[HN Gopher] FBI arrest man over alleged Amazon centre bomb plot
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FBI arrest man over alleged Amazon centre bomb plot
Author : Svip
Score : 34 points
Date : 2021-04-12 16:22 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| rossdavidh wrote:
| While social media have a lot of negatives to answer for, I
| believe, having eroded a lot of the social norms of communication
| which hold society together, they have done one thing that we can
| all be thankful for: they gave various wingnut idiots a place to
| announce "I shall commit a heinous act" on, prior to actually
| doing so.
|
| Of course, it is entirely possible that he was just saying this
| stuff for attention. But then, he might also have actually done
| it for attention. How does one tell the difference? Well, one way
| would be to offer to sell him an explosive, and see if he
| actually buys it.
| kordlessagain wrote:
| What an idiot.
| paxys wrote:
| The investigations into incidents like these has always seemed
| dubious and morally gray to me.
|
| - Guy posts online "Amazon data centers should be blown up"
|
| - Undercover FBI contacts guy "you are totally right. You should
| do it. Here's a bomb."
|
| - If guy is backing out, he gets coaxed into it further. There is
| often mental illness involved.
|
| - Guy attempts to use "bomb", gets arrested.
|
| - Charge that should have been making an online threat is now
| terrorism.
|
| Not saying that he is innocent, of course, but what are the
| chances that he would never have followed up without the
| government's involvement? Why not just charge him for making a
| threat to begin with?
| wombat-man wrote:
| I read the article, you're adding in a lot of details to make
| the suspect seem like he was duped. We don't know if he tried
| to back out or if they coaxed him.
|
| Idk if this guy is mentally ill or not, but he met up with
| someone who claimed to be selling c4, learned how to detonate
| and gave him money for them. Idk how much it cost, but I don't
| know why he would buy them if he wasn't expecting to use them.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| He's assuming the guy got duped because that's their MO.
|
| Feds have cried terrorist in questionable circumstances way
| to many times. Now when they say it everyone assumes it's
| some extremist who they goaded into action.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I know what you're saying -- feels like entrapment. But then I
| remember there is no way in hell I would meet a guy delivering
| me C4.
| swiley wrote:
| C4 is an odd explosive to use, you can can probably buy
| others on the internet.
| amelius wrote:
| The particular FBI agents involved have probably learned how
| to best approach this, so reality is probably different than
| what you imagine.
| tyingq wrote:
| Assuming delivering C4 was the stated purpose of meeting.
| It's certainly possible, but...
| TheAdamAndChe wrote:
| Mental illness isn't an excuse for socially damaging behavior.
| People who can be coaxed so easily into attempted murder of so
| many people are a threat to society and should be arrested.
| wil421 wrote:
| How's that any different from standing on the corner saying I
| want illegal drugs. Someone complains to the cops. A cop
| finally comes along and says ok here's an illegal drug and they
| are arrested.
|
| Except he shouted onto the internet and someone finally said ok
| I've got some bomb. Download signal and contact my bomb dealer.
| indigochill wrote:
| Maybe because of the punitive philosophy of the American
| justice system, combined with a sense of economical expedience.
|
| Scenario A: Intervene on the basis of an online threat. If he
| gets punished at all, it will probably be very light. Not
| punitive enough.
|
| Scenario B: Monitor the situation until he starts independently
| taking concrete action, then intervene. Solid case for full
| sentence.
|
| Scenario C: Speed Scenario B along with a "helping hand".
| filoleg wrote:
| >Intervene on the basis of an online threat. If he gets
| punished at all, it will probably be very light. Not punitive
| enough.
|
| This has nothing to do with it not being "punitive enough".
| If every online threat of this caliber was to be investigated
| and every person making those threats would get a "light"
| punishment, then we run into two issues.
|
| First, there simply won't be enough resources. If you look at
| twitter for the majority of last year, you will find straight
| up tons of people who made "threats" of a similar magnitude.
| It would be a giant waste of resources too, given that most
| of those people are just venting with no actionable plans or
| ways to make those "threats" materialize. Not even mentioning
| that we might not want to stick that many random people who
| just talked vague "threats" online with criminal charges.
