

Government Set Up a Fake Facebook Page in This Woman’s Name - adamnemecek
http://www.buzzfeed.com/chrishamby/government-says-federal-agents-can-impersonate-woman-online

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jMyles
What a headline. Even I, a regular cannabis consumer and drug policy reform
advocate, fell prey to this. I saw another article earlier today about this
and thought something like, "well, no surprises there."

But indeed if this were some soccer mom, I sense my reaction might be
different.

This is a pretty serious crime and the legal implications unclear. Any
thoughts on what will happen next?

edit: I just noticed this is Radley's writing. Love that dude - definitely
full of hacker spirit.

~~~
dlgeek
Original headline/title was "Once you’ve dehumanized drug offenders, it’s easy
to steal their identities". Just got changed to "Government Set Up a Fake
Facebook Page in This Woman’s Name"

~~~
jMyles
Oh wow, really? That's crazy! I'm so sick of WaPo. I'm glad they're letting
Radley write, but they're a rag.

edit: Wow, what happened? It's now not even Radley's piece?!

~~~
dang
We changed the URL because HN prefers original sources, and the original story
was the Buzzfeed piece. On the other hand, neither article is an obvious fit
for HN, so I'm not sure what the right call is. Suggestions are welcome but
may not be acted on until morning here.

~~~
jMyles
I think Radley's piece was a great fit. It was about identity theft, which
itself is usually on-topic, and also about government activity rubbing up
against the norms and policies of an online social network, which is usually
on-topic.

Here's the thesis (and spirit) that makes Radley's piece more HN relevant, to
me:

It shouldn’t be all that surprising, then, when drug enforcement officials
subsequently treat drug offenders as something less than human. If you aren’t
fully human, you have no identity to steal.

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Afforess
It never ceases to amaze me. Every time I think the conspiracy theorists are
the real lunatics, the government manages to one up them. First Snowden, now
this. Truth is truly stranger than fiction.

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mtdewcmu
The DEA has no purpose other than to enforce drug laws. The public has
consistently shown that it wants drug laws to be more liberal, but to the DEA,
that's an existential threat. The DEA has a vested interest in the drug police
state. It's a monster. What a mess.

~~~
ende
It should be thoroughly dismantled. It won't be though, because we have no
control over our government.

~~~
mtdewcmu
We have control in principle, and, in practice, if the public was energized
enough about this it would get done. It's just that the bar is set extremely
high and it's almost unthinkable what abuses might need to occur to get that
much attention to the drug issue. The reason we're in this situation to begin
with is that drug users are poor advocates for their own cause and they are
easy targets for discrimination and persecution. The biggest reason is that
drug users are a small minority that's mostly invisible. If you eliminate
marijuana it gets even smaller.

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ekianjo
This has been flagged pretty quickly by pro-government forces, I guess. 27
votes in one hour and on the second page...

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waterlesscloud
Might be more because of the source, Buzzfeed. HN seems to penalize some
sources pretty heavily these days.

Personally I think that's a change for the worse. I've seen a number of
interesting stories with a decent vote/age ratio be buried a number of pages
back. For me, it's decreasing the value of visiting the site.

~~~
adamnemecek
It was originally Washington Post. It was changed to Buzzfeed by dang.

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mercurial
Cute. Wouldn't that be a reason for the account to be booted out of Facebook
in the first place?

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ArtRichards
Good reporting, here.

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dang
Url changed from [http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-
watch/wp/2014/10/07/o...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-
watch/wp/2014/10/07/once-youve-dehumanized-drug-offenders-its-easy-to-steal-
their-identities/), which points to this.

