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."

Comments

when the president does it

[Anonymous Coward]

it's not illegal!

The solution is obvious. Ross Ulbricht should run for president and win.

Re:when the president does it

[NicBenjamin]

Depending on the situation that can actually be true. Classified documents, for example, are classified on the authority of the President. This means that if he decides to declassify something he doesn't have to go through any official procedures. So if Obama says something that's classified in a speech he hasn't broken the law. He's not above the law. He is the law. Literally.

Americans are under this absolutely bizarre impression that the Constitution is designed to be fair. That is ridiculous BS. The Constitution is designed to allow South Carolina to use the majority of it's female population as sex slaves (seriously, prior to the 20s most South Carolinians were black, and in 1789 the only thing stopping a black woman from being a sex slave was the good will of the highest bidder). It was passed largely because the previous set of governing documents (the Articles of Confederation) had not given the central government enough power to effectively steal Ohio from the Indians.

The fact that, with major additions, and an awful lot of motivated reasoning; it can be used to run a country that is vaguely fairish does not magically make every single clause of the damn thing fair.

Re:when the president does it

[amicusNYCL]

Today on Slashdot I learned that the only purpose of the constitution is to allow sex slaves in South Carolina and make it possible to steal Ohio from the Indians.

Thanks for that valuable analysis. No, no, don't bother with any citations, they aren't even remotely necessary. I'll just assume that Article V is all about sex slaves in South Carolina. Or the Ohio thing, whatever. I'm sure it's one of the two, anyway. I'll teach this to any child I can find. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go educate Facebook.

Re:when the president does it

[sexconker]

Depending on the situation that can actually be true. Classified documents, for example, are classified on the authority of the President. This means that if he decides to declassify something he doesn't have to go through any official procedures. So if Obama says something that's classified in a speech he hasn't broken the law. He's not above the law. He is the law. Literally.

You are absolutely fucking wrong. Literally.

Re:when the president does it

[ArmoredDragon]

You are absolutely fucking wrong. Literally.

Hmm...So what's the right way to fuck?

Re:when the president does it

[NicBenjamin]

Please cite a) the statute that makes it illegal for a President to declassify information that has been classified on his authority, and b) the Court decision confirming Congress has the power to make such a statute.

You need a statute for a) because Executive orders can also be unilaterally altered by the President. Without b) you have nothing, because both the Executive and legislative branches are specifically intended to go beyond their authority all the time.

Re:when the president does it

[NicBenjamin]

Who said anything about only? That's a straw man.

As for cites, I will note that the Constitution could not have been passed if South Carolina had any reason to believe the north could deprive it of it's sex slaves, therefore the document must have been designed specifically to allow SC to keep it's sex slaves.

I will also note that the first thing the new government did was recruit a Legion of the United States to conquer Ohio.

Re:when the president does it

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't seem to understand what "cite" means. Or "designed specifically".

I'll get you started on that second one with a hint: "Specifically designed for X" is not synonymous with "Not specifically designed for not X".

Re:when the president does it

[Noah Haders]

You're sticking it in the wrong hole

Re:when the president does it

[lgw]

Is this what they teach kids today? The everything ever done by white men must be evil, and it's just a matter of deconstructing the appropriate documents to show it? That the published reasoning behind the Constitution can be ignored, as the authors were just a bunch a lying rapists anyhow?

I know the Constitution is awfully inconvenient to fans of totalitarianism - why, it limits the power of the ruler, heck, it limits the entire central government - and some people think we should just ignore it as a historical curiosity. But this is really reaching as a reason to attack it.

Re:when the president does it

[chuckugly]

My understanding of his comment was that for this specific case (items classified on the authority of the POTUS) his word is law; not that his word is now law in the general case. Taken that way, I'm unsure whether he's wrong or not.

Re:when the president does it

[sumdumass]

You really should drop the sex part, it makes you look like a loon.

Granted the constitution did not bar slavery, but you cannot say with any intelectual honesty that it protected or promoted it. I'm sorry you do not like the constitution or the US founding but that does not give you license to imagine crap and pretend it is true.

Re:when the president does it

[sumdumass]

He is wrong constitutionally but right in practice. The president is the head of the executive- the top law enforcement officer of the land with the ability to control the actiond of those under him.

Now that being said, he has a constitution duty to ensure the law is faithfully executed. No one takes him to task over it though. Entering the country illegally is a misdemeanor ( felony on second offense) but it doesn't get enforced. Pot is still a scedule 1 drug which means it cannot even be used as a medicine but it doesn't get enforced. Both those are by the will of the president.

Back to the classified stuff. As the administration is head of all departments not delegated its own branch by the constitution, the president is essentially the top employee of any and all departments except congress and the judicial branches. So is the CIA director could declassify something- the president could also. The same is true for any other function where the law doesn't prohibit disclosure ( he couldn't recite your name, address, and social security number that he obtained from the IRS in his state of the union speech).

Re:when the president does it

[j-turkey]

I'm sorry you do not like the constitution or the US founding but that does not give you license to imagine crap and pretend it is true.

I was under the impression that an internet connection and a means to enter data grants a license to imagine crap and pretend it is true. It would appear that NicBenjamin has both, and has no problem using this license to imagine crap and pretend it is true. :)

Re:when the president does it

[sexconker]

How about you cite the laws that say the President "is the law. Literally."?

Re:when the president does it

[chuckugly]

That is my (admittedly imperfect) understanding as well.

Re:when the president does it

[sumdumass]

You know its true, i read it on the internet.

Re:when the president does it

[NicBenjamin]

I already did. Article II of the US Constitution gives the president very similar powers to those of the English king in several areas: notably defense, and running the day-to-day operations of the government. This means that in an area where the DoD makes lots of day-to-day administrative decisions the President's word is litterally the law.

Your turn.

Re:when the president does it

[NicBenjamin]

You really suck at this arguing on the internet thing.

All you have bothered to learn about me is that I think two statements are true. You haven't bothered to include any evidence that either one of the statements is false; yet you think you've proven I'm a childish fool who is racist against white people. I'm trying to think of a flaw in logic you didn't include in those two paragraphs, but you seem to have covered your bases pretty thoroughly.

As for the Constitution's use in a totalitarian regime, you're ignoring one simple fact: it's already done that. It looks a lot different then in Germany, because the thug isn't officially empowered by the government. But you still ended up with multiple black majority states "electing" white supremacist governors in the 1870s. Granted it wasn't as bad as Hitler, but South Carolina in 1880 was a hell of a lot more evil then Zimbabwe or Cuba is today. And it survived solely because the guy in charge insisted he was Constitutionally banned from stopping his boys from lynching people.

Re:when the president does it

[NicBenjamin]

You really should drop the sex part, it makes you look like a loon.

Granted the constitution did not bar slavery, but you cannot say with any intelectual honesty that it protected or promoted it. I'm sorry you do not like the constitution or the US founding but that does not give you license to imagine crap and pretend it is true.

I didn't say it promoted slavery. I said it protected it.

And it did. There is no enumerated power that would have allowed an Emancipation Proclamation. This means the new federal government could not abolish slavery, which means slavery was (by definition) protected. Regulated to an extent, by the end of the foreign trade, and the 3/5 clause; but 100% protected.

Re:when the president does it

[NicBenjamin]

You're taking me right. Obama is the law in terms of determining what is Classified or not. If he decides that the campaign against ISIS will be well-served by releasing some factoid every other person in the entire government thinks should be top secret, then he can do it.

I assume most of the people who interpreted it wrong were doing so intentionally, because they pretty much all posted as ACs.

Re:when the president does it

[NicBenjamin]

BTW, the sex part is included because I've actually dealt with people on technology forums who claimed slavery wasn't that bad. They tend to go away after you've pointed out it involved an awful lot of rape, but I am sick of explaining to white people that slavery as practiced right here in these United States was as bad as anything humans did to each-other prior to the 20th century.

I don't want to deal with idiots who think Sherman's March to the Sea was worse then the crime of defending the Confederacy in the first place; and if that makes me sound like a loon I'll tattoo a fucking Canadian dollar to my forehead.

Re:when the president does it

[sumdumass]

Wow.. you certainly are clueless.

Not addressing does not mean protecting. It means it was ignored. You not stopping a mugger from grabbing granny's purse does not mean you protected the criminal.

The 3/5th part had absolutely nothing to do with slavery either. It was only a way to limit the tax burden on slave states and prevent excessive representation.

And yes, the emancipation proclamation was constitutional. The abandond and captured property act of 1863 allowed it. Remember, congress has the ability to grant marks and reprisal but as the south was in insurection, they were considered an invading force too. So slaves at the time being property could very well be confiscated and dispised of in any mannor the commander in chief saw fit. It wasn't until after the civil war and the passage of constitution amendments that slaves could no longer be property. The emancipation proclomation did not free all slaves, it only freed them in the areas of rebellion not held by union forces. This allowed slaves to be caputured by the north (when they left the south) and disposed of (like property) according to the executive powers of the president and as commander in chief.

Re:when the president does it

[gumbi west]

I'm sorry, but how is slavery not a terrible thing before you realize rape was a regular part of it?

Re:when the president does it

[sumdumass]

So slavery without rape is ok then?

Your entire premis is incorect to start with but your attempt to push a specific version seems to paint the wrong inferences. I would think beating a person to the point they died after suffering for several days might be a bit worse than rape but neither is protected, encouraged, or supported by the US constitution as your original statements make.

Also, defending the confederacy was not about slavery directly until the emancipation proclomation. It was about economic freedom and federalism which the US government was trying to undo. Before lincoln forced the issue to gain support to get reelected, slavery was not a target of thecivil war. Sex with slave was never part of the war nore anyintended cause for remedy after the war.

