FBI created fake Seattle Times Web page to nab bomb-threat suspect
Originally published October 27, 2014 at 7:43 PM | Page
modified October 28, 2014 at 5:03 PM
FBI created fake Seattle Times Web page to nab
bomb-threat suspect
The FBI created a fake news story on a bogus Seattle
Times Web page to plant software in the computer of a suspect in a series of
bomb threats to Timberline High School in 2007, documents reveal.
By Mike Carter
Seattle Times staff reporter
The FBI in Seattle created a fake news story on a bogus
Seattle Times web page to plant software in the computer of a suspect in a
series of bomb threats to Lacey’s Timberline High School in 2007, according to
documents obtained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) in San
Francisco.
The deception was publicized Monday when Christopher
Soghoian, the principal technologist for the American Civil Liberties Union in
Washington, D.C., revealed it on Twitter.
In an interview, Soghoian called the incident
“outrageous” and said the practice could result in “significant collateral
damage to the public trust” if law enforcement begins co-opting the media for
its purposes.
The EFF documents reveal that the FBI dummied up a story
with an Associated Press byline about the Thurston County bomb threats with an
email link “in the style of The Seattle Times,” including details about
subscriber and advertiser information.
The link was sent to the suspect’s MySpace account. When
the suspect clicked on the link, the hidden FBI software sent his location and
Internet Protocol information to the agents. A juvenile suspect was identified
and arrested June 14.
The revelation brought a sharp response from the
newspaper.
“We are outraged that the FBI, with the apparent
assistance of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, misappropriated the name of The
Seattle Times to secretly install spyware on the computer of a crime suspect,”
said Seattle Times Editor Kathy Best.
“Not only does that cross a line, it erases it,” she
said.
“Our reputation and our ability to do our job as a
government watchdog are based on trust. Nothing is more fundamental to that
trust than our independence — from law enforcement, from government, from
corporations and from all other special interests,” Best said. “The FBI’s
actions, taken without our knowledge, traded on our reputation and put it at
peril.”
An AP spokesman also criticized the tactic.
“We are extremely concerned and find it unacceptable that
the FBI misappropriated the name of The Associated Press and published a false
story attributed to AP,” Paul Colford, director of AP media relations. “This
ploy violated AP’s name and undermined AP’s credibility.”
Frank Montoya Jr., the special agent in charge of the FBI
in Seattle, defended the investigation and the technique, which court records
show led to the arrest and conviction of a 15-year-old student.
“Every effort we made in this investigation had the goal
of preventing a tragic event like what happened at Marysville and Seattle
Pacific University,” Montoya said. “We identified a specific subject of an
investigation and used a technique that we deemed would be effective in
preventing a possible act of violence in a school setting.
“Use of that type of technique happens in very rare
circumstances and only when there is sufficient reason to believe it could be
successful in resolving a threat,” he said.
Ayn Dietrich-Williams, the spokeswoman for the
FBI-Seattle, pointed out that the bureau did not use a “real Seattle Times
article, but material generated by the FBI in styles common in reporting and
online media.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Tessa Gorman, chief of the
office’s criminal division, was reviewing the EFF documents provided to her by
The Times and had no immediate comment. Kathryn Warma, the prosecutor who
oversaw the case, has since retired.
The EFF posted 172 pages of documents concerning the
FBI’s use of a software tool called a “Computer and Internet Protocol Address
Verifier” (CIPAV) in two cases — one involving the Timberline High School bomb
threats and the other involving an extortion attempt against a cruise line in
Florida. More than half of the documents relate to the Seattle case.
According to the documents, CIPAV lets the FBI
“geophysically” locate a computer and its Internet Protocol address.
Soghoian said the software is activated when someone
clicks on the bogus link. The technique apparently exploits the same
computer-security vulnerabilities used by hackers.
Police in Lacey, Thurston County, contacted the Northwest
Cyber-Crime Task Force after the school began receiving a series of bomb
threats beginning in late May 2007 and continuing into early June. The school
was forced to evacuate students at least twice, and police were unable to
identify a suspect.
The documents indicate the FBI in Seattle obtained a
search warrant to “deploy” the CIPAV software after the task force, which is
run by the FBI, received a public tip about a suspect. Special Agent Norman
Sanders, in seeking the warrant, said the bureau would send a “communication”
to the suspect’s computer that would make the computer identify itself for the
agent.
The case was taken up by the U.S. Attorney’s Office,
which helped draft and approve the warrant. The warrant does not say that
“communication” would be a bogus news story that appeared to be published
online by The Seattle Times.
Mike Carter: mcarter@seattletimes.com or 206-464-3706
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