Click a Link, Go to Jail for 10 Years

Matt Welch | March 21, 2008

reason contributor Declan McCullagh uncovers the latest in hi-tech lynching:

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.

Read the whole investigative nightmare here.