FBI ran website sharing thousands of child porn images

[Sterben]

This is true, other people have beaten charges similar to this cause of legal loop holes.

[paulpablo]

I never said the 137 arrests aren't all that there are.  I said that I think 137 arrests are quite a lot, the information was passed onto Interpol and you have no way of knowing how successful the task was.


If there is an absence of arrests abroad this has nothing to do with the inadequacy of the FBI, and we have no way of knowing if there were arrests or weren't, we just know it has nothing to do with the FBI they just did the right thing and passed the information on to interpol. 

Yes you are quoting a success rate based on the numbers we have at hand.  Which aren't in anyway detailed enough to give an accurate success rate.  This means the percentage you keep quoting as a success rate is void.  We do know there were 137 arrests, by the standards of a typical law enforcement operation I'd say that number is quite high.  If it was very successful, or not successful enough is subjective to our uninformed opinions based on information we don't know, but 137 arrests is at least some success.

You're ignoring my point -- I'll return to this conversation when you address my points.

I covered the success percentage rate which I told you is void, the success of the operation in relation to other operations being quite a high rate of arrests considering it only lasted 2 weeks, you said another of your points was that I can't reasonably say 137 arrests aren't all that there are which I also covered by telling you I never claimed there are definitely more arrests than 137.
I covered the point you made about alternative methods used to catch the offenders

Which point did I miss?

You claiming the success rate is low by using the number of arrests and putting it against the entire number of people who visited the site world wide isn't a sensible way to judge the actual success of the task. It's more sensible to compare the arrest rate to other operations which last 2 weeks and are of a similar nature.

[Divinity]

At the end of the day what they did was entrapment, even if it was to catch sick fucks, it's still illegal for them to use such a tacit. The courts will have a major issue on how the evidence was gathered and most likely all charges will dropped against the who were caught.

No, it's not entrapment.  Not sure why this is such a hard concept to understand. If any charges are dropped, it'd be for an entirely different reason. But the entrapment defense would not work here.

Entrapment requires coercsion or persuasion. They were clearly willing and ready to commit the crime. So a decent defense attorney wouldn't use the entrapment defense, unless they wanted a good laugh from the judge and prosecution on their lack of understanding of entrapment.

[Rev. Rye]

I've heard of the FBI doing similar things before. A few years ago, I stumbled upon something similar, claiming to have some "barely legal" porn, but instead, after some searching, wound up having some "not even close to legal" porn. I reported it to the NCMEC, but, from what I heard, the FBI were the ones who kept it up. This horrified me to no end and wound up triggering a severe depressive episode in me for several months. It was probably the straw that broke the camel's back, but that's how it happened.

[Thumpalumpacus]

You're ignoring my point  -- I'll return to this conversation when you address my points.

I covered the success percentage rate which I told you is void, the success of the operation in relation to other operations being quite a high rate of arrests considering it only lasted 2 weeks, you said another of your points was that I can't reasonably say 137 arrests aren't all that there are which I also covered by telling you I never claimed there are definitely more arrests than 137.
I covered the point  you made about alternative methods used to catch the offenders

Which point did I miss?

The point that claiming it is a success with such paltry numbers is unwarranted. The point that this method isn't the only possible way to get the information from those using that site.

You claiming the success rate is low by using the number of arrests and putting it against the entire number of people who visited the site world wide isn't a sensible way to judge the actual success of the task.  It's more sensible to compare  the arrest rate to other operations which last 2 weeks and are of a similar nature.

Not so. You wish to use relative rates to judge the success or failure of an operation. If you scored a 45 on an examination, and then two weeks later you scored a 52, of course you've chalked up an improvement ... but you're still getting a failing grade.

I get it, I'm not going to change your mind. You're comfortable with law-enforcement officers breaking the law. You're comfortable with the idea that the ends justifies the means.

I'm not. You haven't made any robust case for me to change my mind, either.

[God of Mr. Hanky]

At the end of the day what they did was entrapment, even if it was to catch sick fucks, it's still illegal for them to use such a tacit. The courts will have a major issue on how the evidence was gathered and most likely all charges will dropped against the who were caught.

The justice system is not perfect.

Neither are the people who it lords over. If they are subject to corrective actions, then so is the justice system when its imperfections are exposed!

[paulpablo]

I covered the success percentage rate which I told you is void, the success of the operation in relation to other operations being quite a high rate of arrests considering it only lasted 2 weeks, you said another of your points was that I can't reasonably say 137 arrests aren't all that there are which I also covered by telling you I never claimed there are definitely more arrests than 137.
I covered the point  you made about alternative methods used to catch the offenders

Which point did I miss?

The point that claiming it is a success with such paltry numbers is unwarranted. The point that this method isn't the only possible way to get the information from those using that site.

You claiming the success rate is low by using the number of arrests and putting it against the entire number of people who visited the site world wide isn't a sensible way to judge the actual success of the task.  It's more sensible to compare  the arrest rate to other operations which last 2 weeks and are of a similar nature.

Not so.  You wish to use relative rates to judge the success or failure of an operation.  If you scored a 45 on an examination, and then two weeks later you scored a 52, of course you've chalked up an improvement ... but you're still getting a failing grade.

I get it, I'm not going to change your mind. You're comfortable with law-enforcement officers breaking the law.  You're comfortable with the idea that the ends justifies the means.

I'm not.  You haven't made any robust case for me to change my mind, either.

