Meet the Fake Twitter Identities Who Tried to Seduce Weiner

[dkf]

News that the "Gay Girl in Damascus" was actually a straight, married white male was only the latest proof that you really can't trust who anyone says they are on the internet. Even Anthony Weiner, widely considered the least internet privacy savvy figure around, managed to avoid one major pitfall, it seems. A conservative group, which calls itself the #bornfreecrew, was heavily involved with monitoring Weiner on Twitter, and the New York Times reports that it was contacted by fake identities created to gather evidence against Weiner. This is their story.

The girls: "Nikki Reid," supposedly a 16-year-old California high school girl (Twitter handle @starchild111), her mother "Patricia Reid," and "Marianela Alicea," her classmate.

The seduction: Reid's account, which was deleted two weeks ago, was created in September. but had little activity until March when she launched a campaign to get Weiner to be her prom date at Hollywood High School in May. She tweeted comments like “Will you be my prom date @RepWeiner.”

The trap: It worked, as far as we know, to the extent that Weiner began following her on Twitter ("Tweeps my progressive idol @RepWeiner is following me. Today is the best day ever!”) When Mike Stack, a 39-year-old member of the #bornfreecrew, saw this, he sent her a message that said he thought it was "creepy" that Weiner was following a minor. (Admittedly, his message to this "high school girl" sounds pretty creepy as well). But within days of this, his group was contacted by another Twitter user claiming to be Reid's classmate, Marianela Alicea, who said she had "incriminating evidence" about Weiner, but never provided any. The user stopped communicating with Stack and vanished.


http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2011/06/meet-fake-twitter-identities-who-tried-seduce-weiner/38975/

[robinlynne]

1. I couldn't follow that, but I'm tired.

[Springer9]

2. Oh ya, I always felt bad for the creeps caught on

NBC's "To Catch a Predator" too. Really, it was never their fault.

[bigwillq]

11. .....

:thumbsup:

[KittyWampus]

12. You don't get there's another issue here other than Weiner's cock, don't you?

[Dokkie]

16. It is entrapment

He was targeted, stalked for the take down. You usually dont find 16yr old girls with the brains of 30yr old men trying to seduce a horny man. I feel for most of those men who are not sexual predator who were just online looking for a good time.

[customerserviceguy]

3. OK, all that proves

is that people will try to trap you on the Internet. Moral of the story: Don't fall for the traps on the Internet!

[dkf]

4. And the Republicans have their snakes.

[customerserviceguy]

5. Well, Democratic congresscritters

should keep their snakes in their pants in the presence of a camera.

[Gabi Hayes]

6. duh....the POINT is how many dem-funded/highly organized gotcha groups

exist?

funny we've never heard of ANY

how many David Bossies or Andrew Breitbarts or Floyd Browns or Lee Atwaters or Donald Segrettis or E. Howard Hunts or Gordon Liddys (want me to go on?) do we have?

obviously Weiner has serious mental problems, and made their work easy for these fascist creeps, but don't you get it? this is how they've totally corrupted/criminalized what used to be the democratic process.

and when their dirty tricks don't work, they buy the companies that make the balloting machines, so that they can steal close elections like they did in 2004.

wake up

[sabrina 1]

7. Still missing the point and obsessed with the personal

LEGAL sex life of a US Congressmember. While ignoring the possible law-breaking organization that stalked and harrassed teenaged girls, real ones, and a US Congressman and who themselves, unlike you, have confessed that they realized they may be in trouble with the law. But they 'hated his politics'.

He was engaged in a legal activity, no matter how you try to spin it. This organization of rightwing front people, hitmen for the far right, will not stop with Anthony Weiner and they count on people like you to be distracted by the sex. Congratulations, you may just help them get away with what they do next.

[canoeist52]

8. Thanks for getting it right, Sabrina..

This is the slippery slope. It's a test to see if they can distract the people, using sex, into shunning their own. Weiner did nothing ILLEGAL!

[customerserviceguy]

18. There are a lot of legal things that most people don't want exposed

And when you expose them yourself, you move it from the private to the public.

I'm not sure you got my point, which is "Don't use the Internet to make a blooming fool of yourself."