|
| Second, those who actually were going to follow through on
| those threats wouldn't be deterred by "light" punishment that
| a vague online "threat" like that would carry with it. They
| would just bs the officer and assure them that everything was
| good, and the officer would go on their merry way. After all,
| if there is no proof that the suspect actually has a way of
| making that threat materialize or has a proven serious
| intent, there is not much the officer can do at this point.
| With that approach, you essentially tip off the suspect that
| they are being watched and suspected, so it would just alert
| them to be sneakier about materializing their plan.
| atlgator wrote:
| Agreed - Not a fan of entrapment schemes.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| They're conceptually related to reporting exploits in public.
| We report exploits in public because we operate under the
| assumption that if the "good guys" have figured out an attack
| vector, the "bad guys" have too.
|
| We honeypot criminals-in-the-making under the assumption that
| if the "good guys" can get the person to prepare for violence
| resulting in death, the "bad guys" can too. Whether the
| honeypot is too sweet or unreasonably sticky is an excellent
| matter for discussion in a court of law (but it's probably
| worth noting, as a pulse check, that more than 99.9% of the
| population isn't even in the market for C-4 of any kind, let
| alone for terroristic ends).
| ahelwer wrote:
| Hacking a computer system is wholly different from
| convincing someone to carry out an attack. You are
| prescribing trying to goad the mentally ill into violence
| instead of providing them medical treatment. On a smaller
| scale, try subjecting your friends or personal relations to
| loyalty/character tests and see where that ends up.
|
| To make it more clear: trying to hack a computer system
| does not change that system. Trying to convince a person to
| carry out an attack (via social pressure, provision of
| materiel, planning, etc.) definitely changes that person.
|
| I mean really, the more I think about this the more
| ridiculous it gets. Imagine coming up with an online
| persona to try to seduce your significant other with all
| your personal knowledge about them, as a form of
| penetration testing. We rightly view people who do this as
| being very controlling & insecure - not normal or
| justifiable behavior at all, and it materially changes your
| relationship with them regardless of how it turns out!
| shadowgovt wrote:
| I'm afraid I don't see the relationship between the
| notion of catfishing one's significant other and setting
| up a honeypot for somebody seeking weapons to harm other
| people. The arrested individual wasn't married to the FBI
| agent, and I don't think anybody reasonable maintains a
| similar trust relationship with either strangers or
| government agents to the one that they maintain with
| their significant others. Can you clarify your meaning?
| ahelwer wrote:
| The people generally _aren 't_ seeking weapons to harm
| other people, or at most have very angry thoughts about
| some target. The feds do their research. They gain their
| trust. They play on their fears & desires. They suggest
| the crime.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| It appears juries have concluded that people that
| suggestible cannot be trusted in open society (based on
| the Buzzfeed article you linked to).
| ahelwer wrote:
| No, the juries decided whether the people violated the
| laws as written. Their decisions have no bearing on the
| validity of those laws as such.
| big_curses wrote:
| It of course matters how far they went in interacting
| with him, but if all it takes for someone to try to bomb
| a building is another person online going, "do it, I'll
| sell you a bomb", they should probably not be free and
| are clearly a danger. If this is mainly due to mental
| illness, that can and should be considered during the
| trial as far as punishment/rehabilitation goes, but has
| no bearing on the fact that they were willing to bomb a
| building.
| ahelwer wrote:
| This is a very unrealistic idea of how these cases
| usually play out. I linked this article elsewhere in the
| thread:
| https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/peteraldhous/fbi-
| entrap...
| [deleted]
| freewilly1040 wrote:
| > Why not just charge him for making a threat to begin with?
|
| Without concrete followup it is pretty easy for someone charged
| with something like that to claim they were just joking or were
| generally unserious about it.
| gruez wrote:
| >- Guy posts online "Amazon data centers should be blown up"
|
| More like, "I'm going to blow up amazon's data centers, who's
| with me?"
|
| >- Undercover FBI contacts guy "you are totally right. You
| should do it. Here's a bomb."
