I understand why it was a terrible thing for the people in charge of America’s intelligence services to have absolutely no moral compass and a sick sense of humor, but every so often, it would be a funny thing to bring that ethos back for things like this.

Before they made the indictments, they should have done the exact same thing in some Chinese city. Round up a few dozen random Chinese citizens for copyright infringement for producing bootleg movies or something, get them back to the US on a charter flight before anyone really knows what’s happening, and then indict the people in NYC. Lay the whole thing out and just publicly ask the Chinese government if this is how we want to do it, or if we all can agree to keep our state organs to ourselves again.

I’m joking, mostly. I don’t think it’s a good idea. But it would get the point across. A notable thing that happens when you start being all procedures-based is that the people who don’t go by procedures start to get the upper hand.

So…

We’re assuming it’s the only one?

“I’m allowed to do this… This place is literally named Chinatown”

I first heard about stuff like this on Darknet Diaries

https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/21/

Highly recommend this podcast’s Black Duck Eggs episode if you want to lean more about how China controls its citizens abroad

No terrorism charge?

…