Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Tuesday April 25 2017, @08:41AM   Printer-friendly
from the alarm-ing dept.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/04/radioactive-boy-scout-regularly-visited-by-fbi-for-a-decade-father-says/

David Charles Hahn, who was nicknamed the “Radioactive Boy Scout,” received regular visits from the FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation] for nearly a decade from 2005 through 2015, Ars has learned.

Hahn, who was profiled by Harper’s Magazine in 1998 for his attempts to build a homemade breeder nuclear reactor in his mother’s backyard shed, passed away late last year in Michigan at the age of 39. Last month, Ars reported that Hahn did not die as a result of radiation poisoning.

Upon his death, we filed numerous Freedom of Information Act requests with various federal agencies, including the FBI. Amongst the documents we received were three FBI reports dating between 2007 and 2010. They detail three separate instances when people reported to law enforcement that they believed that Hahn may be trying to restart his nuclear activities. When local and federal authorities investigated, they found no such evidence.


Original Submission

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
(1)
  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by kaszz on Tuesday April 25 2017, @08:49AM (17 children)

    by kaszz (4211) on Tuesday April 25 2017, @08:49AM (#499195) Journal

    As the cause of death is alcohol poisoning it's easy to think that not being able to explore his science interests or starting a relevant career took the soul out of him.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25 2017, @09:05AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25 2017, @09:05AM (#499197)

      Cause of death sounds bullshit. (BAC was "404". Right.)
      From what I heard, He had a massive inoperable tumor surrounding his heart.

    • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25 2017, @09:24AM (3 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25 2017, @09:24AM (#499199)

      Impossible. If a dead end life could be soul crushing, Dick-Hard Bathroom Stall-Man should have died when Linux destroyed any hope of ever finishing GNU.

      • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Tuesday April 25 2017, @09:52AM (2 children)

        by kaszz (4211) on Tuesday April 25 2017, @09:52AM (#499210) Journal

        His goal was likely open and free software. If it happened to be GNU or Linux was of less importance. Besides more projects enables even more projects. So it wasn't hopeless. It just took a new direction.

        • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25 2017, @10:21AM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25 2017, @10:21AM (#499216)

          Sure then why are his panties all twisted about GNU/Linux.

          And have you seen stallman.org.

          What's bad about: Airbnb | Amazon | Amtrak | Apple | Ebooks | Eventbrite | Evernote | Facebook | Google | Intel | LinkedIn | Lyft | Meetup | Microsoft | Netflix | Pay Toilets | Skype | Spotify | Twitter | Uber |

          That's the entire tech industry on the shit list. A tech industry Stallman himself enabled through free software. Seems the tech industry took that new direction and turned to shit.

          Stallman keeps on living to complain about everyone who fucked up his life's work.

          • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Tuesday April 25 2017, @11:42AM

            by kaszz (4211) on Tuesday April 25 2017, @11:42AM (#499235) Journal

            In a alternative world those services would run some mutant Xenix-MS-Embedded that would require you to take certification X,Y,Z and pay corporate license to even test the software so you could apply for a job that provided these services. And only devices approved by the emperor may run and only hardware approved by the same prick would run. Security critical bugs would go unfixed for decades. No software could be developed without access to the said software environment which require a corporate license etc.

            So while it didn't go all his way. It sure did go a long way.

            The problem with corporations is big corporations and their distance to accountability and ability to externalize costs.

            Now if someone wants to push the future, have a look at Hurd and microkernels. They may not be the future but they do certainly have advantages that may be interesting to explore. Even more so now that multi-processors are common while memory and processing speed is cheap.

    • (Score: 2) by bradley13 on Tuesday April 25 2017, @09:43AM (8 children)

      by bradley13 (3053) on Tuesday April 25 2017, @09:43AM (#499207) Homepage Journal

      The father confirmed the cause of death [arstechnica.com]. Yes, the BAC was 0.404. No reason to suppose he would like about this.

      The guy was a vet; maybe he had PTSD, or some other psychological problem. Having the FBI regularly popping up on your doorstep can't have helped. One wonders at their ability to get a new warrant every stinking year.

      --
      Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
      • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Tuesday April 25 2017, @09:49AM (6 children)

        by kaszz (4211) on Tuesday April 25 2017, @09:49AM (#499209) Journal

        Maybe he should moved to another country?

        • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25 2017, @10:08AM (3 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25 2017, @10:08AM (#499212)

          No country is safe from meddling Americans.

          • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25 2017, @05:54PM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25 2017, @05:54PM (#499436)

            Re-founded Kekistan will be free of the Imperial influence.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25 2017, @06:40PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25 2017, @06:40PM (#499475)

              Mod Parent KEK

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25 2017, @09:06PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25 2017, @09:06PM (#499576)

            Well, the Transnistria, that's not got much American in it.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25 2017, @12:55PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25 2017, @12:55PM (#499254)

          > Maybe he should moved to another country?

          Its hard to tell if you are being serious. Surely no educated adult is that naive, right?
          Life isn't that simple, especially for people without means.
          Nevermind that the same notoriety which caused the FBI to show up regularly would deter most countries from permitting him to emigrate.

