FBI raids home of prominent computer scientist who has gone incommunicado • Hacker News Board

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

#421

Post by albrewer » Mon, Mar 31, 2025, 2:36 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #411

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.

The government isn’t “disappearing people.” It’s deporting illegal aliens. You don’t need a press release every time you do that.

> It’s deporting illegal aliens.

There are multiple news stories of them deporting US citizens and legal residents. Here's one[0].

If citizens don't have due process, then nobody does. All it takes is the government to declare you a non-citizen; there will be no due process for you to prove otherwise.

[0]: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/deported-family-us-citiz...

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

#422

Post by sureglymop » Mon, Mar 31, 2025, 2:37 PM UTC

hnben wrote: post #375

sureglymop wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

people seem downvote you, but I think this is a good example of how discussions SHOULD work. > A: makes a strong claim, suggesting it to be well known > B: doubts > [100 people provide credible sources] Also congrats for being 1 of 10000 today i guess https://xkcd.com/1053/

Yes. I didn't doubt the claim. But I was able to read a lot about the topic and inform myself better by visiting the links in some of the responses.

One may call me lazy but I think it was a valid request and I also believe that informing oneself is not quite as easy as it perhaps seems. I certainly don't think it's as simple as "googling the issue" when it comes to something like this.

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

#423

Post by sureglymop » Mon, Mar 31, 2025, 2:42 PM UTC

probably_wrong wrote: post #390

hnben wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

people seem downvote you, but I think this is a good example of how discussions SHOULD work. > A: makes a strong claim, suggesting it to be well known > B: doubts > [100 people provide credible sources] Also congrats for being 1 of 10000 today i guess https://xkcd.com/1053/

I didn't downvote the comment, but I would have done so. If we want to talk about how discussions should work then the commenter should have first spent two minutes researching and/or explained why sources like the Associated Press (my first result when copying and pasting the comment in DuckDuckGo) aren't reliable. "I don't understand" is a good way to foment discussion. "I don't believe you" usually isn't.

I believe the Associated Press is a reliable source, I'm not sure where I stated otherwise...

I just want to state for the record that I didn't claim to disagree with the comment nor am I a conspiracy theorist, nor a Chinese spy... I only asked for more information (which other comments have then provided).

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

#424

Post by rayiner » Mon, Mar 31, 2025, 2:51 PM UTC

LastTrain wrote: post #294

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's clearly not true that everyone is properly documented. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/lawyers-advocates-say-48...

That someone is not documented doesn’t mean you get to treat everyone that way. That someone is not documented doesn’t mean they have no rights for that matter.

The label “undocumented” is utterly dishonest. “Undocumented” implies that something has been permitted, but not documented. Like agreeing to let a friend live in your basement apartment without drawing up a lease.

Illegal immigrants aren’t “undocumented.” They are present in America without the consent of the American people, as expressed in immigration law.

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

#425

Post by amy214 » Mon, Mar 31, 2025, 2:52 PM UTC

graemep wrote: post #396

hmcq6 wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> unidentifiable people in unmarked vans. This literally happened 4 days ago to Rümeysa Öztürk Or the "cops" who refuesed to identify themselves to Mahmood Khalil's wife?

They were not disappeared (the links below say we know where they went), and they were arrested by people who do have legal powers of arrest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detention_of_Mahmoud_Khalil#Ar... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detention_of_R%C3%BCmeysa_%C3%... I am not saying it is the right thing to do, but it is a very very long way from someone being grabbed, bundled into an unmarked van by people who are…

Exactly, I get a little bit uneasy with people throwing around "got disappeared" - it lands as politically charged. What that means to me is something like Khmer Rouge, or Pinochet throwing thousands of people off planes into the ocean (no parachute), tentatively it means gulag, but even with gulag, you're not disappeared, you find out this person is in a gulag somewhere (though is likely to die), having myself read the Gulag Archipeligo.

I'm 100% sure the US government, most governments, have "disappeared" people in a Pinochet style, it's just more rare and likely involves deep state spycraft type things. Even in Guantanamo, people lived, and people were known to be there, and I think that is how people are using "disappeared" i.e. extrajudicial and illegal, but alive and known to be somewhere. It reminds me of people using "violence" to describe writing or speech that make people feel bad, and it's like, okay, if that's what violence means what's the word for getting punched in the face, what's the word for getting tossed off a plane.

