Slashdot Mirror
Anonymous Helps Find Evidence In Gang Rape Case
jfruh writes "Evidence of a gang rape committed by members of an Ohio high school football team, including video, was, in the way of digital native teenagers today, put online on various social media sites — and was quickly taken down as students began realizing the magnitude of the situation. The hactivist group Anonymous has been able to find archived and cached versions of the damning content, which may help prosecutors make their case." (The original story from December at the New York Times adds more detail.)
No boundaries, no jurisdictions... just results.
All of the power of the harnessed internet with the face of the silent auction bidder.
Anonymous does something truly useful and good!
Way to go guys!
I've been half-heartedly following this story once I heard the initial reports and what took place was almost, but not quite, as bad as the Indian student who was attacked, raped and beaten on a bus in India and later died.
This girl was, apparently, passed out drunk (she was 16) and while passed out, was raped by at least 2 members of the football. Her limp, violated, body was carried by her arms and legs, all while being recorded and while others stood by and did nothing.
Some people present tweeted what was taking place, some took pictures and one shining example of the human race was recorded for a length of time bragging about how much she was fucked (worse than in the movie Pulp Fiction according to him). No one called the police.
Further, when asked about how he would feel if his daughter was raped (he apparently at the ripe of a late teenager had a daughter) in 10 years, he pontificated that in ten years his daughter would be raped and dead. What a wonderful guy.
While the death penalty cannot undo what was done to someone, we as a society can no longer continue to coddle people who refuse to live with the basic bounds of society. There isn't something new in not raping, murdering, shooting, tealing from, beating or otherwise doing something to someone, and people such as this who have no regard for others do not deserve any sympathy or regard from the rest of society.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
The really disturbing part is not just the fact that a 17-year-old was gang-raped, and no charges have been filed. No, the really really disturbing part was that a significant portion of the population of the town have actively opposed doing anything about it.
I mean, why bother even having laws against rape if you're not going to enforce them?
I am officially gone from
I do not see anything in the article that describes how they 'hacked' their way to the truth. It looks like a simple look up of cached info.
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
Actually, wouldn't the evidence just be rejected, instead of the case being dropped entirely?
Is that how it works? If prosecutors aren't directly involved in the acquisition of the evidence (i.e.: soliciting anonymous to collect it), I thought it was admissible.
Long signatures suck.
When this story came out, the prosecutor told the press that they already had collected the video in question. And still hadn't charged anybody.
In other words, there's an untainted trail of the evidence, and the reason that Anonymous got involved at all is that they're trying to shame the prosecutor's office into doing something.
I am officially gone from
The better title might be 'Anonymous actually gives a damn about gang rape case, unlike clannish and football crazed natives of some backwater hellhole'.
The perps in this case were almost unbelievably sloppy in concealing their activities; but the people supposed to be enforcing the law were, by turns, overtly apathetic and far more interested in protecting their hometown heroes and their precious football season than actually seeing justice done.
not like the cops did any better
may not be enough for a criminal conviction, but the victim will probably get some justice now from civil suits
Deadspin has been great about following this story (see the other links(, and this page from a few days ago is more in depth and has the video itself (and some choice quotes if you can't listen to this sort of thing):
http://deadspin.com/5972527/she-is-so-raped-right-now-former-student-jokes-about-the-steubenville-accuser-the-night-of-the-alleged-rape
Truly despicable.
I live in constant fear of the Coming of the Red Spiders.
Yes, the evidence would be inadmissible in court. The correct procedure is to let the police gather it.
"Evil will always triumph over good, because good is dumb." - Dark Helmet (Spaceballs)
Anonymous wanted for possession of child porn
... It looks like a simple look up of cached info.
I always use robots.txt to forbid caching my incriminating evidence.
You can't be too careful these days...
But sadly most police forces are actually incapable of gathering such evidence,
So can anonymous tips be used in investigation? How can it be known whether the information in a tip was collected legally if the police didn't collect it? And therefore how can any information discovered from following such a tip be allowed?
Long signatures suck.
Not addressing the rape here, but the tech ... It's striking, I think, that we still frame the conversations "The People", with cameras (social media), and "Big Brother", with cameras. But it's all just data, isn't it? And every side gets a chance to try to obtain and to frame that data. I wonder if London didn't waste a bunch of cash installing their panopticon when crowd-sourcing seems to be getting the job done so nicely.
