7 ms·

FBI director defends impersonation of AP reporter

98 points by 001sky 12y ago

hotgoldminer 12y ago
>"The FBI may have intended this false story as a trap for only one person. However, the individual could easily have reposted this story to social networks, distributing to thousands of people, under our name, what was essentially a piece of government disinformation." They're really grasping at straws to explain why this is bad. For me, the insidiousness of the tactic is apparent--one would think the AP would be more adept at crafting a response. No entity can rightfully leverage the brand/trust/profile of another.
DickingAround 12y ago
The FBI and government in general seem to think lying is appropriate and moral in every situation.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
Zikes 12y ago
They caught a crook while simultaneously undermining the credibility of a respected news organization that's historically critical of them. Sounds like someone's gunning for a promotion.
- spacefight 12y ago
  Imagine the AP would impersonate as the FBI to get raw material for some of their reports...
  - Zikes 12y ago
    "The A.P.'s use of such techniques is subject to close oversight, both internally and by the people that read our work."
- kahirsch 12y ago
  It certainly wasn't the FBI's intention to undermine the AP's credibility. They tried to keep it a secret that they had used this tactic. Only the user of the MySpace account "timberlinebombinfo" saw the fake news story.
  - Zikes 12y ago
    They did not try to keep it secret because they could not. They were required to disclose the tactic in the court proceedings, explaining how they identified the suspect.
dysfunction 12y ago
I don't actually have much of a problem with this. Lying to a suspect as part of an investigation isn't infringing anyone's civil liberties, unless they lie about specific things, such as telling a suspect lies about their rights.
- jonlucc 12y ago
  It depends on how certain you are that someone is a suspect. If you just get to go around doing anything to a person because the FBI put him on a list, that's sort of a slippery slope, in my opinion.
  - dysfunction 12y ago
    But I didn't say they could do anything to a person- I said they could lie to them. It doesn't matter how sure you are that someone is a suspect for something like this, because nobody's rights are being infringed.
- maxlybbert 12y ago
  I thought it was well known that the police can lie as part of their investigation. Perhaps people thought there was a limit to the lie: they're OK with "your accomplice already spilled the beans and we already know everything" but not OK with "hey I'm a reporter doing an interview." But how do they think the FBI poses as arms dealers, terrorist recruiters, drug dealers, corrupt lobbyists, etc. without lying about it?
- fenomas 12y ago
  The contentious issue is that the feds posed as journalists, not that they lied.
spacefight 12y ago
That is not acceptable, not morally right and just plain wrong. Lies and deception everywhere - what if the guy turned out not guilty? Do they still think it's fine?
- wpietri 12y ago
  I don't see anything wrong with deceiving suspects during the course of an investigation. Undercover work and stings are a time-honored part of law enforcement. They're a great way to catch corrupt politicians, for example. If the guy turned out to not be guilty, then... he would have clicked on a misleading link title and read a fake news article. Oh noes! That's Taboola's entire business model. I'm much happier with small deceptions used to catch criminals than when deception is used for profit on an industrial scale.
  - maerF0x0 12y ago
    Lesser of two evils is still an evil.
6stringmerc 12y ago
They're branching out from simply manufacturing their own criminals to catch now? I guess I'm sort of impressed. It's like a child, learning to tie their shoes, except this child has a gun and can send you to jail. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosam_Maher_Husein_Smadi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosam_Maher_Husein_Smadi
- opendais 12y ago
  The guy planted and tried to set off a bomb. I don't have any sympathy for him.
  - 6stringmerc 12y ago
    Nor do I, but in reflection about my own youth and developmental years, I also am sensitive to the influence that others can have. No noose ties itself.
    - opendais 12y ago
      Yes but it isn't like they executed him or gave him life in prison. He'll get out at 43 (at the latest) and be deported. If they executed him or never let him out of jail, I think I'd take issue with it but in this case I think the punishment kinda fits the crime.
  - ta75757 12y ago
    The point isn't whether he's guilty or not, the point is whether the actions of law enforcement are useful. If they create the crime they then prevent, did they really prevent a crime? The answer is "just barely". Sure, real terrorists could have recruited this guy and given him a bomb, but then the real threat is still those terrorist who already have a bomb and not this guy.
