
FBI Harassing Core Tor Developer, Demand Meeting, but Refusing to Explain Why - xkiwi
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160505/00383034349/fbi-harassing-core-tor-developer-demanding-she-meet-with-them-refusing-to-explain-why.shtml
======
teh_klev
Original source:

[https://blog.patternsinthevoid.net/fbi-
harassment.html](https://blog.patternsinthevoid.net/fbi-harassment.html)

Previous discussion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11631329](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11631329)

------
mcherm
It sounds like her concern is that they might show her a magic piece of paper
which, once you've seen it, requires you to do certain things and prohibits
you from ever talking about it to anyone.[1]

Magic pieces of paper like that really shouldn't be a part of our legal
system.

[1] [https://epic.org/privacy/nsl/](https://epic.org/privacy/nsl/)

~~~
setra
They can email those to you.

~~~
ithkuil
if emailed, what prevents you from leaking it (along with other recent content
of your email inbox) claiming somebody hacked your email ?

~~~
modoc
Fear of prison?

~~~
maze-le
You can get into prison because someone hacked your email account?

~~~
modoc
If they dig into it and decide that you did it yourself, as the parent
suggested, then yes, you would have a serious risk of prison time for
willfully violating the NSL.

------
cptskippy
She lost my support at _vegan gluten-free brownies_. She's clearly a monster.

But seriously, this really stinks. If talking to the FBI wasn't going to have
negative consequences for her then why would they choose to approach her like
that?

The whole attitude by law enforcement that "anyone who doesn't 100% cooperate
with us on our terms is an enemy and should be treated as such" really doesn't
foster cooperation but it does foster fear and resentment. I think the whole
Apple/iPhone debacle demonstrates that perfectly. It's gotten to the point
that businesses are finding that they're in a better position if they lock
themselves out of their own data and tell law enforcement to f __k off because
their hands are tied. It 's ironic because this non-cooperative behavior is a
direct result of the abusive and hostile tactics law enforcement use against
everyone.

~~~
Bartweiss
The part about "meeting her on the street" is particularly slimy. Declining to
pass questions through a lawyer is shady, but asking a person to confirm their
lawyer's identity as a _trap_ to question them is bizarre.

The whole thing reads like its either an agency involved in something
unethical, or an agency so far removed from decent behavior that they no
longer notice when they're menacing innocents.

~~~
joezydeco
It sounds more like a subtle way to say "we'll meet you on the street, after a
SWAT team drags you out of bed at 2:00AM"

~~~
at-fates-hands
She's smart by putting this out there now. Even if they detain her for some
unknown reason, she can still contact her attorney, who then alerts the local
and national media and now the FBI have a firestorm of publicity they don't
want. Along with several lawsuits I'm sure her attorney would file
immediately.

Sure, they can do that, but the repercussions are something they certainly
don't want to deal with.

~~~
dave_sullivan
What if it turns out that most of these agencies don't care about negative
publicity (because they can't be fired) or lawsuits (because it's not their
money)? That's the part that really scares me: no transparency, no
accountability, and a bunch of secretive True Believers running things. Like
the Chinese government!

~~~
cptskippy
Is there a government out there that doesn't operate like this?

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warmblood
This is terrorism. Given what we all know based on past events about how the
FBI conducts their activities, there is no way any reasonably aware citizen
can conduct their life normally after such an encounter.

The last discussion thread on this topic had more than a few people
complaining that Isis (the given name of the developer in the article) is
overreacting and paranoid, which is a saddening response to see. It exposes
the privileges and unfortunate circumstances citizens find themselves in
because these agencies refuse to prosecute their anti-terror investigations in
well-thought out ways, instead pursuing facile leads without regard to the
external effects they cause.

We've even seen evidence that these agencies deliberately manipulate otherwise
innocent people into behavior that implicates them in their "terror suspect"
criteria, so it's hard to believe that anyone in this situation could be
somehow too cautious.

~~~
maze-le
I wouldn't use the word 'terrorism'. Its usage is already inflated beyond
reason... I'd rather call it what it is: intimidation / harrasment.

~~~
pdkl95
> intimidation / harrasment

The FBI used to call that "COINTELPRO".

------
0091810911
"I got absolutely no work done."