You seem like a nice guy- just a little misguided and a lot confused about action and inaction and the meaning of such.

Re:when the president does it

[david_thornley]

The formation of the Confederacy was largely about slavery, as can be seen by the secession proclamations and supported by the Confederate constitution, not to mention it seems to have been provoked by the election, as President, of a known abolitionist. The start of the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery directly, but was a result of secession.

The Civil War was not really about slavery, although it was important for diplomatic reasons for Lincoln to have it seen as such. For example, Britain could have smashed the Union blockade, if it were not that, politically, it was impossible to intervene in favor of slavery. Domestically, there were quite a few people in the North that didn't care about slavery of blacks, including some that probably favored it, so presenting the Civil War as a crusade against slavery would have been counterproductive.

Re:when the president does it

[CyberKnet]

Obligatory "Your Mom" joke:

Ask you're mom - she seems to be doing it right by everyone else's account! ;)

Re:when the president does it

[sumdumass]

The formation of the Confederacy was largely about slavery, as can be seen by the secession proclamations and supported by the Confederate constitution, not to mention it seems to have been provoked by the election, as President, of a known abolitionist.,

Sure it was. But the secession did not start the civil war. South Carolina attacking Fort Sumter did.

The start of the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery directly, but was a result of secession.

Insomuch that South Carolina didn't want a Union fort in the middle of their territory. The north while not happy and speaking angrily, was not about to invade the confederacy. Of course you could say that Fort Sumter was just a ploy to push the issue, after all, Lincoln did ask to resupply it unmolested which is when South Carolina laid siege to it. Unfortunately, we cannot know if war over secession specifically would have happened or not. But for what we do know, a good cry and we would have been freindemies or something.

The Civil War was not really about slavery, although it was important for diplomatic reasons for Lincoln to have it seen as such. For example, Britain could have smashed the Union blockade, if it were not that, politically, it was impossible to intervene in favor of slavery.

how very true. And seeing how Brittan outlawed slavery a number of years before, it makes sense to frame it this way for those ends.

Domestically, there were quite a few people in the North that didn't care about slavery of blacks, including some that probably favored it, so presenting the Civil War as a crusade against slavery would have been counterproductive.

There was a good portion of abolitionist in the north but you are correct, it wasn't really an overriding issue. Lincoln even got slack for his support for slaves having rights in which he explained away in ways that would make us cringe today when he was running for the office of president. I would bet there were more people who were indifferent then in opposition to slavery before the civil war.

Re:when the president does it

[NicBenjamin]

I can't say I actually understand how these idiots think, but I have dealt with them, so I can verify they do exist.

Some of them point out that, statistically speaking, a slave on a high-end plantation was healthier then a poor white man (which neatly ignores the fact that if you're a high-end plantation owner you get rid of anyone who gets sick, which you can do either a variety of ways). At least one has been in the midst of a full "the Constitution is by definition freedom" mental melt-down, which meant he strongly implied that Abe Lincoln was a tyrant for issuing an Emancipation proclamation that violated quite a few articles of the Constitution.

In American culture as a whole slavery gets used as a metaphor for so many relatively trivial things that many people (especially Libertarian people) forget that the American version of slavery was actually a worse then those things. It was so bad that a lot of the things that even things that are clearly not tricvial were probably a lot better then American slavery. For example, would you rather work in a forced labor camp for a maximum of 20 years, and then (if you survived) go back to your family; or would you prefer to live and die a slave, with no idea where your family is because almost every slave got sold once? The death rate at the labor camp has to be incredibly high for slavery to be a better option, and there's a whole lot of debate over the actual death rate in a Gulag.

Re:when the president does it

[NicBenjamin]

Wow.. you certainly are clueless.

Not addressing does not mean protecting. It means it was ignored. You not stopping a mugger from grabbing granny's purse does not mean you protected the criminal.

Dude, let's not start the ad hominem yet. Your ad hominem are even worse then your metaphors.

This particular metaphor is stupid because the Founders knew perfectly well slavery was happening, and they knew it would be an issue going forward. So it's analogous to you knowing precisely which criminal was going to seize Granny's purse, and not telling the cops about it.

The 3/5th part had absolutely nothing to do with slavery either. It was only a way to limit the tax burden on slave states and prevent excessive representation.

So it only applies to slave states, but it has nothing to do with slavery? I believe you just contradicted yourself.

And yes, the emancipation proclamation was constitutional. The abandond and captured property act of 1863 allowed it. Remember, congress has the ability to grant marks and reprisal but as the south was in insurection, they were considered an invading force too. So slaves at the time being property could very well be confiscated and dispised of in any mannor the commander in chief saw fit. It wasn't until after the civil war and the passage of constitution amendments that slaves could no longer be property. The emancipation proclomation did not free all slaves, it only freed them in the areas of rebellion not held by union forces. This allowed slaves to be caputured by the north (when they left the south) and disposed of (like property) according to the executive powers of the president and as commander in chief.

Just because statutes allow something that does not imply it's Constitutional.

The Sixth Amendment specifically bans the taking of private property for public use without compensation. And you;re not supposed to be able to get around that by simply granting the property to some third party before you take it, and then hiring it from said third party. But that's precisely how the Emancipation Proclamation operated: the largest source of wealth in the South was taken from it's owners (ie: slaveholders), granted to third paryies (ie: the slaves themselves), and then hired into the Union Army.

The proclamation was enforced with an unconstitutional income tax, and to top it off Lincoln did that thing were he ignored it when Chief Justice Taney granted a writ of habeus corpus.

Re:when the president does it

[NicBenjamin]

So slavery without rape is ok then?

Your entire premis is incorect to start with but your attempt to push a specific version seems to paint the wrong inferences. I would think beating a person to the point they died after suffering for several days might be a bit worse than rape but neither is protected, encouraged, or supported by the US constitution as your original statements make.

Murder just doesn't have the same emotional impact as rape.

And yes, both were protected because the Constitution is specifically designed so that the Feds can't stop slave-owners from doing either.

Also, defending the confederacy was not about slavery directly until the emancipation proclomation. It was about economic freedom and federalism which the US government was trying to undo. Before lincoln forced the issue to gain support to get reelected, slavery was not a target of thecivil war. Sex with slave was never part of the war nore anyintended cause for remedy after the war.

You seem like a nice guy- just a little misguided and a lot confused about action and inaction and the meaning of such.

You don't know the timeline very well. Seven of the South's 13 seceded before Lincoln was inaugurated. They couldn't be reacting to Lincoln's tyranny. They were anticipating that the North would restrict slavery, and they wanted none of that. All their founding documents repeatedly refer to themselves as the "slaveholding states." So you can make an academic argument that defending the Confederacy was not defending slavery prior to the Proclamation, but in reality the guy defending a Confederation of slave-holding states from the tyranny of a guy who might restrict slavery (but hasn't tried to yet) is defending slavery.

Note that the Proclamation was issued 17n months into a 48 month war. Since every southern soldier was by definition defending slaves from being freedx by the north after that, then almost 2/3 of a Southern officer's war was spent defending slaves from being freed.

Re:when the president does it

[sumdumass]

And yes, both were protected because the Constitution is specifically designed so that the Feds can't stop slave-owners from doing either.

Lol.. The constitution is specifically designed so that murder and rape cannot be prosecuted by the federal government regardless of who the victims are unless it happens on federal land or across state lines or in some other way which would give the federal government jurisdiction. If someone rapes your sister and kills your mother, the feds cannot do jack about it- the onus is on the state unless some circumstance provides the feds with jurisdiction. That in no way means the constitution is protecting any rapist or murderer, it means they do not have the ability to act.

You don't know the timeline very well. Seven of the South's 13 seceded before Lincoln was inaugurated. They couldn't be reacting to Lincoln's tyranny.

You are confused. Perhaps I wasn't clear enough. Lincoln forced the issue of slavery to gain support of the abolitionist in order to get reelected. Before that, it was largely about preserving the Union and they (South Carolina) attacked our fort (Fort Sumter).

They were anticipating that the North would restrict slavery, and they wanted none of that

Yep, but the south seceding didn't start the civil war. The north just bitch and moaned about it until South Carolina laid siege to Fort Sumter. In fact, Lincoln actually ask the south for permission to resupply the fort which indicates he recognized them as separate entities from the US.

So you can make an academic argument that defending the Confederacy was not defending slavery prior to the Proclamation, but in reality the guy defending a Confederation of slave-holding states from the tyranny of a guy who might restrict slavery (but hasn't tried to yet) is defending slavery.

You can confabulate a lot of things and allow it to boil down to slavery. I'll give you that they were defending slavery but we would have to ignore the economic differences and the fear that federalism would be done away with in order to do such.

Note that the Proclamation was issued 17n months into a 48 month war. Since every southern soldier was by definition defending slaves from being freedx by the north after that, then almost 2/3 of a Southern officer's war was spent defending slaves from being freed.

lol.. So if I said arguing with me means "you cannot eat dirt" and "you cannot have sex with your sister", all your arguments from here on out is so you can eat dirt and sleep with your sister? Of course not so why would something already happening all the sudden be defined by something some person did after the initial facts?

Now of course the south was defending a way of life- that is part of their right to self determination. Several of those states were countries before becoming states. In fact, the term state held the same meaning as a nation state.

Re:when the president does it

[sumdumass]

This particular metaphor is stupid because the Founders knew perfectly well slavery was happening, and they knew it would be an issue going forward. So it's analogous to you knowing precisely which criminal was going to seize Granny's purse, and not telling the cops about it.

Not at all. You know perfectly well that muggers steal old ladies purses. The federal government was never intended to have that much control over the states. The US constitution united 13 different countries into a unified face for foreign relations with a limited set of powers regarding interaction between the states. The only nation building role the Constitution originally set out was creating a post office and roads. Everything else was left to the states because they were their own countries and only surrendered enough rights in order to have a strong presences internationally and protect themselves from international threats.

