Canadian Judge Tosses Case After Finding Law Enforcement Entrapped Supposed Terrorists

from the but-for-the-grace-of-untargeted,-overbudgeted-law-enforcement-agencies-go-we dept

It's not just FBI agents playing with Home-Grown Terrorist™ Erector Sets. It's also Canada's top law enforcement agency, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. When there apparently aren't enough actual terrorists to be found, agencies like these need to front the $40 at Wal-Mart for terrorist supplies, or dupe someone with an IQ of 51 into becoming the latest Indictment Du Jour.

Despite this, courts have largely gone along with the charade. It's almost impossible for someone to successfully raise an entrapment defense, whether it's a group of senior citizens who've been molded by undercover agents into an ad hoc terror unit or a bunch of easily-impressed thugs being hounded into stealing nonexistent drugs from fake stash houses.

Up in Canada, though, the law enforcement game may be played by the same rules, but one court isn't willing to encourage the RCMP's Build-a-Terrorist shenanigans.

A British Columbia couple convicted of terrorism charges have had their verdicts tossed out in a scathing court decision that flays the RCMP for its “egregious” conduct in manipulating naive suspects into carrying out a police-manufactured crime.

[...]

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Catherine Bruce said the Mounties used trickery, deceit and veiled threats to engineer the terrorist acts for which Nuttall and Korody were arrested on Canada Day three years ago.

The RCMP, like its US equivalent, only seeks the best of the best when attempting to turn citizens into terrorists. In this case, the RCMP found two easy marks -- both heavily dependent on welfare checks and methadone -- and convinced them they were going to be involved in a revolutionary pressure cooker bombing at some point in the future.

Judge Bruce noted that the two suspects contributed almost nothing to the RCMP's plan. In fact, the judge stated that without the RCMP's incredible amount of assistance, any plans to bomb anything likely would never have materialized. The indicted pair weren't exactly self-starters, and the RCMP's undercover agent basically had to act like a maniacal cult leader to get them to do anything at all.

She also condemned the behaviour of the primary undercover officer who, at the direction of the operation’s overseers, discouraged Nuttall and Korody from seeking outside spiritual guidance and convinced them he was a member of a powerful international terrorist group that would likely kill them if they failed to follow through.

“He was their leader and they were his disciples,” said Bruce, who stayed the proceedings, which threw out the convictions and allowed the couple to walk free after more than three years behind bars.

The government is appealing the decision and still firmly believes that the only party that did anything wrong here were the methadone users who hardly did anything. And for their minimal contributions to the RCMP's master plan, the Crown is hoping to get a second chance at putting these two away for the rest of their lives.

Judge Bruce's statement when tossing the charges should be repeated on this side of the border, where the FBI seems to expend a majority of its anti-terrorism time and energy pushing reluctant, inept, mostly-incapable people into becoming the bumbling, sacrificial figureheads of ISIS: West.

“The world has enough terrorists. We do not need the police to create more.”

There appears to be no shortage of legitimate (so to speak…) criminal activity for law enforcement to pursue and investigate. And yet, given the choice, they'd rather craft both criminals and criminal activity from the ground up, scoring easy goals against unguarded nets -- making the world a little less safe while ensuring their budgets are never endangered.

Filed Under: canada, entrapment, own plot, rcmp, terrorism

Yes, ISIS Is Using Encryption -- But Not Very Well

from the a-comedy-of-errors dept

I've been seeing a few anti-encryption supporters pointing to a new ProPublica report on terrorists using encrypted communications as sort of proof of their position that we need to backdoor encryption and weaken security for everyone. The article is very detailed and thorough and does show that some ISIS folks make use of encrypted chat apps like Telegram and WhatsApp. But that's hardly a surprise. It was well known that those apps were being used, just like it's been well known that groups like Al Qaida were well aware of the usefulness of encryption going back many years, even predating 9/11. It's not like they've suddenly learned something new. So, the fact that they're now using tools like WhatsApp and Telegram is hardly a surprise. It also kinda highlights the idiocy of trying to backdoor American encryption. Telegram is not a US company and WhatsApp's encryption is based on the open source Signal protocol, meaning that any American backdoor encryption law isn't going to be very effective.

