Salinas has been sentenced to six months in prison and a $10,600 fine for one misdemeanor charge of computer fraud. But he told Wired Magazine that before this ruling, the FBI tried to pressure him into working for the agency, and when he refused, they threatened him with 44 felony counts of hacking and cyberstalking.
During 2012, in South Texas, police raided the home of Salinas and his wife. After confiscating his computer equipment, law enforcement arrested Salinas for his repeated hacks into the government website for Hidalgo County. According to Salinas, he was checking for system vulnerabilities.
But from there, the story becomes strange. Months after being released on bail, 28-year-old Salinas was contacted by a pair of FBI agents.
“We think you can help us,” Salinas recalls an agent saying.
During an excruciating, six-hour interrogation, the agents tried to recruit Salinas into using his hacking abilities to spy on drug cartels and Mexican government officials.
“Think of it like this,” the agent said. “You have a superpower. And you should use your superpower to help us help people.”
Salinas refused, he told Wired.
“They asked me to gather information on elected officials, cartel members, anyone I could get data from that would help them out. I told them no.”
Months later, prosecutors charged Salinas with one count of computer fraud and abuse. Six months later, prosecutors added another 13 counts. And then again, one month later, Salinas was faced with an additional 30 criminal charges. All told, these 44 counts would have put him away for life.
“I do believe they were upping the charges to put pressure on me, out of spite for not helping them out,” Salinas said.
Adding to his suspicions is the fact that 43 of these charges were dropped as soon as he got a lawyer, Tor Ekeland.
“As soon as they got caught, they folded,” Ekeland told Wired. “Fundamentally this represents the FBI trying to recruit by indictment.”
“If he had agreed to help them,” he added. “They would have dropped the charges in a second.”
The FBI denies these claims, telling Wired that Salinas “was never asked to conduct any investigative activity on behalf of the government.” Justice Department spokeswoman Angela Dodge also defended the 44 count indictment, saying that a “federal grand jury found probable cause for each of the charges alleged.”
Salinas’ story hardly seems outside the realm of possibility. Law enforcement has a history of persuading suspects to become informants by offering them relaxed prison sentences.
The FBI has also been making inroads into cybersecurity in recent years. The agency’s hacking capabilities have been under development since 2008, and the Bureau recently requested broader search and seizure rights. The Justice Department has asked the Judicial Conference Advisory Committee on Criminal Rules to grant legal authority to search any IP address believed to be associated with criminal activity.
This proposal is strongly opposed by tech giant Google and the American Civil Liberties Union.