You idea that it should have been more but wasn't means it protects slavery is pure and simple nonesense. That is why claiming you are clueless is completely appropriate.

So it only applies to slave states, but it has nothing to do with slavery? I believe you just contradicted yourself.

Not at all. Slaves existed, people who had slaves existed, and together they practiced slavery. However, the 3/5th rule did nothing to that act or actions whatsoever at all. It certainly did not "Regulated to an extent, by the end of the foreign trade, and the 3/5 clause; but 100% protected."

Nothing in the US constitution can or ever could have been interpreted to allow, protect, promote, regulate or anything of the sorts concerning slavery outside of congress being able to limit bringing new slaves in after a period of time. Your insistence that because it did nothing that it protects it is illogical and ignorant of the founding of this country completely.

Just because statutes allow something that does not imply it's Constitutional.

Actually, it does imply exactly that until it is found not to be constitutional.

The Sixth Amendment specifically bans the taking of private property for public use without compensation. And you;re not supposed to be able to get around that by simply granting the property to some third party before you take it, and then hiring it from said third party. But that's precisely how the Emancipation Proclamation operated: the largest source of wealth in the South was taken from it's owners (ie: slaveholders), granted to third paryies (ie: the slaves themselves), and then hired into the Union Army.

You can skip the third parties in your explanation of the emancipation proclamation. It isn't necessary at all. But the sixth amendment does not limit the government's actions against foreign entities especially when at war with them- just US entities. Now the south considered themselves to be foreign to the US, Lincoln and congress considered them a belligerent power (an entity of their own right) and states up to this time were actually countries who surrendered a portion of their sovereignty to a central federal government but retained most of it. More importantly, the US north set a requirement of ratifying the 13th amendment to allow the south to "fully rejoin" the union during the reconstruction. Of course the rumor was Johnson used that threat was to force the 13th amendment before congress reconvened because he knew it would be hostile towards the south and limits their ability to rejoin the union.

The proclamation was enforced with an unconstitutional income tax, and to top it off Lincoln did that thing were he ignored it when Chief Justice Taney granted a writ of habeus corpus.

I'm not exactly sure what this has to do with things. Lincoln suspended habeas corpus which was unconstitutional but supported in other courts. You aren't attempting to claim that because he

Re:when the president does it

[NicBenjamin]

This particular metaphor is stupid because the Founders knew perfectly well slavery was happening, and they knew it would be an issue going forward. So it's analogous to you knowing precisely which criminal was going to seize Granny's purse, and not telling the cops about it.

Not at all. You know perfectly well that muggers steal old ladies purses. The federal government was never intended to have that much control over the states.

I believe you just agreed with me.

My argument is that the Constitution was designed to protect slavery. Your argument is that the Constitution "was never intended to give the Federal government that much control over states." In other words, you just agreed that it was specifically designed to protect slavery from the Federal government.

Thanks.

The Sixth Amendment specifically bans the taking of private property for public use without compensation. And you;re not supposed to be able to get around that by simply granting the property to some third party before you take it, and then hiring it from said third party. But that's precisely how the Emancipation Proclamation operated: the largest source of wealth in the South was taken from it's owners (ie: slaveholders), granted to third paryies (ie: the slaves themselves), and then hired into the Union Army.

You can skip the third parties in your explanation of the emancipation proclamation. It isn't necessary at all. But the sixth amendment does not limit the government's actions against foreign entities especially when at war with them- just US entities.

Apparently neither of us knows the Constitution as well as we thought. Or rather apparently I don't, and you didn't bother to check.

It's the Fifth Amendment we're talking about, and it's last clause is "nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."

Now the south considered themselves to be foreign to the US, Lincoln and congress considered them a belligerent power (an entity of their own right) and states up to this time were actually countries who surrendered a portion of their sovereignty to a central federal government but retained most of it. More importantly, the US north set a requirement of ratifying the 13th amendment to allow the south to "fully rejoin" the union during the reconstruction. Of course the rumor was Johnson used that threat was to force the 13th amendment before congress reconvened because he knew it would be hostile towards the south and limits their ability to rejoin the union.

That's a neat bit of legal reasoning, and it's largely the one Lincoln used. But it ignores the fact there was a fairly strong minority of southern slave-owners who remained loyal. Sherman's bodyguard on his March to the Sea was actually the First Alabama.

The proclamation was enforced with an unconstitutional income tax, and to top it off Lincoln did that thing were he ignored it when Chief Justice Taney granted a writ of habeus corpus.

I'm not exactly sure what this has to do with things. Lincoln suspended habeas corpus which was unconstitutional but supported in other courts. You aren't attempting to claim that because he did something unconstitutional that anything you want to claim is so- is automatically unconstitutional because of it are you?

I'm not the one who said the income tax was Unconstitutional prior to the passage of the 16th Amendment.

I think you are a victim of this new age history in which everything is contorted and construed into some version in which the US is evil. In all your statements about the US constitution, you have to make a leap so large that Evil Kneivel would be scared to jump that far in order to support your assumptions. It's really depressing that you fight so strongly for such incorrect beliefs.

If I've fallen for silly anti-American BS, why did you agree with me in the first sentence of this post?

Re:when the president does it

[sumdumass]

I believe you just agreed with me.

My argument is that the Constitution was designed to protect slavery. Your argument is that the Constitution "was never intended to give the Federal government that much control over states." In other words, you just agreed that it was specifically designed to protect slavery from the Federal government.

Not at all. Just like when you fail to prevent someone getting mugged in front of you, you did not protect the mugger. The US constitution did not ever protect slavery, it simply did not address it until later- outside of limiting the influence of non free people in taxes and representation.

This argument that if something doesn't act to stop something, it is automatically protecting it is silly in its own right. As we can see how silly it is with the mugging situation, it is just as silly with other situations too. You failed to clean the virus off you computer so you must be protecting the virus. You failed to weed your garden so you must be protecting invasive species. You failed to cut your carbon footprint so you must be protecting big oil's ability to pollute. Do you see how utterly silly this all looks when taking your insistence and not applying it to extreme examples, but any other example possible. You are simply wrong.

Apparently neither of us knows the Constitution as well as we thought. Or rather apparently I don't, and you didn't bother to check.

It's the Fifth Amendment we're talking about, and it's last clause is "nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."

Noted. I just assumed your numbering was correct and didn't check myself. Mistakes happen and this alone doesn't invalidate either of our point of views. So we shall continue.

That's a neat bit of legal reasoning, and it's largely the one Lincoln used. But it ignores the fact there was a fairly strong minority of southern slave-owners who remained loyal. Sherman's bodyguard on his March to the Sea was actually the First Alabama.

The emancipation proclamation did not set free any slaves in territories already held by the union or any areas controlled by the Union. Only in hostile territories held by belligerent entities. I imagine that would also include the home areas and homes of those people.

The emancipation proclamation was really limited in scope.

I'm not the one who said the income tax was Unconstitutional prior to the passage of the 16th Amendment.

I do not believe I was the one who said it either. But seeing how it is outside the scope of slavery, it is neither here nor there as of now.

If I've fallen for silly anti-American BS, why did you agree with me in the first sentence of this post?

I did not agree with you though. You see, I acknowledge the facts of the situation, you attempt to place a hidden meaning on them outside of the facts and this imposition turns out to be factually incorrect. It is true that some founders wanted to abolish slavery from the start while others refused to be part of the union if any of that was happening. So they ignored the issue. It is nothing more than that.

Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis

[Tokolosh]

"To declare that in the administration of criminal law the end justifies the means to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure conviction of a private criminal would bring terrible retribution."

"Our government... teaches the whole people by its example. If the government becomes the lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy."

Re: Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis

[chromeronin799]

Obviously why NZ the government found the police were using an illegal surveillance technique, so they just made it legal, then backdated the law to take effect just before the first known use of this video surveillance. Hey presto, no day in court for those responsible.

Re: Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis

[Tokolosh]

The US did the same for AT&T and the rest.

https://www.eff.org/cases/hept...

Re:Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis

[thieh]

They say if the stuff does not belong to him then they can search with impunity. But if the stuff does not belong to him How would he be guilty? That BS argument makes no sense at all whatsoever.

Re: Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis

[dryeo]

Virginia did the same for Charles Lynch back in 1782. Of course all he did was hold an informal court which sentenced people to whippings, property forfeiture and such.

Re:Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis

[ThatsNotPudding]

Brandeis would have had the entire notion of 'Parallel Construction' thrown up against a dirty brick wall, then gut-shot. And rightly so.

It must have been great to have a Supreme Court not packed with partisan, corporate / police state lapdogs.

Re: Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis

[harryjohnston]

That's a slight misrepresentation. The surveillance was thought to be legal at the time it was carried out, and it *should* have been legal - that is, the original law was not intended to prohibit it but was merely badly drafted. In circumstances like that, prosecution would be grossly unjust.

Go Ross, Go!

[Anonymous Coward]

Silk Road Kingpin or not, I'm rooting for Ross here. The fact of the matter is that the Government has made a habit out of adopting these types of double standards and ignoring the civil rights that are guaranteed to us as citizens of the United States. If Ross' legal team can bring the government down a notch or two, I'll be forever grateful to them.

Re:Go Ross, Go!

[davydagger]

I'm rooting for the Silk Road, not because I agree with it, but because its lesser of two evils between them, traditional drug cartels, and the street pushers, who enforce their reign with viloence.

So the Silk Road offered a good alternative to street gangs, measurablly better in every way. Better product(less chance of killing/hurting people with impurities), less violence, Less domination, control and indimidation on the streets. Less hiearchy.

