Is impersonating not a dependency of forging? You're performing an action usually performed only by someone else, and then promulgating an artifact thereof.

That’s an interesting take. I suppose what you are saying is that even if you don’t claim that you are FBI, when you write a document that purports to be from the FBI, during the writing process you are impersonating an FBI agent.

That makes sense logically. I don’t know anything about the legal argument though.

There are plenty of FBI docs that get released by journalists and others who are not FBI agents, so it's hard to take that as a given without seeing the tweets in context, which I did not see. The ruling does mumble something about the account passing itself as an FBI agent, as I've since had a chance to read, but it doesn't give any details and I didn't see any mention of that law.

Also, I'm surprised the NPR ran this article, given the disclaimer at the bottom that it's a party to it. Usually the lawyers just don't let you do that.

No. When you forge a document, you do not purport to be the person who notionally created that document legitimately. You only represent (falsely) that the document was created legitimately, generally not by you.

This sounds like the opposite of what you meant to say. When you are forging the document and claiming the document is from the FBI, you are fully t acting as an FBI agent.

>When you are forging the document and claiming the document is from the FBI, you are fully t acting as an FBI agent

That's sophistry and confuses the issue. One is absolutely not acting as an FBI agent when forging FBI documents. There is a clear and common-sense difference between impersonation and forgery, and you seem to be misusing language to willfully misunderstand the difference.

When you're forging the document, you are not pretending to be an FBI agent. You are being a forger. The forger then claims that the FBI made the document.

Saying, "The FBI made these documents and here they are" is fundamentally different than saying, "I made these documents and am with the FBI." They do not collapse into the same thing.

To be honest, I still would hope forging FBI documents is a crime in the same way that impersonating an FBI agent is a crime; however that's a matter of law. It is a matter of fact that forgery and impersonation are different. One is falsifying documents, the other is falsifying identity. If you want to say that both can be reduced to falsification or deception, sure, but that's not a crime. Forgery (falsifying documents) and impersonation (falsifying identity) are crimes, and separate ones.

Why would you assume that everyone with an FBI document is an FBI agent? Especially given that any random person could get docs from the FBI Vault, FOIA, etc.?

Not "everyone with an FBI document" but "everyone creating an FBI document" because forgery means creating, not possessing.

I think it's fair to say that someone creating a document with FBI letterhead/signatures/etc. is pretending to be an FBI agent.

Do you really expect them to go around claiming to have forged the document or putting their own name on it?

And if they don't, nobody knows this, so nobody has cause to think that they are an agent. They can't really impersonate an FBI agent to themselves because they know that's not true.

Thus, if nobody thinks they're an FBI agent, how can they have impersonated one?

Maybe it's presumptuous of me to think it is the FBI that is hiring, vetting, and managing the people who produce it's documents?

Given the number of contractors and some of the abuse caused by them, I would say that yes, it is presumptuous.

If the FBI isn't vetting, hiring, and managing their contractors, then who is?

All I can do is repeat my original comment. If you think I said the opposite of what I meant, the problem is with you.

I don't think it falls within the bounds of the crime of impersonating a Federal agent [1]

> Whoever falsely assumes or pretends to be an officer or employee acting under the authority of the United States or any department, agency or officer thereof, and acts as such, or in such pretended character demands or obtains any money, paper, document, or thing of value, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/912

The key clause there is "acts as such". Highlighting mine:

> Whoever falsely assumes or pretends to be an officer or employee acting under the authority of the United States or any department, agency or officer thereof, and acts as such

If the twitter account operator(s) claims that a document is an official FBI document, when it is not, then they have falsely exercised the exclusive authority of the FBI to issue statements as the FBI, an agency of the United States. The available evidence meets the criteria highlighted above.

(This centers around the definition of the verb "forge"; to forge a document, you must falsely pretend to be acting with authority to produce that document, or else it wouldn't be forging.)

If the twitter account operator(s) was provided the document by someone else and was misled by the provider, then the operators did not falsely pretend to be FBI, and so the operators would be protected from prosecution. The operators would need to make this claim to the court; they do not appear to have done so at this time.

(Standard disclaimer applies. I am not your lawyer, I have not prepared citations for review, please seek legal counsel before taking any action based upon an HN comment.)

>Is impersonating not a dependency of forging

I think we should keep definitions of words consistent. Impersonation is not forgery or a dependency thereof. Those are different words for different terms.