One item that is making the rounds (judging by the number of places it appeared in my reading list) is this report at news.com on a new tactic being used by the feds to combat kiddie pr0n:
The FBI has recently adopted a novel investigative technique: posting hyperlinks that purport to be illegal videos of minors having sex, and then raiding the homes of anyone willing to click on them.
Undercover FBI agents used this hyperlink-enticement technique, which directed Internet users to a clandestine government server, to stage armed raids of homes in Pennsylvania, New York, and Nevada last year. The supposed video files actually were gibberish and contained no illegal images.
The story continues with a discussion of the details and legalities in one particular case, concluding:
Civil libertarians warn that anyone who clicks on a hyperlink advertising something illegal—perhaps found while Web browsing or received through e-mail—could face the same fate.
When asked what would stop the FBI from expanding its hyperlink sting operation, Harvey Silverglate, a longtime criminal defense lawyer in Cambridge, Mass. and author of a forthcoming book on the Justice Department, replied: “Because the courts have been so narrow in their definition of ‘entrapment,’ and so expansive in their definition of ‘probable cause,’ there is nothing to stop the Feds from acting as you posit.”
Although I tend to side with civil liberties folks when it comes to net-related issues, I have to admit that I personally don’t mind this tactic, especially when it comes to attempting to combat consumers of material such as this. If you’re caught actively seeking such illicit material….
However, where I do get to be somewhat uncomfortable is the ways in which such a tactic could be abused. For example, while it seems perfectly kosher to pursue folks who are actively seeking kiddie pr0n, I’d hope that there would be some care taken to not even raise suspicion about folks who accidentally click a link, either due to it’s placement near other, legitimate links (or the close button, when it comes to spam messages), or because the link was disguised as something innocuous.