Sure the street gangs and cartels could also sell on the Silk Road, but that would make them adapt to its culture and end most of the endemic problems with violence associated with them.

Re:Go Ross, Go!

[Frosty Piss]

Silk Road Kingpin or not, I'm rooting for Ross here.

I wonder what the people he attempted to have murdered think about all this?

Re:Go Ross, Go!

[rahvin112]

It would be better if we simply legalized drugs and taxed them. We'd eliminate overnight the drug gangs, reduce our prison population and increase tax revenue. We spend 12 BILLION dollars a year on drug enforcement, we could recover that and probably double it by legalizing and taxing.

Next time they tell you social security and medicare are going bankrupt keep in mind that by legalizing drugs we could eliminate that problem.

Re:Go Ross, Go!

[davydagger]

you don't need to be in an altered state of mind to see that the war on drugs has failed misrably, and that the biggest problem with drugs are not the drugs themselves but the problems that arise around manufacture, distribution, and the type of people that manufacture and distribute them, as well as the people who enforce the laws.

There is nothing so bad about any drug to include heroin(which I think is downright terrible), that is in the same leauge as the abusive authority of the DEA, which has for the past 30 years, ignored any and all constitutional safeguards and protections, to include due proccesss(civil fortieture), and habeus corpus(parallel construction), to virtually fail at its goal of keeping drugs off the streets. Giving up our rights did not do anything for us.

You don't have to be high to see that. You need some common fucking sense.

Re:Go Ross, Go!

[davydagger]

>We'd eliminate overnight the drug gangs

No, its going to be a long slow proccess eliminating gangs. Cutting off their *easy* source of income is the first step. The next is breaking them up before they find something else as lucrative, because they will try something else.

Re:Go Ross, Go!

[Frosty Piss]

Oh, and by the way, the "group think" here at Slashdot at one time was that Hans Reiser was innocent. Of course he admitted to murding his wife and dumpping her body in a shallow grave.

Re:Go Ross, Go!

[markass530]

meh, the people he put a hit out on were extortionist assholefaces

Re:Go Ross, Go!

[davydagger]

Honestly: Probably not, but it just might have overstepped its bounds as LE does quite frequently.

I'm just using the opperunity to get on my soap box to decry the disasterous war on drugs. Something that I don't think can be done enough.

Re:Go Ross, Go!

[TheCarp]

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.

Re: Go Ross, Go!

[Anonymous Coward]

alternately, you could have asked about all the people the DEA/Government has murdered with impunity, guilty or not. Many have been killed through shear malice or incompetance and the LEOs just say "Ooops, my bad".

Re:Go Ross, Go!

[AntiSol]

the people he attempted to have murdered

You mean "the people he alledgedly attempted to have murdered".

I'm not saying he didn't do it, but at this point he's innocent because he hasn't been found guilty by a court.

Unless you were his accomplice or have seen evidence that hasn't been released publicly, you're making the assumption that he's guilty based on nothing. If you were his accomplice of have seen such evidence, then perhaps this public forum isn't the best place to be running your mouth off.

Re:Go Ross, Go!

[gizmo2199]

He's facing life in pound-me-in-the-ass prison, and the "Government" caught him red-handed, so to speak. Any leverage he might have would be as an informant, which, if he's sane he'll agree to. But at least he might get out in 10 years.

Re:Go Ross, Go!

[gizmo2199]

Ordering a hit on someone is still illegal, high-stakes or not.

Re:Go Ross, Go!

[sjames]

The DOJ is welcome to make their case for attempted murder if they like once the whole silk road thing is tossed for lack of admissible evidence.

Re:Go Ross, Go!

[dryeo]

What's wrong with heroin (besides the points about manufacture etc that you made)? It's just another opiate, not much different then the prescription drug store opiates that a hell of Americans are addicted to. If someone is in pain, why should they not have access to a pain killer?

Re:Go Ross, Go!

[dryeo]

Don't forget regulating them. They should be regulated much as alcohol is, so you know what you're purchasing, purchasers are of age and so on.

Re:Go Ross, Go!

[dryeo]

American government does it regularly, often not worrying about collateral damage as well. Just need to declare someone the right type of scum.

Re:Go Ross, Go!

[advocate_one]

there's profits to be made in those private prisons... guess who does the lobbying to keep those drugs criminalised...

Re:Go Ross, Go!

[AmiMoJo]

Assuming he did of course, at this point it's just an unproven allegation.

Re:Go Ross, Go!

[c]

Silk Road Kingpin or not, I'm rooting for Ross here.

I wonder what the people he attempted to have murdered think about all this?

If we follow the arguments in the article to their logical conclusion, then you're talking about an accusation coming from a bunch of criminals. Indeed, one might argue that it's a criminal conspiracy against him.

If they're going to act like criminals, then the government has no credibility in any accusation they make against Mr. Ulbricht.

Now, he likely is a criminal scumbag who did some very stupid and/or shady things, but given the choice between going after one shady guy or an entire organization of criminals, which do you think is a better use of law enforcement resources?

Re:Go Ross, Go!

[HeckRuler]

Yeah, when the stakes are high enough, you arguably have the power to declare the hit, and the ordering of the hit, to be legal.

Re:Go Ross, Go!

[rahvin112]

There isn't anything else as lucrative. That's the point. Drugs are the lifeblood of US gangs. Yes there are some in Mexico that derive revenue from other sources but when you talking about your average US street gang drugs are their only business and the only one that pays even in the ballpark.

Re:Go Ross, Go!

[j-turkey]

there's profits to be made in those private prisons... guess who does the lobbying to keep those drugs criminalised...

[Citation needed]. I know that it is in the best interests of private prison businesses to have more people in prison. I know that these companies also have lobbyists. Having spent over a decade in a government services company (who has also provided services to state prison systems), I know that most of us need to have lobbyists just to get business, and for things like helping state legislature write RFP's that will allow us to do business together (e.g. coming up with measurable and competitive proposals). However, I have yet to see any real evidence that these private prison companies are actually lobbying for stiffer penalties/drug criminalization, etc. Again, I know that the incentives run in that direction as most of these are run at a capitated rate, and I know that they lobby lawmakers, but these two things do no mean (in and of themselves) what you are suggesting. They've been accused of it, and have gone on record saying that they don't do this. Of course, just denying the charge does absolve them of the charge, but I've still not actually seen any proof of this. Not trying to start a nerd-flame-war with you, just asking if you can cite any evidence other than supposition.

PS, I love the Blues Brothers quote in your sig

Re:Go Ross, Go!

[sudon't]

Or even if they're not in pain. There's nothing at all wrong with heroin, and it's quite safe for even chronic use. Opiates are among the safest and most studied drugs we know of, next to cannabis and psychedelics. The bad consequences of opiate use all result from prohibition, particularly the artificially high costs imposed by the black market.

Re:Go Ross, Go!

[sudon't]

That's correct. Ending alcohol prohibition did not eliminate the gangs it spawned, but it did weaken them by cutting off their major source of funding. But they quickly moved onto other prohibited items and plain ol' theft. The lesson we need to learn is that prohibition creates criminals.

Re:Go Ross, Go!

[Required Snark]

People were soliciting for hit men on Silk Road. You good with that?

Even if no one had been killed by the time they were shut down, when you have an marketplace that enables payments for illegal acts what kind of behavior do you expect? Do you think that it would stop at drugs? Murder and sex trafficking are just as illegal. Even if Silk Road had prohibited payments for that kind of activity, don't you realize that another market allowing these transactions would exist?

I wonder if Kickstarter would let me set up a project so I could pay for someone to kick the shit out of you. Nothing personal, just to make a point. How does it feel when you are the target?

Re:Go Ross, Go!

[Required Snark]

Ohio Judge Sentenced to 28 years in 'Kids for Cash' Scheme

Ciavarella pleaded guilty on February 13, 2009, pursuant to a plea agreement, to federal charges of honest services fraud, wire fraud and tax evasion in connection with receiving $2.6 million in kickbacks from Robert Powell and Robert Mericle, the co-owner and builder respectively, of two private, for-profit juvenile facilities. In exchange for these kickbacks, Ciavarella sentenced children to extended stays in juvenile detention for offenses as minimal as mocking a principal on Myspace, trespassing in a vacant building, and shoplifting DVDs from Wal-mart.

There was originally a plea agreement, but Ciaverella refused to admit that he had accepted bribes for funneling juvenile offenders to a private jail. The agreement was dropped and he and his co-defendants went to trial.

On February 18, 2011, a jury in federal court found Ciavarella guilty of racketeering. This charge stemmed from Ciavarella accepting $997,000 in illegal payments from Robert Mericle, the real estate developer of PA Child Care, and attorney Robert Powell, a co-owner of the facility. Ciavarella was also on trial for 38 other counts including accepting numerous payments from Mericle and Powell as well as tax evasion.

On August 11, 2011, Ciavarella was sentenced to 28 years in federal prison. On May 24, 2013, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals vacated one count of the indictment against Ciavarella, but upheld all other charges, as well as his sentence. The Third Circuit refused to reconsider on July 24, 2013. The Supreme Court, which rarely accepts such cases, declined to hear the appeal in 2014, although Ciavarella could file a post-conviction relief motion before U.S. District Court within one year. With good behavior, he could be released in less than 24 years, when he would be 85. Ciavarella, inmate number 15008-067, is serving his sentence at Federal Correctional Institution, Pekin in Pekin, Illinois. His earliest projected release date is December 30, 2035.

So children have already been thrown in jail because of a corrupt judge accepting bribes from the people who built the prison. How can you doubt that in our current "campaign contribution" aka "bribe" driven political system that people aren't being sent to jail for corporate profit. It's just that the bribes have been made legal, and every one, including the so called prosecutors, are in on the scheme. We have accepted a society where corruption is the norm, and you refuse to acknowledge it.