But, really, what strikes me, from reading the whole article beyond the headline notion of "ISIS uses encryption," is that it lists example after example of the fact that folks in ISIS use encryption badly and often seem prone to revealing their information. This is not unique to ISIS. Lots of people are not very good about protecting themselves. Hell, I'm probably not very good about my own use of encryption. But, of course, I'm also not trying to blow things up or kill people. Either way, story after story after story in the article highlights the rather bumbling aspects of teaching ISIS supporters how and why to use encrypted communications and to avoid surveillance. My favorite example:

On Jan. 4, 2015, an exasperated coordinator repeatedly explained to a befuddled caller with a Lebanese accent that he could only bring a basic cell phone to Syria, according to a transcript.

“The important thing is that when you arrive in Turkey you have a small cell phone to contact me,” the coordinator said. “Don’t bring smart phones or tablets. OK, brother?”

For the fourth time, the recruit asked: “So we can’t have cell phones?”

“Brother, I said smart phones: iPhone, Galaxy, laptop, tablet, etcetera.”

Sounding a bit like a frustrated gate agent at a crowded airport, the coordinator added: “Each of you can only bring one suitcase. If you come alone, just bring one suitcase. That is, a carry-on and one suitcase.”

“I didn’t understand the last thing, could you explain?”

“Brother, call me when you get to Turkey.”

Then there was the case where someone planned a plot using an encrypted WhatsApp conversation, but police were already bugging the guy so they heard what he was saying anyway:

In April, Italian police overheard a senior figure in Syria urging a Moroccan suspect living near Milan to carry out an attack in Italy, according to a transcript. Although the voice message had been sent through an encrypted channel, the Moroccan played it back in his car, where a hidden microphone recorded it.

In the message, the unidentified “sheik” declared: “Detonate your belt in the crowds declaring Allah Akbar! Strike! (Explode!) Like a volcano, shake the infidels, confront the throng of the enemy, roaring like lightning, declare Allah Akbar and blow yourself up, O lion!”

The suspects exchanged recorded messages over WhatsApp, an encrypted telephone application that is widely used in Europe, the Arab world and Latin America

All of these examples keep making the same point that many people have been making for a long time. Yes, encryption hides some aspect of communications. That's part of the point. But the idea that it creates a "going dark" situation is massively exaggerated. There are many other ways to get the necessary information, through traditional surveillance and detective work. And the report suggests that's working. And the fact that many ISIS recruits are particularly unsophisticated in understanding how and when to use encryption only makes that kind of thing easier for people tracking them. In discussing the Paris attacks, for example, the article notes that while some of the attackers were told to use encryption, they didn't.

Abaaoud’s operatives did not always follow security procedures, however. In June of last year, Turkish immigration authorities detained Tyler Vilus, a French plotter en route to Paris with someone else’s Swedish passport. Allowed to keep his cellular phone in a low-security detention center, Vilus brazenly sent an unencrypted text message to Abaaoud in Syria, according to a senior French counterterror official.

“I have been detained but it doesn’t seem too bad,” the message said, according to the senior official. “I will probably be released and will be able to continue the mission.”

Instead, U.S. spy agencies helped retrieve that text and French prosecutors charged Vilus with terrorist conspiracy.

Anyway, it's no surprise that terrorists are going to use encryption. Of course they have been for over a decade and will continue to do so. The issue is that it's not as horrible as law enforcement is making it out to be. Just as plotters have always been able to plan in ways that law enforcement has been unable to track (such as discussing in person, in other languages, or through simple ciphers or codes). That's always happened and somehow we managed to get by. Yes, sometimes law enforcement doesn't get to know absolutely everything about everyone. And that's a good thing. And sometimes, yes, that means that terrorists will be able to plan bad things without law enforcement knowing it. But that's part of the trade-off for living in a free society.