That's the tactics they use (don't ask how I know that). Be strong and welcome
to Germany!

~~~
chinathrow
No idea why you get downvoted for this.

There is a german word for it - 'Zersetzung'. It was used by Stasi in former
divided Germany and for sure has been used in recent years against other folks
of the Tor community.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zersetzung](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zersetzung)

~~~
ryanlol
>and for sure has been used in recent years against other folks of the Tor
community.

Examples?

Edit: Not really sure why asking for examples gets downvotes. Google news
search definitely didn't turn up anything but this story.

~~~
Bartweiss
If you'll count "people running exit nodes" in "community", it's fairly
common. People get searched and possibly charged for whatever is coming out of
their node, but not convicted since its not their traffic.

And yes, that could be the legal system working normally, but there have been
cases where the government already _knows_ about the exit node, but doesn't
reveal that information to the judge while obtaining a warrant.

~~~
ryanl0l
I'm aware of exit nodes as I've myself been subject to such attention, but I
don't think that really fits chinathrows description.

------
grecy
> _“But… if we happen to run into her on the street, we’re gonna be asking her
> some questions without you present.”_

Impressive for a LEO to state out loud he doesn't care about rights and due
process. Like maybe he thinks he's above the law.

~~~
at-fates-hands
This is a classic psyops move on their part.

Get the person thinking they're not safe anywhere, so they stop going out,
stop being mobile and stick to a more confined area. Once they've determined
where she is, it makes it a lot easier to get in contact with her.

If she's smart, she start moving _more_ frequently, and travel in states where
they don't have field offices, avoid air travel and create a constantly moving
target for the FBI officers trying to nail her down.

~~~
Kristine1975
_> If she's smart, she start moving more frequently..._

I don't think that's practical. It would cause her a lot of stress (not to
mention cost quite some money) and sooner or later wear her out.

It also means that the FBI has reached their goal of intimidating her, since
she is changing her behavior because of them (assuming that _is_ their goal of
course).

------
appleflaxen
I wish the FBI agents who perform these kinds of actions were as introspective
as Snowden. Once you define your team as "the good guys", you can do all kinds
of morally objectionable things to the other side.

"the ends justify the means" at that point

------
celticninja
The worst thing about this is that it will turn out that the developers
involvement will be relatively innocuous in the grand scheme of things, hence
the lack of any real urgency from the FBI, but it is terrifying for both the
developer and as a citizen that he FBI seem to be inept and/or deliberately
making it so difficult to speak with someone who it would appear they think
can assist them.

------
zekevermillion
The problem is the attitude that the NSL is just another "tool" in the FBI's
toolbox, to be used as aggressively as can be in the pursuit of criminals.
There is no effective check or balance against this -- we are forced to rely
on the investigators to use their discretion, knowing that any challenge to
such a warrantless request has about a zero % chance of being successful
before the FISA court.

I would like to see an activist attempt to challenge such an order, or even
refuse to cooperate in an NSL where the FBI is acting outside of its
legislative and Constitutional authority. However, the overwhelming incentive
in any such situation is to cooperate. And from what I have read, even if the
FBI is acting illegally, the subject of the investigation aided by the NSL may
still be a fairly loathsome criminal -- so, you have to be quite a principled
activist to risk prison time to make a civil rights statement, when this is
directly going to benefit a badguy in the specific instance.

------
tzaman
Why does everyone, including Ms. Lovecruft conclude that something is horribly
wrong and that FBI wanting to speak with them means they are in deep shit? I'm
by no means defending them, but to me, the whole (original) post looks overly
paranoid.

I'm not an American, you can speak with Police freely here in Slovenia, so
maybe I understand things wrong?

~~~
MacsHeadroom
For a developer of a tool frequently used to conceal "terrorism", this amount
of paranoia seems healthy.

Also, no you cannot "speak with police freely" in the US. Anything you say to
an officer of the law can be, and it should be assumed that it will be, used
to incriminate you. To make matters worse, you can be forced to give up your
right to self-incrimination by being legally compelled to divulge information
which incriminates you.

In general one should never speak to police in the US. Not even as the
whiteness to a crime. For a great overview of the seriousness of why one
should never talk to US police, view this lecture by a professor and former
criminal defense attorney:
[http://youtu.be/6wXkI4t7nuc](http://youtu.be/6wXkI4t7nuc)

Incidentially, the American Civil Liberties Union of attorneys (ACLU) has
created a series of mobile apps to record police encounters because of their
tendency to be problematic for citizens. For example,
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.aclu.mobil...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.aclu.mobile.justice.ca)

------
deadtofu
Could they be trying to serve her?

