Jailed Cybercriminals Returned To Russia in Historic Prisoner Swap (cyberscoop.com) 98
A blockbuster prisoner exchange between the United States, Russia and Germany on Thursday included at least two prominent cybercriminals held by the U.S. on charges of financially motivated cybercrime and hacking to facilitate insider trading. Cyberscoop reports: The prisoners were part of a deal that freed 16 people from Russia, including Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan. A White House spokesperson confirmed that as part of the deal, the U.S. released convicted Russian cybercriminals Roman Seleznev and Vladislav Klyushin.
Seleznev is a notorious Russian hacker known for running extensive cybercrime operations. He was involved in numerous cyberattacks, including credit card fraud, theft, and selling stolen credit card information on "Carder[dot]su," a cybercriminal forum ring. Seleznev conducted his criminal activities under the alias "Track2" and "nCux." He is the son of Valery Seleznev, a prominent member of the Russian Duma, the country's parliament. Seleznev was sentenced in 2017 to 27 years in prison for his involvement in a massive credit-card computer fraud scheme. Klyushin was extradited to the U.S. for his involvement in an elaborate hack-to-trade scheme that netted approximately $93 million through securities trades based on confidential corporate information stolen from U.S. computer networks. With insider knowledge of companies' financial performance, Klyushin and his co-conspirators predicted stock price movements and traded on stolen information. They used accounts in multiple countries, including Cyprus, Denmark, Portugal, Russia, and the U.S., misleading brokerage firms about their activities.
Seleznev is a notorious Russian hacker known for running extensive cybercrime operations. He was involved in numerous cyberattacks, including credit card fraud, theft, and selling stolen credit card information on "Carder[dot]su," a cybercriminal forum ring. Seleznev conducted his criminal activities under the alias "Track2" and "nCux." He is the son of Valery Seleznev, a prominent member of the Russian Duma, the country's parliament. Seleznev was sentenced in 2017 to 27 years in prison for his involvement in a massive credit-card computer fraud scheme. Klyushin was extradited to the U.S. for his involvement in an elaborate hack-to-trade scheme that netted approximately $93 million through securities trades based on confidential corporate information stolen from U.S. computer networks. With insider knowledge of companies' financial performance, Klyushin and his co-conspirators predicted stock price movements and traded on stolen information. They used accounts in multiple countries, including Cyprus, Denmark, Portugal, Russia, and the U.S., misleading brokerage firms about their activities.
Thank you President Biden (Score:4, Insightful)
For freeing Americans who were held on fake charges in a third world country.
Re:Thank you President Biden (Score:5, Informative)
We have been swapping spies for decades... it is how things are done at the diplomatic level.
The difference is that now every arrest, and every subsequent trial, and eventual exchange is made with public fanfare. It used to happen constantly -and quietly.
Re:Thank you President Biden (Score:5, Insightful)
We have been swapping spies for decades... it is how things are done at the diplomatic level.
The difference is that now every arrest, and every subsequent trial, and eventual exchange is made with public fanfare. It used to happen constantly -and quietly.
The difference here is that almost none of the people that Russia released were spies. Even Russia doesn't claim that most of them were spies. Rather, they were mostly journalists, employees of opposition political leaders, people who helped other Russians get permanent residence in other countries, people who were carrying cannabis gummies through the airport, people who told the truth about Russia's war with Ukraine, etc.
The U.S. gave Russia back a bunch of its spies, and in exchange, Russia and Belarus gave various western countries back some of their political prisoners and *maybe* a couple of spies.
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And this is why I wish we would prohibit Americans from going places like Russia or Belarus or North Korea. Because you will end up as a political hostage and we will have to give back Russian criminals to free innocent Americans. Although your post made me realize why we don't actually prohibit Americans from going to Russia. And it's because such a prohibition would make it harder for us to send spies!
You're assuming the U.S. government still cares enough about Russia to spy on them. Economically, they're crashing. The wealthy and highly educated are fleeing the country in rather large numbers. Their military can't even win against a NATO-adjacent country in a proxy war, much less against the U.S. One might reasonably argue that the only thing left of interest is making sure that no nuclear material gets in the wrong hands if the government collapses.
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And this is why I wish we would prohibit Americans from going places like Russia or Belarus or North Korea.
WTF?! Are you an American? Do you live in the USA? What is this 'prior restraint' bullshit about? We create laws to identify actual crimes so we can address those undesirable behaviors. We do not create laws because 'this is the best way to do things'. Do you not believe in Freedom?
