FBI Operated Child Porn Site

Have you ever noticed that a bunch of the FBI’s “we stopped a terrorist bombing” self-congratulatory post-arrest press conferences turn out to be about situations where the “bomb” was a dummy device built by the FBI and offered to the so-called bombers by an FBI plant? In many of those cases, the “bombing plot” actually turns out to have been just an “angry guy talking smack” plot until the FBI deliberately escalated the situation.

I can’t get that notion out of my head when I see a story like this one:

FBI Operated Child Porn Site to Nab Pedophiles

From the story:

Nebraska-based FBI agents seized the service, referred to only as “Website A” in a search warrant affidavit, on Nov. 16 and continued to operate it until Dec. 2, when it was shut down. A Seattle special agent told the court that the Bureau kept the site open in order to monitor messages from users. A U.S. District Court judge in Nebraska authorized law enforcement agents to track down the site’s user on Nov. 9.

…

While Website A operated under the arm of federal agents, its users continued to swap illicit images of children and access similar images stored on its database.

See also: Is ICE Your Admin?