>In the process, Anonymous successfully managed to get the accused released by tainting the evidence. Congratulations, assholes.
Um no. First of all, Police get evidence ALL THE TIME from secondhand sources. And they don't need a warrant for that either.
Second, I doubt anonymous was able to touch the item that filmed this video. It's still in the camera, even if "deleted". Police got a big heads up to its existence.
Courts most of the time don't go "OMG, IT AINT PURE!!!". They consider many factors and some even *gasp* come to reasonable conclusions.
The story or the synopsis posting... "Evidence of a gang rape committed by members of an Ohio high school football team, including video, was, in the way of digital native teenagers today, put online on various social media sites — and was quickly taken down as students began realizing the magnitude of the situation." Enough to make your ears bleed.
OK, the story itself is more disturbing, but c'mon editors; please read these posts before approving them. A touch of grammar saves the day.
The prosecutor, you mean the mother of one of the kids on the football team?
Hurray small town america.
In the process, Anonymous successfully managed to get the accused released by tainting the evidence. Congratulations, assholes.
Yes, because police and prosecutors have never relied on anonymous tips to generate leads in cases before.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
Actually, it is admissible. IAaL, I am assuming you are not an attorney. Any objection the defense has will go the weight and not the admissibility. All you need is someone to testify to the video, and that the contents are a fair and accurate representation of the events that occurred. It is a matter of course to identify the videographer, people in the video, etc. If the defense wants to attack the authenticity of the video, or if it was edited, that is fine, but it will, as stated above, only serve to limit the weight the jury gives it and not the admissibility for consideration. Additionally, you don't need video evidence of a rape to prove rape. They arrested, convicted and punished people for 1000s of years without video evidence, and in most cases today there is none.
Anonymous tips can be used to get a search warrant, but considering the technological competence of the average cop that I've worked with they wouldn't bother following it up because they wouldn't have a clue how. They mostly become cops because they want to be heroes and/or because they like to push people around, not because they got bored being a computer guru. Most often anonymous tips are used in drug cases (because the cops can seize the property and sell it) and murder cases that have made the front page. In fairness though, there just isn't enough manpower available to follow even the most obvious trail unless the crime has made it to the high priority list for some reason, and police work doesn't pay enough to attract anyone competent at computer forensics.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
And I forgot to login :)
In the process, Anonymous successfully managed to get the accused released by tainting the evidence. Congratulations, assholes.
Sorry, no.
For the same reason we rant against calling copyright violations "stealing", the fact that anonymous found it first doesn't have any impact on the admissibility of the evidence. The police, now that someone has shown them how to do their jobs, can go to the same "untainted" sources and obtain the same evidence with a clean chain of custody. Happy day!
"Under Ohio law, the Ohio Attorney General is elected by the voters of the state and does not have the independent jurisdiction or ability to undertake investigations or prosecutions of juvenile crime. In this case, the Jefferson County Prosecuting Attorney who has such authority delegated her authority to the Attorney General's office to act as special prosecutor in the matter. The special prosecutors are not from the Steubenville area and graduated high school elsewhere."
Source
You are correct that rape deserves a harsher sentence, but you are absolutely wrong that the solution is the death penalty. The reason why the death penalty should be abolished is that government cannot be trusted with such power. The death penalty is irreversible, and government makes mistakes -- whether accidental or not. That alone is all the rationale we need to abolish the death penalty. But if you care to open your eyes, the evidence is absolutely startling. It is a regular occurance for inmates on death row to later be found innocent, and the rate seems to be increasing. It is very likely that the US government has already executed an innocent man, probably more.
That's not a shortcoming of the judicial system. That's murder, plain and simple.
From this article:
"Why put their names out there? Why put their addresses out there? With all the crackpots we have running around this country? With all of the sex offenders were have out there, plenty of them in Jefferson County, why put children’s names out there?” said Abdalla. "Mothers have taken their children out of school in fear of what may happen. This has gone too far. Enough is enough." Abdalla also claimed to know the identity of the person leading the online effort. "I'll deal with that at another time," said Abdalla. "I know where he lives. I know his name, his mother's name, his father's name, his brother's name."
-August 11-12, 2012. The incident that began this case occurred.