[sabrina 1]

22. Except he did not use the internet to expose himself

In fact he did everything he could NOT to do that after making a mistake, a common one but easily fixed if you do not have an army of far-rightwing operatives with their noses glued to your twitter page 24/7 watching, waiting, gawking, spying, lying, harassing, stalking you and your supporters in an effort to shut you up regarding a tainted rightwing SC Justice bought and paid for by Citizens United.

You keep repeating THEIR lie, coloring the facts. Why? It was a political hit, and had it not been this, they would have found something else as they did for Van Jones, for Shirley Sherrod, for ACORN and if nothing was there, they would MAKE IT UP!

[customerserviceguy]

23. Sorry, I guess I consider Twitter to be part of the Internet

Just substitute the word "Twitter" wherever I've mistakenly used the word "Internet". It might make more sense that way.

If I put a billboard up above my house, and display things on it, do I have the right to complain that someone else is 'watching, waiting, gawking, or spying' on what I put there?

Which lie of theirs do I keep repeating? What have I alleged Anthony Weiner to have done that is simply not true?

[sabrina 1]

24. Twitter is the internet.

And the lie is that he deliberately put sexually explicit material 'all over the internet'. He did nothing of the kind, he deliberately tried NOT to do that by using the DM function successfully for several years. Once in those several years he hit the wrong button. Within five secs, he corrected the error.

But with perverts, one of them an ex-con and accused wife abuser, glued to his twitter account round the clock, (how creepy is that, and how possibly illegal?) one second would have been enough. Sorry you think THAT perverted behavior, plus the egregious lies spread for months 'all over the internet' by them, is acceptable.

We'll see since it was all reported to the FBI. Peeping Toms are criminals under the law. Internet law is still being written, if they had done this in RL they would be already in jail.

But for you, a man's personal sex life is the crime here??

The criminal gang of thugs working for the far right orgs behind Breitbart et al, were the ones who did what you so cavalierly accuse a Democratic Congressman of doing, thus losing all credibility on this subject.

If you are going to comment on a subject, don't use hyperbole and/or false statements especially when the available evidence to the contrary is so easily accessible.

The real perpetrators of the 'crime' you attribute to Weiner have actually confessed that it was they, not he, who 'spread it all over the internet'. At least they have been honest about it, knowing it cannot be denied. So, why are you spreading a lie that even the stalkers are not telling?

The lie comes, not even from them, but from enemies of the Democratic Party, especially the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. Odd that any democrat would want to help them in their campaign.

[customerserviceguy]

25. Correct me if I'm wrong

but I don't think I used the "all over" when describing what he did. It's impossible to get anything "all over" the Internet. As I am considered a bit of a computer expert by my supervisors, I don't get into the hyperbole that many people use when describing the Internet. I suppose that when anyone can search through that much material, and find something very quickly (try that with an old fashioned library) then it might look like it's "all over" the Internet.

How can you imply that looking at a public Twitter account 24/7 is illegal? Seems like somebody needs something better to do, and perhaps a bit creepy, but illegal? I suspect that perhaps there were some tips that led people to do that, it's not much different from police on a stake out.

Being a Peeping Tom, and looking at what people put up in a public place are two different things. I'm sorry I can't seem to convince you of that. Maybe it's the difference between my crawling into your yard, and sticking my nose under your blinds, versus walking by your front yard on the sidewalk while you're nude sunbathing. Does that analogy help you to see the difference?

For the last time, it was not the sex. It was putting oneself in a position of extreme vulnerability to one's enemies. Even if he had not accidentally posted the briefs photo on his general Twitter page, he was still sending out salacious comments and compromising images to total strangers, who he had absolutely zero idea about their trustworthiness. Didn't he learn from his surrogate father-in-law Bill Clinton that sometimes people have a Linda Tripp that they blab to?

He then compounded that by blatently lying, which just stirred up the mainstream media, and finally by making a really stupid deal that elevated an enemy of all that is progressive. He spent his time in Congress making fiery speeches and NYC media headlines rather than friends and allies. I guess he was so desperate for a friend in Congress that he actually counted Rep. Jason Chaffetz, a Mormon from Utah (who had been raised as a Jew) who seems to be the political opposite of Anthony Weiner, as one of his closest friends.

If he's got to go to the very far right to find a buddy, it's a sign that he didn't have the backup needed to do something as risky and as foolish as he did. In the end, it probably was Hillary Clinton who convinced Huma to tell him to resign, she doesn't want any more Democratic sex scandals between now and 2016 to remind people of events of a dozen years ago.