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

#426

Post by dcrazy » Mon, Mar 31, 2025, 3:09 PM UTC

lucubratory wrote: post #357

dcrazy wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article author attempted to get the court order but could not find one. This is common when the order is made as part of an ongoing investigation, or else criminals could just watch for their names in PACER to know when to fire up the shredders.

So how do we know there is a court order?

You seem to be coming from the assumption that checks and balances requires granting random outsiders full transparency into the court docket during the investigation phase. That’s not how it has ever worked, because it would tip off those being investigated.

Our system allows for challenging the government’s right to execute a search after the search has happened. And it isn’t open to random interlopers who think they’ve spotted a government misstep—you must have standing to challenge a search. The architects of this system didn’t want justice to get caught up in the equivalent of a GitHub pull request war.

Eventually the warrant will become unsealed and we can all inspect it.

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

#427

Post by s1artibartfast » Mon, Mar 31, 2025, 3:14 PM UTC

albrewer wrote: post #421

rayiner wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government isn’t “disappearing people.” It’s deporting illegal aliens. You don’t need a press release every time you do that.

> It’s deporting illegal aliens. There are multiple news stories of them deporting US citizens and legal residents. Here's one[0]. If citizens don't have due process, then nobody does. All it takes is the government to declare you a non-citizen; there will be no due process for you to prove otherwise. [0]: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/deported-family-us-citiz...

There was no forced deportation of US citizens or legal residents in that article. Two illegal residents chose to take their citizen children with them when deported.

Their lawyer isn't claiming citizenship or residency, but poor treatment and asking for humanitarian release back into the US to get medical care of their citizen children.

I agree it is a pretty fucked up situation, but it doesn't support what you quoted

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

#428

Post by red-iron-pine » Mon, Mar 31, 2025, 3:41 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #410

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…

What do you mean by “disappearing people?” We had a foreign spy arrested at my kid’s school (she and her husband sold Navy secrets to China). For obvious reasons, arrest warrants don’t need to be made public. Nor is the FBI required to issue a press release when it arrests someone. It’s not even clear this professor is in government custody. It sounds like he may have gotten wind of the investigation and escaped.

> It’s not even clear this professor is in government custody. It sounds like he may have gotten wind of the investigation and escaped.

Bingo. Dude vanished well before his Uni was a aware and starting making a stink.

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

#429

Post by pvg » Mon, Mar 31, 2025, 3:56 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #424

LastTrain wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That someone is not documented doesn’t mean you get to treat everyone that way. That someone is not documented doesn’t mean they have no rights for that matter.

The label “undocumented” is utterly dishonest. “Undocumented” implies that something has been permitted, but not documented. Like agreeing to let a friend live in your basement apartment without drawing up a lease. Illegal immigrants aren’t “undocumented.” They are present in America without the consent of the American people, as expressed in immigration law.

The lack of enforcement of the law is also a kind of consent. The notion that a law as written alone represents 'people's consent' is a total non-starter in any kind of realistic system of governance, to build a claim of 'dishonesty' on top of that seems extra silly. You don't like the term, fine, you don't like the term. But let's not pretend that dislike is some kind of inevitable consequence compelled by Pure Logiks or whatever.

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

#430

Post by rayiner » Mon, Mar 31, 2025, 3:57 PM UTC

oa335 wrote: post #414

rayiner wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the extrajudicial actions of ICE recently are absolutely not helping people stay calm in the face of something like this To be clear, ICE does not require “judicial action” to remove aliens so using the phrase “extrajudicial action” makes no sense. See: https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/expedite... Note that even when expedited removal does not apply, deportation is handled by immigration courts w…

> ICE does not require “judicial action” to remove aliens … > when expedited removal does not apply, deportation is handled by immigration courts And how many of these recent cases have gone before an immigration court? Are immigrants entitled to any form of due process? Should they be, based on your personal principles?

To be clear, immigration “court” decisions aren’t “judicial action” either. Immigration courts are entities within the executive branch, which can’t exercise judicial powers. They’re a procedural device for the executive branch to control how it exercises its discretion. The immigration laws provide very limited judicial review of immigration court decisions—even where someone appeals an immigration court decision to a real court, the government can still deport that person during the legal challenge.

Immigrants are entitled to “due process”—but “due process” doesn’t mean “judicial process.” Due process is a flexible concept that depends on the nature of the legal right being asserted. Non-citizens have no constitutional right to be in the U.S. So in my view the only constitutionally required “process” is to verify whether someone is a citizen or not. And I think that can be done adequately within the executive branch.