Terry Childs Found Guilty

A jury in San Francisco found Terry Childs guilty of one felony count of computer tampering. The trial lasted four months. Childs now faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

Comments

Will trial records be posted somewhere?

[linebackn]

Sound like this could have some bad repercussions for IT folks. Of course all I know about the situation is what has been posted on Slashdot. There could be, and usually is, more to the story. Now that the trial is over with will the court records be posted somewhere?

Been there. The Feds hate geeks.

[droopus]

Ok the real lesson, sorry to say is: if the Feds want you they will have you. There is a reason why 95+% of indictees plead out. How do I know this? I just emerged from a five year fed sentence at a lovely FCI in Ohio.

Without getting too detailed...I was a media consultant for a major media multinational. The Feds did not like that my focus was piracy but I would not divulge IPs, nyms or rat anyone. After some rather appalling disinformation was seeded (see Darknet...an utter load of made up BS) I was accused of damaging a portable toilet (I am not making this up) and faced life for 18 USC 844(i) and 18 USC 924(c). I was forced to plead out to a mandatory minimum of five years, which I just finished. (in fact, I'm still in a halfway house).

The charges and the character assasination were ALL bullshit. But would you have thrown the dice with a jury and risked life? Me neither.

The feds hate geeks, unless we work for them. Be VERY afraid and very careful. I'll get my life back but the past 52 months were not fun.

Re:Been there. The Feds hate geeks.

[droopus]

Oh I did, trust me. Lemme pose this one to you...

Know any good federal lawyers? How, exactly do you plan to "shop around" while in a fed lockup? Surely you know there are no computers, right? I hired three that had great reps. They cost six figures and achieved squat. I could have done the whole thing pro se and gotten the same result.

I'm amazed at how arrogant ppl are about this. Unless you've been through it, you have NO idea.

Re:Been there. The Feds hate geeks.

[droopus]

You perfectly illustrate why rolling the dice with a jury of "peers" like yourself is insane. Who cares about evidence, due process, Rules of Criminal Procedure or mens rea? "Shit, I can eliminate reasonable doubt with a 20 line /. post!"

And I'm sure you would have refused a plea and gone to trial looking at a life bid.

Look I had never been arrested before either. Tin foil hat?
No, a very costly education. I hope you never have to face one.

Re:He was an idiot

[Tiger4]

Funny you should say that. The last jury I sat on, the woman sitting across from me was a programmer. Her exact words to the judge, when he asked her employment were, "I twiddle bits". He blinked, and she got a lot more formal afterward.

By the way, she was also the first to vote to convict when we got back to the jury room. Binary logic was not working in the defendant's favor with her.

Re:Boycott

[CorporateSuit]

San Francisco's mayor is one of the most prominent douchebags of recent history. There's no way he would resign unless it meant that he could become governor, senator, or president of the USA by next election. He's an animated golemn, crafted of every negative stereotype of San Francisco there is. When he had every reason to defend Child's actions, he testified against him - condemning what he knew to be an innocent man. What would an egomaniac like that have to gain from stepping down or retracting his testimony against the man when he's busy patting himself on the back for helping put away a dangerous terrorist such as Terry Childs?

If this was 200 years ago, I'd challenge the man to a duel. "You took 5 years of an innocent man's life away because you could. Just how many innocent men have you knowingly put away for 5 years? 10 years? 20 years? How many innocent lifetimes has your sick ego cost the world? I'm sure the devil will give you a full report when you reach Hell."

But now, in 2010, I could probably get charges filed against me just for suggesting something like that! It's those damned everchanging laws of propriety...

Re:Poor jerk.

[geekmansworld]

A lot of differing opinions being tossed around here.

But, Slashdot, can we please stop accepting "fuck off" as acceptable debate discourse? And then cheerfully modding it up?

We're adults here, I think we can debate the pros and cons of this situation intellectually without resorting to hurling epithets at eachother.

