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Trial of programmer accused in CIA leak ends in hung jury

nytimes.com

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Re: Trial of programmer accused in CIA leak ends in hung jury

#31

Post by bilekas »

meowface wrote: post #28
bilekas wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? They claim end-to-encryption is protecting pedophiles... And it's their selling point. That trench of absolute human shit is their marketing. - For impact, they need to sell it over the value of e2e for the citizen. Planting that shit seems a perfect candidate to get a no questions asked lock up. And lets be honest, if its true, we would all burn his balls attached to him and than let him go to prison. But I…

>But I agree with other posters, he is capable enough to clean his leaking, but not his kiddie shit ? As I wrote in my post, he wasn't capable enough to clean up a lot of his leaking. They found various kinds of evidence. A lot of it was covered up, but a lot wasn't. >Also he was never recognised for the kiddie stuff before ? I would bet the majority of people who download child pornography probably never end up gett…

> Conspiring to crash planes into financial and government buildings on 9/11

What are you talking about ? A little uncalled for on all accounts.

Cunt

Re: Trial of programmer accused in CIA leak ends in hung jury

#32

Post by bilekas »

meowface wrote: post #28
bilekas wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? They claim end-to-encryption is protecting pedophiles... And it's their selling point. That trench of absolute human shit is their marketing. - For impact, they need to sell it over the value of e2e for the citizen. Planting that shit seems a perfect candidate to get a no questions asked lock up. And lets be honest, if its true, we would all burn his balls attached to him and than let him go to prison. But I…

>But I agree with other posters, he is capable enough to clean his leaking, but not his kiddie shit ? As I wrote in my post, he wasn't capable enough to clean up a lot of his leaking. They found various kinds of evidence. A lot of it was covered up, but a lot wasn't. >Also he was never recognised for the kiddie stuff before ? I would bet the majority of people who download child pornography probably never end up gett…

> I would recommend reading the documents. Yes, some are long, but they're much more informative than completely blind speculation from HN commenters going off of nothing but a thread title.

I recommend you go and learn how to read. While you're at it, grab a history book.

Re: Trial of programmer accused in CIA leak ends in hung jury

#33

Post by craftinator »

undreren wrote: post #3

I'm not much of a conspiracy theorist, but it seems awfully convenient that a guy that knows how to nuke his hard disk to protect himself from the CIA, only nukes the the hard disk he downloaded the WikiLeaks transfer program on, and then forgets to nuke the hard disk riddled with child porn.

Agreed. It is without doubt that the CIA has access to large amounts of child pornography, seized from hard drives, and they had both easy opportunity and strong motive to plant them. It really doesn't make sense at all that he would book a flight to Mexico just days before being arrested, wipe his hard drive, then leave other, more incriminating evidence on scene.

Re: Trial of programmer accused in CIA leak ends in hung jury

#34

Post by UweSchmidt »

staticautomatic wrote: post #11
meowface wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly seems odd, but it's not like the guy's dead or something. First, it was stored in a VeraCrypt encrypted container; if he believed only he had the keys, he may have thought it was safe. If he believes he was being framed for child pornography, I imagine he would shout it from the rooftops. Or at least try to shout it to the extent he could, to the point that there would probably be at least a little coverage…

I don't have any comment on the truth of the factual assertions. And I don't know how common it is for feds to actually plant evidence these days or in these kinds of cases, but in my experience it is relatively common for federal prosecutors to over-charge suspects, make shit up outright, lob salacious accusations that they know perfectly well aren't supported by evidence, conceal evidence from grand juries which th…

What mechanisms lead to this? Do prosecutors have to win cases for promotions and be tough on crime for later political careers?

Re: Trial of programmer accused in CIA leak ends in hung jury

#35

Post by craftinator »

meowface wrote: post #17
crowtoe76 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To contemplate the actions of the CIA is to be a "conspiracy theorist". What does the CIA do all day, every day, besides "conspire"?

To speak of conveniences and "cui bono?" instead of disinterested analysis of the evidence is to be a conspiracy theorist. Of course they conspire all day, because any covert action can be called a conspiracy. It doesn't necessarily lead one to think they're conspiracies in the sense of planting child pornography on a US citizen suspect's computer. One can't rule anything out when you're dealing with intelligence age…

> One can't rule anything out when you're dealing with intelligence agencies, but in this case, is there a single known instance of the US government ever doing such a thing? Planting child pornography on a defendant's computer? Imagine dealing with the optics from that fallout; not only seeking out and spreading content of children being raped, but also using it to falsely imprison someone. I suspect nearly all CIA agents are far more comfortable with assassinating foreign adversaries than doing that.

Imagine dealing with the optics of the other major illegal activities, such as Operation Mockingbird, or trafficking drugs for Contra, or more recently, trying to smuggle 1300 lbs. of cocaine across the boarder. There are bad people working in the CIA (there are bad people working in most major organizations; it is logically sound to think the power and rule-bending offered by the CIA attract more of these types than other organizations). They had ample access, they have huge collections of child porn in evidence, and they had strong motive. Is it more believable that this guy circumvented their security, wiped his hard drive, but forgot about the life-sentence inducing child porn on his other hard drives? Or that is was planted by people who didn't like him, needed a scapegoat, needed a conviction, and had an easy way to do it.

> Of course it could happen, but such a claim requires evidence, or at least some attempt at refuting the prosecution's claimed evidence, not just "well, you can't trust the CIA, you know".

The US Intelligence Community has had some really massive screwups and straight up illegal operations become exposed over the last couple of decades (weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, COINTELPRO, PRISM, the list goes on...). They have lost the legitimacy required for blind trust in them.