Filed Under: encryption, fud, going dark, isis, law enforcement, terrorism
Companies: telegram, whatsapp

Facebook Sued Again For 'Material Support' Of Terrorism, Because Hamas Uses Facebook

from the not-how-it-works dept

This is becoming quite the stupid trend: people who are true victims of terrorist attacks suing internet platforms because terror-associated groups are using those platforms generally. It began back in January, when a woman sued Twitter after her husband was apparently killed in an ISIS attack. The lawsuit made no connection between the use of Twitter and the attack. It's just "husband died in ISIS attack" and "ISIS people use Twitter." The judge in that case is not at all impressed and it seems likely to dismiss the case shortly. In the meantime, another similar case was filed against Twitter, Facebook and Google.

And now... we've got a third such case filed against Facebook and asking for a billion dollars. A billion dollars. The lawsuit was filed by the families of some people who were killed in a Hamas attack. And the entire complaint is basically "Hamas killed these guys, Hamas uses Facebook, give us a billion dollars." It goes through a variety of stories, each involving Hamas or Hamas-affiliated attacks, without any actual connection to Facebook, other than "and they also used Facebook to celebrate." Here's just one example of a bunch: Yes, the situation is horrifying and awful. No doubt about that. But blaming Facebook for it is idiotic... and also likely to go absolutely nowhere. Facebook is clearly protected by Section 230 of the CDA and it would be amazing if a court didn't toss this lawsuit very quickly. And, yes, obviously it's absolutely horrible if your family member is killed in a terrorist event. I'm sure I'd be distraught and angry and many other feelings that I can't begin to imagine. But lashing out at various neutral social media platforms is just ridiculous. It stinks of being a Steve Dallas lawsuit in which lawyers decide to sue tangentially related companies because that's where the money is. Meanwhile, Hamas is already claiming that this lawsuit is proof that the US is fighting against "freedom of the press and expression." Of course, that assumes that the lawsuit will actually go anywhere, which seems ridiculously unlikely. Terrorist attacks are a real problem. Suing Facebook or other social media platforms isn't going to help one bit.

Filed Under: blame, hamas, material support, platforms, section 230, terrorism
Companies: facebook

Sony Locks Up The PSN Account Of A Man Named 'Jihad' Because You'll Never Guess Why

from the what's-in-a-name dept

Terrorism is scary. That's the entire point of terrorism, of course. The relatively meager bodycounts of acts of terror -- compared with, say, most minor individual battles in either of the World Wars -- are actually attempting to create some kind of political or social change amongst the victims. And guess what? It totally works! After all, western nations, the bastions of freedom and puppy dogs that we are, have reacted to what is ultimately a minor threat by reporting toddlers to the authorities, freezing the bank accounts of people with dogs whose names are a couple of letters off of the scary terror-enemy, and refusing online services to people with scary (read: Islamic) sounding names. Freedom, you see, isn't free, and we have to pay for it with freedom.

And the real lesson that should be learned from pretty much the entire early part of this century is that once you start the fear-ball rolling when it comes to terrorism, it gets really hard to prevent it from trampling a great deal of innocent people in some of the dumbest ways possible. Take, for instance, Sony just flat out banning a guy's Playstation Network account because his parents named him "Jihad."

Jihad Al Mofadda, whose story shot to the front page of Reddit yesterday, said that Sony banned his account on June 7. At first, PlayStation customer support offered to switch his PSN name to something else. Then, he says, after a few days of silence, a different representative reviewed the ticket and decided to ban the account entirely, preventing Al Mofadda from accessing his stats, trophies, and all of the digital games he’s purchased. After his story exploded, Al Mofadda was able to get in touch with a Sony representative again, but he was unable to keep his original handle.

Ok, there's a lot to unpack here. Stories like this are fantastic for pointing out how easy it is for a corporate entity to try to apply some kind of language policy to its online forums and systems only to find itself hopelessly engaging in hypocrisy. For instance, Jihad is a word with a lot of discussion about what it actually means. Westerners tend to associate it with the term "holy war", and it has indeed been used in that way historically, but the word itself essentially means to persevere or struggle to keep the Islamic faith. To that end, Jihad isn't a rarity in use as a first name in Muslim circles. Meanwhile, one of my own Playstation friends has the handle HowDatDicTaste. Shall we vote on whether that handle or the one Al Mofadda used, iJihaD, is more likely to offend?