Thank you in advance for not modding me "Troll" and "Offtopic".

Re:Ramifications

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

You: "Give me the password."
Your employee: "No."

Lets try this from the other persepective:

Your Employer: Give me the password.
You: But you told me I'd be liable for anything that happens if I give it to you.
Your Employer: Give me the password!!
You: No. I don't want to be liable.
Your Employer: You're fired!!!
You: Fine.
Your Employer: Give me the password!!!!
You: I don't work for you anymore. And I still don't want to be liable.
Your Employer: Peon!!!! I own you!!!!!! I'll grind you into dust!!!!! Lawyers! Destroy him!!!
And they did.

You know what the moral of this story is? Don't work for anyone.

Perspective from a Juror on this Case

[BengalsUF]

Now that I am able to speak about this case, I can give you my take on the matter as having been a juror on it. Having not been able to read about the case during its duration, I can't replay to everything that's been said about it, but I will at least provide my perspective.

This case should have never come to be. Management in the city's IT organization was terrible. There were no adopted security policies or procedures in place. This was a situation that management allowed to develop until it came to this unfortunate point. They did everything wrong that they possibly could have to create this situation. However, the city was not on trial, but Terry Childs was. And when we went into that jury room, we had very explicit instructions on what laws we were to apply and what definitions we were to follow in applying those laws.

This jury was not made up of incompetent people or idiots. Every single person on there was very educated and well-spoken. I myself am a network engineer with a CCIE and thirteen years experience in the field.

This was not a verdict that we came to lightly. There were very difficult points to overcome in reaching it. We were not allowed to let our emotions or biases determine the matter, because if they could there may have been a different outcome. Quite simply, we followed the law. I personally, and many of the other juror, felt terrible coming to this verdict. Terry Childs turned his life around and educated himself in the networking field on very complex technologies. One different decision by him, or more effective management by the city could have completely avoided this entire scenario. But those are not factors we could consider as a jury. We applied the law as it was provided to us and our verdict was the unfortunate, but inevitable result.

I'm sure many people posting are of the mindset that he's not guilty because he shouldn't reveal the passwords, some policy says this or that, or whatever. You're entitled to your opinion, but let me tell you that I sat through FIVE MONTHS of testimony, saw over 300 exhibits, and personally wrote over 200 pages of notes. I will guarantee you that no matter what you think of the matter, you do not have the full story, or even 10% of it. I am confident that we reached the correct verdict, whether I like it or not.

Re:Perspective from a Juror on this Case

[Archangel Michael]

Two Words .... Jury Nullification

This is the worst part of our current system, is that juries are not informed of all the duties that are necessary for them to perform. In this case you were led to believe that your only duty was to judge the facts, and apply those facts to the law.

However every member of society has every right, while on any jury, to judge not only the facts of the case, but the law and how they are being applied. This is the ONLY real safeguard to a free people, and the real power of the Jury.

My biggest sadness is that you felt compelled to convict the man, because the fact and the law told you to. Just so you know, you've admitted that you've proven the state has enslaved us all to laws we can't possibly obey.

Take a look here, and after that, I leave you with two questions ....

The Average Person Commits Three Felonies a Day"

Question one, are you willing to go to jail for doing something that is right, even if it is against the law?

If not, why did you do that to someone else?

Re:Perspective from a Juror on this Case

[BengalsUF]

The jury instructions specifically stated that whether or not we agree with the law in question cannot be a factor in determining if the law was actually broken. Regardless, I found nothing objectionable about the law itself and I don't believe any of the other jurors did either. There are plenty of protections within the law in question which protect people which may be acting under a misunderstanding of the facts or acting within the scope of their employment, all of which we weighed in making our decision.