    - opendais 12y ago
      I think [unless he is shown to have mental issues that would have handicapped him in some way] "just barely" is good enough for me.
knd775 12y ago
Someone seems to be downvoting anyone that they don't agree with. edit I am being downvoted now, possibly because people don't know what I am referring to. When there were only a dozen comments or so, you could very clearly see that everyone with a certain opinion was getting downvoted.
- bkmartin 12y ago
  I noticed this as well, glad you pointed it out. *as soon as I posted the the refreshed page had all the downvotes back to normal.
uniformlyrandom 12y ago
> "No actual story was published, and no one except the suspect interacted with the undercover 'A.P.' employee or saw the fake draft story," he wrote. "Only the suspect was fooled, and it led to his arrest and the end of a frightening period for a high school." Sounds like a perfectly reasonable sting. Not sure what the fuss is about.
- sp332 12y ago
  The AP is mad because this harms their reputation. Now no one will be sure if an AP story (edit: or person) is really an FBI plant.
  - wpietri 12y ago
    Really? I'll be sure, because I can look at the AP's web site to see what stories are theirs. So maybe you can change "no one" to "no one but people who know how to fact check". Which I'd hope is everybody with a high school diploma. I get why the AP is upset, but when I make my list of "sources for false information on the Internet to worry about", this is way, way, way down.
  - spankalee 12y ago
    The FBI didn't publish a story, they just posed as an AP reporter, and only to the suspect. This seems like a perfectly fine tactic to me, it's basically just going undercover.
    - 67726e 12y ago
      Well now people are going to be skeptical of anyone claiming to be an AP reporter. This is the same exact scenario as the CIA claiming to be an NGO giving out vaccinations in order to track down Osama bin Laden. Of course some folks will say "The ends justify the means". Would it be outside the realm of possibility to have people outright refuse to cooperate or even harm actual AP reporters because they are now suspect? Claiming reporters to be spies is a fairly common phenomenon.
      - 12y ago
canvia 12y ago
Not the first time for something like this http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2024888170_fbinewspaper1xml.html http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2024888170_fbinewspap...
- rmxt 12y ago
  I believe that both the submitted article and your link are referring to the same incident. (Though I wouldn't be surprised if there are other similar incidents out there.) Edit: Some clarification here: http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2024894799_fbifakestoryxml.html http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2024894799_fbifakesto...
dmourati 12y ago
I had the distinct privilege of studying law under Wayne LaFave, author of the treatise on criminal procedure. When I read the headline, it brought me back to my first year in law school and the discussions professor LaFave kindled around the topic of deception. Here are some related common tactics upheld by courts: 1. Planting a "criminal" in a cell with a defendant to elicit a confession. 2. Separating co-defendants into two interrogations and telling each the other has "ratted" them out. 3. Letting one co-defendant see the other receive a "reward" indicating that they have already "flipped." See the Wire scene with the cheeseburger. http://discoveringthewire.com/characters-of-the-wire-william-bunk-moreland/ http://discoveringthewire.com/characters-of-the-wire-william... In comparison, this seems inline. I can understand why the AP would strongly object. In reality, though, what else do you want them to do. They are a news reporting agency who's name is the subject of a news story. The result is predictable.
- lostcolony 12y ago
  Continued use of this sort of tactic, though, not only undermines the AP, it also undermines the tactic. That is, if criminals begin to distrust reporters as being potential cops, the FBI loses that mechanism to gain trust, -and- the AP loses the ability to talk to those society deems unlawful. Unlike those other methods you mention, which don't effect society at large, just the individual (and can be weighed solely on those merits). So this is a procedure that is doomed to make itself obsolete as a criminal trapping tool -while also having repercussions on a facet of democracy-. Imagine if this was a common occurrence, happening prior to the Snowden leaks. Would he have leaked? Or what about people who leak drafts of the TPP? Giving a voice to those the government deems criminal is a necessary function of a democracy, and this undermines that.