Of course, there is a price for Freedom. If your capture causes an inconvenience for the State, well, fuck you. You followed your Freedom and now you get to deal with the consequences. The American people are under no obligation
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Fair enough. Have a good day. :)
(apparently, I have to write an entire paragraph or something instead of merely acknowledging your correctness)
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The USA won't admit who is a spy. That discloses practices and draws more attention and study... all the assets and spies to HELP the captured spy are put at risk.
Since Trump was in, the CIA reportedly pulled out their spies from Russia and the rest were dying at a high rate; from what I read, it was not going well before Trump but got worse early on before they pulled out. It's probably mostly too few assets now with a massive focus upon getting into their technology rather than human assets.
For example,
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The USA won't admit who is a spy. That discloses practices and draws more attention and study... all the assets and spies to HELP the captured spy are put at risk.
That's not really the point. If Russia doesn't say that they think someone is a spy, we can probably safely assume that the person is not a spy. If Russia *does* say that they think someone is a spy, we can't know for sure, because the U.S. will never admit it. But most of the people fell into that first group.
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We need to do a better job with backstories for our spies.
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We have been swapping spies for decades... it is how things are done at the diplomatic level.
The difference is that now every arrest, and every subsequent trial, and eventual exchange is made with public fanfare. It used to happen constantly -and quietly.
The difference here is that almost none of the people that Russia released were spies. Even Russia doesn't claim that most of them were spies. Rather, they were mostly journalists, employees of opposition political leaders, people who helped other Russians get permanent residence in other countries, people who were carrying cannabis gummies through the airport, people who told the truth about Russia's war with Ukraine, etc.
The U.S. gave Russia back a bunch of its spies, and in exchange, Russia and Belarus gave various western countries back some of their political prisoners and *maybe* a couple of spies.
This is why a lot of countries have been recommending for the last 5 years not to go to Russia. Right now the UK FCDO (Foreign Office) has Russia as a solid red "do not travel" zone (advices against all travel). Even Iraq has a yellow zone (advise against all but essential travel, in British parlance).
China is another country where westerners need to be careful of being accused of spying. A few Australians have fallen foul of a false spying accusation because China knows the Australian government will ko
Trump came out and said (Score:2, Interesting)
Meanwhile the weirdos over on Fox News are spinning this as a victory for Trump. Saying that the hostage exchange was because they are afraid of Trump becoming president because he's so manly and powerful and they want to do the exchange now to get it over with.
This kind of stuff is why everyone is calling them weird. It's the kind of thing you usually see with North Korea
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This just in, Trump is capable of time travel. 3 of the 4 Americans released were jailed during Biden's presidency. Whelan, the one American jailed during Trump's presidency, was either an actual spy, or an idiot palling around with a member of the FSB because it made him feel important who got caught up in internal FSB politics. Given his bad conduct discharge from the Marines, probably the latter. In which case it might have been possible to secure his release at some point without having to resort to a p
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Yep. That's why they took advantage of his laxity and invaded both Crimea and Ukraine while Trump was President and why with Biden in charge Putin didn't dare send the Wagner group to Venezuela to back Maduro. Wait... no... all three of those things happened while Biden was in a position of power.
When Biden was in a position of power (Score:4, Insightful)
Putin invaded because that was his last chance to take advantage of the setup DonOld gave him. Plus he needed to do something fast or all the intelligence he got from the documents sleepy Don leaked wouldn't be valuable anymore.
Trump isn't just weird, he's weird and he's an accidental traitor. Honestly I'm not convinced it's an accident.
Re: When Biden was in a position of power (Score:2)
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Trump was appeasing Putin, and Putin's biggest complaint that led to the Ukraine invasion was the possible expansion of NATO into Ukraine. Listen to the speeches; the Democrats have wanted war with Putin for years, and they set it up so he'd have to respond.
Hillary was gearing us up for simultaneous wars with Iran and Russia; if she had won in 2016, both of those wars would have started during her term.
T
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Putin invaded because that was his last chance to take advantage of the setup DonOld gave him. Plus he needed to do something fast or all the intelligence he got from the documents sleepy Don leaked wouldn't be valuable anymore.
Not exactly, the timing of Putin's invasion was not an accident. He needed to do it shortly after the embarrassing withdrawal from Afghanistan, before the US regained it's appetite for war. The Tangerine Thundercunt played his part in setting up that embarrassment but I doubt it was at Putin's orders.