~~~
jonnybgood
If they were, they wouldn't make a phone call first. They would just do it.

------
golergka
The original story told about a couple of polite phonecalls where they have
requested to talk with her. How does it get described as "harassment"? Of
course, she also added a lot of paranoid speculation to her original blog
post, but there's not a single confirmation of her fears so far, not even a
hint.

~~~
Lawtonfogle
>The original story told about a couple of polite phonecalls where they have
requested to talk with her. How does it get described as "harassment"?

As soon as they continued after the very first 'no' it becomes harassment.
Imagine this was a work setting, the FBI was a coworker of this individual,
and they asked for a date. After the very first "no, please don't bring it up
again" it becomes harassment.

~~~
unlinker
Only that this is not a sexual setting and the fact it is a "she" changes
nothing in this context.

~~~
penagwin
The point still stands. If a person tells you to stop an action they find
uncomfortable for whatever reason in any way, no matter their gender, race,
etc. It becomes harassment. The FBI is a government organization that you
could argue has the job of doing this, however they fail to ever state why
they require her assistance (and they seem kinda rude to me).

~~~
pc86
> *If a person tells you to stop an action they find uncomfortable for
> whatever reason in any way ... it becomes harassment."

I don't want to get too far off topic, but this is blatantly false, especially
as far as law enforcement is concerned.

~~~
geggam
Disagree.

Lefkowitz v. Turley, 414 U.S. 70, 77 (1973) the Fifth Amendment “not only
protects the individual against being involuntarily called as a witness
against himself in a criminal prosecution, but also privileges him not to
answer official questions put to him in any other proceeding, civil or
criminal, formal or informal, where the answers might incriminate him in
future criminal proceedings

~~~
pc86
You have no such protection if you won't be incriminated by the answers (e.g.
they are asking you about someone else). You can of course be involuntarily
called as a witness in proceedings where you're not being prosecuted.

~~~
roninb
AFAIK, (and IANAL), you would have to be certain the questions did not
incriminate you. In other words, "pc86, were you or were you not on your couch
May the 5th at 8PM EST?" "I plead the fifth." "Your honor, this doesn't
incriminate the witness." "pc86, you must answer the question because it is
non-incriminating." And of course if it was incriminating, the appellate
lawyers would win resoundingly.

Logically, it would follow that if you don't know what a question IS, you can
'plead the fifth' to it on the basis that it could be incriminating. But
again, IANAL.

~~~
geggam
You however do not have to talk to the police. Ever.

You shouldn't either. They are not your friend.

------
hackuser
1) Imagine the position of people who can't afford a lawyer, don't work for
the EFF and know their rights, can't easily move to anothher country, and
don't have a platform from which to publicly tell their story.

2) Imagine this power in the hands of a President with fascistic tendancies.

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jeffdavis
This didn't really register with me as tyrrany. What did the FBI actually do
to her?

Going around a lawyer is a good way to lose a case against her, so maybe they
weren't trying to make a case against her.

Maybe they actually had some real questions that involved her expertise or
knowledge she might have had.

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tobltobs
This is like the SA treated people at the beginning. They knew they did not
have any legal foundation for their harrasments, but that they would never
hold accountable for that. After some time without uprising against that the
SA was replaced by the SS.

------
nxzero
Curious how many people on HN have had contact with the FBI in the past year?

~~~
woodman
It is hard to say for a lot of reasons, like if you'd consider informants with
explicit direction from the FBI as "FBI". Also, while living in DC many years
ago, I was surprised by the number of homeless people I saw with Blackberrys -
until I learned about the way FBI surveillance is conducted there.

------
homero
It's plausible it's because of her name Isis and some agent thinks she's Isis

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draw_down
Sounds like they have no god damn idea what they're doing. But of course,
frightening nonetheless.