Re:Go Ross, Go!

[TheCarp]

I don't believe my personal judgement of a persons actions is limited by the strict question of legality.

Re:Go Ross, Go!

[TheCarp]

Not just that bit, if the stakes are high enough.... I would even argue that self defense applies. The had a real fear not only for the life and safety of himself but of many other people around the world. It is very understandable to me that his actions are actually consistent with a desire to preserve his own life and the lives of others in face of a credible threat.

Hell he was probably more justified than many of our own presidents drone strikes.

Re:Go Ross, Go!

[HeckRuler]

What kind of war-mongering doublethink bullshit is this?

Remember when we elected the guy so that he would stop the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq? So that he wouldn't invade Iran?

Just because he has the power doesn't make it right.

Listen, if you're a democrat, would you please kindly get the fuck out of my party?

Re:Go Ross, Go!

[HeckRuler]

Oh, whoa, sorry about that kneejerk reaction. You weren't talking about the president. "himself" is referencing Ross Ulbritch. You're saying that his ordering a hit, presumably on other criminals, was self-defense.

Yeah, no, that's silly. Not quite the war-mongering sort of bad, but it's laughable to think that paying someone to go out, find, and murder someone else is a a form of self-defense.

Re:Go Ross, Go!

[j-turkey]

So you're saying that one company's wrongdoing damns the whole industry? Does that also mean that every judge is corrupt? By your logic, it must be true.

Re:Go Ross, Go!

[davydagger]

Its highly adictive, to the point that someone adicted to heroin no longer consents to being on heroin, but rather must continue to feed a habbit. Thats whats wrong with it.

Re:Go Ross, Go!

[davydagger]

theft is easier to combat, though, and its nowhere near as lucrative. Far more money, far lower risk per transaction.

Society has a far lower tollerance for theft, and the amount of money in stealing is far less than drugs, and its far riskier.

Re:Go Ross, Go!

[davydagger]

http://ordinary-gentlemen.com/blog/2011/06/05/the-role-of-the-prison-guards-union-in-californias-troubled-prison-system

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Correctional_Peace_Officers_Association

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/09/20/2658701/private-prison-firms-quotas-cells-coffers/

I mean you could have found this with a 5 second trip to google. Sweet fuck. Its no secret that guard's unions and private prisons fund campaigns of politicians that promote stronger sentancing. This is not incidental.

the very concept of a private prison is absurd. There is no market for prisons, and there can't be. Its very existence is corruption.(all business is generated dirrectly by lobying), and they don't really sell a product, and exist soley on government given taxpayers dollars.

Re:Go Ross, Go!

[davydagger]

>People were soliciting for hit men on Silk Road. You good with that?

Ross Ulbrich solicited a hit man once. That is it. It was not many people, or multiple people. Your making a wide reaching conspiracy where one simply does not exist. The silk road did not permit people selling hitman contracts.

>Even if Silk Road had prohibited payments for that kind of activity, don't you realize that another market allowing these transactions would exist?

This argument makes no sense. Your saying that even if person X didn't commit the crime, they are still guilty because someone else would have done it anyway. How about we arrest you now for treason, because that is what your suggesting, and even if its not, someone else is going to do it anyway. Substitute Treason for child rape, terrorism, or any other high and despicable crime

>Murder and sex trafficking are just as illegal.

niether which were being solicited on the silk road. Making the argument a strawman.

>I wonder if Kickstarter would let me set up a project so I could pay for someone to kick the shit out of you. Nothing personal, just to make a point. How does it feel when you are the target?

I was thinking we'd show up at your house at dinner time and beat you in front of your family before handcuffing you, and charging you with non-violent dissent against the current system. How does it feel when your the target?

Re:Go Ross, Go!

[Frosty Piss]

Also, do you know that it was FBI that posed undercover as the blackmailers as well as the executors. That every single hit that was ordered against a fictional entity, in response to blackmails by fictional entities, and carried out by a fictional entity as well.

And you know this how? Oh, that's right, you made this all up...

Re:Go Ross, Go!

[dryeo]

Lots of things are highly addictive, the various drugs starting with oxy are good examples as they're perhaps more addictive then heroin and frequently prescribed. Then there is alcohol, one of the few drugs that can kill you during withdrawal and tobacco, the most addictive and also one of the most deadliest.
If someone is in chronic pain, whether physical or mental and a drug as cheap to manufacture and as safe as heroin is cheaply available, does it matter if they become addicted?

Re:Go Ross, Go!

[davydagger]

>Lots of things are highly addictive, the various drugs starting with oxy are good examples as they're perhaps more addictive then heroin and frequently prescribed.

I know, and they need to be more tightly regulated. I've been screaming about it for years. Many of them even have the nicknames "synthetic heroin", and despite being label, they do cause adiction, and many of the soul crushing effects of heroin. Prescription painkillers *are* an issue, and they are *not* ok.

>If someone is in chronic pain, whether physical or mental and a drug as cheap to manufacture and as safe as heroin is cheaply available, does it matter if they become addicted?

something about the cure being as bad as the disease.

Re:Go Ross, Go!

[dryeo]

.
>If someone is in chronic pain, whether physical or mental and a drug as cheap to manufacture and as safe as heroin is cheaply available, does it matter if they become addicted?

something about the cure being as bad as the disease.

Besides being addictive, clean pure heroin is a safe drug, side affects are constipation and drowsiness. It's safe enough that my aunt was given it for childbirth (last one in Canada).
What is the hangup about being addictive? I'm addicted to air, water, food and even things like company. Then there are the drugs such as coffee that I'm addicted to and yet coffee is not demonized.

Re:Go Ross, Go!

[j-turkey]

OK. Let's look at the articles that you linked me. The CCPOA (the California Guard's Union) has nothing to do with private prisons (not private prisons). CCPOA is a very powerful union, and they are guards of state run prisons. CCPOA is against the concept of private prisons (they state in the link that they "Successfully defended the basic incarceration function from privatization (contracting out)"). These are public employees doing what you're accusing private organizations of doing! It's no surprise that a powerful state correctional officer union doesn't like private prisons, the private prisons are a threat to the correctional officers' jobs.

In the third link, it discusses contracts where CCA requires states to have minimal occupancy rates or pay rebates. I can see how that might be objectionable, but that is not an example of using lobbyists to campaign stronger sentencing. The agreements essentially say: "We've invested dollars for infrastructure to build this prison under agreement with you guys. If we're going to continue to operate this facility, you need to fill our facility to x percent capacity". If private prison firms are getting paid at a capitated rate, there is no money in operating an empty prison...just like flying a plane with empty seats will lose an airline money. The only article of substance in your post basically says "see, those evil bastards are trying to make money from prisons!' Well duh, of course they are. That does not, in any way, point to their lobbyists pressuring lawmakers for harder sentencing. Further, none of these states are entirely privatized, believe me - the states don't need to incarcerate more people to fill prisons. California, in particular, really doesn't need more inmates - they were among the first to enact (what I believe are unreasonable) 3-strikes laws (which existed before private prisons).

Look, I have already said that it is in their best interests that incarceration rates are high. CCA said it themselves in the (mandated by law) risk profile of their SEC filing ("The demand for our facilities and services could be adversely affected by the relaxation of enforcement efforts, leniency in conviction ..."). But I've worked for a mental health company who had to put into our risk profile filing that if all mental illness were somehow cured tomorrow, the demand for our service would be adversely affected. It does not, in any way, suggest that this company would fight against a cure for mental health, if it existed.

You also complain that they exist solely because of lobbying. What public-private partnership does not exist (in-part) because of lobbying? Does that make the entire privatized government service industry shady, or just private prisons? Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed, SpaceX, Boeing...these all helped America build our space program with help from lobbying (among other things). I am not suggesting that the space program is the same as private prisons, or even remotely in the same ball ballpark, but these are private agencies who served the government with serious help from lobbying efforts, on the same level as companies like CCA.

I've said a number of times, I understand how higher incarceration rates are in the best interest of private prisons. I also understand how the idea of private prisons can be objectionable to many. However, my post effectively asked a simple question: Is there actual evidence to demonstrate that the private prison is actively lobbying to increase prison sentencing? Your 5 second trip to google did not provide any answers to the question that was implicitly asked. You provided links to more of the same conjecture. Conjecture does not equal evidence.

I also understand why many have a problem with private prisons on a fundamental ideo

Re:Go Ross, Go!

[TheCarp]

and yet the very group which claims he broke their laws uses this very excuse on a daily basis. So which is it?

Re:Go Ross, Go!

[HeckRuler]

HA! not falling for that again.
Please, could you spell out who/what
1) "The very group"
2) "he"
3) "this excuse"
refer to? Because at this stage I'm quite lost as to just what the fuck you're talking about.

Re:Go Ross, Go!

[TheCarp]

Oh ill spell it out clearly, I really put Ross as more moral and less deserving of punishment than the president of the united states, AND most all his predecessors.

I do think what he did was, based on the circumstance he was in, pretty much self defense and that he has a better case for calling it defense than our own government does with most of what its so called "defense department" does...that is....the people accusing him of being the criminal.

He is less of a criminal to my mind than the government that accuses him. He has no actual victims that I know of, and the only alleged victim, had plenty of hand in his own situation. So I see nothing Ross actually did all that wrong, he did exactly what a person in his position should be expected to do.

If the government didn't want to create drug kingpins and the associated problems, maybe it shouldn't have created the market for them, the blame should be put where it belongs, with the policy makers who make the policies with such predictable outcomes.

Re:Go Ross, Go!