But the fact that Sony refused to allow the handle even when it was explained that Jihad was Al Moffada's first name moves this into epic levels of silliness.

One e-mail from a Sony representative read as follows: “As stated in our previous email, we have to consider the network as a whole and we need to take every ones feelings into account. I can appreciate that your name has many meanings but it has one meaning that a lot of users find offensive and there for, when a report was submitted the decision to ban your account was taken.”

Imagine for a moment that some religious sect went completely rogue somewhere in the world and carried out a series of violent attacks. And imagine that this sect decided to name these attacks "Steves." Sect members would walk into a crowded marketplace in Brazil, declare a Steveing, and set off a bomb. And let's say that these attacks received wide press coverage.

Would Sony then ban the accounts of everyone named Steve? C'mon, it's the guy's first name and he has the passport to prove it.

At the time of this writing, Sony is still refusing to allow him to use his old handle, but has allowed him to keep the purchases on his account under a different name. This means he gets his games, but loses all the friend connections he'd made as well as his game trophies. Is this the biggest deal? Of course not. But the point is that when we can't even allow people to use their own first names because we're all petrified by terrorism, things have gone a bit too far.

Filed Under: jihad, playstation, terrorism, video games
Companies: sony

Guy Asks Indian Supreme Court To Ban Encrypted WhatsApp... Because People Plan Raves With It

from the the-kids-these-days dept

Sudhir Yadav appears to be a bundle of contradictions. He claims to be a "right to information" activist, yet he's now trying to stomp out encryption. He argues that he's addicted to WhatsApp, but he wants the Indian Supreme Court to ban it. He's filed a "public interest" lawsuit with the Supreme Court arguing that (1) he's addicted to WhatsApp because of its recently implemented end-to-end encryption and (2) that it should be banned because bad people might use it to, you know, plans raves and stuff:

Yadav claimed that he has only filed the petition because recently introduced WhatsApp encryption makes it impossible for the government to intercept and read messages exchanged between “suspicious people”.

“I know WhatsApp is a great app and I spend hours on it but this is about you and me,” he said. “If we know that information on drugs and rave parties is going through WhatsApp and the government can’t decrypt these messages, then it’s harmful to the country.”

And, yes, he also tossed in the "fear! terrorists!" argument as well, because of course. And it's not just WhatsApp. He also wants a variety of other messaging platforms, such as Telegram, Hike and Viber, banned for using encryption (even though the implementations on many of those platforms is questionable). Of course, we don't need to go through all the reasons why this is dumb. Strong encryption is much more likely to help protect the private information of the general populace from people looking to do bad things with it than it is to help terrorists in their planning. Could terrorists use it? Yes, just as terrorists can use other neutral, but important technologies for bad purposes. But we don't go and ban them entirely just because they can be misused.

Meanwhile, Yadav is making this out like he's being selfless in being willing to give up his WhatsApp:

“I love WhatsApp but I will have to find an alternative if it’s banned," he said. "I don’t know if there is an app that good but I will keep looking.”

And what happens if SC decides that his petition doesn’t have enough merit? Yadav said that he will simply go back to using WhatsApp.

“I can’t do much if the SC thinks it’s not harmful for the nation’s interest. It’s not a personal issue, it’s a national issue so my usage won’t be affected.”

It's a national issue for you to try to undermine the safety and data protection of hundreds of millions of people? Really?

Filed Under: encryption, india, raves, sudhir yadav, terrorism
Companies: telegram, viber, whatsapp

Tying Rights To Useless 'Terrorist Watchlists' Is A Terrible Idea

from the the-right-to-remain-rightless dept

No matter how you may feel about the Second Amendment or firearms themselves, there's no way you can feel comfortable with access to Constitutional rights being predicated on something as worthless as the government's ever-expanding "you might be a terrorist" lists.