|
| According to the criminal complaint[1], the accused has done a
| lot of prep himself, including: scoping out the place and
| making maps, disguising his car, and making some sort of box
| for directing the explosive blasts.
|
| [1]
| https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.txnd.346637...
|
| >- If guy is backing out, he gets coaxed into it further. There
| is often mental illness involved.
|
| This did not happen at all.
| ahelwer wrote:
| Being the criminal complaint, all this stuff was written by
| the FBI. We'll see how it actually goes at trial. The
| grandparent isn't just making stuff up; the feds have done
| this before, continually
| https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/peteraldhous/fbi-
| entrap...
| entrapment wrote:
| Not saying it has never happened but it is illegal for the
| police to entice someone into committing a crime they
| otherwise wouldn't have committed.
|
| This is called "entrapment" and if caught, law enforcement
| will face penalties for doing it, and the defendant can't
| be convicted for the crime.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| At the same time, there are people who are actually
| motivated enough to do something like this.
|
| Just last year someone detonated an RV bomb at a Nashville
| AT&T building.
| openasocket wrote:
| > Why not just charge him for making a threat to begin with?
|
| Most likely because what he said isn't actually criminal, or it
| would be difficult to convict. In the US generally threats have
| to be specific and reasonable (I'm assuming the relevant crime
| would be making terroristic threats). A reasonable person needs
| to conclude that the statement they made was a threat, and that
| the threat is credible. The actual post he made (from the
| article):
|
| The posts from "Dionysus" that sparked concern spoke of his
| desire to "conduct a little experiment," which he said would be
| dangerous and "draw a lot of heat" and could be "dangerous".
| Asked by another user what the result would be, he responded,
| "death", according to the court documents.
|
| I'm not an expert, but that doesn't strike me as being specific
| or reasonable. Especially when you consider he was saying this
| on a militia website, and not saying it to Amazon or an Amazon
| employee.
| [deleted]
| booleandilemma wrote:
| What if someone else who _wasn't_ the FBI got to him first, and
| provided the bomb and the motivation? Then we'd have a tragedy.
|
| Better that the FBI reach people like this early before a bad
| guy does.
| sharadov wrote:
| Law agencies love to use entrapment. It gets you that promotion
| and bragging rights that you foiled that "terrorist plot"
| devindotcom wrote:
| I agree to an extent, but here's the article:
|
| >Mr Pendley attended the Capitol Riots of 6 January,
| investigators found, having driven from Texas to Washington DC.
| Investigators said he told friends he had brought an assault
| rifle with him, but left it in his car...
|
| >The posts from "Dionysus" that sparked concern spoke of his
| desire to "conduct a little experiment," which he said would be
| dangerous and "draw a lot of heat" and could be "dangerous".
| Asked by another user what the result would be, he responded,
| "death", according to the court documents.
|
| >The FBI managed to uncover Dionysus's email address, and link
| that to his Facebook account and real-world identity.
|
| >In late January, Mr Pendley began using the encrypted
| messaging app Signal to detail his plans to bomb an AWS
| facility - but the recipient of those messages was a
| confidential FBI informant, investigators said.
|
| >Over the course of February, Mr Pendley shared his plans,
| including the type of explosive he sought, potential targets,
| and maps.
|
| Of course we are getting this report from the FBI files, but it
| doesn't really sound like this particular person was being
| drawn into a web, or that they could reasonably just ignore him
| as a crank. Bombings like these do get carried out after all,
| in Nashville for instance.
| xxpor wrote:
| There's a critical thing you're missing: the responder wasn't
| an FBI agent, it was a civilian. They then reported it to the
| FBI.
| [deleted]
| tyingq wrote:
| Probably easier to buy an orange vest and a hardhat and rent an
| excavator.
| erdos4d wrote:
| Yep, you can do way more damage to a data center with a
| bulldozer than with a truck bomb, almost as fast too.
| tyingq wrote:
| If you know where the fiber comes in, longer lasting damage.
| irscott wrote:
| This was my thought as well. Plus this particular dc is massive
| and would require an absurd amount of c4 to destroy.
| hirundo wrote:
| If anyone contacts you now and offers to loan you an excavator,
| be suspicious.
| [deleted]
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