Feds Arrest Private Eye at HOPE

Rambam was arrested this afternoon by FBI agents just moments before he was to lead a panel discussion on privacy here at the HOPE hacker conference in New York City. Rambam and three other panelists were to discuss how they dug up — in just 4.5 hours of searching private and public databases — more than 500 pages worth of data on HOPE attendee Rick Dakan, who agreed to be the guinea pig for the project.

This HOPE project was planned for a little while now, and it’s somewhat sad to see it disrupted like this. If the FBI was following Rambam for whatever he was up to (hacking likely), why would they wait until moments before his speech? Are the feds in that bad of shape that the need to pull a publicity stunt as such?