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Ross Ulbricht's Lawyer Says FBI's Hack of Silk Road Was "Criminal"
First time accepted submitter apexcp writes Trading blows with the prosecution, defendants for accused Silk Road mastermind Ross Ulbricht continues to press for the exclusion of evidence seized during what he says is an illegal hack an awful lot like the one that got Weev 15 months in prison. "The government posits two standards of behavior: one for private citizens, who must adhere to a strict standard of conduct construed by the government, and the other for the government, which, with its elastic ability to effect electronic intrusion, can deliberately, cavalierly, and unrepentantly transgress those same standards. Yet neither law nor the Constitution permits rank government lawlessness without consequences."
it's not illegal!
The solution is obvious. Ross Ulbricht should run for president and win.
"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."
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
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.
[nothing else needs to be said]
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
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.
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."
Don't just stand there, get that other dog!
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.
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.
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.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
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.
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.