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."

Comments

What about John McCain?

[tmosley]

John McCain met with their leaders, played grab ass with them on camera, and for all we know, had gay sex with them in addition to providing them with MILLIONS in startup funds. Why isn't his ass hanging from the Brooklyn Bridge?

Oh, because he's connected and thus above the law. I almost forgot where I was.

Re:Mixture

[anagama]

If Peter King can be an elected Congressional member after supporting a terrorist group, why should the kid go to jail for less support?

What you are really supporting here is for an arbitrary designation of groups to have legal consequences, which means things have devolved down to the point that whoever is in charge gets to decide whether belonging to a group, or supporting a group, is worthy of being gulaged or disappeared. We're entering a very dangerous time I think, not from ISIS (*), but from our own government.

(*) ISIS can't do squat aside from engaging in random crimes in the US -- there's just no way they are an existential threat to America. They're like a stubbed toe -- annoying, momentarily painful, and totally not a big deal.

Re:ISIS is the bad guy?

[MechaStreisand]

Am I fully aware of the past crimes of the CIA? Oh, fuck yeah. Have I read Chomsky and shit? Yes. The neocons were full of it, and I was against all of these wars.

I like how you name drop Chomsky and the rest to try to make us think that you are on our side, so that maybe we won't see the rest of your bullshit.

But we do. Assad is a monster? Has Assad deliberately destabilized other countries, infiltrated their governments, spied on their people, interfered with their internal affairs, bombed innocent people without a declaration of war? Or is that someone else?