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> The F.B.I. doesn’t keep statistics on swatting incidents; a bureau spokeswoman says it is still working out which part of the F.B.I. should handle swatting in

> The F.B.I. doesn’t keep statistics on swatting incidents; a bureau spokeswoman says it is still working out which part of the F.B.I. should handle swatting investigations, because the crime ‘‘crosses so many of our delineated thresholds for who handles what.’’ This is pretty shocking. Speaks to an unreasonable level of bureaucracy and/or a lack of internal cooperation (not to mention common sense) at the FBI.

dragontamer 11y ago
Cross-state crimes have always been a major issue for law enforcement. You would think that the local SWAT team would investigate, except most SWAT teams are only county based. All of the calls for "small local government" come to bite us in the ass when a punk from California calls a SWAT team in Ohio. Lets presume a simple VPN setup here: California Punk buys VPN in Switzerland, creates a Google Voice Account for Ohio, makes a phone call to 911 through Google Voice in Ohio. SWAT Team eventually realizes they've been tricked, but then they have no authority in the next county over... let alone California. They call the FBI and hand the case over to them... but now what? The phone call was probably anonymized and tracing the caller id leads to a fake Google Voice account that was accessed from Switzerland. All of a sudden you need to pull an international team in to deal with the issue. Remember, each step of the way is a set of laws that we, the people, have wrapped the FBI with Red Tape in. What powers do the FBI have to trace phone calls? Was it legal for them to look at the IP traffic? Each of these steps are double-checked by lawyers in the FBI. An FBI Agent who specializes in domestic phone calls (and what he is legally allowed to do in the investigation) suddenly finds himself looking at VOIP traffic from Google, and no longer understands the legal landscape his is operating in. So he has to pass the job onto another department. Eventually, the FBI will build teams of people who understand the legal landscape across a typical SWAT attack, and have agents who can maneuver through the sea of red tape. Considering how much "Hacker News" posts about "OFMG, GOVMENT SPY ON US" like every damn day, is it surprising to see the red tape that the political opinion has caused?
- vezzy-fnord 11y ago
  Considering how much "Hacker News" posts about "OFMG, GOVMENT SPY ON US" like every damn day, is it surprising to see the red tape that the political opinion has caused? Absolutely. This is all the fault of the anti-surveillance lobby, and nothing to do with the fact that separate political jurisdictions get to exercise their own autonomous decision making or anything stupid like that.
- r00fus 11y ago
  Why are 911 calls honored from Google voice or other VOIP numbers? I've only had scam calls from numbers I could trace to GV or magic jack.
- jackgavigan 11y ago
  > Cross-state crimes have always been a major issue for law enforcement. Isn't that the whole point of the FBI, though?
masklinn 11y ago
Especially since that's been happening for at least a decade: > Weigman’s first swatting incident occurred in 2004 when he was 14 years old. When a girl he met through an online chat room refused to have phone sex with him, he retaliated by swatting the girl and her father, convincing a 9-1-1 operator he was holding the two at gunpoint in their Colorado home, which prompted a SWAT response. https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2013/september/the-crime-of-swatting-fake-9-1-1-calls-have-real-consequences https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2013/september/the-crime-of...

dragontamer 11y ago

Cross-state crimes have always been a major issue for law enforcement. You would think that the local SWAT team would investigate, except most SWAT teams are only county based. All of the calls for "small local government" come to bite us in the ass when a punk from California calls a SWAT team in Ohio. Lets presume a simple VPN setup here: California Punk buys VPN in Switzerland, creates a Google Voice Account for Ohio, makes a phone call to 911 through Google Voice in Ohio. SWAT Team eventually realizes they've been tricked, but then they have no authority in the next county over... let alone California. They call the FBI and hand the case over to them... but now what? The phone call was probably anonymized and tracing the caller id leads to a fake Google Voice account that was accessed from Switzerland. All of a sudden you need to pull an international team in to deal with the issue. Remember, each step of the way is a set of laws that we, the people, have wrapped the FBI with Red Tape in. What powers do the FBI have to trace phone calls? Was it legal for them to look at the IP traffic? Each of these steps are double-checked by lawyers in the FBI. An FBI Agent who specializes in domestic phone calls (and what he is legally allowed to do in the investigation) suddenly finds himself looking at VOIP traffic from Google, and no longer understands the legal landscape his is operating in. So he has to pass the job onto another department. Eventually, the FBI will build teams of people who understand the legal landscape across a typical SWAT attack, and have agents who can maneuver through the sea of red tape. Considering how much "Hacker News" posts about "OFMG, GOVMENT SPY ON US" like every damn day, is it surprising to see the red tape that the political opinion has caused?

vezzy-fnord 11y ago
Considering how much "Hacker News" posts about "OFMG, GOVMENT SPY ON US" like every damn day, is it surprising to see the red tape that the political opinion has caused? Absolutely. This is all the fault of the anti-surveillance lobby, and nothing to do with the fact that separate political jurisdictions get to exercise their own autonomous decision making or anything stupid like that.
r00fus 11y ago
Why are 911 calls honored from Google voice or other VOIP numbers? I've only had scam calls from numbers I could trace to GV or magic jack.
jackgavigan 11y ago
> Cross-state crimes have always been a major issue for law enforcement. Isn't that the whole point of the FBI, though?

masklinn 11y ago

Especially since that's been happening for at least a decade: > Weigman’s first swatting incident occurred in 2004 when he was 14 years old. When a girl he met through an online chat room refused to have phone sex with him, he retaliated by swatting the girl and her father, convincing a 9-1-1 operator he was holding the two at gunpoint in their Colorado home, which prompted a SWAT response. https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2013/september/the-crime-of-swatting-fake-9-1-1-calls-have-real-consequences https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2013/september/the-crime-of...