-August 14, 2012. The incident was reported to Steubenville Police.
-August 16, 2012. Electronic devices of people who potentially had knowledge of the incident were taken, pursuant to search warrants.
-August 17, 2012. Steubenville Police request technical and investigative support from the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation "BCI" (a state agency supervised by the Ohio Attorney General). At the request of Steubenville Police, BCI expedited the evidence analysis. The analysis involved uncovering and reviewing tens of thousands of emails, texts, and photos from approximately a dozen electronic devices. The vast majority of such data was unrelated to the case. Investigators and forensic examiners never found any video of the alleged crime.
-August 22, 2012. Based on the investigation of the Steubenville Police, two juvenile males were arrested and charged. Their names are Trent Mays and Ma'lik Richmond. Suspects remained in juvenile detention until November 1, 2012 when the Visiting Judge (from outside the county) assigned to the case placed the suspects on home arrest.
-August 28, 2012. County Prosecuting Attorney delegates her authority to special prosecutors from the Ohio Attorney General's Office.
-August 30, 2012. Steubenville Police meet with the special prosecutors.
-The Juvenile Court trial in this case is scheduled for February 13, 2013. Circumstances surrounding media and public access to that trial are controlled by the Visiting Judge.
Source
Evidence which is obtained through illegal means, such as hacking someone's email account, can be admitted as long as the person who gathered the evidence was not following the direction of law enforcement at the time they were committing the crime.
Um, I'm a little puzzled by the phrase "Gang Rape" in the headline here.
Reading through the two-page article in the New York Times, it sounds like a lot of drunken high-school idiots making assholes of themselves... but the only part that is actually "rape" seems to be one kid bragging that he "slipped a finger" inside the drunken girl. No question here: if he did that, and isn't just bragging to his buddies, that is indeed rape, since she was too drunk to consent (and, apparently, too drunk to even know). ... but if it's one person, it can't be "gang" rape.
Yeah, good luck with that. I grew up in a cliquish cesspit like that, in northern Michigan in the '70s. The mayor's kid, a star of the high school football team, date-raped at least two girls (and probably more), and when they had the audacity to complain the entire community branded them as 'sluts' who were just jealous of his new girl. Police refused to investigate, and no lawyer in town would represent them. He boasted later about having gone back and sodomized one of the girls "to shut her up" and that she had enjoyed it so much that she agreed not to complain any more. He's probably someone important there now.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
You still need a chain of evidence. An officer needs to collect it at the scene and then log it and all the rest of that. There is probably supervisors involved as well as technicians.
The chain is needed because, as we are aware, evidence can be easy to fake, so it needs to be strictly accounted for. There are also privacy requirements and constitutional requirements about where you can go getting that evidence. No prosecutor who has a good case will want to add evidence that distracts from the central issue, even if it helps his case. There is a cost-benefit ratio to consider.
That said, they *may* be able to use it, but it might have been better to tell the cops where to go get it on their own, using a search warrant. Ultimately, the defense will try to challenge any and all evidence, if they can, even police provided evidence, it is just that it is much easier to show that there is accounting for police collected evidence.
IANAL, but if Anonymous hacked into various computers to obtain the information, are prosecutors allowed to use it? It is my understanding that normally, investigators would obtain search warrants to legally get the information. I would hate to see the outcome of this case jeopardized because evidence was obtain illegally.
While I believe, in this case, Anonymous, was trying to do the right thing, very often, in courts of law, doing the right thing can jeopardize a case because of rules of evidence, rights of victims and accused, etc. Hopefully, all of this will be resolved and justice will be done.
In the process, Anonymous successfully managed to get the accused released by tainting the evidence. Congratulations, assholes.
Sorry, no.
For the same reason we rant against calling copyright violations "stealing", the fact that anonymous found it first doesn't have any impact on the admissibility of the evidence. The police, now that someone has shown them how to do their jobs, can go to the same "untainted" sources and obtain the same evidence with a clean chain of custody. Happy day!
