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US Teen Pleads Guilty To Teaching ISIS About Bitcoin Via Twitter
jfruh writes: Ali Shukri Amin, a 17-year-old from Virginia, has pleaded guilty to charges that he aided ISIS by giving the group advice about using bitcoin. An odd and potentially troubling aspect of the charges is that this all took place in public — he Tweeted out links to an article on his blog about how bitcoin and Darknet could help jihadi groups, making it difficult to say whether he was publishing information protected under free speech or was directly advising the terrorist organization. Free speech qua speech isn't the only relevant charge, though: Amin "also admitted facilitating the travel of another teenager, 18-year-old Reza Niknejad, to Syria to join IS. Amin faces a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison if convicted."
What worries me is that some asshole politician is going to try and use that as an argument against crypto-currencies, as if fiat money was any better.
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The 'people from places you've heard of deciding to pay a visit to scenic Syria and fight for the caliphate' phenomenon has caused a lot of hand-wringing and talk about 'radicalization' and 'grooming' and so on(especially from the brits; but some here as well).
And I can see the reason for concern, from the perspective of a desire to see ISIS collapse sooner rather than later. The expats haven't, on the whole, been marked by particularly notable skills or anything; but unless they are out and out fuckups, they are presumably of some use.
On the other hand, though, there doesn't seem to be much attention being paid to the positive side: If going to some sandtrap hellhole to fight a meatgrinder land war in the service of the Caliph is something you'd do voluntarily; it seems fairly likely that you are not exactly liberal democracy's best buddy, or a strong candidate for 'most likely to get along just fine with the apostates and unbelievers'. Isn't having such people voluntarily decide to leave us to sin in peace and go travel far away to take substantial risks, up to and including fatal ones, rather convenient?
I've been surprised by the amount of chatter among various government talking heads about trying to prevent the would-be jihadis from traveling. Were I in their position; I'd be keeping a careful eye on anyone who tries to come back; but would be very much tempted to politely ignore anyone heading out for martyrdom and hope that they'll no longer be my problem.
"Hey, I'm gong over to Syria to kill westerners and enslave Christians for the raping and whatnot. Give me a lift?"
How is that not aid?
If he didn't know, that would be one thing. But the Twitter stuff makes it seem pretty likely he did know why the guy was going...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It's a crime to support certain terrorist organizations and perfectly acceptable to support others -- which congress member was a supporter of the IRA? Oh yeah -- Peter King: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03...
I find it very disturbing that certain beliefs are so totally verboten that to speak of them at all seems to be a Federal crime, and worse than that, so many people don't even see it as a problem. What we have are random politicians or cabinet members declaring a group to be off limits -- no declaration of war, no trial with public evidence, just a bureaucratic determination. So what group is next? Model rocketeers? Certainly the Sierra Club. At the word of an official in DC you could basically be killed or imprisoned -- at least this kid got a show trial. God Bless America, Home of the Free [to think and speak in an approved manner].
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
Treason...
It's amazing how different the views can be on why the USA is mucking about in Iraq.
In one view, the US government (and, by extension all of Western civilization) is teetering on the brink of being overthrown by ISIS - and any assistance to ISIS is treason.
In another view, it's basically just a Banana Republic situation where some corporate fatcats with close ties to the US government saw an opportunity to make themselves a few extra bucks exploiting Iraq's oil - using the US military as their muscle to keep the locals in check.
Want to end terrorist Isalm, target the two originators Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Exactly, because ... Islamic terrorists ... like ... Israel ... and they are ... buddies and ... WHAT?
Perhaps you are arguing that Israel creates Islamic terror groups by its actions. While that is certainly an arguable issue, it is clearly not the sole root since Al Qaida explicitly cited the basing of US troops in Saudi Arabia as a motivation for the 9/11 attacks. Which had nothing to do with Israel, and was actually Islamic terror based on anger at Saudi Arabia ... which you say is the originator ... of ... WAIT, WHAT AGAIN?
So far the only government to tackle Saudi Arabia has been the Russian government with direct threats should any Saudi Arabian government led terrorists attack occur during the Russian Olympics. Shame Uncle Tom Obama the choom gang coward is such a god damned weasel
This seems like a reasonable argument that ... wait ... DAFUQ? How did this get to +3?
Congratulations Slashdot on hitting on a topic that somehow makes even init/SystemD discussions seam rational and well researched.
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