Talk:Operation Torpedo

Page Deficiencies

 * need to discover the start and end date of the operation
 * Need to find more citations, preferably press releases from participating countries
 * The second set of citation sources will be from testimony and other information released in discovery in the trials
 * Lastly, FOIA requests, this would be a good project to submit to redditors and the FOIAproject.org
 * The budget for the operation for each country.
 * The legality of the operation, (warrants, whether the warrants were upheld) appeals, questions of law etc.
 * Analysis by law reviews, news organziations and other parties
 * Table that has links for each of the people that were prosecuted in each country
 * Lastly, getting the page created in each of the countries that participated in their language.

US Prosecutions
18 Convictions of 25 Suspects

Moved page building work to Operation Torpedo/sandbox. If you want to help build out the prosecutions table, please help there.

Justification for being part of the Wikiproject Law and Wikiproject Law Enforcement
Reading the scope for articles that should be included and ranked within the Wikproject Law enforcement, I strongly believe that Operation Torpedo meets the requires for inclusion.

Wikiproject Law Enforcement Inclusion: Topics directly related to policing and law enforcement, including types of police, specialized roles, organisations, institutions, departments, agencies, uniforms and ranks, crime science theory and research, investigative techniques and procedures, tools, equipment and assets used, services provided, related statistics, governance, empowering legislation and administration, issues and controversies, history, pioneers and notable individuals. Offender rehabilitation, Victim support, Police and law enforcement employee related education, sports, recreation, off-duty activities and involvement in community service. Miscellaneous policing related topics.

Wikiproject law inclusion: aimed at creating a greater consistency among the law-related articles. Key areas of concern include consistency in defining concepts across multiple jurisdictions and proper categorization of articles.

The article Operation Torpedo represents one of the first operations to use a NIT, and also represents a significant redaction or sealing of documents to preclude the public from overseeing and understanding the methods that were used. This operation was one of the first operations that authorized the government to spend two weeks distributing child pornography on the internet. There are still significant legal controversies arising from this case and cases like it, whereby the U.S. government and other goverment's receive a lead/tip from a foreign government without submitting the method the tip/lead was obtained to the public for audit, or judicial review.

As there were a great number of motions and appeals that occurred arguing questions of law during the prosecution of the defendants that were alleged to have accessed the alleged contraband websites, this qualifies for the Wiki Law project as well.eximo (talk) 22:40, 22 February 2024 (UTC)


 * @Jiwhit01: Thanks for explaining that. Unfortunately, the article doesn't make the point that you are making here that the Network Investigative Technique (NIT) is a new and novel approach to this sort of investigation. Also, the article doesn't explain how the questions of law have been extended and argued by the defendants, either. Unless the article, itself, is going to cover these aspects of the case I am not going to pick up on the relevance of these WikiProjects to the article. I cannot read your mind about what the article implies, I can only read the article and assess it based on the words it contains, not your thoughts about the article and what you believe. If you believe that strongly, then please explain this in the article itself, with supporting sources, too. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 10:14, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
 * @Cameron DeweThat is a very understandable reason. And I take your point in the "mind reading" issue, it is well received.  I acknowledge that the addition to the project may be premature, but in reading the language of the projects, was led to believe that it's not the quality of the article that allows for the addition, but the potential of the article that generates it's level of importance and inclusion.
 * As far as any and all multinational law enforcement operations, I believe they likely all warrant inclusion in the wikiproject for law enforcement. Perhaps you can suggest reasons or tests that limit the inclusion of all?
 * As far as the wikiproject for law, I will cede that this article is only of Start quality. While substantial common law was pioneered or refined as a result of the cases working their way through the courts derived from this operation, one of the most important questions of law that occurred was approval for the US government to operate and distribute child pornography for 19 days by running the host websites to deploy the malware - see controversy. eximo (talk) 15:47, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
 * @Jiwhit01 or "eximo": Part of the issue here is that law enforcement agencies around the world routinely form joint task-forces to investigate multi-national and trans-border crime. That is why Interpol exists. However, while a joint investigation team might be formed, this is not multinational law enforcement. Each agency remains independent to enforce the laws of its own country within that country's borders. The extent to which the article explains how this joint investigative operation worked would determine whether or not it falls within the scope of WikiProject Law Enforcement, or not. Since the article falls within the scope of WikiProject Crime and Criminal Biography, investigation by law enforcement agencies is a given, so the investigation of the crime is outside the scope of WikiProject Law Enforcement. The question is what else in the article is relevant to law enforcement? The actions of the FBI running the host website to distribute malware via pornography would seem to be more related to the task force about the FBI than the more general ones about Law Enforcement, or the Law. So I have added that task force to the United States banner. However, when it comes to adding WikiProject banners one must consider over-bannering, too. This article would seem to be rather generously number of banners for WikiProjects, already. The FBI seems to have been the driving force here, not the law enforcement agencies in other countries, whose roles appeared to be primarily investigating what the FBI found. There comes a point where one has to to consider is there any additional benefit having the extra WikiProjects on board, and what more can they contribute? In this case, I do not think there is - but that is my opinion. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 00:42, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

Move website description to it's own article
The website description is lengthy and not necessary to be included in the overall operation page. It should have it's own article as has been done in other operations that cracked down on a population utilizing a website for distribution of CSAM eximo (talk) 21:29, 23 February 2024 (UTC)