The idea was that the invasion would be over before the western powers could get their act together and lets be honest, had it not been for the ineptitude of the Russian forces and how prepared the Ukrainian
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That's only one of his many powers. He is able to divert hurricanes with merely a Sharpie, defeat Covid with shining a fluorescent tube inside people (one wonder's how he gets them in there), manages to lose other peoples' money and come out ahead.
Well he keeps campaigning against Obama (Score:3)
Re: Trump came out and said (Score:1)
Is any of this true or is it all hyperbole?
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Well, in this case we're giving them cybercriminals and getting journalists and human rights activists in return.
It's not a good look for Russia that they even want these a**holes back.
Yes, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
This kind of "Russian Diplomacy" is rather sickening. We give up known cybercriminals in exchange for a news reporter and a former Marine who moonlighted as a Russian wedding planner.
While I get that we got our Americans back, it sure as hell came at a steep price. It seems that we're incentivizing Putin to kidnap any American he can get his hands on.
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Just how do you plan to (legally) forbid a US citizen from going wherever he wants?
You don't forbid them, you just tell them that if they go, and get arrested, even on fake, trumped up charges, they're on their own and the U.S. won't do anything to get them back.
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Easy, you go there, you are on your own. Don't call us when you get jailed. You accept all the risks.
That's how you ban Americans from going.
Your question is like saying, how do we ban murder? Well, you do it and if someone still does it, there are consequences. In the case of murder, you go to jail. In the case of you being jailed in a hostile country, you don't get any help from USA. Seems pretty fair to me.
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Here is Russia's listing:
REF: https://www.state.gov/countrie... [state.gov]
No no no... (Score:3)
1) Americans in Russia when it's so bad the State Dept issues advisories, are fools and not innocent when they cover themselves in honey and dance around a bear.
2) It is not a steep price. We catch and prevent their criminals and spies from working and later buy back American fools (and our spies.) That is the game and the price is in our efforts to capture pawns to trade... just paying ransoms would cost more.
3) We are NOT making any dent in Russian sponsored actions with the few people we catch! I doubt a
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If they can't catch REAL assets they'll just grab anybody. With a corrupt legal system working in tandum with other parts of government (without proper separation) this is incredibly easy to do... why wouldn't they??
It illustrates how much better we are when we have actual criminals and spies to trade who were legitimately guilty. That said, they could have been our spies or assets. The CIA does recruit volunteer assets to do tiny favors; given how well Russia has been wiping out the CIA in Russia over th
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In turn, Putin is incentivizing us to put real spies in his country. If he's going to treat all Americans like spies, we might as well do a little spying... but yes, it's an asymmetrical bargain because what could we learn from Russia at this point? I guess specific military plans still have some value, even if their military sucks.
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Paul Whelan was kicked out of the marines after being convicted of attempting theft. He's not a great guy, not particularly clever, and it's unlikely that anyone would
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Whether he was CIA or not when you go into a foreign country currently at war and start trying to ply secret military information from people who live there they're going to put you in prison for being a spy.
How many more? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How many more? (Score:4, Insightful)
This is just further incentive for Russia and other hostile countries to essentially kidnap Americans so that they can be used as currency in these exchanges. Meanwhile we are releasing legitimate Russian criminals. It's obvious who the losers are (the American people). Who are the winners exactly?
The Americans who were kidnapped to be used as currency in these exchanges.
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This is just further incentive for Russia and other hostile countries to essentially kidnap Americans so that they can be used as currency in these exchanges. Meanwhile we are releasing legitimate Russian criminals. It's obvious who the losers are (the American people). Who are the winners exactly?
The Americans who were kidnapped to be used as currency in these exchanges.
What about the next Americans used as currency? Are they winners too??? SMH
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What about the next Americans used as currency? Are they winners too??? SMH
If a prisoner swap gets them out of a Russian jail, yep I bet they're gonna feel like winners too.
If your point is that it's not worth it, or that we should leave folks who are in a position to have been put in a Russian jail to their fate... *shrug*
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What about the next Americans used as currency? Are they winners too??? SMH
If a prisoner swap gets them out of a Russian jail, yep I bet they're gonna feel like winners too.