But that's what's being sought by legislators. In the wake of the Orlando shooting, politicians are searching for answers to unpredictable violent acts, and have seized on the FBI's multiple investigations of the shooter as a potential terrorist for deciding who can or can't obtain a gun. A "dramatic" sit-in by Congressional reps hoped to force the issue, even though it ended up pushing nothing forward at all.

Some legislators want gun ownership tied to terrorist watchlists -- the same watchlists that have turned 4-year-olds into suspected terrorists and designated entire families as suspicious simply because a single member somewhere in the branches of the family tree is under investigation.

This kneejerk reaction not only would eliminate rights but also any form of due process. As it stands now, there's very little chance anyone wrongly designated as a suspected terrorist by the US government will be able to remove themselves from these lists. A recent court decision about the TSA's "no fly" list has at least raised the redress procedure to "extremely difficult" from its previous status as "nonexistent."

But that's only one of the government's terrorist watchlists. Another watchlist contains thousands of Americans with no known ties to any terrorist group. The fact that these known unknowns comprise 40% of the watchlist is only part of the problem.

As we've seen from the FBI's neverending series of terrorist investigations, the government is more than happy to create all the "terrorists" it needs to ensure a steady flow of income to certain agencies and a steady decline in civil liberties for the rest of us.

Even if the list used to deny gun purchases is limited to those deemed too dangerous to board an aircraft (but not dangerous enough to arrest), rights will be denied to thousands who've never done anything wrong. The no fly list is a debacle as anyone but the TSA (and those pushing this legislation) will admit. The no fly list has, in the past, contained both people no one would normally consider unfit for gun ownership (Sen. Ted Kennedy, Rep. John Lewis), as well as an 18-month-old toddler. Accurate, it is not, and yet, legislators are more than willing to strip a right away from citizens based on an incredibly flawed database. Logic has no place in gun control arguments, though, as Rep. John Lewis is one of the legislators leading the charge, even though he should know personally how worthless and inaccurate the no fly list is.

What's even more disconcerting is the number of politicians who believe multiple rights should be stripped from those on watchlists. Senator Joe Manchin actually let these words tumble out of his mouth during an interview with MSNBC.

Really, the firewall we have right now is due process. It’s all due process. So we can all say we want the same thing, but how do we get there? If a person is on a terrorist watch list, like the gentleman, the shooter in Orlando? He was twice by the FBI — we were briefed yesterday about what happened — but that young man was brought in twice. They did everything they could. The FBI did everything they were supposed to do. But there was no way to keep him on the nix list or keep him off the gun-buy list, there was no way to do that.

So can’t we say that if a person’s under suspicion there should be a five-year period of time that we have to see if good behavior, if this person continues the same traits? Maybe we can come to that type of an agreement, but due process is what’s killing us right now.

Due process is "killing" Americans. And he's not the only one who feels this way. Senator Dianne Feinstein believes Americans are born with only one inalienable right: the right to earn their other rights by "proving their innocence."

Dems now expect Americans to "prove your innocence" before taking advantage of Constitutional rights.

All the while, legislators are tossing out catchy slogans like, "No Fly, No Buy" with zero awareness of the implications of that action. Others claim such a law would have prevented the Orlando shooting, similarly unaware of the fact that the shooter wasn't on a terrorist watchlist when he purchased his guns.

If lawmakers want to prevent suspected terrorists from purchasing guns, they need to base this on something far better maintained and narrowly defined than our current terrorist watchlists. The ones we have operate as dragnets -- bulk surveillance but for human beings. These lists already eliminate due process. They shouldn't be used to further diminish citizens' rights just because the perpetrator in the latest mass shooting was the subject of a terrorism investigation.

Filed Under: dianne feinstein, due process, guns, john lewis, no fly, terrorism, watch list

Baltimore Transit Officials Won't Release Footage Of Freddie Gray Protests Because Everything Is Always About 'Terrorism'

from the an-excuse-with-a-universal-adapter dept

The excuse that worked so well for so long -- "because terrorism" -- seems to have lost its luster. Despite having a locked iPhone tied to a mass shooting with terrorist overtones, the FBI was unable to budge the needle on encryption backdoors or magical "lawful access" crypto keys.