Evidence cannot be used anonymously in court, so unless whoever in Anonymous obtained the information comes forward and agrees to describe for the jury exactly how they obtained the information, it really cannot be used. It also has to be shown that the evidence was obtained legally. For instance, what if the police could not get a search warrant so they hacked the system to get the evidence and then said Anonymous did it? By not requiring the actual testimony of the person who obtained the evidence, all sorts of abuses could be perpetrated. As much as we may not like it, those rules protect the rest of us, too.
is that she was a drunk slut who got what she was asking for, and that boys will be boys, and that no crime was committed. I can't help but wish that I could change the whole relationship this culture has towards sex with a wave of a magic wand. Since I can't, I can only hope that a stand is taken here against men taking advantage of women who can't give consent, and that boys learn that sex isn't about what you can take from a woman, but what you can share together. And that when you rape an unconscious girl, you aren't sharing anything.
Bravo Anonymous.
IANAL, but everything I've read so far says that all this is going to do his hamper the investigation. Plus, some of the "evidence" has been presented in a false context. Had they provided the information discreetly to law enforcement instead of their usual public self-gratification, maybe this would have done some good.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
So can anonymous tips be used in investigation? How can it be known whether the information in a tip was collected legally if the police didn't collect it? And therefore how can any information discovered from following such a tip be allowed?
Legally it doesn't matter. If I break into someone's house because I think they have a big ol' stash of kiddie porn and confirm my suspicious and take evidence to the police they can use that evidence in court and/or to get an actual search warrant. As long as the police aren't involved with my illegal evidence gathering in any way it is admissible. I might get charged with breaking and entering and trespassing, but the evidence is still allowed.
I live in Washington state. Open carry is legal.
I work in physical security, and work with a number of police departments. I'm not pessimistic, just realistic. They work a ridiculous number of hours, they don't have time for both families and outside study to learn something as in-depth as computer forensics. By an large they don't have the interest, either. They didn't become cops to sit in front of a computer all day, they want to "get the bad guy." It's an interesting culture to observe from outside, but not one I'd like to be in.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
In a town like that no prosecutor will WANT to try that case, no matter if there is a mountain of unimpeachable evidence. None of the local judges are going to want to sit that case, either. The best result conceivable result in that little incestuous cesspit where everyone knows everyone is a hung jury, and they're not going to ask for a change of venue unless forced to do so. Hopefully this is enough of an embarrassment to force it.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
I always shudder when I hear people say they're going to raise their kids in South Treestump because they want them to grow up with "small town values". Of course almost none of these people actually grew up in a small town (and the ones who did were from the upper class), or they'd know better.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
The problem we have is that football in america is a religion, it's bigger than Christianity -- football player are elevated to god status, and we cheer them on while we chug our beer.
As a result, these high school jocks feel that they can get away with anything, because in this small-town America, places that Sarah Palin called "the REAL america", these football players are all the town has to cling to, so they are coddled, protected, insulated, and when a few of them do reach "pro" status, they will be the complete and utter pricks we expect them to be, beating their wives, crashing their cars, and carrying guns into their local bar, and arranging dog-fighting.
So what if they raped some girls? They are football players. Yeah! America Number ONE!
And the town is trying to cover the whole thing up because, well, they are football players. Yeah! America Number ONE!
I'm freaking moving out of this god forsaken country.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
It all depends. I grew up in a small town that didn't have much of a bullying or football hero complex, but we also had a lot of tourist traffic (typically the population at least doubled during the summer) so I think that outside influence and money pipeline had an effect on the personality of the town.
Apparently wizard is not a legitimate career path, so I chose programmer instead.
AFAIK as I know it depends on if they claim the evidence is untampered with or not. They can submit it as circumstantial evidence, which in this case is still pretty damning. Nothing forbids them from nentioning that "Anonymous has gotten a film of these guys spewing the beans". Nothing stops them from actually calling anonymous on the stand and saying Hey, were you guys thorough, did you guys tamper with this evidence, whats the evidence about? Tell us.
Of course a sitty judge could bar it all from the court.
This needs an update to include the town sheriff's amazing press conference ("Anonymous, I am coming after you!") and Anonymous's response.
Is there anything better than clicking through Microsoft ads on Slashdot?
You're assuming the prosecutor *wants* to make this case, Not sure how far Stuebenville is from Canton (Football Hall of Fame), but the sport at all levels is rather sacrosanct in that state.
I won't say that public opinion can't have a positive effect, but that doesn't change the reality that this information does not come up to the standard of evidence, and there is a very good reason it does not.
