FBI To Use Ad Banners to Find Criminals

PhuptDuck writes "Federal authorities are pursuing fugitive crime boss James 'Whitey' Bulger in cyber space under a first-of-its kind agreement announced Wednesday between the FBI and Web portal Terra-Lycos. With a presence in 42 countries and in 19 languages, Terra Lycos is known for the worldwide scope of its Web presence."

Chances are...

[Anonymous Coward]

You'll find their banner ads showing up on theBubbler.com [thebubbler.com]. There must be tons of criminals in Wisconsin.

Misleading headline

[AntiFreeze]

Disclaimer: This is not an attempt at humor (seriously).

From the headline, I thought that the FBI was attempting to track criminals through the use of banner ads (i.e. use something embedded in the ads to track those who view them). Although it seems like a very hard thing to pull off - how would you track a criminal with the data you'd collect anyway?

And then I thought about the recent article Because Only Terrorists User 802.11 [slashdot.org] and got very worried about my ability to block popups via Mozilla or hosts.deny. I was afraid of the headline "Because Only Criminals and Terrorists Block Popup Ads to Avoid Detection".

Oh well, thank god the article clarified that. The article states that the FBI will basically putting up wanted posters as ads to help find the criminal they're after. That, I don't have a problem with.

Re:Instead of spending money on this....

[Hamstaus]

RTFA applies here. If you had read it, you would have noticed this bit:

Terra-Lycos spokesman Brian Payea said the company wasn't being paid for the service. ''We're committed to providing important services to our community and we feel it was a very worthwhile effort,'' he said.

ARGH!!! RTFA!!

[EschewObfuscation]

OK, OK, I know that the lead-in blurb was a little misleading, but come on, people.

1) The FBI is not using cookies to hunt down the suspect.

2) The FBI isn't paying for the banners.

3) Prof^H^H^H^H The "clerk" example in the article is *not* the suspect, but rather someone who might have seen the suspect.

Somehow, I think that G. Cooke, Tx [slashdot.org], would give this whole set of threads a very poor review...

Re:The FBI doesn't want to find Bulger

[e_lehman]

I'm ignorant, who is this guy and why would finding him be too embarrasing?

James Bulger was the leader of the Boston mob for quite a few years and, at the same time, an FBI informant. However, as it turns out, he was running his FBI handlers rather than the other way around. In effect, the FBI kept Bulger out of jail while he murdered and extorted merrily along for years. His main handler, fomer FBI agent John Connolly was recently sentenced to 10 years in prison [usdoj.gov]. But plenty more FBI agents were involved. Futher complicating matters, James Bulger's brother-- William Bulger-- was the dictatorial ruler of the Massachusetts senate at the time and currently heads the state university system. In the last couple weeks, we've learned that William has been in touch with his fugitive brother and urged him NOT to turn himself in. William just recently took the 5th when forced to testify before Congress on the matter.

So this is a very messy case. Likely the FBI is using this initiative in part to dispel the notion that they don't really want to catch James Bulger for fear of further embarassment.

Re:The FBI doesn't want to find Bulger

[Spasemunki]

Whitey started life as a thug in South Boston's Winter Hill Gang, an Irish organized crime ring. He agreed to turn informant for the FBI in exchange for protection from prosecution and other favors. The FBI agents charged with handling his case were both enamored of him; one of them had grown up in Southie idolizing him as a local hero, and the other was following his bosses lead.

Whitey largely provided information of dubious value to the FBI, but his handlers continued to hype him as the most valuable informant in the Boston FBI system. They protected him from prosecution numerous times, and in at least one case refused to give any kind of warning to a witness that Whitey and his associates later killed. Bulger was shielded from multiple murder investigations, as well as a number of associated crimes.

Most importantly, most of the information that Whitey gave the Feds regarded the Italian mafia that was operating in Boston's North End at the time. The FBI moved in and largely wiped out the Italian Mafia- giving Whitey's Winter Hill gang the opportunity to take over all of Boston's organized crime. Whitey then systematically eliminated his rivals in Southie, and effectively made himself underworld king of Boston- with the FBI doing a lot of his dirty work, thanks to helpful "tips" regarding criminals that he wanted out of his way.

Finally, one of the FBI agents assigned to the case had an attack of conscience, and the whole story began to emerge. Whitey bolted, and no one has been able to find him since. The past several years in Boston, not a day goes by that there isn't a story about Whitey; sightings from Maine to Mexico, and periodic excavations of isolated fields where victims of his spree are allegedly buried. The scandal tore the Boston FBI office to pieces, and was one of the biggest black eyes that the Feds have received in recent years

Re:Ad Blocking

[C0LDFusion]

I just want to add that people think "Good Samaritan Law" is where you are FORCED by law to help someone. However, in most states, the law is actually designed to protect the person who makes their own decision to help from malpractice suits.

Example: Someone gets into a car accident and you decide to help him. You pull him out of the car and bandage his wounds. The bandage material used whas not sterile and he gets an infection that kills him. Good Samaritan law prevents his family from suing you.

IANAL, but I've never heard of any law that forces you to help someone.

Why there's a Fifth Amendment in the US

[billstewart]

Eighteenth-Century Britain had a popular investigative technique called "We'll keep torturing you until you confess". One of the traditional methods was to keep piling heavy rocks on the accused until he either confessed or died; I've forgotten which defiant holdout's last words were "More weight!". This sort of thing wasn't a new invention of the time, and the Brits weren't the only people who used it (nobody expected the Spanish Inquisition...), and it was more popularly used on political enemies, accused heretics and witches, and people who had "accomplices" on whom it was desired that they should rat, rather than on common criminals, who usually had the sense to confess or frame someone else, especially since they were often actually guilty of something. That's the main reason for the Fifth Amendment. That doesn't mean we've totally abandoned the practice - cops still beat people up or threaten to do things to them or their families - but it's certainly reduced the problem, and at least it's a rare illegal event in the back room rather than a common event on the courtroom floor.

American jurisprudence also has a bunch of 1960s practices like the Exclusionary Rule and the Miranda Warning which say that courts can't admit evidence that was acquired improperly, whether it was from beating prisoners until they confess, illegally searching homes without warrants, or getting warrants by lying to judges, or lying to prisoners about the law when they don't have lawyers to advise them. Again, it didn't totally eliminate abuses, but the traditional example for its effectiveness is that the year before the Exclusionary Rule, police in New York City didn't bother getting any search warrants - they just illegally searched anybody and any place they wanted to, while the year after the rule, they almost always got warrants when they needed them (even if they still lied about their evidence on occasion.)