  - chimeracoder 12y ago
    This is one of the reasons we are now having trouble with eliminating polio in Pakistan[0], and are now seeing a resurgence[1]. It turns out that, when military forces pose as humanitarian workers distributing vaccines, eventually people figure that out and end up distrusting - or even attacking[2] - real humanitarian workers distributing vaccines. (It doesn't help that similar rumors existed previously, about sterilization efforts being conducted under the guise of vaccination. But let's not forget that the reasons those rumors are credible is that the US has done similar things in the past, including against its own citizens [3]!) The White House recently announced that they are ending spying through vaccination programs[4], though my belief is that it really has more to do with acknowledging that the tactic itself is no longer effective (as you point out), rather than a true admission of how deplorable the effects on public health are. [0] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/10/health/cia-vaccine-ruse-in-pakistan-may-have-harmed-polio-fight.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/10/health/cia-vaccine-ruse-in... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poliomyelitis_in_Pakistan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poliomyelitis_in_Pakistan [2] http://www.rferl.org/content/feature/24803587.html http://www.rferl.org/content/feature/24803587.html [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_syphilis_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_syphilis_experiment [4] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-27489045 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-27489045
fenomas 12y ago
To the many commenting that they don't see anything wrong with feds lying during an investigation, the issue here isn't that they lied, but that they used journalism as a cover. There's a long history of contention over such practices - see for example this article on journalism and the CIA: https://www.cpj.org/attacks96/sreports/cia.html https://www.cpj.org/attacks96/sreports/cia.html
BrandonMarc 12y ago
If leakers learn they can't be certain they can trust reporters (or entities claiming to be such), that's a chilling effect on leakers. Thus, fewer leakers coming forward - or lots more friction as they try to establish with certainty who they're dealing with. Thus, less info being leaked to the media (except when the government "leaks" it on purpose). Thus ... less oversight by the media, and less shared understanding of things going on.
- xhevahir 12y ago
  OK, but do you think the FBI cares? They're cops.
  - jrs235 12y ago
    He's pointing out that this may be the governments's intended outcome. To stop leaks which paint the government and government officials in bad light. So no, the FBI could very well "not care" that there would be fewer leaks... that's what the government might be aiming for. Corrupt and evil people realize that FUD is their friend. If a society and civilization can't trust one another then the truth can't get out. Look at North Korea.
    - BrandonMarc 12y ago
      Precisely. We've seen the IRS, OSHA, BATF, and other 3-letter agencies turn into the play-toys of the powerful (to say nothing of militarized police and swatting). It's no longer unreasonable to think the FBI could be used for political shenanigans (and depending on how you read history, that's part of the FBI's origin anyway). It's interesting, after all, that Catherine Engelbrecht never had the trouble she found herself in until she got involved in politics. (and it's also interesting that the 7 of Lois Lerner's hard-drives under Congressional subpoena could have magically failed simultaneously) Not that it's one-sided, either: power corrupts, and I'm suspicious of both parties (and no, the answer isn't: well let's just make sure we always keep the other party out of power). The FBI may not want to silence potential leakers, but the FBI answers to someone who may think differently, depending on how the political winds blow.
guelo 12y ago
> As a result of the suspect clicking on a link relating to the fake story, the agency was able to track him down using court-authorized tools I don't care about the impersonation but hacking into your computer using zero-days seems evil.
- oh_sigh 12y ago
  More or less evil than terrorizing groups with bomb threats?
xhevahir 12y ago
Cops are allowed by the Supreme Court to lie. Is AP just now catching on to this?
maerF0x0 12y ago
No parent would tell their kid "Deception is ok". "Thou shalt not lie" concepts are in most religions[1]. And yet it's ok for those whom are supposed to be examples of the morally upright to do so? Hypocrites. [1] - http://www.unification.net/ws/theme062.htm http://www.unification.net/ws/theme062.htm
- gnopgnip 12y ago
  Would you say that police should not be allowed to lie to criminals?