[davydagger]

the hangup on adiction is that it takes a person's right to consent away.

air, water, food, and human contact are not addictions, they are human neccesities.

Government undermines its own legitimacy.

[Anonymous Coward]

With this double standard behaviour the government is undermining its own legitimacy.

Re:Government undermines its own legitimacy.

[__aanbvm4272]

Double standard? let's see; You understand THEY can lie to you and do whatever it takes to solve a crime. But you better NOT get caught telling a lie to them...?

America is the great experiment in democracy

[Crashmarik]

I guess at this point we are finding out just exactly where the limits of "government of the people, by the people, for the people" really are.

Sure... too bad they DIDN'T BOTHER TO GET ONE!

[mrchaotica]

[nothing else needs to be said]

Re:Sure... too bad they DIDN'T BOTHER TO GET ONE!

[mrchaotica]

Offtopic? Wow, the three-letter-agencies have modpoints tonight.

Re:Sure... too bad they DIDN'T BOTHER TO GET ONE!

[dryeo]

You posted a comment that said nothing besides "[nothing else needs to be said]", it's a weird way to agree with the GP and doesn't add anything to the discussion.

Re:Sure... too bad they DIDN'T BOTHER TO GET ONE!

[serviscope_minor]

You know that posts have subject lines, right?

Re:Sure... too bad they DIDN'T BOTHER TO GET ONE!

[mrchaotica]

Thanks.

Incidentally, at the time I posted complaining about the offtopic mod, I noticed that several other pro-totalitarianism posts were modded up an other pro-civil-rights posts were modded offtopic. It wasn't just my post that I thought TLAs (or their shills) were spending their modpoints on.

Re:Sure... too bad they DIDN'T BOTHER TO GET ONE!

[dryeo]

Who reads the subject line? A post should be in the post if you want people to read it.

Re:Sure... too bad they DIDN'T BOTHER TO GET ONE!

[dryeo]

Only now do I notice that you put your comment in the subject. Hint, some people read the comment box rather then the subject and at least you should duplicate your message in the message box.
Personally if I was using my mod points in this article, I wouldn't have done more then skim your message and skipped it even though it deserved up-modding.

Re:Sure... too bad they DIDN'T BOTHER TO GET ONE!

[mrchaotica]

I usually do put my comment in the message body, but in this case I was replying specifically to the parent post's subject line.

Next time that happens, I'll write something like "[see subject]" instead so that nobody gets confused.

Re:Sure... too bad they DIDN'T BOTHER TO GET ONE!

[NicBenjamin]

Now that you mention it...

Today's the first time I've ever gotten modded offtopic. And that post was anti-government because it pointed out that the Constitution was not about universal freedom until the 1860s. I'm not surprised about the flame-bait mods, but off-topic was just weird man.

OTOH, my post pointing out that you really have to stretch to believe any judge is gonna care whether a given search looked like a hack from Weev is still at 5.

Re:STOP THE VIDEO ADS SLASHDOT!

[sexconker]

JUST USE ADBLOCK YoU LaZY MoTHeRFuCKiNG PiSS OFF SHiT

No, just use your fucking hosts file.

These guys are really stretching...

[NicBenjamin]

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.

Re:These guys are really stretching...

[Anonymous Coward]

I want it brought down for a different reason. If the claims in question to not lead to the truth as a discoverable path than we know it was parallel construction which is unconstitutional for the obvious reason.

Since somebody will claim the obvious is not, it makes checking whether the Fourth amendment was followed impossible and violates the Fifth amendment of right to confront witnesses.

Re:These guys are really stretching...

[sjames]

Except that's not the argument. The argument is that they exceeded even those broader powers granted to law enforcement.

The Constitution offers no exception for non-citizens and certainly not for citizens who might 'reasonably' be thought to be non-citizens. The court's fantasies notwithstanding.

Re:These guys are really stretching...

[sjames]

Read my post again. According to the Constitution, his nationality does not matter. The whole thing about American or not is an ugly bit of unsupportable sophistry from the courts.

Beyond that, since they are not admitting how they actually obtained the information and who actually obtained it, they are now (knowing very well he is American) violating his right to face his accuser. They are also introducing inadmissable hearsay and lying under oath to make it appear to be admissible testimony.

Re:These guys are really stretching...

[HeckRuler]

But that's assuming they knew he was american the whole time.

By that logic, this a perfectly valid argument for a cop performing an illegal search and seizure:
"Well he looked like a spic at the time, thought he was a dewback"
Is that what you want?

This is why the idea that non-citizens don't have rights is really dangerous. If a cop pulls you over and manages to lose your ID, and claims in court that he had no way of knowing that you were a citizen, then you effectively have no rights. You are the lowest common denominator.

This is why the cops/FBI/CIA shouldn't be allowed acting like criminals when it's convenient for them on overseas servers.

Re:These guys are really stretching...

[NicBenjamin]

According to the article that is the entire argument his lawyers are making. It quotes absolutely zero statements on the Fourth Amendment. It quotes a lot of BS about "illegal behavior," and "double standards," but it says precisely jack-shit about Ulbricht's lawyers saying the Feds needed a warrant.

As for the Fourth, the actual text of what the Amendment says is that it only applies to "the people." Which means the US people, not Icelanders living in Reykjavik.

Whether the Court's right about the good faith exception is a totally academic question. What matters is that the Courts think they're right, the present Supreme Court Justices ain't gonna change their minds, therefore fuck you Ross Ulbricht.

Re:These guys are really stretching...

[NicBenjamin]

Reread the Fourth.

It applies to the American people as a whole, which means that in theory even dewbacks get the benefit of the doubt. In practice they really don't because a dude whose first language is Spanish and has never earned more then $20k in a year isn't gonna be able to get a good immigration lawyer to stop his ass from being deported; but then the entire US Court system is designed to be very easy on anyone who either a) knows it's ins and outs or b) has the cold hard cash to hire somebody who does.

Re:These guys are really stretching...

[NicBenjamin]

All of them. Seriously.

Congress gets the power to make any laws they want governing certain areas in Article I. Article II gives the President King-like powers of a) enforcing those laws, b) participating in the Legislative process (the veto), and c) he gets some King-like powers of his own.

Since your rights are circumscribed by any law the government enforces, and the government has the right to enforce said laws, it's clear that as long as the government stays in it's lane (ie: statutes emanating from an enumerated power, no violations of the Amendments, etc.) it has powers to d shit to you that you could not even dream fo doing to either a) the government or b) another person.

Re:These guys are really stretching...

[NicBenjamin]

In US law, a document referring to "the people" with a definite article is generally assumed to refer solely to the American people. If the Founders wanted to give rights to innocent Canadians they would have simply said "the right to be secure...," rather then "the right of the people to be secure..." So his nationality is extremely important.

Re:These guys are really stretching...

[sjames]

Actually, since the constitution DID use the word citizen when it meant a citizen, the word people is to be interpreted more broadly.

Meanwhile, the illegal activities would be going beyond the bounds permitted by the Constitution.

Re:These guys are really stretching...

[sjames]

As I said, they know he's American now and they are lying under oath and depriving him of his right to face his accuser.

Re:These guys are really stretching...

[NicBenjamin]

So they're supposed to let an attempted murderer go free because they didn't get paperwork they probably didn't need?

Arguments like that are why everyone says they support Civil Liberties activists like you, and then proceeds to do absolutely nothing you want.

Re:These guys are really stretching...

[NicBenjamin]

Reread the Constitution.

"Citizen" is an individual title in the early bits of the Constitution. Citizen A is (or is not) eligible for this office, Citizen can sue Citizen C in such-and-such a Court. The closest thing there is to a reference to "Citizens" as holding Constitutional rights is the priveleges and immunities clause, and they pretty much had to use that exact word or the states would have gotten all lawyerly about whether people from Rhode Island had the same legal status as Citizens of Connecticut. In areas where the Founders clearly can't be referring to Icelanders in Reykjavik (ie: the Second Amendment), they refer to "the people." The definite article is the giveaway, because it indicates that the noun "people" is a defined group, and the only such group that the Fourth can be referring to is the people of the US.

As for illegal activities, that would be a great argument if his lawyers mentioned any illegal activities that were actually illegal. They don't say anything about the Fourth, they just go on and on about how hypocritical the government is for hacking people.

Re:These guys are really stretching...

[sjames]

They are supposed to tell the truth in court. This is beyond not having paperwork in order. So yes, if that's all they have, they must let him go and hopefully learn to tell the truth in court next time.

Re:These guys are really stretching...

[NicBenjamin]

Are you arguing about the search that revealed the data, or the government's explanation of how that search happened? Because the latter argument has absolutely nothing to do with the Fourth Amendment. Which means the exclusionary rule does not apply. The remedy for the Court saying the government is excessively deceptive about how it obtained evidence is that the judge orders the government to come clean, not that the evidence gets excluded.

Note the "excessively." If the Courts think that the manner in which the evidence was obtained is irrelevant to the question before them (ie: did this idiot Ulricht pay somebody to kill people), then they will let the government get away with it. Under the American system of government the accused has the right to argue the evidence is complete BS, but he doesn't get to waste the Court's time with years of depositions figuring out precisely how the evidence got into the government's hands. In many cases the Judge will actively aid the government in lying about it's investigative techniques, because you do not actually have a right to know which technique the government used to tap your phone. You just have the right to know your phone was tapped, and this is the recording.

Re:These guys are really stretching...

[sjames]

You also have the right to face your accuser. The evidence presented does not appear to have come from the FBI at all. It came from some 'other' who is the actual accuser. Produce the accuser or exclude the evidence. Hearsay isn't permitted.

The courts have gotten quite lax about that lately and that is why the people are rapidly losing confidence in the courts.

The way evidence is obtained matters a lot. If for no other reason that a disreputable source may have faked it all.

