[tor-talk] Raid of LFM studio over supposed access of onion site by unknown party

[Chris]

I thought I'd just bring to the attention of the Tor community a very 
public (it was recorded and those involved have spoken about it) raid 
that occurred upon which the FBI listed in the warrant an onion site 
that was connected to what appears to have been Playpen where child porn 
was being distributed by the FBI. In this incident they placed bits of 
code on users of the sites systems which enabled them to identify the 
user's IP.

While it is believe that the home and studio that was raided did not 
contain any child pornography the objective seems to have been to 
discredit a very public critic of the FBI: Ian Freeman.

http://freekeene.com/2016/03/22/news-and-blog-coverage-of-fbi-raid/
https://www.freetalklive.com/archives

This appears to be a direct attack on political persons in the 
libertarian community. It is not the first attack. Local government 
raided the KAT (Keen Activist Center, which I believe is the same place) 
a few years back and there have been many other legal attacks on Ian and 
other libertarians in the community. Including an attack on James 
Cleveland for recording the police (he won) and Rich Paul (he was 
arrested for selling pot, but the actual amount was insignificant, and 
immediately tried to get him to be an informant on the KAT, he turned 
that down and went to trial, and got a year, but risked spending as much 
as 100 years in doing so). Among many other legal shenanigans... all for 
being peaceful activists...

Anyway- I thought people may want to keep an eye on this. People wonder 
why we need Tor. Well, not only do we need it overseas we need it right 
here in the United States. If you speak publicly against the mainstream 
or against the FBI's choices (like distributing child porn, which two 
weeks earlier was covered by the show, and they were critical of the FBI 
in doing this) you might just get raided. I am not aware of the FBI 
actually raiding anybody else in connection to Playpen (or users anyway, 
yet) so it seems quite politically motivated. I'm also a little doubtful 
there ever actually was a connection here. Somebody 'accidentally' 
misread something and testified to get the warrant in order to discredit 
them or similar is my suspicion right now. They'll probably find 
something, but it won't be child porn, and even if they did, I'd call it 
suspect, given all the facts. The FBI aren't angels and play dirty all 
the time. Yet- we are suppose to trust them, the courts, etc and the 
convictions (or guilty pleas when they twist your arm so there are no 
other options of defense).