Re: Trial of programmer accused in CIA leak ends in hung jury

#36

Post by true_religion »

meowface wrote: post #17
crowtoe76 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To contemplate the actions of the CIA is to be a "conspiracy theorist". What does the CIA do all day, every day, besides "conspire"?

To speak of conveniences and "cui bono?" instead of disinterested analysis of the evidence is to be a conspiracy theorist. Of course they conspire all day, because any covert action can be called a conspiracy. It doesn't necessarily lead one to think they're conspiracies in the sense of planting child pornography on a US citizen suspect's computer. One can't rule anything out when you're dealing with intelligence age…

To be fair, the CIA doesn’t need to seek out such content. There is a giant repository of it at FBI headquarters, used to create the hash database that they scan people’s computers with in order to convict them.

This database is decades old.

The government has people clearly capable of torturing actual living children in Guantanamo Bay, so I doubt they will have trouble finding someone capable of planting a picture taken in the 1960s.

Re: Trial of programmer accused in CIA leak ends in hung jury

#37

Post by monadic2 »

meowface wrote: post #17
crowtoe76 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To contemplate the actions of the CIA is to be a "conspiracy theorist". What does the CIA do all day, every day, besides "conspire"?

To speak of conveniences and "cui bono?" instead of disinterested analysis of the evidence is to be a conspiracy theorist. Of course they conspire all day, because any covert action can be called a conspiracy. It doesn't necessarily lead one to think they're conspiracies in the sense of planting child pornography on a US citizen suspect's computer. One can't rule anything out when you're dealing with intelligence age…

Is “cui bono” at odds with a disinterested analysis of the evidence?

Re: Trial of programmer accused in CIA leak ends in hung jury

#38

Post by ClumsyPilot »

meowface wrote: post #17
crowtoe76 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To contemplate the actions of the CIA is to be a "conspiracy theorist". What does the CIA do all day, every day, besides "conspire"?

To speak of conveniences and "cui bono?" instead of disinterested analysis of the evidence is to be a conspiracy theorist. Of course they conspire all day, because any covert action can be called a conspiracy. It doesn't necessarily lead one to think they're conspiracies in the sense of planting child pornography on a US citizen suspect's computer. One can't rule anything out when you're dealing with intelligence age…

Is CIA really scared of fallout? This is the same agency that lies to congress, has blown up a plane full civilians (Cubana de Aviación Flight 455) and tortured people that later turned out to be innocent.

Which part of that indicates they respect due process?

Re: Trial of programmer accused in CIA leak ends in hung jury

#39

Post by true_religion »

meowface wrote: post #7
undreren wrote: post #3

I'm not much of a conspiracy theorist, but it seems awfully convenient that a guy that knows how to nuke his hard disk to protect himself from the CIA, only nukes the the hard disk he downloaded the WikiLeaks transfer program on, and then forgets to nuke the hard disk riddled with child porn.

Certainly seems odd, but it's not like the guy's dead or something. First, it was stored in a VeraCrypt encrypted container; if he believed only he had the keys, he may have thought it was safe. If he believes he was being framed for child pornography, I imagine he would shout it from the rooftops. Or at least try to shout it to the extent he could, to the point that there would probably be at least a little coverage…

If you think you are being framed, but have no evidence then your best court defense is to talk about what you can prove. Judges do not look kindly on desperate gambits.

Once you are free, it’s much easier to gather evidence.

Re: Trial of programmer accused in CIA leak ends in hung jury

#40

Post by meowface »

craftinator wrote: post #35
meowface wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To speak of conveniences and "cui bono?" instead of disinterested analysis of the evidence is to be a conspiracy theorist. Of course they conspire all day, because any covert action can be called a conspiracy. It doesn't necessarily lead one to think they're conspiracies in the sense of planting child pornography on a US citizen suspect's computer. One can't rule anything out when you're dealing with intelligence age…

> One can't rule anything out when you're dealing with intelligence agencies, but in this case, is there a single known instance of the US government ever doing such a thing? Planting child pornography on a defendant's computer? Imagine dealing with the optics from that fallout; not only seeking out and spreading content of children being raped, but also using it to falsely imprison someone. I suspect nearly all CIA…

>Is it more believable that this guy circumvented their security, wiped his hard drive, but forgot about the life-sentence inducing child porn on his other hard drives? Or that is was planted by people who didn't like him, needed a scapegoat, needed a conviction, and had an easy way to do it.

Neither, because they're both contrived strawman scenarios.

>The US Intelligence Community has had some really massive screwups and straight up illegal operations become exposed over the last couple of decades (weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, COINTELPRO, PRISM, the list goes on...).

I mentioned COINTELPRO in another comment, but I don't consider any of the other things you listed as ranking as highly as planting child pornography, and even COINTELPRO never went that far.

>They have lost the legitimacy required for blind trust in them.

Another weakman argument. Obviously I don't trust any government, let alone any government's intelligence agencies. Few people do. Most people, in all countries around the world, are well-aware that they're some of the least trustworthy entities to ever exist.

I still think evidence is required when accusing an intelligence agency of heinous offenses, even when they have been guilty of many offenses in the past. I would even say the same of far more authoritarian and ruthless governments' intelligence agencies, like China's, even in spite of the fact that I think China's system and police state is a serious threat to humanity.

It would not shock me much if the CIA did this. It would shock me if everyone out-of-hand believed it was more likely than not that they did this despite not a shred of evidence, or in the vast majority of cases didn't even look for any evidence, or cared about there being evidence, or even read anything related to the situation beyond a condensed title or a comment from someone who also read nothing but the title. It's intellectual laziness. Not that prosecuting a leaker is a high-stakes social issue, but future issues may arise where such a poor approach to epistemology could pose a great threat to our country or world. This thread so far is only a hair's width better than an InfoWars comment section.

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