However, that doesn't mean any number of government entities aren't willing to use the ever present "threat" of terrorism as fuel for their various civil liberties-endangering bonfires. Or that they won't use it as a profoundly cheap excuse to withhold information from the American public -- like the Indiana State Police's refusal to turn over Stingray docs because doing so might allow terrorists to plan attacks on cherished annual state events like the Mule Day Parade.

The Maryland Transit Authority has been ducking a Public Information Act (PIA) request from the Baltimore Sun for nearly a year at this point. The paper asked for surveillance footage from the Mondawin Metro station, captured in April of last year as police shut down mass transit in anticipation of protests following the death of Freddie Gray in the back of Baltimore PD van.

The MTA's first refusal utilized another very popular law enforcement excuse.

In denying the Sun's first PIA request last year, the MTA said that the office of Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby had asked it not to release the footage because it was still being used in criminal investigations.

The Sun took this in stride and issued another request almost a year later.

The Sun sent the MTA another PIA request for the footage last month, noting that there is a statute of limitations of one year for misdemeanor charges, and that it had been a year since the incident in question — limiting the number of pending investigations there could be.

If some footage remained relevant to open investigations, The Sun said, that footage could be redacted and the rest made available.

The MTA's bluff had been called but it still had no interest in turning over the requested footage. So, it reached for the bluff that can never be called -- because it is existential, wholly subjective, and without an expiration date.

When the MTA responded last week, it made no mention of pending investigations in the state's attorney's office. It said instead that the footage could not be released because of Homeland Security concerns.

If you thought that was the end of the stupidity, you're mistaken. The Sun asked for clarification -- did this mean the MTA would never release footage from its security cameras? The MTA clarified with a bullshit-laden buck pass:

The MTA responded Friday, explaining that The Sun would have to ask the federal Transportation Security Administration for written permission to review any of the footage from the cameras, because they were funded through Homeland Security grants.

The MTA controls the cameras. It acquired them with grant money, but they are still the sole property of the MTA. The TSA is a completely unconnected third party. The DHS hands out grant money, not the TSA. And even if the TSA was somehow connected because of the grant, the footage requested only involved local law enforcement.

But it gets even worse. Even if the Sun were able to talk the TSA into granting permission (that really isn't its to grant) for the release of the requested footage, the MTA would still refuse to hand it over.

[I]f The Sun were to get that permission, it said, the MTA still would deny the footage based on its belief that the footage "would reveal the facility's safety and support systems, surveillance techniques, and security systems and technologies," as well as "jeopardize the security of the facility; facilitate the planning of a terrorist attack; and endanger the life or physical safety of the public."

This is the problem with public records laws. The government still maintains far too much control. Officials may occasionally talk big about "presumption of transparency," but when push comes to shove, its agencies like these doing all the pushing and shoving -- and routinely delivering the government equivalent of the playground rebuttal: "Make me."

Filed Under: baltimore, foia, freddie gray, protests, terrorism, transit, tsa

Judge Doesn't Find Much To Like In 'Material Support For Terrorism' Lawsuit Against Twitter

from the doubling-down-on-wrong-does-no-one-any-favors dept

The lawsuit against Twitter for "providing material support" to ISIS (predicated on the fact that ISIS members use Twitter to communicate) -- filed in January by the widow of a man killed in an ISIS raid -- is in trouble.

Twitter filed its motion to dismiss in March, stating logically enough that the plaintiff had offered nothing more than conclusory claims about its "support" of terrorism, not to mention the fact that there was no link between Twitter and the terrorist act that killed the plaintiff's husband. On top of that, it pointed out the obvious: that Section 230 does not allow service providers to be held responsible for the actions of their users.

As reported by Nicholas Iovino of Courthouse News Service, the presiding judge doesn't seem too impressed by what he's seen so far from the plaintiff.

