Sinn Fein offered "British Spy Bug" on eBay (moved from ATSNN)

Sinn Fein has put a British surveilance bug up for sale on eBay. "This auction is for part of a British MI5 bugging device found hidden in the floorboards of a Sinn Fein office in Belfast in September 2004," it said in a statement on Sinnfeinbookshop.com. However the item has just been removed from sale by eBay for contravening its rules.



I had originally started posting this news story using the yahoo!uk news item which claimed the item was still on sale. When I tried to find the item on eBay and couldnt I widened my search and found that it had been removed in a BBC news story.

This move by the IRA was a master stroke. In one fell swoop they get free and widespread public coverage of this story due to its strangeness. Everyone gets to know the British are being underhanded and spying on a political party, contrary to what they say. Any self-respecting government would want to acquire this technology. And they get to make some money to boot.

The fact that it has been taken off eBay is irrelevant. More people have heard the story now and the fact that Britain is spying on Sinn Fein has become more wide spread.

On Wednesday, eBay said it had removed the item "because it contravened clauses 6.2 and 9 of the eBay users agreement".

To which Sinn Fein accused eBay as "a clumsy attempt at censorship".

MI5 has since admitted that they did infact bug that office.

Good on them I say, all is fair in love and war.

Related News Links:
uk.news.yahoo.com
ebay.com

[edit on 25/5/05 by subz]

Wow, now thats some clever propaganda on the part of the finians! Its almost too bad Ebay had to take it down, but obviously there're not going to sell classified tech.

Thats funny, i sympathise with the irish because i am of irish descent. I think it would be a little 'Hypocritical' to say i like the IRA but dont like Islama-fascists. They are both killing for religion. However, i support any political body of the Irish to have the brits out of northern Ireland.

Im English and I support this move by Sinn Fein also. The British government have no right to spy on any political party. Let alone those from North Ireland.