US Prosecutors Say Clearing Browser Data Can Be Obstruction of Justice

The Nation reports that 24-year-old Khairullozhon Matanov, an associate of the since-convicted Tsarnaev brothers, faces charges not of conspiring with the Tsarnaevs, but of obstructing justice, and one aspect of the actions he took should probably concern anyone who has crossed paths online or in real life with subject of law enforcement scrutiny, and subsequently cleared their browser history. From the article: The feds finally arrested and indicted him in May 2014. ... There were three counts for making false statements based on the aforementioned lies and—remarkably—one count for destroying "any record, document or tangible object" with intent to obstruct a federal investigation. This last charge was for deleting videos on his computer that may have demonstrated his own terrorist sympathies and for clearing his browser history. What about using incognito mode?

Comments

Link?

[therealkevinkretz]

Usually when you say "from the article" you make the word "article" all blue and linky.

Re:Link?

[blueshift_1]

It does make me wonder how something with no article or references makes it to the front page... get it together /. editors!

Re:Link?

[DaHat]

The summary is poorly worded.

It's not that clearing your browsing history, throwing out old logs/emails or flushing your toilet are inherently illegal, it's when you use them and why.

If the cops are knocking at your door and you decide to flush the drugs, that's obstruction, if you just hacked someone's system and then wiped all of the local logs on your machine to hide the evidence, that's obstruction. If however you have as a routine process... not to retain any email older than say... 30 days and purge pretty regularly (either manually or automatically), that's not obstruction, that's just good cleanliness, and if some incriminating evidence happens to be wiped out on day 30, it's a lot harder to prove that you were doing so to hide your wrongdoing rather than simply not wanting to have to keep around old Amazon offers which clutter your inbox.

Re:Link?

[Geistmaus]

The way you've described it, entering a not-guilty plea is an obstruction of justice. Fundamentally, the government -- in the US -- has no right to your papers and effects until a warrant has been served. After which we can start talking about obstruction or the destruction of evidence.

Re:Link?

[metrix007]

It's not obstruction to hide evidence of something before you are charged.

Or, it's not obstruction to not incriminate yourself by leaving clear evidence out.

Re:Link?

[Anonymous Coward]

if some incriminating evidence happens to be wiped out on day 30, it's a lot harder to prove that you were doing so to hide your wrongdoing

It's cute - though a little disconcerting - how you think that politicians, the police and judges don't enjoy a privileged and cosy relationship in which the 99% do not participate.

If they target you for prosecution, you're screwed. On the other hand, how many times have we seen police - who have committed a gross action - being found not guilty? Situations where you just know a regular Joe would have received a decade in prison. Likewise, how many times do we hear of politicians violating laws, and yet they're never even referred for prosecution?

We and the media can kick and scream all we like. However back-room deals, private phone calls and backscratching will always win amongst "the elite".

Deleting videos

[penguinoid]

Is somewhat different from clearing browser cache.

Re:Deleting videos

[Anonymous Coward]

How does that compare to deleting 30,000 emails while Secretary of State AFTER they were subpoenaed by Congress? Because apparently that isn't worth talking about, so I'm trying to understand the difference.

Re:Deleting videos

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know - I have limited space on my SSD so I'm quite likely to aggressively delete cached videos just so I have some storage left to...well...do meaningful work. It's bad when the government tells ISPs to "keep everything, just in case we need it". It's worse when the government tells the public to "keep everything, just in case we need to investigate you".

Maybe ISPs can afford to have 10PB of offline archives in case they need to cooperate in an investigation, but I certainly don't have the space, power or wherewithal to keep a terabyte of permanent (uncorrupted, verifiable and backed-up) records just in case *I* need to cooperate in an investigation. I'm not the IT department for the DA office, nor am I required to incriminate myself.

Re:Deleting videos

[Anonymous Coward]

[...] who then had to issue a formal apology.

Now that's harsh punishment.

Incognito mode

[viperidaenz]

Incognito will be illegal for failing to create evidence.

Re:Incognito mode

[Anonymous Coward]

on the contrary, since incognito mode never creates the records sought in the first place, a federal prosecutor cannot then cite the federal statute forbidding the destruction of the records.

Re:Incognito mode

[ScentCone]

They would argue that you are pre-destroying records that could have implicated you in a crime, therefore you are guilty of whatever crime they deem you were covering up by your failure to create evidence of the crime they believe you were committing but have no evidence of.

True. Other than, you know, there being no example of that actually being the case, ever. Unless you have some you can link to? Thanks.

Before or after he was served papers?

[Qzukk]

There is absolutely no way I'd support charges like this for anyone that deletes anything before they've been ordered to provide it to the court. Nobody is psychic and the law should not require psychic powers.

Afterwards? Yeah, absolutely destruction of evidence assuming the government can prove that he had what they're claiming he deleted.

Re:Before or after he was served papers?

[pixelpusher220]

If a business has a planned policy to delete data it's entirely legal, up until the point at which they are informed to keep anything relevant. Enron wasn't following any plan but simply deleting anything they could find.

My company email is deleted after 60 days by default, even as a gov't contractor. Once we're notified to preserve then the rules change.

To me the big thing in the article is they can claim that even if you didn't know about an investigation and hadn't been ordered to preserve, they could still charge you with destruction of evidence. That's simply an astounding assertion. "You must follow orders you haven't been given" How does that work exactly?

Need to prove intent

[gurps_npc]

When you have a policy of destroying old records, it isn't 'destroying evidence'. They need to show that clearing browser history was not standard behavior for him. I for example, have my browser set to destroy all history after every session.

Oh, bullshit ...

[gstoddart]

Was he being investigated at the time he cleared his browser?

If not, this is retroactively constructing a legal charge out of thin air.

It's basically saying "you should have known you were guilty of thought crime and preserved the evidence in case we ever decided to come looking for you". Fuck that.

My god but law enforcement have become writers of fiction, and have completely given up on the law. They'll just make up any old shit these days.

Hey, FBI, I'm clearing my browser history right now. I'm doing it again. I'm even blocking cookies and ads, AND listening to music without paying additional royalties. I'm even going to fast forward through commercials.

Assholes.

Incognito Mode - Godless Communism!

[RevSpaminator]

When incognito mode is outlawed, only outlaws will have incognito mode. :)

Re:Nothing to see here, move along.

[MaskedSlacker]

You have to be rather dense to think a civil trial is a prosecution, though.

The message is clear

[sjames]

All of this happened after he voluntarily shared pertinant information with the police. The message is clear:

NEVER HELP THE POLICE IN ANY WAY!

If that isn't the message they want to send, they really need to re-think their strategy.

Re:Nothing to see here, move along.

[AK Marc]

You mean, who applied stupid amounts of pressure about insisting that even more mortgages be given out to people who couldn't possibly keep up with them? Ask the Democrats who were running congress at the time, maybe even read the transcripts of the hearings where people from the Bush administration sat before that congress and said what a horrible idea it was.

All that was unrelated to the mortgage-backed security fiasco. That lie is the 1%er's spin on it. The problem was the bankers that lied about risk when creating and trading securities. Nothing else was related to the problem. The default rates of the "people who couldn't possibly keep up with them" weren't high when the whole thing came crashing down.

But to answer your question ... who broke which specific law that you're thinking of?

The bankers and banking institutions that formed loans into derivatives committed fraud. The mortgage brokers that lent the "bad" money, and lied about it as they on-sold the loans also are guilty of fraud.

Being stupid isn't against the law.

Lying for profit is. It's called fraud.