys had been dealing drugs, then maybe it is enough now. There is a wide range in between zero and enough for a warrant. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fbi-is-either-apallingly-stupid-or-abominably-malicious-re-pedophile-hunts/442200/25 "2008-03-21T15:10:31Z")
[QUOTE=flight] We may be able to conclude more than zero, but that is not necessarily enough for a warrant. To take your police officer example, I would think that him seeing two people exchanging something would be nowhere near enough for a search warrant. If the exchange took place on a highly frequented drug corner and the police had an informant that said one of the guys had been dealing drugs, then maybe it is enough now. There is a wide range in between zero and enough for a warrant. [/QUOTE] How would you describe what evidence is enough for a warrant? ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fbi-is-either-apallingly-stupid-or-abominably-malicious-re-pedophile-hunts/442200/26 "2008-03-21T15:17:26Z")
[QUOTE=Bricker] And what is the standard of evidence required to grant a search warrant? [/QUOTE] I’m pretty sure you know the answer to that question better than I. But… I would think a person would have to have been at the bogus site for sometime, perhaps browsing through several layers in an attempt to get at the site. This would weed out any ‘accidental’ views. Plus, it seems that the FBI and the Judge are not fully up to speed on internet tech. (like net accelators) You know as well as I do that even being suspected of a sex crime against a minor is a very serious ordeal. It can involve loss of employment, being ostrichised, and even violence against the person suspected. Even if they are not charged, or convicted. I hope the government is very careful in bringing this sort of charge against any person. This feels more like a ‘lets stop all traffic to see if anyone is drunk’ sort of operation to me. This sort of ‘wide net’ program just does not seem a like a good use of government resources to me. ---
**Author:** ![Ponder\_Stibbons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponder_stibbons/32/343_2.png) [@Ponder\_Stibbons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponder_Stibbons)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fbi-is-either-apallingly-stupid-or-abominably-malicious-re-pedophile-hunts/442200/27 "2008-03-21T15:19:39Z")
[QUOTE=Bricker] So what you’re saying is because there are multiple plausible explanations for the event, and many of them are reasonble, we can conclude zero, zippo, absolutely nothing at all? [/QUOTE] Conclude _nothing?_ Philosophically I could conclude any number of things. But we aren’t talking philosophy, we’re talking sufficient grounds for a search warrant. And I’m saying that what we have here is not sufficient grounds for a search warrant. There’s any number of reasons people click links, either on purpose, or by accident, that don’t involve any sort of illegal activity. This situation is _nothing_ like your “person A and person B exchanged items” scenario. It’s more like “person A and person B bumped into one another while walking down the street and person A said ‘oops, sorry’ and since person B is an undercover police officer who has been posing as a drug dealer this is enough evidence to search person A’s house”. Clicking a link by accident, or a link that goes somewhere you didn’t expect, or maybe you did expect it but you didn’t really think it was real … these are far too common of occurrences to possibly be suspicious behavior, because you’ve basically described almost everyone with an internet connection! In fact, if I was an FBI agent I wanted to come up with a reason to search _your_ house, I bet I could get you to click on a link that would get me that search warrant within a week. ---
**Author:** ![brossa](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/brossa/32/3040_2.png) [@brossa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brossa)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fbi-is-either-apallingly-stupid-or-abominably-malicious-re-pedophile-hunts/442200/28 "2008-03-21T15:24:25Z")
[QUOTE=Zebra] being ostrichised [/QUOTE] Is that where they bury your head in the sand, or is it some version of tarring and feathering? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fbi-is-either-apallingly-stupid-or-abominably-malicious-re-pedophile-hunts/442200/29 "2008-03-21T15:25:51Z")
[QUOTE=Sunspace] :eek: This kind of crap is one reason I do NOT have WI-Fi set up at home. There are probably a dozen apartments around me that could leech bandwidth through any wireless base station I might own. [/QUOTE] Isn’t this easily solved by requiring a password to log onto your wireless network? ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fbi-is-either-apallingly-stupid-or-abominably-malicious-re-pedophile-hunts/442200/30 "2008-03-21T15:27:09Z")
[QUOTE=acsenray] Isn’t this easily solved by requiring a password to log onto your wireless network? [/QUOTE] And encryption. Or a dead antenna. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fbi-is-either-apallingly-stupid-or-abominably-malicious-re-pedophile-hunts/442200/31 "2008-03-21T15:35:05Z")