98 points by 001sky 12y ago

>"The FBI may have intended this false story as a trap for only one person. However, the individual could easily have reposted this story to social networks, distributing to thousands of people, under our name, what was essentially a piece of government disinformation." They're really grasping at straws to explain why this is bad. For me, the insidiousness of the tactic is apparent--one would think the AP would be more adept at crafting a response. No entity can rightfully leverage the brand/trust/profile of another.

DickingAround 12y ago

The FBI and government in general seem to think lying is appropriate and moral in every situation.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

Zikes 12y ago

They caught a crook while simultaneously undermining the credibility of a respected news organization that's historically critical of them. Sounds like someone's gunning for a promotion.

spacefight 12y ago
Imagine the AP would impersonate as the FBI to get raw material for some of their reports...
- Zikes 12y ago
  "The A.P.'s use of such techniques is subject to close oversight, both internally and by the people that read our work."
kahirsch 12y ago
It certainly wasn't the FBI's intention to undermine the AP's credibility. They tried to keep it a secret that they had used this tactic. Only the user of the MySpace account "timberlinebombinfo" saw the fake news story.
- Zikes 12y ago
  They did not try to keep it secret because they could not. They were required to disclose the tactic in the court proceedings, explaining how they identified the suspect.

dysfunction 12y ago

I don't actually have much of a problem with this. Lying to a suspect as part of an investigation isn't infringing anyone's civil liberties, unless they lie about specific things, such as telling a suspect lies about their rights.

jonlucc 12y ago
It depends on how certain you are that someone is a suspect. If you just get to go around doing anything to a person because the FBI put him on a list, that's sort of a slippery slope, in my opinion.
- dysfunction 12y ago
  But I didn't say they could do anything to a person- I said they could lie to them. It doesn't matter how sure you are that someone is a suspect for something like this, because nobody's rights are being infringed.
maxlybbert 12y ago
I thought it was well known that the police can lie as part of their investigation. Perhaps people thought there was a limit to the lie: they're OK with "your accomplice already spilled the beans and we already know everything" but not OK with "hey I'm a reporter doing an interview." But how do they think the FBI poses as arms dealers, terrorist recruiters, drug dealers, corrupt lobbyists, etc. without lying about it?
fenomas 12y ago
The contentious issue is that the feds posed as journalists, not that they lied.

spacefight 12y ago

That is not acceptable, not morally right and just plain wrong. Lies and deception everywhere - what if the guy turned out not guilty? Do they still think it's fine?

wpietri 12y ago
I don't see anything wrong with deceiving suspects during the course of an investigation. Undercover work and stings are a time-honored part of law enforcement. They're a great way to catch corrupt politicians, for example. If the guy turned out to not be guilty, then... he would have clicked on a misleading link title and read a fake news article. Oh noes! That's Taboola's entire business model. I'm much happier with small deceptions used to catch criminals than when deception is used for profit on an industrial scale.
- maerF0x0 12y ago
  Lesser of two evils is still an evil.

6stringmerc 12y ago

They're branching out from simply manufacturing their own criminals to catch now? I guess I'm sort of impressed. It's like a child, learning to tie their shoes, except this child has a gun and can send you to jail. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosam_Maher_Husein_Smadi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosam_Maher_Husein_Smadi

opendais 12y ago
The guy planted and tried to set off a bomb. I don't have any sympathy for him.
- 6stringmerc 12y ago
  Nor do I, but in reflection about my own youth and developmental years, I also am sensitive to the influence that others can have. No noose ties itself.
  - opendais 12y ago
    Yes but it isn't like they executed him or gave him life in prison. He'll get out at 43 (at the latest) and be deported. If they executed him or never let him out of jail, I think I'd take issue with it but in this case I think the punishment kinda fits the crime.
- ta75757 12y ago
  The point isn't whether he's guilty or not, the point is whether the actions of law enforcement are useful. If they create the crime they then prevent, did they really prevent a crime? The answer is "just barely". Sure, real terrorists could have recruited this guy and given him a bomb, but then the real threat is still those terrorist who already have a bomb and not this guy.
  - opendais 12y ago
    I think [unless he is shown to have mental issues that would have handicapped him in some way] "just barely" is good enough for me.