If your point is that it's not worth it, or that we should leave folks who are in a position to have been put in a Russian jail to their fate... *shrug*
The point is that we are being played. And as long as we keep getting played the winner here is Russia. Every falsely accused prisoner in Russia from now on is blood on Biden's hands....
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If your point is that it's not worth it, or that we should leave folks who are in a position to have been put in a Russian jail to their fate... *shrug*
Well we obviously need something to serve as a warning to others.
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Sure, they will be winners, after being in jail for potentially many years and be under mental strain and stress for years.
Yeay winner!
All you won is your freedom, which you could have had all the time that you were seating in that jail if you didn't go to Russia.
Dumb ass winner. I guess same as playing the jackpot for 100,000 bucks and winning back 10,000.
Re:How many more? (Score:4)
Not spying also helps.
More important than "not spying" is "not being accused of spying" which unfortunately is not the same as "not spying".
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Not spying also helps.
More important than "not spying" is "not being accused of spying" which unfortunately is not the same as "not spying".
Correct.
Any foreign country can accuse any foreigner to that country of "spying". And we all know the Cold War trope: "Your papers are not in order."
The actual truth of the matter is irrelevant in international diplomacy & related d1ck-measuring contests.
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People will say anything under duress. That is why CIA torture methods are generally counter-productive to intelligence gathering efforts.
Now if you posted a citation to back up your claim, then we might have something of value to consider.
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Re:How many more? (Score:4, Interesting)
This is just further incentive for Russia and other hostile countries to essentially kidnap Americans so that they can be used as currency in these exchanges. Meanwhile we are releasing legitimate Russian criminals. It's obvious who the losers are (the American people). Who are the winners exactly?
You're thinking about it like a standard hostage taking where Russia's only incentive to take them was for ransom and the US's only recourse was the exchange.
Russia, and other hostile states, have multiple motivations to arrest foreigners on trumped up charges. They could be playing to their domestic audience, they could have been a pawn in some internal power struggle, it might be reprisals for sanctions, or a dozen other reasons why anyone in the state could be arrested on made up charges. Even without the incentive of prisoner exchanges you'll still get lots of foreigners arrested on false charges or given extreme punishments.
Similarly, Western nations have recourse other than exchanges. They can threaten increased sanctions, go after business deals that the hostile nation has in other countries, or get the leaders uninvited from various summits.
I think it's just the case Russia and the US that the Cold War exchange of spies has evolved into this.
Note, in this case the exchanged parties don't seem to have been GRU or FSB, it was just a couple cyber criminals, one of whom was politically connected.
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What the...huh? These aren't "kidnapped Americans". They are incompetent CIA officers who got caught. You think the US government is in the habit of helping Americans in trouble abroad? All you'll get is a list of local lawyers from the embassy before they wash their hands of you.
You think the US intelligence community cares if We The American People lose? They said Hunter Biden's laptop was a Russian fake when it was 100% real and packed to the brim with Genocide Joe's corruption in Ukraine. None o
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That's an impressively biased headline (Score:1)
Seriously the whole headline is just so damned weird. There's absolutely no reason to put the phrase dangerous criminal in a headline about a hostage exchange. Unless of course you've got some weird little agenda.
This nonsense is why we need to teach medial literacy in public schools. Maybe do some PSAs while we
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Sometimes it's sarcasm that gets repeated with one of the many slow reporters misunderstands... The classic reporter and editor knows how to spin for reader's attention but today they all have faster feedback and more experience with how to spin things for clickbait. Even software (AI like decades back) to write better clickbait headlines. They don't even need to insert bias -- they can have it automatically added to the headline, 1st paragraph and summary hook to get you invested enough to read the few h
Russia's playbook now (Score:1)
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Prepare for conspiracy theories.... (Score:2)
including...
Its suspicious that Trump was shot (definitely shot) and within 2 weeks there is a spy trade deal with Russia. Suspicious? You connect the dots
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...Russia was waiting for NATO to be gutted by Trump which he was caught saying he'd do 2nd term and reported to want to except he was told it was political suicide 1st term. The moment of weakness was Trump.
I call BS on that one. Putin waited until Trump was out of office before starting his campaign against Ukraine. If Trump is so weak then why? I'll wait...
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When you have a prominent Russian agent in such a high level position, you don't want to embarrass them or put them in a position of having to go against their handler. For all the work that weirdo did for Putin, there was no way the muscovite midget would do anything to overturn that boat.