U.S. District Judge William Orrick said the complaint fails to show a link between the social media network's actions and the attack that took five lives in Jordan.

"I just don't see causation under the Antiterrorism Act," [Judge William] Orrick said. "There's no allegation that ISIS used Twitter to recruit Zaid."

That deals a blow to one of the lawsuit's allegations. Orrick also didn't find the plaintiff's claim that Twitter direct messages are somehow different than regular tweets when it comes to Section 230 protections.

Orrick was not persuaded that companies like Twitter could be sued for messages sent by users.

"Just because it's private messaging doesn't put this beyond the Communications Decency Act's reach," Orrick said.

This was in response to the plaintiff's lawyer's assertion that because direct messages are not accessible by the public, Twitter couldn't avail itself of Section 230 protections as a "publisher." Twitter's lawyer countered by pointing out email providers are still considered "publishers" and they can't be held responsible for users' communications, even though those messages are never made public.

It only took about 40 minutes for Judge Orrick to reach a decision, albeit one that doesn't shut down this ridiculous lawsuit completely. The lawsuit has been dismissed, but without prejudice and with an invitation for the plaintiff to file an amended complaint.

Given the hurdles the plaintiff needs to leap (some logical, some statutory) to find Twitter responsible for the actions of terrorists halfway around the world, it's unlikely that an amended complaint will fix the seriously misguided lawsuit. The only people truly responsible for the plaintiff's husband's death are those who took his life. While it's an understandable emotional response to want someone to pay for the murder of a loved one, sometimes there's no way to receive that sort of closure.

Twitter isn't a closed platform developed solely for terrorists' communications. It's available to anyone with an email address… even terrorists. Twitter is routinely criticized for its handling of illicit material and abusive behavior, but the undeniable fact still remains: these unpleasant communications are created by users, not by Twitter. Any attempt to connect the dots between a terrorist attack and terrorist chatter is tenuous, and any attempt to hold platforms responsible for the actions of their users carries with it the potential to make the internet worse for millions of law-abiding users.

Filed Under: cda 230, material support, section 230, terrorism, william orrick
Companies: twitter

Twitter, Facebook & Google Sued For 'Material Support For Terrorism' Over Paris Attacks

from the like-suing-automakers-for-car-bombs dept

It's an understandable reaction to tragedy. When faced with the unthinkable -- like the death of a loved one in a terrorist attack -- people tend to make bad decisions. We saw this recently when the widow of a man killed in an ISIS raid sued Twitter for "providing material support to terrorists." Twitter's involvement was nothing more than the unavoidable outcome of providing a social media platform: it was (and is) used by terrorist organizations to communicate and recruit new members.

That doesn't mean Twitter somehow supports terrorism, though. Like most social media platforms, Twitter proactively works to eliminate accounts linked with terrorists. But there's only so much that can be done when all that's needed to create an account is an email address.

As difficult as it may be to accept, platforms like Twitter, Facebook, etc. are not the problem. Like any, mostly-open social platform, they can be used by terrible people to do terrible things. But they are not responsible for individual users' actions, nor should they be expected to assume this responsibility.

Another terrorist attack and another death has prompted a similar lawsuit [PDF] from the father of Nohemi Gonzalez, who was killed in the Paris terrorist attacks. The lawsuit contains a number of allegations, but every single one can be countered by Section 230. Reynaldo Gonzalez claims that Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube all provide "support" for terrorism by both refusing to take terrorist-related content/accounts down and not proactively policing their platforms for terrorist-linked users.

The lawsuit contains several quotes from pundits, terrorism experts, and government officials about ISIS's successful use of social media platforms. What it doesn't contain, however, is anyone offering support for the lawsuit's position: that social media platforms should be held directly responsible for terrorist attacks. But that's the sole purpose of this lawsuit: to make the platforms pay for a death they had nothing to do with.

There are calls from government and law enforcement officials for these platforms to "do more" contained in the lawsuit as well. But if there's anything we'll never run out of, it's government officials calling for "x non-government entity" to "do more" in response to [insert latest tragedy here].