knd775 12y ago

Someone seems to be downvoting anyone that they don't agree with. edit I am being downvoted now, possibly because people don't know what I am referring to. When there were only a dozen comments or so, you could very clearly see that everyone with a certain opinion was getting downvoted.

bkmartin 12y ago
I noticed this as well, glad you pointed it out. *as soon as I posted the the refreshed page had all the downvotes back to normal.

uniformlyrandom 12y ago

> "No actual story was published, and no one except the suspect interacted with the undercover 'A.P.' employee or saw the fake draft story," he wrote. "Only the suspect was fooled, and it led to his arrest and the end of a frightening period for a high school." Sounds like a perfectly reasonable sting. Not sure what the fuss is about.

sp332 12y ago
The AP is mad because this harms their reputation. Now no one will be sure if an AP story (edit: or person) is really an FBI plant.
- wpietri 12y ago
  Really? I'll be sure, because I can look at the AP's web site to see what stories are theirs. So maybe you can change "no one" to "no one but people who know how to fact check". Which I'd hope is everybody with a high school diploma. I get why the AP is upset, but when I make my list of "sources for false information on the Internet to worry about", this is way, way, way down.
- spankalee 12y ago
  The FBI didn't publish a story, they just posed as an AP reporter, and only to the suspect. This seems like a perfectly fine tactic to me, it's basically just going undercover.
  - 67726e 12y ago
    Well now people are going to be skeptical of anyone claiming to be an AP reporter. This is the same exact scenario as the CIA claiming to be an NGO giving out vaccinations in order to track down Osama bin Laden. Of course some folks will say "The ends justify the means". Would it be outside the realm of possibility to have people outright refuse to cooperate or even harm actual AP reporters because they are now suspect? Claiming reporters to be spies is a fairly common phenomenon.
    - 12y ago

canvia 12y ago

Not the first time for something like this http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2024888170_fbinewspaper1xml.html http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2024888170_fbinewspap...

rmxt 12y ago
I believe that both the submitted article and your link are referring to the same incident. (Though I wouldn't be surprised if there are other similar incidents out there.) Edit: Some clarification here: http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2024894799_fbifakestoryxml.html http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2024894799_fbifakesto...

dmourati 12y ago

I had the distinct privilege of studying law under Wayne LaFave, author of the treatise on criminal procedure. When I read the headline, it brought me back to my first year in law school and the discussions professor LaFave kindled around the topic of deception. Here are some related common tactics upheld by courts: 1. Planting a "criminal" in a cell with a defendant to elicit a confession. 2. Separating co-defendants into two interrogations and telling each the other has "ratted" them out. 3. Letting one co-defendant see the other receive a "reward" indicating that they have already "flipped." See the Wire scene with the cheeseburger. http://discoveringthewire.com/characters-of-the-wire-william-bunk-moreland/ http://discoveringthewire.com/characters-of-the-wire-william... In comparison, this seems inline. I can understand why the AP would strongly object. In reality, though, what else do you want them to do. They are a news reporting agency who's name is the subject of a news story. The result is predictable.