[QUOTE=Zebra] I would think a person would have to have been at the bogus site for sometime, perhaps browsing through several layers in an attempt to get at the site. This would weed out any ‘accidental’ views. [/quote] My understanding here is that Vosburgh clicked on the links four times. But your thinking is not right: the standard required here is “probable cause,” which does not require that “accidental” possibilities be eliminated. In order to get a search warrant – and this is not a “crash your door unannounced” warrant, mind you – the government does not need to show that criminal activity is certain, or even more likely than not - just that it’s among the likely possibilities. > [@](#): > > Plus, it seems that the FBI and the Judge are not fully up to speed on internet tech. (like net accelators) Let’s chat a bit about net accelerators. What net accelerator works by pre-loading every link on a page? My understanding of net accelerators is that they cached previously-visited pages (which would actually resulted in FEWER hits at ther server end). Can you give me an example of a net acelerator product that works by pre-loading every link in a visited page? > [@](#): > > You know as well as I do that even being suspected of a sex crime against a minor is a very serious ordeal. It can involve loss of employment, being ostrichised, and even violence against the person suspected. Even if they are not charged, or convicted. I hope the government is very careful in bringing this sort of charge against any person. This feels more like a ‘lets stop all traffic to see if anyone is drunk’ sort of operation to me. I agree. But Vosburgh was not charged with anything until after FBI agents actually found illegal images on an external drive – and after they waited outside his house for a half-hour before he let them in… to discover a hard drive that had been pried out of his computer and physically destroyed, and the remains of a destroyed thumb drive in the toilet. > [@](#): > > This sort of ‘wide net’ program just does not seem a like a good use of government resources to me. OK. I don’t necessarily disagree with that. But that’s a different argument than the implication that it’s not a LEGAL use of government resources. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fbi-is-either-apallingly-stupid-or-abominably-malicious-re-pedophile-hunts/442200/32 "2008-03-21T15:38:59Z")
[QUOTE=Ponder Stibbons] Conclude _nothing?_ Philosophically I could conclude any number of things. But we aren’t talking philosophy, we’re talking sufficient grounds for a search warrant. And I’m saying that what we have here is not sufficient grounds for a search warrant. There’s any number of reasons people click links, either on purpose, or by accident, that don’t involve any sort of illegal activity. This situation is _nothing_ like your “person A and person B exchanged items” scenario. It’s more like “person A and person B bumped into one another while walking down the street and person A said ‘oops, sorry’ and since person B is an undercover police officer who has been posing as a drug dealer this is enough evidence to search person A’s house”. Clicking a link by accident, or a link that goes somewhere you didn’t expect, or maybe you did expect it but you didn’t really think it was real … these are far too common of occurrences to possibly be suspicious behavior, because you’ve basically described almost everyone with an internet connection! In fact, if I was an FBI agent I wanted to come up with a reason to search _your_ house, I bet I could get you to click on a link that would get me that search warrant within a week. [/QUOTE] A link? Perhaps. But could you get me to download the video file from your fake page? That’s more than clicking on a link. Even if I accept that the link was an accident, the fact that he downloaded the video file would seem PROBABLE that there was no accident. ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fbi-is-either-apallingly-stupid-or-abominably-malicious-re-pedophile-hunts/442200/33 "2008-03-21T15:46:35Z")
At least Rick (Astley, not **Bricker** ) is “never gonna give me up,” though I hadn’t previously thought he was talking about giving me up to the feds! ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fbi-is-either-apallingly-stupid-or-abominably-malicious-re-pedophile-hunts/442200/34 "2008-03-21T15:48:32Z")
All the same, maybe you shouldn’t brag about the secret site where you train Tibetan and Irish terriers. :eek: :smack: I’ll keep my Car Bon footprint to myself, too. ---
**Author:** ![Lightnin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightnin/32/180_2.png) [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fbi-is-either-apallingly-stupid-or-abominably-malicious-re-pedophile-hunts/442200/35 "2008-03-21T15:58:18Z")
[QUOTE=Bricker] I agree. But Vosburgh was not charged with anything until after FBI agents actually found illegal images on an external drive – and after they waited outside his house for a half-hour before he let them in… to discover a hard drive that had been pried out of his computer and physically destroyed, and the remains of a destroyed thumb drive in the toilet. [/QUOTE] I don’t think we’re necessarily debating Vosburgh’s innocence. The larger issue is that clicking on a link can get you arrested- whether it successfully netted a pedophile _in this case_ is irrelevant. Many people rely on their home computers for their livelihood. The first thing the FBI does in situations like this is they seize the computers- and it’s notoriously difficult to get the hardware back in any reasonable amount of time. It would be a major disruption to my career- to others, it might very well mean the difference between paying that month’s rent or not. Thirty minutes, while it was enough for Vosburgh to destroy a hard drive, would not be enough time for me to gather all of my files and programs. I’d be screwed. If I was working on a contract job at the time, I’d have no way to continue the job. And don’t forget- they take ALL computers, all computer hardware, telecommunications gear, and even utility bills… all because you clicked on a link. I think the only thing that would slap some sense into the FBI and other law enforcement agencies would be to show them just how easy it is for someone to plant inappropriate images onto a computer. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fbi-is-either-apallingly-stupid-or-abominably-malicious-re-pedophile-hunts/442200/36 "2008-03-21T16:10:04Z")