As was pointed out earlier, Section 230 immunizes the defendants against lawsuits of this sort. And the fact that there's no direct connection between the terrorist attack and Twitter/Facebook/YouTube's actions means there's no way for Gonzalez's father to seek damages from these defendants for a terrorist attack carried out on foreign soil, as Twitter pointed out the last time it was sued for "providing material support for terrorism."

Whether or not Section 230's protections will hold up remains to be seen. This case has been filed in the Ninth Circuit, which just recently handed down a decision opening up service providers to new levels of liability if they fail to warn users about other, possibly more dangerous users. This isn't exactly the best fit for the bad en banc decision, but with the circuit leaning that direction thanks to recent precedent, lower courts may be more willing to reinterpret Section 230 in ways that will make the internet worse.

Filed Under: isis, material support, nohemi gonzalez, section 230, terrorism
Companies: facebook, google, twitter, youtube

Not Funny: How The OFAC Is Outlawing Even The Lamest Attempts At Humor Over Terrorist Fears

from the humor-me dept

It's only been a couple months since we discussed some of the problems stemming from the US Treasury Department's terrorism scary names of brown people list, namely that non-scary people with names similar or identical to maybe actual scary people suddenly can't seem to use online services. Some term this "Islamophobia", whereas I prefer to mark it as the type of government laziness combined with carpet-bomb approaches to governance that is far too common. Add to that the fact that banking institutions are also suddenly being tasked with checking their payment services against this watchlist, nabbing all kinds of innocents in the process, and you have a process that could be funny if it weren't so frustrating.

But, when it comes to terrorism, we're legislating funny out of the equation altogether, it seems. For example, one man's $42 payment to a friend to reimburse him for drinks has been held in limbo because he tried to get funny in the memo section of the payment.

Telling a friend you’re paying him back for “ISIS beer funds!!!” is not a particularly good joke. I knew this as I was typing it at 2am on a Sunday, but what I did not know is that it’s an even worse joke on Venmo because the federal government will detain your $42.

Almost immediately after I hit send, Venmo—you know, the app that allows people to send money to each other via their phones—blasted an e-mail into my inbox. The company wanted to “better understand a recent payment.”

Obviously this started because of some automatic flag on the word "ISIS." And for that, one can hardly blame Venmo. Is it unlikely that a terrorist is going to send $42 to another terrorist to pay him back for alcohol, of all things, as part of their terrorist-y network? Sure, that's unlikely. But do we want the financial system running some general check against common terror groups and references to make sure money isn't falling into their hands? Of course.

But when Ben Guarino responded to Venmo to try to explain, choosing to call the whole thing a typo error instead of an admittedly lame joke, that meant that someone from Venmo was manually looking at the situation. And the result wasn't any better.

Venmo wasn’t buying it. “Unfortunately,” wrote someone who signed the e-mail as Heather, “due to OFAC regulations, we are not allowed to give the funds back to you or issue a refund.” Because I don’t regularly bump into terrorists or sicarios at Whole Foods, I had no clue what an OFAC was. As it goes, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control is a decades-old institution, quietly working to keep money out of the hands of America’s enemies. In 1962, the Division of Foreign Assets Control—which President Harry Truman had used to block transfers destined for North Korea and China—metamorphosed into OFAC. This association now has to deal with tipsy hipsters grasping at wit through instant payment apps.

And that's where this whole practice breaks down into the land of the dumb. Look, Guarino's joke was both dumb and not particularly funny, by my estimation. But here's the thing: if your terrorist money-traps are nabbing hipster dudes trading 42 whole dollars for drinks, with a full explanation of where the drinks were had as well, then the program is no longer serving its purpose. Instead, we should admit that we've let fear grip our government institutions to such a degree that those institutions are trying to pass off annoying our citizens as a necessary trade for our safety. If that isn't the stated goal of terrorism, I don't know what is.

As of this writing, the OFAC still has Guarino's $42 sitting in limbo, having given him a case number for his request to have it released and nothing else. And America lived to see another day, I suppose.

Filed Under: isis, money, ofac, payments, terrorism
Companies: venmo