Re:Perspective from a Juror on this Case

[painandgreed]

Two Words .... Jury Nullification

The idea of jury nullification is great when it's used on a law you don't agree with, not so much when it goes the other way. The reason that lynchers and other civil right abusers could get away with what they did in the 20's and 30's was because of jury nullification. The phrase "no jury will convict me" was speaking about jury nullification. As they could control who got on the juries and that those people had similar morals that did not agree with the law, they did not have to follow the law. Once society loses the rule of law, there's no reason to follow the law for anything. While I don't agree with a lot of laws and would even hazard that some laws are probably even objectively bad, it would be better to change the laws that rely upon jury nullification.

One question.

[Anonymous Coward]

During the time Childs was an employee, did the people requesting the passwords have authorization to do so?

Why was this "difficult"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Was there no clearly identified chain of authorization here? Why didn't SF quickly provide evidence of who was authorized? You would think this would be the very first thing they would provide, the hammer that would efficiently drive the nail in Childs' legal coffin. The fact that you had to wade through reams of document and "divine" such a key piece of info is telling. If it took a group of 12 persons to sift through this, how was Child supposed to summon this knowledge too?

Re:Why was this "difficult"?

[BengalsUF]

It was more difficult because there is no legal definition of "authorized user", and in that case we are left to use a common sense definition of the term. That may be easy to do, but the harder part is determining who those people are, because in different companies and organizations, policies in place many time determine who they are. So now we have another problem here in that there was no formal policy or procedure in place to determine who is an "authorized user", so we had to use the evidence available to us to determine who Terry Childs would reasonably believe an authorized user would be.

To do that, we had to look through a lot of testimony, in addition to pieces of evidence which showed who he had previously determined to be "authorized users". In the end it was our determination that he knew the person requesting access was authorized to have it. Like I said, this was really the hardest question for us to answer, but after examining job descriptions, job vacancy bulletins, performance appraisals, numerous emails, etc., we were able to reach the conclusion we did.

Terry Childs already had this knowledge (as evidenced in the emails). We had to spend the time to sift through all the information to make sure we were beyond a reasonable doubt about this conclusion.

Re:Why was this "difficult"?

[catmistake]

I thank you for your service and for posting slashdot. But I do have a question, and not having all the facts, I ask for your tolerance. One thing here gets repeated over and over, and I'm not sure it's true. Was Childs fired BEFORE he was asked to give up passwords? Doesn't this mean anything? Also, Child's is convicted, can you explain the law he broke and how he broke it (specifically what choice of action he made was illegal and a felony? One more thing... if Child's had better representation, do you think the outcome might have been any different? From what I know, and it isn't much, I can't understand why the case wasn't dismissed... wrong laws applied to a non-crime. But I must defer to your personal experience. And thanks again... sounds like shit work, and most would have done anything to get out of it. Your sense of civic duty is appreciated.

Re:Why was this "difficult"?

[jefftp]

The law that he broke was a section CA Penal Code 502, specifically that he disrupted or denied computer service to an authorized user and he did so without permission.

Refusing to provide a password is absolutely not a denial of service. That's like claiming losing keys to a rack in a data center is a denial of service.

However, he made one of the biggest mistakes then that he could have. While under police surveillance, he decided then to leave the state and make cash withdrawals of over $10,000. He was arrested, and that's where it became a criminal matter instead of simply an employment matter.

How this is a criminal act? Was he under court order to stay within the state of California and not touch his money? This whole case was never a criminal matter.

Re:The new definition of "jury nullification"

[BengalsUF]

Allow me to elucidate this for you. I won't give the full details, but essentially this juror went into deliberations, had already made up his mind, informed the rest of the jurors that he had thought about the matter on his own and made up his mind, and didn't want to hear anything more about it. This is before we even went through all the questions we were required to examine per the jury instructions! Furthermore, he would not explain his position to the other eleven jurors.

He was not released for "having his own opinion" or being "a lone holdout". In fact, we welcomed a lively debate from both sides of the argument as that's a necessary part of jury deliberations. He was dismissed for other reasons, including outright refusal to follow the jury instructions and the law as provided to us by the judge.