Am I the only person afraid to click the links in this thread? ---
**Author:** ![flight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbce88/32.png) [@flight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flight)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fbi-is-either-apallingly-stupid-or-abominably-malicious-re-pedophile-hunts/442200/37 "2008-03-21T16:11:55Z")
**Bricker** , of course the standard is “probable cause”, and what exactly constitutes probable cause likely varies between jurisdictions and the judge issuing the search warrant. I can say that as a non-lawyer “reasonable person” I would be appalled if a police officer viewing a transaction between two people on the street without aggravating circumstances would automatically assume a drug transaction and take the observed transaction to be probable cause. Further research on net accelerators has show that they use one or more of three technologies. First, they tweak your internet settings (packet size, latency, etc.), second they mess with your cache (which is what gives you better performance on repeat browsing of the same page) and third they use read-ahead browsing to download the information on linked pages. This last is what could get you in trouble. I know that many older accelerators used this technology a lot (like Netjet) but I am not sure how many of the newer ones do. ---
**Author:** ![threemae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5f9b8f/32.png) [@threemae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/threemae)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fbi-is-either-apallingly-stupid-or-abominably-malicious-re-pedophile-hunts/442200/38 "2008-03-21T16:12:52Z")
I’m going to go with **Bricker** on this one. Unlike the hyperbolic statements upthread, clicking on a link will not get someone arrested, it will yield a search warrant. Perhaps these searches are too onerous for innocent people (seizure of equipment for long periods of time, etc.), that might be a valid complaint, but I suspect that overwhelmingly the people that actually clicked on this link were people persuing child pornography. Certainly enough specificity to be considered a valid or even, “good” means of establishing probable cause. ---
**Author:** ![Projammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/projammer/32/559_2.png) [@Projammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Projammer)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fbi-is-either-apallingly-stupid-or-abominably-malicious-re-pedophile-hunts/442200/39 "2008-03-21T16:16:09Z")
[QUOTE=acsenray] Isn’t this easily solved by requiring a password to log onto your wireless network? [/QUOTE] No. WEP is a severely compromised technology these days. Given a couple of hours and the proper software I can be surfing from any “secure” wireless network in this town. Yes, I am familiar with the software and equipment necessary to do so. It’s part of my job to be up to date on this kind of thing. So, if we lived in the same apartment cmplex and you had called the manager or police because my party was too loud last night I would jump on your wireless cennection and visit as many of these honeypot sites as I could locate. In a few days/weeks some decidedly unfriendly types are knocking on your door with a warrant. Sure, eventually you should be able to clear yourself. But in the meantime you’ve been without any of your computers for a month or so while they scour them for evidence, they also turned your entire residence over looking for magazines, photos, videos, whatever. And any storage units you might have rented have also been emptied. Oh, and while you’re trying to dig your way out from under that, someone leaked the news that you were being investigated for child pornography to the rest of your neighbors. Damn everyone is unfriendly all of a sudden. ---
**Author:** ![flight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbce88/32.png) [@flight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flight)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fbi-is-either-apallingly-stupid-or-abominably-malicious-re-pedophile-hunts/442200/40 "2008-03-21T16:20:47Z")
[QUOTE=threemae] I’m going to go with **Bricker** on this one. Unlike the hyperbolic statements upthread, clicking on a link will not get someone arrested, it will yield a search warrant. Perhaps these searches are too onerous for innocent people (seizure of equipment for long periods of time, etc.), that might be a valid complaint, but I suspect that overwhelmingly the people that actually clicked on this link were people persuing child pornography. Certainly enough specificity to be considered a valid or even, “good” means of establishing probable cause. [/QUOTE] As near as I can tell from the links, this is untrue. It appears the guy in question was arrested when the police seized his equipment. I admit that the arrest may have been for the destruction of evidence rather than the link click, but the stories do not seem to work together. They state that they told him they were there on a different matter and he opened the door at which time they pulled him outside, cuffed him, and arrested him. They also say that he damaged the computer equipment to prevent them from getting it. These things do not seem to reconcile themselves. I would agree that clicking on the link would be enough to make someone a “person of interest,” but I would hope that more evidence would be necessary to confiscate someones computer. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fbi-is-either-apallingly-stupid-or-abominably-malicious-re-pedophile-hunts/442200.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fbi-is-either-apallingly-stupid-or-abominably-malicious-re-pedophile-hunts/442200.md?page=3)