I'm not saying they failed or succeeded.  I'm saying there has been some success rate.  137 arrests.  The numbers of people who visited the website do not necessarily reflect the success of the operation since they are worldwide and not under the responsibility of the FBI.
Forming a percentage related to the entire number of people using the site is no measure of the success or failure of the operation.
Another inaccurate thing to say is that I'm comfortable with the ends justifying the means and law enforcement breaking the law.
What I'm comfortable with is FBI agents keeping an illegal website running for the duration of 2 weeks in order to catch 137 paedophiles.
I'm pretty sure that breaks Chris Hansens record, that's a lot of paedophiles in quite a short space of time. 
You're saying it in a way that makes it look as if I'm always comfortable with all acts of law enforcement committing criminal acts and the end justifying the means.
I understand you're not comfortable with the operation I've said I agree there are ethical concerns, but what isn't a concern is the number you came up with as a successful arrest rate percentage, it just has no practical value.

[Thumpalumpacus]

I'm not saying they failed or succeeded.  I'm saying there has been some success rate.  137 arrests.  The numbers of people who visited the website do not necessarily reflect the success of the operation since they are worldwide and not under the responsibility of the FBI.
Forming a percentage related to the entire number of people using the site is no measure of the success or failure of the operation.

Nonsense. If I start a program to round up stray cats, do I measure my success based on how many cats were rounded up in the next city, or how many stray cats there are as a whole in my own city?

The fact is that the FBI is not the only enforcement agency involved. You keep pointing out that they have no jurisdiction outside America -- but you keep ignoring the fact that so far as anyone here knows, there have been no foreign arrests.

Another inaccurate thing to say is that I'm comfortable with the ends justifying the means and law enforcement breaking the law.
What I'm comfortable with is FBI agents keeping an illegal website running for the duration of 2 weeks in order to catch 137 paedophiles.

This is a distinction without a difference.

I understand you're not comfortable with the operation I've said I agree there are ethical concerns, but what isn't a concern is the number you came up with as a successful arrest rate percentage, it just has no practical value.

If you have any numbers which support your points, please put them up. I'll wait.

That's right, you don't. You have the same number I have: less than ten pedophiles per day arrested for the duration of the site's FBI management. You choose to think of that as a success.

[paulpablo]

I'm not saying they failed or succeeded.  I'm saying there has been some success rate.  137 arrests.  The numbers of people who visited the website do not necessarily reflect the success of the operation since they are worldwide and not under the responsibility of the FBI.
Forming a percentage related to the entire number of people using the site is no measure of the success or failure of the operation.

Nonsense. If I start a program to round up stray cats, do I measure my success based on how many cats were rounded up in the next city, or how many stray cats there are as a whole in my own city?

The fact is that the FBI is not the only enforcement agency involved.  You keep pointing out that they have no jurisdiction outside America -- but you keep ignoring the fact that so far as anyone here knows, there have been no foreign arrests.

Another inaccurate thing to say is that I'm comfortable with the ends justifying the means and law enforcement breaking the law.
What I'm comfortable with is FBI agents keeping an illegal website running for the duration of 2 weeks in order to catch 137 paedophiles.

This is a distinction without a difference.

I understand you're not comfortable with the operation I've said I agree there are ethical concerns, but what isn't a concern is the number you came up with as a successful arrest rate percentage, it just has no practical value.

If you have any numbers which support your points, please put them up.  I'll wait.

That's right, you don't.  You have the same number I have: less than ten pedophiles per day arrested for the duration of the site's FBI management. You choose to think of that as a success.

If you start a program to round up stray cats then your success is subjective to some degree.  To another degree you could compare it to other stray cat rounding up operations.  Each stray cat rounded up is some measure of success, if the amount of cats is lower than a set target that's a failure, if there is no set target then the degree to which the operation is successful is slightly subjective.

There is a difference between me being comfortable with law enforcement breaking the law and the ends justifying the means as a general ideology, and me thinking that in this instance it probably was worth it for the FBI to keep the site running for 2 weeks to arrest 137 offenders and to give further information to Interpol.
Not being able to see the difference between the two is like saying a person must enjoy being raped by 12 gorrillas, they told me they enjoy sex, being raped by 12 gorrillas is sex.
The way you're phrasing what you're saying makes it sound as if my ideology is that it's ok for law enforcement to break the law and the ends always justify the means.

The numbers do support my point.

My point is that there have been 137 arrests and other information given to Interpol and that I think that result is quite good for an operation lasting two weeks.

Your point is that the success rate of the operation was some very small percentage.

You have no numbers to support this because so far as anyone knows there have been no other arrests, so far as anyone knows there may have been other arrests, no one knows anything because that information isn't in the article.  No one knows if the information is leading to more ongoing operations by other intelligence services or not.  For all we know Interpol could have taken the results and thrown them away, but that isn't the fault of the FBI or the operation itself.

You're making a positive claim about the success rate based on information that you don't know one way other the other about.  You don't know if Interpol has plans to arrest the people in future, if this is an ongoing operation.

You saying this is what the success rate is and giving an exact percentage is different from me saying 137 is quite good for two weeks work in my opinion. My opinion is strictly based on the numbers available your opinion is based on believing that everything that is in the article is all that there ever could be to know about this operation.

[Cecelia]

Obviously not the case. They could shut down the site, and at the same time redirect anyone trying to browse it to a page which infects their computer without delivering kiddie porn. This isn't rocket surgery.

EDIT: I think that the warrant only allowed them to use the method of hacking they used (I think it's called NIT) if a user signed up, or attempted to log in. If someone didn't log in or sign up, they couldn't get their information. Which probably also explains why the numbers are so low.