lostcolony 12y ago
Continued use of this sort of tactic, though, not only undermines the AP, it also undermines the tactic. That is, if criminals begin to distrust reporters as being potential cops, the FBI loses that mechanism to gain trust, -and- the AP loses the ability to talk to those society deems unlawful. Unlike those other methods you mention, which don't effect society at large, just the individual (and can be weighed solely on those merits). So this is a procedure that is doomed to make itself obsolete as a criminal trapping tool -while also having repercussions on a facet of democracy-. Imagine if this was a common occurrence, happening prior to the Snowden leaks. Would he have leaked? Or what about people who leak drafts of the TPP? Giving a voice to those the government deems criminal is a necessary function of a democracy, and this undermines that.
- chimeracoder 12y ago
  This is one of the reasons we are now having trouble with eliminating polio in Pakistan[0], and are now seeing a resurgence[1]. It turns out that, when military forces pose as humanitarian workers distributing vaccines, eventually people figure that out and end up distrusting - or even attacking[2] - real humanitarian workers distributing vaccines. (It doesn't help that similar rumors existed previously, about sterilization efforts being conducted under the guise of vaccination. But let's not forget that the reasons those rumors are credible is that the US has done similar things in the past, including against its own citizens [3]!) The White House recently announced that they are ending spying through vaccination programs[4], though my belief is that it really has more to do with acknowledging that the tactic itself is no longer effective (as you point out), rather than a true admission of how deplorable the effects on public health are. [0] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/10/health/cia-vaccine-ruse-in-pakistan-may-have-harmed-polio-fight.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/10/health/cia-vaccine-ruse-in... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poliomyelitis_in_Pakistan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poliomyelitis_in_Pakistan [2] http://www.rferl.org/content/feature/24803587.html http://www.rferl.org/content/feature/24803587.html [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_syphilis_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_syphilis_experiment [4] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-27489045 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-27489045

fenomas 12y ago

To the many commenting that they don't see anything wrong with feds lying during an investigation, the issue here isn't that they lied, but that they used journalism as a cover. There's a long history of contention over such practices - see for example this article on journalism and the CIA: https://www.cpj.org/attacks96/sreports/cia.html https://www.cpj.org/attacks96/sreports/cia.html

BrandonMarc 12y ago

If leakers learn they can't be certain they can trust reporters (or entities claiming to be such), that's a chilling effect on leakers. Thus, fewer leakers coming forward - or lots more friction as they try to establish with certainty who they're dealing with. Thus, less info being leaked to the media (except when the government "leaks" it on purpose). Thus ... less oversight by the media, and less shared understanding of things going on.

xhevahir 12y ago
OK, but do you think the FBI cares? They're cops.
- jrs235 12y ago
  He's pointing out that this may be the governments's intended outcome. To stop leaks which paint the government and government officials in bad light. So no, the FBI could very well "not care" that there would be fewer leaks... that's what the government might be aiming for. Corrupt and evil people realize that FUD is their friend. If a society and civilization can't trust one another then the truth can't get out. Look at North Korea.
  - BrandonMarc 12y ago
    Precisely. We've seen the IRS, OSHA, BATF, and other 3-letter agencies turn into the play-toys of the powerful (to say nothing of militarized police and swatting). It's no longer unreasonable to think the FBI could be used for political shenanigans (and depending on how you read history, that's part of the FBI's origin anyway). It's interesting, after all, that Catherine Engelbrecht never had the trouble she found herself in until she got involved in politics. (and it's also interesting that the 7 of Lois Lerner's hard-drives under Congressional subpoena could have magically failed simultaneously) Not that it's one-sided, either: power corrupts, and I'm suspicious of both parties (and no, the answer isn't: well let's just make sure we always keep the other party out of power). The FBI may not want to silence potential leakers, but the FBI answers to someone who may think differently, depending on how the political winds blow.

guelo 12y ago

> As a result of the suspect clicking on a link relating to the fake story, the agency was able to track him down using court-authorized tools I don't care about the impersonation but hacking into your computer using zero-days seems evil.

oh_sigh 12y ago
More or less evil than terrorizing groups with bomb threats?

xhevahir 12y ago

Cops are allowed by the Supreme Court to lie. Is AP just now catching on to this?

maerF0x0 12y ago

No parent would tell their kid "Deception is ok". "Thou shalt not lie" concepts are in most religions[1]. And yet it's ok for those whom are supposed to be examples of the morally upright to do so? Hypocrites. [1] - http://www.unification.net/ws/theme062.htm http://www.unification.net/ws/theme062.htm

gnopgnip 12y ago
Would you say that police should not be allowed to lie to criminals?