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FBI raids home of prominent computer scientist who has gone incommunicado

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Re: FBI raids home of prominent computer scientist who has gone incommunicado

#181

Post by facile3232 »

lolinder wrote: post #105
slg wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the long list of problems caused by the government "disappearing" people (which they have objectively been doing lately) is that it destroys trust and therefore makes even valid legal proceedings seem more shady than they would in a world in which due process was a universal guarantee in practice. I don't fault anyone for jumping to conclusions implicating the government is in the wrong here rather than Wang.

> by the government "disappearing" anyone (which they have objectively been doing lately) Notably, they haven't been "disappearing" people in the manner that would have to be happening here. Even the most egregious cases, which are very bad, have left a paper trail for lawyers and journalists to follow. This case is notable because no one seems to know where this man has gone. But yes, point taken: the extrajudicial…

It doesn't really matter if the perception is that the state is arresting arbitrary people for arbitrary things.

Re: FBI raids home of prominent computer scientist who has gone incommunicado

#182

Post by ctrlp »

If it turns out that he was somehow repatriated to his home country under compulsion that would not be terribly surprising. Nor would it be surprising if he was a "spy" or even a double agent. The FBI raiding his home suggests that he was somehow implicated either as a foreign agent or as a compromised intelligence asset, and one side or the other wanted him back.

Re: FBI raids home of prominent computer scientist who has gone incommunicado

#184

Post by kasey_junk »

giantg2 wrote: post #56
tptacek wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No? FISA isn't an adversarial court that hears espionage cases; it exists solely to handle applications for surveillance. Espionage and national security cases are handled by ordinary federal courts.

What kind of court was Drake tried in?

https://sgp.fas.org/news/2010/04/doj041510.html

Federal criminal court in Maryland

Re: FBI raids home of prominent computer scientist who has gone incommunicado

#185

Post by slg »

lurk2 wrote: post #167
slg wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can see it on this story. It was in the top 3 on HN as of a few minutes ago and now is already down to #20 on the front page. Although this could also be potentially blamed on the flamewar detector, but I'm not sure if the specific cause matters in this instance since the primary complaint is the lack of visibility these stories get. It also seems like perihelions's comment likely received some flags as it went f…

> You can see it on this story This story is on the front page and stories like it have been on the front page almost every day since last October.

[flagged]

Re: FBI raids home of prominent computer scientist who has gone incommunicado

#186

Post by sureglymop »

fracus wrote: post #153
orochimaaru wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn’t immigration. He’s a tenured professor and already has permanent residency at the very least. He is most likely a US citizen. FBI is most likely dealing with an espionage angle. His research field of cryptography and using it to protect genomic data probably has something to do with it. The US govt track record on stuff like this is quite abysmal with several researchers having their career and livelihood d…

> The Chinese govt also has a pretty nasty track record of pressuring erstwhile Chinese citizens to engage in espionage by making life hard for family back in china China also has a history of establishing "police" stations in foreign countries with the mandate to harass and control expats. They did this in Canada at least, surely they did in the US too.

I can only urge you to provide one or more good primary sources if you are making such a claim. It should be a given...

Re: FBI raids home of prominent computer scientist who has gone incommunicado

#187

Post by lovich »

Animats wrote: post #74

This hasn't hit mainstream media yet. It should have by now. Disappearing people is not something the US government is allowed to do. Here's Xiaofeng Wang's bio on the Indiana University site.[1] Google Scholar.[2] Archived version of home page at Indiana University.[3] If anybody has a PACER account, please check there. [1] https://alliance.iu.edu/members/member/8580.html [2] https://scholar.google.com/citations?use…

>Disappearing people is not something the US government is allowed to do.

They are allowed to disappear people simply by virtue of the fact that no one is going to stop them

Re: FBI raids home of prominent computer scientist who has gone incommunicado

#188

Post by lolinder »

trod1234 wrote: post #177
lolinder wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Point taken. Better said: We have no evidence that they have been disappearing people in this manner. We also, clearly, have a large body of people who are on guard for any such possible evidence, so I would reasonably expect that if it were happening with any kind of regularity we would have seen it by now. There's a possibility that this is instance #1 and we see repeats. If we do see repeats, I will happily engage…

In fairness, there was no public evidence of the Nazi death camps up until they decided to turn the prison camps into that at the Wannsee Conference either. It was only in retrospect that we learned the true horror of the Holocaust. Given that period of history, and how it brought the world to the brink, any patterning closely similar to that (which we are seeing today) these things should be considered happening unt…

I'm totally in favor of holding the current administration accountable for what they are doing and clamping down on all the authoritarian actions as much as possible. But I'm not in favor of compromising principles to do it.

There are plenty of things that they're doing that are documented that are evil. There's no need to waste energy and credibility speculating about things that aren't yet understood or documented, unless you personally have the means to investigate Wang's disappearance and shed light on what happened.

Re: FBI raids home of prominent computer scientist who has gone incommunicado

#189

Post by dathinab »

tptacek wrote: post #52
nothrowaways wrote: post #29

FBI might have their reasons and they are doing their job, so no objections there. But the university data scrab is stupid, you can't undo history. Universities should stay neutral.

The university scrub precedes the FBI raid by two weeks.

predates known FBI actions

does not necessary predate FBI involvement,

a university "silently" scrubbing someone is most times due to there being something which could cause heavy reputational damage to tangentially related to that person (or secret orders/pressure from courts or other agencies)

for example someone gets caught doing something bad by the university but not yet outright criminal, the university puts the on leave and investigates further maybe informs police or FBI too, which then start investigation but not yet without any public actions. The person knows when put on leave that they likely will find more things and disappears themself (issue with that story is the woman at on of the houses and her being let go by the FBI and coming back with a lawyer and her being not identified as his wife, which just doesn't fit in at all)

Re: FBI raids home of prominent computer scientist who has gone incommunicado

#190

Post by DaSHacka »

gopher_space wrote: post #66
raverbashing wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Probably being downvoted for the deadpan naivete. Nobody wants to hear "let's just trust the government" right now.

"Naivete", now, as opposed to trusting government agencies any other time in recent history?

I swear, people are acting like CIA black sites and NSA backdoors just started existing after years of apathy just because orange man got back into power and let the guy who made a crappy truck cut government jobs.

Can't wait for political winds to change in the next election and watch as all the ones crying about "government overreach" and "it's only natural all other countries should cut ties with us" to switch their tune once 'their guy' is in office, but all other branches of the machine operating just as before.

Truly no more a propagandized people; "Hackers" shilling for large unchecked governments, who'd-a-thought.

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