Link to article here.

Quote:The Justice Department acknowledged in court filings that the FBI operated the site, known as Playpen, from Feb. 20 to March 4, 2015. At the time, the site had more than 215,000 registered users and included links to more than 23,000 sexually explicit images and videos of children, including more than 9,000 files that users could download directly from the FBI. Some of the images described in court filings involved children barely old enough for kindergarten.

So the FBI ran a child porn website.

Seriously wtf?

Whaaaaat???

(January 21, 2016 at 3:51 pm)Aroura Wrote: Whaaaaat???

Yep.

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(January 21, 2016 at 3:49 pm)Evie Wrote: Seriously wtf?

What? lol...

the FBI ran a CP site.

Did you read the whole article? Makes sense. The pictures were already up and they didn't upload any new stuff. They just hoped to get to the real identity of the registered users.

(January 21, 2016 at 4:01 pm)abaris Wrote: Did you read the whole article? Makes sense. The pictures were already up and they didn't upload any new stuff. They just hoped to get to the real identity of the registered users.

Ok, I finally did just read it.

My hubby is taking an ethics course, and this was actually a specific situation that was discussed.  If someone has knowledge of a child porn site owner, should they take down the site, or use it to catch pedophiles?  It appears that the FBI was using it as a trap.  So it makes perfect sense, ethically and legally.

They took over it, but kept it running under their control and installed software to catch child porn users. Their goal was right, but good god. They let these materials be viewed by more sick fucking shits. I'm on the fence about this. At least it's down now.

(January 21, 2016 at 4:01 pm)abaris Wrote: Did you read the whole article? Makes sense. The pictures were already up and they didn't upload any new stuff. They just hoped to get to the real identity of the registered users.

Yes, they kept a CP site running. And they only busted 137 or so offenders out of 100,000 which is basically nothing.

(January 21, 2016 at 3:49 pm)Evie Wrote: Seriously wtf?

Sounds like a classic case of "entrapment."

(January 21, 2016 at 4:04 pm)Bella Morte Wrote: Yes, they kept a CP site running. And they only busted 137 or so offenders out of 100,000 which is basically nothing.

Yeah, they kept it running. The obvious populistic approach of taking it down immediately isn't always the wisest action, since it sends out a big fat warning to anyone involved, without serving any purpose other than satisfying the public. And how do you knwo these 100.000 are all American citizens? Things like this are usually international operations, taking years and leading to busts all over the world.