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Ross Ulbricht's Lawyer Says FBI's Hack of Silk Road Was "Criminal"
First time accepted submitter apexcp writes Trading blows with the prosecution, defendants for accused Silk Road mastermind Ross Ulbricht continues to press for the exclusion of evidence seized during what he says is an illegal hack an awful lot like the one that got Weev 15 months in prison. "The government posits two standards of behavior: one for private citizens, who must adhere to a strict standard of conduct construed by the government, and the other for the government, which, with its elastic ability to effect electronic intrusion, can deliberately, cavalierly, and unrepentantly transgress those same standards. Yet neither law nor the Constitution permits rank government lawlessness without consequences."
The US did the same for AT&T and the rest.
https://www.eff.org/cases/hept...
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
The whole point of the first bit of Article II Section 1 is to give the President and his appointees powers ordinary schmucks don't have to execute the law. These powers are somewhat restricted by the law enforcement Amendments, but are still a whole hell of a lot broader then the rights ordinary citizens enjoy. Which means if you're a criminal defendant, and you're telling a Judge that evidence should be thrown out because it would have been illegal for someone who isn't the government to do it, that ain't gonna work. Weev and other hackers have Rights, but they don't have powers, so what they are allowed to do is totally irrelevant to what the government is allowed to do in a criminal case. They're intentionally wasting the Court's time.
If they were making a Fourth Amendment Argument that could get interesting because the data belonged to an American; which means the Feds should have had a warrant. However, the Supreme Court has created something called a under a "good faith exception," which allows the government to use it's search and seizure powers on anyone it reasonably suspects of not being American, and I sincerely doubt that most Icelandic webservers are rented out to dudes from Peoria.
You mean the people who entered into an underworld business agreement where the stakes were known to be very high and attempted to blackmail a kingpin threatening the safety and very life of both him and his various other, honest associates?
Yes, lets pretend they had no part in bringing that upon themselves.
I have far more sympathy for him than them. Blackmailers are scum. They are such scum that even the state generally agrees they are criminals even when what they threaten to reveal is crime.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"