It is also necessary to care so it doesn't become a universal back door to violate the 4th. For example, I get some homeless person to tell me that you are building a bomb in your basement (and he just happens to find a fifth of jack nearby). Now I have 'probable cause' to bust in and find the desiccated remnant of a roach the previous owner of your home smoked, bust you for 'possession' and take what I want.

Re:These guys are really stretching...

[NicBenjamin]

Goddamn lawyers can be ridiculously stupid.

I'm not arguing your point on Constitutional theory right now, because arguments on Constitutional theory are designed to be a waste of everyone's time. I;m arguing legal tactics.

Let's say you;re right. The hack was done by the NSA, and they are the only ones who can explain how the server links to Ulbricht. In that case even saying the words "National Security Agency" within 50 miles of the court room is legal malpractice because it increases the odds the NSA guy who knows this shit cold will be called to testify. And if he does Ulbricht is totally fucked. His lawyer might as well have put the fucking needle in his fucking arm personally. And don't bother claiming that the NSA won't show up. If they show up they get credit for bringing down evil Silk Road empire, justify all their operations, etc.

Let's say you're wrong. The FBI did the hack. Then the Prosecution can prove it, and all Ulbricht's legal team has done is convince the Judge their client must desperate or his lawyers wouldn't be trying something that's obviously going to fucking backfire.

Really, how much do you hate this Ulbricxht guy?

Re:These guys are really stretching...

[sjames]

Except the NSA guy will never testify, ever. If you drag him to the stand he'll claim to be the janitor. They will never admit to obtaining the data because the next question is "how?" (and it does matter because it goes to the certainty of the accuser). He can't answer "how?" without admitting to a big pile of things the U.S. government has claimed don't exist.

In short, No Such Agency would rather let Ulbricht walk than testify. Further, given recent history of perjury before Congress they aren't the most credible witness.

Re:These guys are really stretching...

[NicBenjamin]

I find a lot of opponents of the security state have extremely high IQs, but virtually no common sense. They're a very smart combination of hopelessly naive, and ridiculously cynical.

For example, this is one case. The NSA does not have to reveal any tactic not used against Ulbricht. This means that that unless you have personally hacked their servers, and know this exact hack was done by them with one of the techniques they have disowned, and that there's no plausible BS explanation; your plan is legal suicide.

Moreover if they've lied to Congress, what's to stop them from lying on the stand? "Well, we hacked this Taliban computer, and it was talking to this IP address in Iceland, so we hacked the IP address, and then we turned your terrorist-aiding drug lord scumbag client over to the FBI; and incidentally we can't give you any more details without risking current operations." Works perfectly.

Re:Helps if your client is not a lying sack of shi

[rmdingler]

As big a fan as I am of pigeon-holing millions of dissimilar people into an easily understood, and oft-repeated niche,

can you guess which Republican Governor was indicted this year in his own Capitol city?

Re:Every defendant makes the same claim

[qeveren]

Every defendant is also innocent until proven guilty, so of course they're going to defend themselves. Your method is "we've arrested you, therefore you must be guilty and shouldn't bother with a defense."

Why the ironiquotes in the title?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are there ironiquotes around the word 'criminal' in the title?

Re:Nice try, it's called a WARRANT

[davydagger]

>When a warrant is signed by a judge, Law Enforcement has every right to force execution of the warrant by just about any means they see fit to use. If that means they break down your door, toss in a flash bang and do thousands of dollars damage, so be it.

I don't know where people keep getting this idea. Mabey the fact we are desensitized to it, but no they don't. Cops have the right to arrest whoever the warrant is for, they have a right to seize whatever the warrant tells them to seize, and they have the right to search whatever the warrant tells them to search.

All this must be done with the reasonable minimum amount of force reasonable to accomplishing their goals. The way LE operates, and its more or less tollerated by society, but by no means legal, or even fairly standard. Most of the time, believe it or not, cops do follow procedure. The problem is that there is zero reprocussions for when they do not, and they fail enough that it becomes a real problem for society, as a %5 failure rate can scale real quick in terms of scale.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_force_continuum

>This is a PR attempt by the lawyer to gin up the press in an effort to get public opinion on their side in hopes that the prosecutor might be tempted to lower the charges or something.

pretty much. That said my sole argument in favor of Ross/DPR/Silk Road is that its the lesser of two evils, and that the system he operated was marginally more fair, safer, and less destructive to society than the Cartels and their street dealers.

>Think of this as a hail Mary pass by the home team on homecoming night when they are down by 3 and only have 10 seconds left to play. Chances are this won't work and they are going to loose.

you never know, Americans believe some dumb shit. Between celebrities and politicians, most Americans will believe a lot of dumb shit some PR asshole has to say if he strikes the right nerves.

Not surprising

[uvajed_ekil]

It is not surprising at all that Ulbricht's attorney is pressing hard to try to get all of the significant evidence excluded. It is a standard (if desperate) legal tactic, especially when the evidence is extremely damning. This case looks like it will essentially be decided by what evidence is allowed, since the evidence the government has should make convictions a slam dunk. Getting the court to believe that the FBI's hack was illegal (and perhaps uncovering their true methods) is about the only thing that is going to get the guy off.

Technical claims as reported puzzling

[harryjohnston]

Has the defense presented any actual evidence that the site was hacked?

The Ars Technica article says: "Experts suggested that the FBI didn't see leakage from the site's login page but contacted the site's IP directly and got the PHPMyAdmin configuration page. That raises the question of how the authorities obtained the IP address and located the servers." ... but that doesn't make sense. If having the IP address was all they needed to identify that it was indeed the droids - sorry, server - they were looking for, well, that's easy enough these days: there are less than four billion routable IP addresses, so try them all. It might take a few days or a few weeks or even a few months, depending on what resources you can throw at it, but it's no big deal. So what am I missing? Or are the defense just blowing smoke?

Re:Technical claims as reported puzzling

[sjames]

You're missing that the server wouldn't respond to any routable IP address. It only communicated through tor. So try them all and get nothing of worth.

That means they could only have gotten an IP address by hacking a great many innocent 3rd parties using technology only the NSA has.

In turn, that means the defendant is being denied the right to face his accuser and the FBI is trying to represent inadmissible hearsay as actual testimony by means of a few big lies under oath.

Re:Technical claims as reported puzzling

[Pope]

You're missing that the server wouldn't respond to any routable IP address. It only communicated through tor.

Incorrect. It was discovered leaking a public IP through the Captcha in early 2013. That info was posted a number of places, including Buttcoin.org.

Re:Technical claims as reported puzzling

[sjames]

And refuted in several other places.

Re:Technical claims as reported puzzling

[Vitriol Angst]

That's why agencies that use the NSA services choose to re-route the sexting from the smart phone to ruin a person's reputation, rather than go after them on criminal grounds.

*wink*

Re:Technical claims as reported puzzling

[Whorhay]

I believe the Defense actually showed that did not actually happen. The logs which are in evidence from the server show that the supposed CAPTCHA leak never happened. The CAPTCHA story was apparently an atempt at parallel construction that failed. So now the defense team is working to get all the evidence gathered as a result thrown out. The prosecution is stuck either revealing their potentially illegal methods or hoping that the Judge just really likes them.

Re:Technical claims as reported puzzling

[harryjohnston]

The article says "Experts suggested that the FBI didn't see leakage from the site's login page but contacted the site's IP directly and got the PHPMyAdmin configuration page." That's the technical claim I'm talking about, and the only one that I've seen so far in support of the contention that the site was hacked.

If this claim is credible, then the site was in fact responding on its routable address, and might (at least in principle) have been found by scanning the internet.

If this claim is not credible, then I'd like to know what credible evidence *has* been presented.

(As an aside, a few days back I saw someone claim to have identified a specific mistake in the configuration file that caused the site to allow connections that didn't come through Tor, but I can no longer locate this claim and can't speak for its technical accuracy.)

Re:Technical claims as reported puzzling

[sjames]

If it had been found by just scanning the internet, why were the FBI so keen to lie under oath? Surely not just for funsies?!

I'm still waiting for the defense lawyer that says

[Hey_Jude_Jesus]

Your honor my client is a scoundrel criminal and you should give him the maximum punishment for his crime. At least Slashdot should use neutral sources regrading legal proceedings. But most of the blogger media is lazy and just quotes the lawyers for each side.

Someone's confused

[Chelloveck]

Silly rabbit! Government makes the laws. It doesn't follow the laws.

How can you ever have rules

[7-Vodka]

How can you ever really have rules, if you have rulers?

Re:Both are guilty

[Anonymous Coward]

But it was never proven.... you can't argue "obvious" because brains are different.

Obvious to me is not merging into traffic going 25mph in a 70mph freeway... but today someone did just that, then flipped me the bird when I honked and slammed on my brakes.

Obvious to me is letting other people do what they want if they are not bothering society or killing people/raping/etc..... Yet some Alaskan Trooper will follow a group of teenagers 6 hours into the brush and bust them the instant they light a joint in the middle of nowhere.

But idiots block the fast lanes every day and utter things like "leave earlier" when I'm leaving work and trying to get home in time to see my family before bed..... Even though the road is 100% completely open in front of them, they aren't in the slightest hurry and refuse to move and let me exist at my pace.

I used to have a Grandpa that would drive 25mph and hold up traffic for miles behind us on single lane 55mph roads, then on the other hand complain about how the young people working 2 jobs and going to school are never on time.

