There’s no doubt criminals are availing themselves of unregistered, untraceable ghost guns. Earlier this year, in a previously-unreported case, an individual in Granby, Connecticut was charged after making threats to use explosive devices on New Year’s Eve in 2024. When federal agents raided his home and his electronics, they found a 3D printer and evidence he’d been building a sizable arsenal, in part by manufacturing multiple firearm parts based on designs from dark web sites. He’s been charged with firearms trafficking, as well as unlawful possession of machine guns and a silencer. He has pleaded not guilty.
The admins and moderators of 3D2A groups try to distance themselves from such associations by maintaining strict rules. The Black Lotus Coalition, in which more than 20,000 followers across Facebook and Discord share and test 3D-printed gun designs, has explicit policies requiring compliance with the law, along with civility and no abuse or bullying. Black Lotus founder Gage Moran said he and fellow admins vet design contributors for knowledge of federal statutes before being allowed into the Coalition, and it regularly turns people away who don’t know the law or give any indication that they might be willing to break it.
That hasn’t stopped the Justice Department from investigating 3D printed gun enthusiasts. Such data grabs from entire social media groups are rare; more often, singular accounts are raided when the government has probable cause to show how account owners were involved in a specific crime. John Davisson, senior counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, told Forbes that while 3D printed guns are a “serious public health concern,” the data raids amounted to “borderline overreach” by law enforcement.
“As soon as you are collecting at that scale, you are inevitably collecting information from people who are just curious, or who are exercising their own First Amendment protected speech and not actually engaged in any kind of criminal activity,” Davisson said.
The Department of Justice declined to comment. Facebook parent Meta and Discord did not respond to comment requests.
Admins of the groups are well aware they’re being monitored. Kelly suspects about half of the various groups of which he’s either an admin or a moderator are cops. “I always assume that the government is surveilling me,” he said. “I don’t like it… but you don’t do things on the internet that you don’t want people to find out about.”
— Thomas Brewster in Inside The 3D Printed Gun Movement—And The Government’s Attempts To Spy On It
The NSA has been collecting and keeping every recordable communication since 2001. Fact.
The methods of collection, storage, reporting and analysis have only gotten cheaper, faster and more sophisticated since 2001. Fact.
This all has bipartisan support as we’ve witnessed time and again as parties switched control neither was willing to end these programs despite constantly complaining about them when out of power. Fact.
Clowns apparently still have to be reminded that these are facts. Fact.
https://www.businessinsider.com/nsa-has-been-collecting-us-phone-data-since-2001-2013-6
As I recall just a few years ago.
Mr Dan Zimmerman was writing about gun companies who were into 3D printing. But who were supporting the censorship of 3D print files????
The “gun community” apparently was supporting the spying and censorship of a 3D print files by the government.
At the time they said they wanted to do business overseas. And they had to comply with the government demands for censorship. At the time, they claimed that this spying and censorship was coming from foreign governments. And they were comfortable with that, because they wanted to make money with these oppressive authoritarian governments.
So now, why is this such a big deal???
Because I know that foreign governments have been spying on american citizens for decades. The communist chinese spy on americans of chinese descent. Communist Cuba spies on Americans of Cuban descent.
Another foreign governments have been spying on Americans inside the United States. For quite some time now.
In fact the democrats allowed the communist chinese to operate their own police stations on american soil.