Jeff Sessions wants to stop dark web drug sales
Attorney General Jeff Sessions loves the drug war, and he's ready to fight it in a new theater of battle: the dark web.
Sessions' Department of Justice has announced the creation of the Joint Criminal Opioid Darknet Enforcement team (super cool acronym for all the kids out there: J-CODE), which the FBI says will work on "disrupting the sale of drugs via the darknet and dismantling criminal enterprises that facilitate this trafficking."
How that will happen, FiveThirtyEight reports, is not clear. Past FBI efforts in this area have been less than stellar. For example, the American Civil Liberties Union obtained FBI documents in 2016 that revealed that the agency took control of about half of the dark web's child pornography sites and then continued to operate them out of federal facilities in an attempt to catch their anonymous users. In many of the resulting trials, the evidence collected via this ethical morass was deemed inadmissible.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The dark web drug war will pose significant challenges beyond those inherent in the larger war on drugs, which after half a century shows no effect on addiction rates. First, when one dark web site goes down, another reliably springs up to take its place. And second, as cybersecurity researcher Eric Jardine told FiveThirtyEight, this issue is "global in terms of its potential spread and facilitation." The internet is everywhere, so fighting dark net drug sales just in the U.S. is likely a futile project.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
-
Magazine interactive crossword - May 3, 2024
Puzzles and Quizzes Issue - May 3, 2024
By The Week US Published
-
Magazine solutions - May 3, 2024
Puzzles and Quizzes Issue - May 3, 2024
By The Week US Published
-
Magazine printables - May 3, 2024
Puzzles and Quizzes Issue - May 3, 2024
By The Week US Published
-
Puffed rice and yoga: inside the collapsed tunnel where Indian workers await rescue
Speed Read Workers trapped in collapsed tunnel are suffering from dysentery and anxiety over their rescue
By Sorcha Bradley, The Week UK Published
-
More than 2,000 dead following massive earthquake in Morocco
Speed Read
By Justin Klawans Published
-
Mexico's next president will almost certainly be its 1st female president
Speed Read
By Peter Weber Published
-
North Korea's Kim to visit Putin in eastern Russia to discuss arms sales for Ukraine war, U.S. says
Speed Read
By Peter Weber Published
-
Gabon's military leader sworn in following coup in latest African uprising
Speed Read
By Justin Klawans Published
-
Nobody seems surprised Wagner's Prigozhin died under suspicious circumstances
Speed Read
By Peter Weber Published
-
Western mountain climbers allegedly left Pakistani porter to die on K2
Speed Read
By Justin Klawans Published
-
'Circular saw blades' divide controversial Rio Grande buoys installed by Texas governor
Speed Read
By Peter Weber Published