And for the record, here's that Russian agent saying Putin could do whatever h [bbc.com]
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Tucker told Trump he'd be assassinated if he didn't pick Vance soon for VP. He told him twice but 2nd was not far from the attempt. That actually happened. Then Trump responds with an immediate pick of Vance days ahead of schedule, pre-empting the planned introduction by his son. It was ASAP and he never looked happy about it like he was with Pence.
Furthermore, you see his ear? healed up super fast. it was a scratch at best; most likely a shockwave and swelling-- as you can find out from people who know,
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Also, if it was 1/4 inch from his head, he's got brain damage that will surface over time ...
Curious... where did you learn that / can you provide any references that back that up? I've never heard such a claim before, and I'm skeptical at best.
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Don't bother waiting for an answer. This was a 5.56 round, not a 308 or 50 caliber (from a Barrett sniper rifle, specifically. At 150 yards, there is zero chance of any injury from a -passing- round. This "brain damage" is on the part of anyone that would believe otherwise. that round can fragment due to velocity, but even then there is no shockwave effect at all on the body. Never mind that it clearly wasn't 1/4" from the head, as it would have done a lot more damage to the ear.
In order to get actual
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"Anyone experienced with firearms beyond rudimentary familiarity will know this."
That's a standard line used by people who can't make a legit argument. i.e. Everyone who knows anything knows this, so you can't question it.
That said, I do believe he was hit by something. Maybe a bullet, maybe not. There was definitely blood, but that ear did heal amazingly quickly for a nearly 80 year old man within 2 weeks. Maybe something grazed the inside of his earlobe. That could have generated plenty of blood but also
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"Anyone experienced with firearms beyond rudimentary familiarity will know this."
That's a standard line used by people who can't make a legit argument. i.e. Everyone who knows anything knows this, so you can't question it. ...
That said, I do believe he was hit by something. Maybe a bullet, maybe not.
FYI, I believe pandaman9000 was referring to the claim that, "if it was 1/4 inch from his head, he's got brain damage that will surface over time", not to whether or not he was hit by anything (at least for that line).
Also, it's a bit hypocritical to call someone out for not providing references, only to not provide any references yourself. Do you have anything at all that you can cite that would back up the claim that a .223 rem or 5.56 nato round could cause brain damage by simply passing closely by the h
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Thanks. That's what I figured as well. Like, brain damage??? We've barely seen a hint of evidence that there was more than a small scratch.
[dons conspiracy hat] I do find it preposterous that trump hasn't posted any photos of his damaged ear, nor has he milked it for every bit of media coverage it would get, seeing as he does that for EVERY. DAMN. THING. But mostly just swept this under the rug. I wouldn't claim it was nothing, but it sure seems like more than has been disclosed.
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I totally don't think it was a fake attempt; it certainly would be hard to manage the security poorly on purpose so people weren't where they needed to be. (you've have to be the person on the radio to do so-- and if you were, then maybe since they clearly weren't working as an organized unit just on their own ... but then incompetence means bad orders might not work out as planned. anyhow, it wasn't a plot. )
Trump's already showing signs of brain damage; although, it's masked pretty well by the dementia a
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Ya know, you wrote FIVE paragraphs and you managed to make them all continuations of your own theories, and zilch in any way refers to the post you replied to (mine):
You: Also, if it was 1/4 inch from his head, he's got brain damage that will surface over time ...
Me: Curious... where did you learn that / can you provide any references that back that up? I've never heard such a claim before, and I'm skeptical at best.
Please note, I'm not commenting in any way in regards to trumps current cognitive state. I'm wondering WTF lead you to believe that a small round passing in close proximity to someones head would cause brain damage?
To the rest of your comment, I don't know who you're arguing with. The whole thing is obviously very sus. As you noted, they didn't
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How about just don't go there? (Score:4, Insightful)
These places are shitholes with no legitimate justice systems or human rights. You really should know you are risking your freedom and your life by travelling to such places. Would you climb into the lion's den or the bear display when you go to the zoo? No, that would be dumb. This is the same.
These people got lucky, but they are still stupid and should be remembered as such.
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These folks who willingly made themselves bargaining chips get to own that. Who knows, maybe they were working for the Russians all along...
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https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/01... [cnn.com]
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These places are shitholes with no legitimate justice systems or human rights.
Thanks for the warning. I was going to take my vacation in California, but I think I'll change my plans.
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commenting to undo accidental moderation (Score:2, Troll)