I use car stories because cars to me involve simple human behavior that is *obvious* to me. Drive or move over and let me drive. Same speed, same lane. These are basic principles yet I see people that call themselves intelligent enough to lock me away, lacking any insight or logic that isn't self-centered. Sharing something to them is basically hogging 100% of something and bitching the second someone else complains. Those that aspire to nothing and lead boring lives can downright hold up and block those that are rushing between opportunities that grow the city. Society is okay with that which is mind boggling. I'm not asking to kill slow people or harm them.... Just the right to ignore them and *pass* by. But my own damn movement is not even my freedom around these people.... How could we *EVER* expect any form of society that blocks speed (progress) to ever go anywhere? It's like asking ants to answer philosophical questions....

If I can't even move at my own pace, freedom is non-existent!!!!! There is not a further higher level discussion possible.

Re:Both are guilty

[Karmashock]

You're missing the point. I'm not saying convict people without a trial. I'm saying have the trial, throw out no evidence on the grounds that it was collected improperly, and then try not only the accused but also the police in the event that they are apparently in violation of laws themselves.

The current status quo is that if the police break the law trying to catch you break the law then the evidence against you can't be used because the police didn't collect it properly. That is wrong. two wrongs do not make a right.

Two wrongs make two wrongs.

Re:Every defendant makes the same claim

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember the old adage; don't do the crime if you can't do the time.

That is no longer a reasonable adage in the US. Anyhting you do can be considered a crime in the US, even if you are not even in that country.

Ross should be happy it was the USA. Some of the less polite gov'ts would have just wacked him, dumped him in the ocean, and saved the legal expenses.

Based on what they have done in the past, I would consider the US to be one of the countries most likely to employ such methods.

Re:Both are guilty

[Anonymous Coward]

The police must be punished for breaking the law. However, so to must OTHER criminals they have uncovered... even if the evidence was obtained illegally.

That would reward criminal actions of law enforcement officials. There are good reasons why illegally obtained evidence cannot be used in court.

Re:Both are guilty

[Anonymous Coward]

In theory yes. But what if an investigation about illegally obtained evidence fails to establish who specifically was actually responsible for breaking the law to obtain it? Should the illegal evidence still be allowed? This will just encourage the police to do a better job covering up how the illegal evidence was actually obtained, and by whom.

In practice, the police who break the law trying to catch someone almost never get punished (the system protects its own people), so in reality this deterrent does not seem very workable, alas; so the next best deterrent, which actually does work to some degree in reality, is having their evidence be unusable. Yeah, it's a compromise which sometimes lets bad guys avoid conviction, but it seems better than the realistic alternative.

Re:Both are guilty

[Karmashock]

the problem you're addressing is the relationship between the District Attorney/Attorney General and the police/FBI. Currently they exist in the same branch of government. I would argue that they shouldn't.

Have a fourth branch of government or something. So the police stand before the DA or AG as members of a separate chain of command.

When there is a police/FBI cover up it is typically with the complicity of the DA/AG. Take them out of the loop and you make it harder for them to do that.

Re:Both are guilty

[gnasher719]

The police must be punished for breaking the law. However, so to must OTHER criminals they have uncovered... even if the evidence was obtained illegally.

That's not how it works. The police is punished for illegal searches by making the results of the illegal search not usable as evidence, or as a reason for further investigation. That's it. It was decided that this is the proper way to stop the police from making illegal searches against innocent citizens.

It's also quite obvious that a police officer may make an illegal search by mistake. If the result of such a search could be used, you would expect police officers in getting more clever making illegal searches "by mistake", so we look just at the fact that it was an illegal search and not further.

Re:Nice try, it's called a WARRANT

[RavenLrD20k]

One part you missed in this whole thing, as mrchaotica pointed out in his subject below: There was no warrant sought; let alone signed. The feds performed a potential act of war to gather the data by hacking into a server on foreign sovereign soil without direct authorization from either Congress or Presidential approval, and most certainly without the prior authorization of the country where the server is located. In this case the three letter organization involved went rogue, and imho completely botched this case, and Ross's lawyers are right in their attempt to get the evidence repressed. In reality heads need to roll for this within the organisation that overstepped its jurisdictional bounds, and the rolling heads must be done in complete view of the public.

Re:I'm still waiting for the defense lawyer that s

[RavenLrD20k]

I'm still waiting for the defense lawyer that says..."Your honor my client is a scoundrel criminal and you should give him the maximum punishment for his crime."

It will never happen because it would be illegal for the lawyer to do so. The worst a lawyer can do to his client if he knows his client is guilty and cannot bring himself to put forth his best efforts in defense is recuse himself from the case... and even this can have repercussions for the lawyer such as have his case reviewed by the Bar Association.

Re:Both are guilty

[gnasher719]

That would reward criminal actions of law enforcement officials. There are good reasons why illegally obtained evidence cannot be used in court.

Just to clarify: The reason for all this is _not_ to prevent criminals to get away with crimes if the police misbehaves, the reason is to protect innocent citizens from police misbehaviour.

Re:Both are guilty

[clonehappy]

I know how it fucking works at this moment. The whole point was that it should work a different way.

Why am I constantly surrounded by damned dirty apes?

So, it should work in a way where the authorities can do whatever they want to prove someone guilty of a crime? Do you realize what would happen in a country such as the United States where for-profit private prisons exist, should your little childish scenario come into play? The punishment for "illegal search" would be a day's paid vacation for the police and a $25 fine, whereas if they uncovered some minor malfeasance by a citizen, it'd be a minimum of 3 years hard labor in a prison factory.

This is somehow better for you?

Re:Both are guilty

[Vitriol Angst]

A problem with this statute is that it allows people we know to be guilty to get off.

Well I don't agree. People with power to incarcerate you following the rule of law and checks and balances is FAR MORE important to me, than some dark net distributor getting away with it.

Some things are legal and some are not -- and I can see many examples of where that decision was not informed.

It's better that a thousand guilty go free than one innocent go to prison. The guilty will commit another crime and we may catch them. But an abusive justice system scares me more than Al Qaeda.

That'd be a good point, except they had no Warrant

[celtic_hackr]

You're arguing a strawman argument, or rather a non-existent man argument. IF they had had a warrant, what they did would not be a problem. But they "hacked" into the server "exceeding authorized access" in violation of the CFAA WITHOUT A WARRANT. Hence it was a criminal act, by their own definition.

Now if you remove the CFAA, or clarify the law so it can't be misused to prosecute innocent uses, and uses that security professionals would normally use when looking for weaknesses in systems and not from a maliscious or criminal intent. Then what they did is probably ok. But as it stands now, what they did was criminal. It's a stupid, broken, clueless law, but it is the law and they would definitely prosecute someone for doing what they did.

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[account_deleted]

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Re:Stop The Video Ads Slashdot!

[sudon't]

Ha! I remember playing whack-a-mole with my hosts file. Some people need a hobby, I guess, but I'd rather let someone else do the work of keeping track of every new ad and tracking vector that pops up. When ad blocking software first appeared, I jumped on it. Thank you, writers of ad blocking wares throughout the years! Besides, do you really imagine the sub-literate moron who made that post, an idiot too lazy or stupid to install ad blocking software, whose Karma is so bad on this site that he doesn't have the option to turn off ads, a person who writes and behaves like a child, do you really think he'll be able to figure out hosts file editing?

Re:Stop The Video Ads Slashdot!

[sexconker]

There are plenty of hosts file managers that handle all the shit things like ABP do.

Re:Both are guilty

[Karmashock]

When the guilty go free, society itself is punished, the public is punished, the people are punished.

I am saying the police go to jail under this policy. So they are punished. That is the debt paid.

Last time.

Two wrongs do not make a right. Last word.

Good day.

Re:Both are guilty

[Karmashock]

If the authorities are prepared to go to jail for breaking that law then that is their choice. Just as you can do all sorts of things so long as you're prepared to go to jail for it.

Why do I have to keep saying this... the police under what I am saying would be prosecuted and sent to jail for breaking this law.

So yes, they could break the law to catch you. But they'd pay the same price you paid for committing crimes. They would go to jail right beside you.

Now here you say "but the penalty wouldn't be stiff enough"... well who says the penalty has to be light? Make violation of this law 10 years in prison or the electric chair or whatever it is you think is a reasonable punishment for breaking that law.

Prosecution and defense must stand as equals in the court of law. Neither one afforded any special privileges. The only exception being that parties making accusations have the burden to prove them.

Re:Both are guilty

[Karmashock]

I am not letting the police officer off the hook. He is going to jail as well under my solution. BOTH criminals go to jail. Both are tried in a court of law. All evidence is accepted so long as it is true.

The court should be a place where all truth is heard and judged.

Re:I'm still waiting for the defense lawyer that s

[3.5 stripes]

In the meantime, we're going to wait for you to stop holding your breath, because the lack of oxygen to your brain is making you extra stupid.

Re:Both are guilty

[david_thornley]

This requires that (a) the prosecutors be willing to prosecute law enforcement officers, and (b) guilt can be established beyond a reasonable doubt. In general, prosecutors have been very reluctant to go after LEOs doing things more or less in the course of their duties, and there's no good way I see to go after them. Moreover, it may be difficult to pin a certain illegal act specifically on a particular officer beyond reasonable doubt, and that's what would have to happen to convict that officer. In your suggested world, officers could do whatever they liked illegally to collect evidence, provided no specific count could be proved of any specific officer, with no penalty.

Re:Both are guilty

[david_thornley]

You are failing to provide plausible mechanism for sending police to prison. No matter what the organizational structure, prosecutors and police are working for the same side, and are going to get buddy-buddy. Moreover, it won't be difficult for the police to obfuscate things to make it impossible to prove that a specific officer did a specific illegal thing, and that's the standard to send somebody to prison.

Re:Both are guilty

[Karmashock]

True, however we're talking about changing the way things work. And it is no great stretch to put the DA in a separate branch or to create a special prosecutor that only investigates police and is in a separate chain of command.

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[account_deleted]

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