I don't think I am naive, just imagine the repercussions of the headline "FBI collected thousands of child rape photos for blackmail" or "Cop work computer was found filled with child porn"

Anything linked to pedophilia in the US and elsewhere is without remorse, and will continue that way due to parental fears.

▲

matheusmoreira 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Seizing control of criminal websites is literally standard procedure. Three letter agencies are known for hacking their way into criminal platforms and keeping them running for as long as possible. They justify it as an opportunity to catch high value targets. They're quite willing to literally distribute CSAM from their own servers for months, years on end if that's what it takes. They don't just react either, they are very proactive. They start their own CSAM communuties to entrap criminals. So called honeypots.

It's a recurring theme with these authorities. You see, they're special. They get to spread this sort of material with complete impunity. They get to stockpile cyberweapons and use them against the targets of their investigations, or even indiscriminately. If you do it, you're a hacker spreading malware. They're just doing their jobs.

Sometimes those two privileges collide, resulting in truly comical and absurd situations. FBI has allowed cases against child molesters to go down the drain because the judge ordered them to reveal some Firefox exploit they used. They didn't want to invalidate their "network investigative techniques".

	▲	AstralStorm 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It's even more legally funny than this. They are also allowed to enact entrapment to some degree and it passed court muster in the US. That because it's extremely hard to use it as a defence. Note that these actions are illegal in most continental jurisdictions as stings must be devised ahead of time against specific groups of people. There's also Article 6 of ECHR. In other words, FBI cannot run a sting off an EU site like this, at least definitely not a German one.

▲

wholinator2 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I am imagining the consequences of that headline and there are none. If you disagree maybe you should imagine some of the real headlines that have occurred lately and check your imagination against reality. Federal agents are actively encouraged to violate your civil and constitutional rights. Those consequences live only in your imagination

▲

hobs 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

How about "The President was close friends with a known child sexual predator and his entire government spends a significant amount of time covering up their connections because it seems fairly obvious the president fucked teenagers and then fomented a coup and put literal criminals and felons in his cabinet so no one would hold him accountable while destroying the nation's economy and starting wars nobody can even understand"

▲

breppp 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

And that and other pedophile linked conspiracy theories (pizzagate) had huge ramifications in these elections

▲

hobs 5 hours ago | parent [-]

pizzagate = not real, what I just said is not a conspiracy theory.

▲

breppp 5 hours ago | parent [-]

The jeffery epstein case is real, however the narrative created is similar to pizzagate

"world elite is practicing a child sex ring", this is why it's so compatible with the current vogue bipartisan populism which generally says "your life sucks because of the rich/elites"

jeffery epstein was in reality associated with many politicians, including trump and clinton, as far as I can tell on both sides there is a lot of extrapolation as to what really happened

	▲	latentsea 3 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> "world elite is practicing a child sex ring" On pure numbers alone, this is practically guaranteed to be the case for a portion of the world elite, since statistically speaking at least 1% ~ 2% of them will be pedophiles. Same as any community, anywhere. The average child sex ring is probably made up of individuals about as wealthy and sophisticated as your dad, uncle, neighbour, boss or your friends, and if even they can pull it off then surely the global elite can.
	▲	lostlogin 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		With Epstein the is plenty that did happen that remains unaddressed and is completely factual. Eg The-Man-Formerly-Know-As-Prince-Andrew. He is a child rapist. Quite why the now dead queen supported him so much (presumably including the payouts) is baffling.

▲

immibis 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

They released a bunch of emails this week. We can stop tiptoeing saying that "The president was connected to Epstein, a notorious sexual predator" - with the evidence from the emails we can upgrade it to the much more direct fact "President Trump is a pedophile who liked to rape little girls"

▲

gruez 5 hours ago | parent [-]

>with the evidence from the emails we can upgrade it to the much more direct fact "President Trump is a pedophile who liked to rape little girls"

A bunch of vaguely worded emails is enough to summarily conclude that someone is a criminal? I'm glad you're not a judge.

▲

lostlogin 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The convicted criminal hasn’t been convicted of that particular crime yet. Innocent until proven guilty again.

▲

hobs 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

And pictures and letters and cohabitation and friendship and mutual business arrangements and the list goes on. The court of public opinion is not an actual court.

	▲	gruez 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		>And pictures and letters and cohabitation and friendship and mutual business arrangements and the list goes on At best that proves he's affiliated/associated with a convicted pedophile. Going from that to "we can upgrade it to the much more direct fact "President Trump is a pedophile who liked to rape little girls" is a massive leap. There's plenty of other famous people who turned out to be sexual offenders, but we don't go around accusing their entire circle of being "pedophile who liked to rape little girls". >The court of public opinion is not an actual court. Good. The court of public opinion has shown itself to be massively partisan. People's evidentiary standards change on a whim depending on how much they previously like/hate the person. By invoking the "court of public opinion" excuse, you're basically admitting that there's weak evidence for the allegations, so you need a lower bar to "convict" someone.

▲

e2le 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

At the very least it demonstrates that he has lied about his connection to Epstein and that Maxwell is also similarly lying.

▲

user982 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> I don't think I am naive, just imagine the repercussions of the headline "FBI collected thousands of child rape photos for blackmail"

What were the repercussions of this: "FBI ran website sharing thousands of child porn images" (https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/01/21/fbi-ran-websi...)

	▲	fentanyl_peyotl an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I think there’s a difference between leaving a CP site up for two weeks so you can track the users, versus actively posting CP on legal websites for the purpose of blackmailing third parties into blocking them (“The Bardfinn Method”).
	▲	breppp 6 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		"The Justice Department said in court filings that agents did not post any child pornography to the site themselves" "The FBI kept Playpen online for 13 days" "There was no other way we could identify as many players" I think the normal person would think this is worth while to catch more pedophiles, hence why this would work politically. However, you can read by the tone of the article that even this drew a lot of rage. Imagine the FBI agents collecting CSAM, uploading it to websites for the purpose of... preventing copyright infringement