And as we know, public opinion can also get innocent people killed as well. There are pictures of well attended lynchings that show just how easily a public can be mobilized to railroad someone that they really want dead. We cannot applaud public opinion's effect in cases without acknowledging that it can be a two edged sword.
Also, prosecutors may not want to try the case, but solutions for moving cases out of local jurisdictions have existed since medieval times. The state could very easily have picked up the case, as they have.
then Anonymous defends it!
You say this as if no woman has ever gotten a guy drunk to have sex with him. Or gotten a guy really drunk when he really wouldn't want to have sex with her. So how much time should these women be serving?
the family of the girl who was raped hasn't made these kids swing in the wind yet.
Perhaps they believe in justice and the rule of law, rather than going out and settling thing themselves vigilante-style? Some people are funny that way.
"Coddling" people like the Duke Lacrosse men, who were found innocent before they were sent to jail? How about the equally innocent Central Park Five - they would all be dead right now if the "eye for an eye" people had their way.
I blame the media for encouraging such behaviour!
Perhaps parent's should encourage kids not to drink until they pass out in front of other people who may or may not use that as an opportunity to harm them? Of course the girl is a victim, but over PC proselytizing seems to think that the victim plays no part in the event. Are the boys at fault for using her like a fingerpuppet? If they actually did what they are charged with, then yes. But this isn't a "she was asking for it" argument. The point is if you don't put yourself into potentially dangerous situations you won't groggily wake up to find some pimply faced cretin using you as a sockpuppet in his parent's basement.
The take home from this whole thing is if you have daughters, lock them in the basement until they're 35. If you have sons, buy them a pair of chinese finger cuffs and whatever you do, don't parent your kids and instill any sense of decency in them or teach them to respect themselves and utilize common sense, because that would mean sky fairies and spaghetti wizards.
The word you want is "chain of custody". But that isn't the case here, since it's not physical evidence.
In any case it's irrelevant, since the prosecutor already had the videos that Anonymous released. What Anonymous did was to make them public. Whether it's a good thing to put videos of a purported rape out onto the internet is another discussion.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Wouldn't the video be heresay? And wouldn't an inconsistent statement have to be made by the same person speaking in the YouTube video. Provided the witness did testify, did contradict himself on the stand, and you could bring the video in, what's to stop the kids from simply arguing that they were bragging / joking in an inappropriate fashion? What if that's the truth. Is the girl even testifying? It doesn't seem the video helps you very much other than to make the witnesses (not even the defendants) look like assholes. I'm genuinely curious as to what you have to say. I've only been involved in civil cases.
I just read the person who made the video wasn't even present at the scene of the events and was only relaying what others had said, so would't that be double heresay? As I understand it, that makes the video completely useless.
Her son is one of the accused.
She isnt pushing this because it could hurt her little angel.
You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
If you're not careful, you might also get charged with posession and/or planting the evidence in the first place (even if you didn't).
Or the source that reports he wasn't present suspect of lying.
I watched the video, halfway threw the rant someone off camera gets up to check on the girl (not being completely inhuman). Jackass mocks them for caring if she was alive or not. She is apparently nearby and still passed out.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
From the sounds of it, Anonymous is claiming that the evidence points to more than 2 teenagers being involved and that there are considerable accusations that many members of the football team were involved and have not been charged and possibly some adults, including the coach, have been complicit in the rape and the protection of certain teenagers who were involved.
Now I haven't seen the evidence, but if only 2 teenagers have been charged when there is evidence that others are involved I can understand why they may have taken these steps. As was said upstream, the police already have the evidence but that doesn't mean that they are acting on all of it.
Of course this could all be bullshit too, but pretending that the police and prosecutors are taking the proper action just because 2 teenagers are charged (in a GANG rape no less) is being a little naive. The idea that some limited number of students might take the fall for a crime while others would get away with it is not entirely a stretch of the imagination.
Frankly I hope someone takes a closer look at it all as a result of this and makes sure that anyone involved is punished. Particularly anyone who helped took actions to protect the guilty.
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
It depends on the town. I got both versions growing up. Two of the small towns I grew up in were hideous places, the other was a pretty nice place.
But sadly most police forces are actually unwilling to gather such evidence,
There. Fixed it for you.
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
Police are a deterrent and manpower. This would be a detectives job to follow up on.