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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

#461

Post by sureglymop »

Suppafly wrote: post #447
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/

> B: doubts It's weird to doubt something that's been in the news a bunch and is reported on by reputable sources though. Instead of expecting 100 people to do a basic search for them, they should have done their own search and only doubted if they didn't find anything.

You may have read a different comment then. I didn't doubt this claim, I only asked for more information about it. And no, one should never be discouraged from doing so, even if a "basic search" (not exactly well defined either) leads to many results.

This whole "do your own research" attitude is not good. It's easy to make any claim whatsoever without any basis of truth in this manner. Good for you if that is enough for you but for me that is not enough, logically speaking.

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

#462

Post by throwaway439080 »

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…

> Even the most egregious cases, which are very bad, have left a paper trail for lawyers and journalists to follow.

We don't know the identities of, or even how many people have been extrajudicially rendered to the Salvadoran prison. The administration claims they're not citizens, but how would we know?

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

#463

Post by throwaway439080 »

rayiner wrote: post #412
lolinder wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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…

What's to stop ICE from declaring anybody they don't like an alien and rendering them to the Salvadoran prison? We already know they're inventing false pretenses to classify people as gang members. There is no functional oversight of what they're doing.

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

#464

Post by _DeadFred_ »

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.

Does the law call someone who drives without a license an illegal driver or an unlicensed driver? Someone who practices medicine an illegal doctor or refer to them as unlicensed? Someone operating without a permit is not an illegal worker but an operator without a license.

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

#465

Post by _DeadFred_ »

rayiner wrote: post #432
pvg wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Logi…

I don’t like it because it’s dishonest. The term “undocumented” implies that something has been agreed to or sanctioned, just not written down. But nobody agreed to allow illegal immigrants to come and stay here. As you acknowledge, the term embeds within it the premise that “the lack of enforcement of the law is also a kind of consent.” That is, illegal immigrants have America’s consent to be present in the country,…

Does the court say that someone driving without a license is an 'illegal driver'? Nope, they say they are 'operating without a license' or 'driving illegally'. And guess what, that isn't because the courts are being dishonest.

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

#466

Post by clown_strike »

ethbr1 wrote: post #415
clown_strike wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like possible espionage. Chinese spies spook easily and flee the country long before the FBI gets its shit together.

Moreso than spying, sounds like a long time US-based researcher suddenly had a reason to commit immediate espionage. Believe everyone can put together the type of events that cause sudden behavior changes like that. (Hint: money offers or family threats)

It's all the same to me but that's often how it goes. Everyone is a sleeper agent until compelled to act by whatever means. Israelis do the same thing under the sayanim program (appeal to loyalty). Malware agents are staged until called upon using the same strategy.

I don't know what motivated this guy's disappearance but you don't get quietly fired, scrubbed from public association and have the FBI raid your apartment when you're a victim of abduction. We know some sort of federal crime took place to justify the raid so my guess is the guy is not an abductee but a fugitive.

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

#467

Post by lurk2 »

rng-concern wrote: post #398
lurk2 wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Did you stop reading at the end of that sentence you quoted? I read and ignored it because when I see people making claims like this it sounds conspiratorial. You have been here a while, though, so I’ll assume you know how the rank algorithm works, in which case I would say that the flame war detector you’re describing is the more likely explanation. There were six top-level comments flagged dead when I opened the…

2 stories about ICE were in the top 5 yesterday and within 60 minutes one of them was at #80, the other I could no longer find. It might not be a conspiracy but these stories do get removed one way or another.

They get flagged because they have nothing to do with the forum’s subject.

> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#468

Post by weard_beard »

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.

You should probably notify THEM when you revoke their legal residency.

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

#469

Post by sitkack »

https://www.idsnews.com/article/2025/03/xiaofeng-wang-aaup-i...

https://fox59.com/news/iu-faculty-protests-firing-of-profess...

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/31/fbi-searches-xiaofeng-wang-h...

https://www.wthr.com/article/news/local/after-fbi-raids-on-h...

https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1jnl64l/fbi_rai...

Letter from his Union to the Provost of IU Rahul Shrivastav https://aaup.sitehost.iu.edu/reports/AAUP_March_31_Letter_Sh...

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

#470

Post by brigandish »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #457
brigandish wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jus soli [0] and and jus sanguinis [1] are well known legal concepts for citizenship, and jus soli is rare outside of the Americas, it’s not controversial to move to jus sanguinis as the norm, except in the way that it’s a change from the longstanding way of things in the US. To a European, jus soli seems crazy. Almost as crazy as people using caps in their posts. I do wonder if you, or anyone, could focus on the que…

> jus soli is rare outside of the Americas, legal concepts in other countries have absolutely _nothing_ to do with constitutional rights in the U.S.

Firstly, that isn't true. The US is a common law system, that common law being English common law, and because common law systems still share many features, they can use decisions and case law from other common law jurisdictions in their own decisions.

Moreover, the US Bill of Rights is an extension of the English Bill of Rights 1689 and Magna Carta (the founders were British, after all). From Britannica's introduction to the US Bill of Rights[1]:

> The Bill of Rights derives from the Magna Carta (1215), the English Bill of Rights (1689)…

Wikipedia[2] adds:

> The concepts codified in these amendments are built upon those in earlier documents, especially the Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776), as well as the Northwest Ordinance (1787), the English Bill of Rights (1689), and Magna Carta (1215)

Both the Virginia Declaration of rights[3] and the Northwest Ordinance incorporate concepts found in the English Bill of Rights and Magna Carta, for example:

> Mason based his initial draft on the rights of citizens described in earlier works such as the English Bill of Rights (1689) and the writings of John Locke.

And where do you think they got habeas corpus from?

And finally, in the link I shared on jus soli[4], in the second line, it states:

> Jus soli was part of the English common law

I could go on but that seems enough. Not only is your claim completely erroneous, it's also not misguided to contrast the situation to show that it's not a strange or dangerous change.

Of course, if you - or anyone - were to address my actual question then you might have the beginnings of a point.

[1] https://www.britannica.com/topic/Bill-of-Rights-United-State...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Bill_of_Rights

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Declaration_of_Rights

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_soli

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