[sabrina 1]

27. The words 'sex' and 'scandal' do not go together

for any true progressive. That is the hypocritical position of the fundies on the right, and we've seen how much their public condemnations of sex match their private behavior.

You are not in his district, or you would not have made that rightwing charge against him doing 'nothing but making fiery speeches' rather than 'friends and allies'. That is where that false charge originated, on Fox and Drudge and Rush. Again, why are you continually repeating rightwing falsehoods about one of the most effective Democratic Congressmen, certainly for his own district??

He had plenty of friends in Congress so I do not know where you are getting this nonsense, unless you are tuned in to Fox. This is another part of the memo sent out to smear him by the right. You should check your sources. He certainly had no friends on the rightwing of the Dem party, but that is to his credit.

One of Obama's best friends is a Repub, in fact he has quite a few of them. Some he even put in his cabinet. I have Republican friends, and family members, some of them even religious fundies. What's your point? He actually had fewer Republican friends than most of them.

You are trying too hard to smear one of the most popular and most effective and courageous Democratic Congressmen to come along for a long time. Is it because of his incredible liberal voting record?

He will be back, his district wants him back. But it may not be in politics. Clearly when a member of Congress does his/her job part of which is to try to keep the SC court honest, this is what happens. He might choose another venue to continue his work where the leadership of the Dem Party, the media and rightwing zealots cannot silence him.

As for what was illegal about what was done to him? The perpetrators themselves have acknowledged that they 'might have crossed legal lines' to explain why the erased their online records and tried to disappear when the story became public. They were STALKERS of High School girls, they harassed and stalked a US Congressman.

As for this:

I suspect that perhaps there were some tips that led people to do that, it's not much different from police on a stake out;

Unbelievable!! Do you know ANYTHING about this political hit job at all?? 'tips'?? It is now common knowledge coming from the frightened stalkers themselves, that the initial smears were LIES, made up by someone even they did not know, but agreed to spread around because 'we did not like his politics'. Egregious and disgusting lies that had and have no basis in fact. Breitbart/Rove whisper campaign tactics. Thanks for your support of what is agreed by most progressives to be destroying the political discourse in this country! The truth is KNOW so why are you still making stuff up? Why?

As for 'police stakeouts'?? There needs to be at least a suspicion of a crime in this country for a citizen to be 'staked out' by the police and such actions taken by them must be authorized officially.

I have never heard ANYONE, not even a Republican other than liars like Rove and Briebart, condone the use of accused wife abusers and excons to 'stake out' perfectily innocent Americans and especially US Representatives.

Unbelievable. The only reason I even bother to respond to posts like this is because I will not allow Rovian smear campaigns to go uncorrected.

[customerserviceguy]

28. Sometimes they do

When a person is engaging in what is truly a private behavior between themselves and another (OK, perhaps a group) of mutually consenting adults, you're right. But when it gets broadcast to random strangers, they take the extreme risk that someone is going to blab about it, especially if they're well-known or prominent in some field. That's what I find as being reckless in this situation. Maybe in your circle of friends and family, you all tweet pictures of your genitals to each other, but most Americans still find this very weird.

No, I'm not in his district, but I do receive NYC television stations, and he makes the news often enough. Perhaps you can direct me to legislation he's successfully sponsored. As for Fox, I get the regular Fox channel (to watch "Family Guy", and football) but I don't receive Faux Snooze. I found out about Weiner's association with Chaffetz on some conventional news sites from Google News searches. I guess it's not impossible that Fox was one of the sources. And I do admit to reading Politico.com, some columnist there did suggest that Weiner did not have a lot of friends in Congress. Maybe that was wrong, but in the end, he didn't have a lot of defenders.

I'm not smearing him, he's already done enough to himself in that aspect. I'm glad it's over, and other than a few too-late revelations by those who missed having the fifteen minutes of fame that the porn star got with Gloria Allred in the news conference, it's probably over and done. Good.

He certainly has the right to run for another office, maybe even mayor of NYC when the time comes up, and he has every right to do so. Being re-elected after a scandal has a marvelous effect of making that scandal fade away. If there is any place that would 'understand' Anthony Weiner, it would be NYC. That might just be his best bet to recover from this, but he certainly cannot count on the help from the Clintons he calculated he would get when he married Huma.

