Slashdot Mirror
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?
We've asked, lobbied, and begged for actions taken on a computer or across a network to be taken the same way by law enforcement and the courts as if they were taken offline with non-virtual items. This is a double-edged sword. It's okay to shred paper documents, but not if you're doing so with intent to destroy evidence of a crime. Well, now, they're just treating computer users the same as paper users. We asked. They answered.
The equivalent headline would be: You can be charged with evading police just by driving.*
* While there is a police car with its sirens blaring behind you.
Does Incognito Mode truly never store anything on the computer? Or does it store elements on the computer as it is building the page and then immediately delete them? It certainly builds an in-tab history since you can go back and forward within an Incognito tab - though this is destroyed once the tab is closed. If clearing your browser cache is really "destruction of evidence", then Incognito Mode might be this too.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
There was one trial that had prosecution going on. There was one trial that could have sent him to prison with a criminal record.
There was another trial, under somewhat different law, that had a plaintiff rather than a prosecutor, and could only get money from Simpson.
Seriously, do you think a criminal trial should immunize somebody from civil lawsuits?
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
An acquaintance of mine also ran into something similar with the local law enforcement where I live. They threw him in jail for 24 hrs for "speeding and reckless driving" in the police station parking lot (which has surveillance) because he did not wait another two hours to file a complaint against a neighbor (police crony) for harassing his son. An officer stated that he witnessed the whole thing. They stormed his house with 4 officers 4 hours after the incident, through him up against the wall in front of his terrified daughter to arrest him. Come trial, the police video was "lost" or "deleted". Luckily, the much more tech savvy fire department next door had their surveillance video and graciously provided their video footage exonerating said person.
They do not "lose" them. They intentionally delete them to leave no trail which can be used against them in trial or congressional oversight committee.
Always remember, the prosecution is a human as well as the defense attorney and both will bend the truth to their liking in order to show that something/nothing wrong was done.
BTW, the attorney for the acquaintance humiliated the police department in trial who then had to issue a formal apology.
Using incognito shows you have the intent to do something illegal. Otherwise, you would have nothing to hide.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!