FC: Kuro5hin.org reader reportedly investigated by U.S. Secret Service

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

---

Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2001 10:22:24 +1100 (EST)
Subject: US secret service investigates kuro5hin.org reader
From: "Ian Cumming" <ian () ids org au>
To: declan () well com

Declan,

I've only been subscribed to your list for little while, but I thought people
might be interested in this.

A poster to Kuro5hin.org (a site discussing technology, politics and culture)
was apparently questioned by the US Secret Service about a comment he
made on the site. The comment regarded methods of infecting a person with
smallpox, in reply to an article theorising a smallpox attack.

You can read about the incident on kuro5hin's temporary page (their co-lo is
moving) - http://www.kuro5hin.org

cheers,
Ian

---

Kuro5hin.org is down for unrelated reasons, but the post in question is 
available via Google's cache here:
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:hnr2WC2xC1s:www.kuro5hin.org/comments/2001/10/4/3591/14167%3Fpid%3D15+kuro5hin+lee+malatesta+smallpox&hl=en

It says:
> I can think of two ways to have a decent shot of infecting the VP. Use 
> some sort of aresolizer. Infect an suicide-ready individual. The first 
> method seems to me to be prone to discovery if one wants to make certain 
> of getting the VP. Given that vaccines work after infection but before 
> onset of symptoms, hitting the VP with an aerosolizer of some sort would 
> give a very large clue to the Secret Service as to what was happening.

The report of the visit by the Secret Service is here:

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=24310&cid=2634875
> At the conclusion of the interview (which involved searching my house to 
> which I aqueisced) the agents told me that probably nothing would come of 
> it, but the decision on whether to prosecute or not was up to the attorney 
> general's office. I'm still not entirely sure how my comment can be 
> construed as an actual threat, but I do understand why secret service 
> agents are a bit high strung about now.

Kuro5hin.org's editors say:
> I've talked to Lee, and believe that he's not making this up. The comment 
> in question was this one, attached to the smallpox story. (Google cache is 
> the best). Basically, Lee was visited at work by a couple of Secret 
> Service agents, who asked him some questions about the comment, in an 
> attempt to
> ensure that it was not a credible threat. He was a little frightened, but 
> I don't think anything came of it.
> While I have great doubts about the wisdom and cost-efficiency of 
> following up a comment like this, given that I have a really hard time 
> imagining what kind of person could actually read that as a threat that 
> warranted investigating, it doesn't seem like Lee's civil liberties were 
> violated in any way, and he wasn't dragged off to some secret chamber for 
> the third degree.
> Our government is doing a lot of things we Americans should probably be 
> worried about, but I think this is just dumb, not actually evil.

-Declan




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