        • (Score: 2) by julian on Tuesday April 25 2017, @05:35PM

          by julian (6003) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday April 25 2017, @05:35PM (#499421)

          That's virtually impossible even for people of middle class means. Expatriating is a luxury of the rich, and those with highly desired technical skills (doctors, engineers) which usually coincides with being "rich" enough anyway. Poor? Middle class? You're stuck where you were planted.

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by butthurt on Tuesday April 25 2017, @11:47PM

        by butthurt (6141) on Tuesday April 25 2017, @11:47PM (#499693) Journal

        > [...] maybe he had PTSD, or some other psychological problem.

        [...] he is diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic with bi-polar disorder. He is on medication for both [...]

        -- http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2506549/Uh-oh-Radioactive-Boy-Scout-built-nuclear-reactor-Detroit-shed-sparking-evacuation-40-000-wants-invent-lightbulb-lasts-100-years.html [dailymail.co.uk]

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25 2017, @11:15AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25 2017, @11:15AM (#499232)

      Doesn't help that he never learned who his accusers were.
      They redacted all the name of people who made accusations about him.
      I wonder if he really stole those smoke detectors in 2007?

    • (Score: 2) by driverless on Wednesday April 26 2017, @01:45AM

      by driverless (4770) on Wednesday April 26 2017, @01:45AM (#499761)

      He had serious, lifelong mental health problems that predated the "radioactive boy scout" thing. It's quite reasonable that people were concerned about what he would get up to next, and asked the FBI to keep an eye on him.

  • (Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25 2017, @10:35AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25 2017, @10:35AM (#499224)

    [This entire post is NSFV (Not Safe For Viewing)!]

    Hahn [xvideos.com] was being harassed for exercising his 2nd Amendment rights! [redtube.com] Breeder reactors [pornhub.com] are necessary to protect ourselves from the authoritarian [xnxx.com] government!

    We must never forget those [pornhub.com] who have been murdered [xvideos.com], imprisoned [pornhub.com], harassed [xnxx.com] and otherwise fucked over [twistedporn.com] by the totalitarian US regime [bdsmtubeporn.org]!
    Chinga [spankbang.com] El [pornhub.com] Federales [pornhub.com]!

    Parma!
    Milpitas!
    Ruby Ridge!
    Laguna Beach!
    Waco!
    Plant City!
    Lakewood!
    Justus Township!
    Cow Palace!
    Broadview Heights!
    Rainbow Farm!
    Encino!
    Weston!
    Belleclaire!
    Short Creek!

    I've got a nuclear-tipped stinger [pornhub.com] for you to suck [pornhub.com] on, ATF!

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25 2017, @04:42PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25 2017, @04:42PM (#499365)

      Cow Palace!

      Is this in the cow level?

      How does the cows guy fit into all this?

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25 2017, @10:07PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25 2017, @10:07PM (#499627)

        Perhaps this Cow Palace [wikipedia.org]?

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday April 25 2017, @01:09PM (1 child)

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday April 25 2017, @01:09PM (#499267)

    He did get the last laugh in that the FBI is famous for running entrapment schemes so they tried over and over for years to get the guy into some semi-false-flag op where they either make some prosecuter's career OR they let him do a dirty bomb and then clamp down on civil rights as a response, either way "they" win, but somehow the guy verbally tapdanced out of being some agent's ride to the career top his whole life. Good for him! I mean its sad anyone dies, but he fought a good hard fight against the FBI trying to use him, right up to his end, and that part should be celebrated.

    Could be they got pissed off that he wouldn't cooperate, so they killed up, but even if so, still he died not giving them what they wanted. Good for him.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 26 2017, @05:24AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 26 2017, @05:24AM (#499846)

      they tried over and over for years to get the guy into some semi-false-flag op where they either make some prosecuter's career OR they let him do a dirty bomb and then clamp down on civil rights as a response,

      Dude, why do you make up random bullshit like that?
      None of the reporting even suggests the FBI were trying to entrap the guy.
      You made it up from whole cloth.
      Are you so powerless in your own life that everything is a conspiracy?
      Is it mental illness?
      How is it that you are so untethered from reality?
      Is your brain squirming like a toad?

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25 2017, @03:36PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25 2017, @03:36PM (#499332)

    "Regular" visits from 2005 to 2015, but it then goes on and says there were three visits between 2007 and 2010 instigated from people filing reports. So how is this "regular" when they only came out when they got a report to investigate, and how is 2007 to 2010 stretched into "nearly a decade"? Are we just rounding to the nearest 5, using a floor on the lower end and ceiling on the upper?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25 2017, @06:02PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25 2017, @06:02PM (#499445)

      Summary is not contradictory. Your pedantic reading of the summary is contradictory.
      If you want to know why your pedantry is wrong, RTFA.

      • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25 2017, @10:25PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25 2017, @10:25PM (#499637)

        It is not pedantry, it is simply reading the summary. If it isn't a correct reflection of the story, then the submitter should do a better job of writing a summary. A summary should, I don't know, summarize the story.

(1)