Undercover FBI agents say Chicago college student tried to write code for ISIS Grace Hauck
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/11/19/chicago-college-student-arrested-trying-support-isis-terrorists/4243954002/
CHICAGO — A 20-year-old U.S. college student was arrested Monday for allegedly writing computer code to help the Islamic State spread propaganda online, according to the FBI.
Thomas Osadzinski, a student at DePaul University who lives in the city’s northside neighborhood of Buena Park, was charged in a federal criminal complaint with one count of attempting to provide material support to a terrorist organization — a charge punishable by up to 20 years.
Osadzinski appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Jeffrey Cole in Chicago Tuesday and was ordered held without bond.
According to the complaint, Osadzinski designed a process that uses a computer script to make ISIS propaganda easier to access and disseminate on a social media platform, bypassing preventive code which routinely removes ISIS content due to the violent nature of the materials.
The complaint, however, did not identify the social media platform, saying only that it was a mobile and desktop messaging application.
Osadzinski earlier this year shared his script — and instructions for how to use it — with individuals whom he believed to be ISIS supporters and members of pro-ISIS media organizations, the complaint says. Those individuals were actually covert FBI employees and a person working with them.
Printing an ISIS poster in the DePaul library
Osadzinski was born in Park Ridge, Illinois. Agents began tracking him in June of 2018, when Osadzinski posted in a pro-ISIS chatroom, according to the complaint. Osadzinski, unsolicited, began reaching out to pro-ISIS media platforms and offering to help translate videos from Arabic to English.
“I know English well. If you need help tell me…” he wrote to an agent in Arabic on the social media platform.
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