Yes, the police need a valid suspicion of a crime before they do a stake out, the paparazzi needs way less than that. The Internet has spawned a pajamas paparazzi out there, who seem to have nothing better to do than look for misdeeds by their political enemies. I fault Anthony Weiner for not considering that while he was sending pictures of him in a washcloth from the House gym to women he really didn't know.

In conclusion, I don't really think Karl Rove was involved in this, but I'd bet he's sad about that.

[WinkyDink]

30. Ah, but they had no need to make it up, did they? Thus proving it is pointless even to mention it.

[sabrina 1]

31. They made up lies. I don't understand your point.

They were wrong, so it is certainly NOT pointless to mention it. In fact, I believe Weiner may have a cause of action against them.

What he actually was engaged in was cyber sex, a perfectly legal activity which appears to be very popular. It is today's version of Playboy, just more interactive. But this is NOT what the sick, delusional, idealogues on the far right were attempting to claim. I think it is frightenting, what we have discovered about what they are capable of.

[KittyWampus]

13. WRONG! It proves there are DU'ers ignorant of history. Brock told us about the "Elves" who worked to

smear Democrats whether they were "guilty" or not.

So this is the new generation. And apparently, many DU'ers prefer ignoring history.

A history that includes not just smears against Clinton but ACORN & Shirley Sherrod.

[customerserviceguy]

19. And it was the very presence of such dirty tricks groups

that made Weiner's denials pluasible for the first week. We know they're out there, but that does not give someone on our side license to do something stupid, then figure he can deny it because there are dirty tricksters.

Weiner gave a measure of credibility to Breitbart that he'd never had before, that was the worst of what he did. If he had come clean from the get-go, he might still have his seat in Congress right now. By inviting the media into his office to lie to them, and by capitulating to Breitbart's phony promise not to release the money shot in exchange for a chest-thumping photo-op, Anthony Weiner made things more difficult for every Democratic officeholder.

That's why he really didn't have any friends at the end of this scandal, he's thrown red meat to all of the snakes out there, they are encouraged by this incident to become the next Breitbart wanna-be.

[karynnj]

21. Good analysis

Another point learning of these fake twitter ids is that you expect a Congressman to have the sense you want your high schooler to have.

From a tech article written for those of us who don't tweet, the fact that he was following several of these young girls was both a red flag and quite public. It seems obvious that the reason he was following was to allow the "private" messaging. That he was doing this likely acted to encourage the rightwingers with fake identities to try to become part of this group he spoke to privately.

Initially, my response was that, if Weiner really had not sent or posted the photo, it could be a very ugly trick. There is no reasonable way for any male to prove that such a picture is not them. It does appear that there is ability for authorities to find where posts come from - which is reassuring - as it means that ultimately if someone were being smeared, they could be vindicated.

[NYCGirl]

9. The irony is that if Weiner had used an account that was

not under his real name to meet girls, he'd still have a job.

But he wouldn't attract political groupies, so there's that.

[bigwillq]

10. We all know the dangers of the internet.

Blame goes to Weiner for falling for the traps.

[Hutzpa]

14. We all know the dangers of morons using the internet

sounds a lot better.

[KittyWampus]

15. That's not the freaking issue. The issue is, there are "Elves" who will smear Dems with lies.

I am disgusted at the way DU'ers are unable to see beyond Weiner's cock when the story turns onto the smear artists who will target any Democrat with lies. That Weiner was stupid enough to do what he did is BESIDE THE POINT HERE.

Did ACORN do anything wrong?

Did Shirley Sherrod?

[bigwillq]

17. If Weiner didn't do what he did

the "elves" wouldn't be able to get him on this issue. Case closed. They might have gotten him on another issue, but not this one.

[Zax2me]

20. Weiner the victim.

Card played.
And lost.

[cherokeeprogressive]

26. I don't see a guy who tweets pictures of himself with his dick in his hand as "victim".

It's really that simple.

[WinkyDink]

29. I wonder why someone figured Weiner was good for this type of trap.

[xchrom]

32. what i like about this thread are the details you've laid out here, sabrina.

and i think the 'Elves' are very important issue that's suddenly gone back under the radar.