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?
I'm going to do it right now. Stuff it in your ass DOJ.
Usually when you say "from the article" you make the word "article" all blue and linky.
Is somewhat different from clearing browser cache.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
What US Prosecutors say is quite irrelevant to the law. Thank Goddess there are still a few checks on their kind of power.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
Incognito will be illegal for failing to create evidence.
Usually when you say "from the article" you make the word "article" all blue and linky.
Why? It's not like anyone reads TFA anyway.
Link.
-- Cheers!
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.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
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.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
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.
Once you learn of an investigation or a law suit, or can be reasonably expected to know one is coming, it's incumbent upon you to save all records. This is well established, and has been in existence for quite some time. It's not something new with browser history. With browser history, though, it's going to be slightly tougher to prove that it was for the purpose of obstructing the investigation, rather than his normal course of activity. His erasure of videos will help law enforcement prove that, though.
~Loyal
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. Neither is this disclaimer. Neither is the disclaimer of the disclaimer ad nauseam.
I aim to misbehave.
If you destroy or dispose of something because you believe it likely that prosecutors will seek that something as part of an criminal investigation, you have destroyed evidence and are obstructing justice. It doesn't matter whether that "something" is a piece of paper, a computer browser history or your baby tooth that fell out when you were six. Your suspicion that prosecutors will want that item makes its destruction a crime.
And like any crime, the prosecutor will have to prove it in court... not just that you wiped the browser history but that the reasonable explanation why you wiped the browser history was to prevent the authorities from gaining access to it. Actus rea -- wiping the browsing history. Mens rea - intending to hide something from police. The prosecutor has to prove BOTH to get a conviction.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
My browser is configured to automatically obstruct justice when I close the window.
Just because it is trivial to delete a browsing history doesn't mean you aren't destroying evidence by doing so. If you find yourself the subject of a police investigation, the first thing you should do is contact a lawyer and figure out what you should and should not be doing.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
All he did was use a tool available to him. The real criminals are Google, Microsoft Mozilla, who create these tools for the terrorists and distribute them, often free of charge, into the hands of the terrorists that use them.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
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.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Not to be too picky but part of a prosecutors job is to only prosecute case they know they can win. If a prosecutor does not believe they have the evidence to successfully convict someone they aren't suppose to charge them just to make other people feel good. In fact, prosecutors can be brought up on charges themselves for going after defendants they didn't in good faith believe they could convict even if they knew they were guilty.
Now, there are some that take that too far and only go after slam dunk cases, but in general most prosecutors will bring cases to trial where the odds of conviction are lower than 1:1. For some that might mean they go after anyone they think they have a 75% chance of convicting, some may be 60% and for some 50% might be good enough.
Real life isn't like a Law and Order episode where they try people with no real evidence hoping they'll confess on the stand and if they don't just move on to the next case.
Of course that's just my opinion...... you could be wrong!
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.
systemd uses binary logs. So no-one will be able to read anything anyway.
Have gnu, will travel.
We can outfit people's homes and offices with a special disposal slot. When you want to destroy a document, just push it in and it's incinerated per government regulations.
We can call them "memory holes".
He already spoke to the police, then cleared his browser later. That means he knew there was some form of investigation already underway at the time he deleted the browser history.
Unfortunately, I think that means intent doesn't matter now, except when it comes to sentencing. It was evidence, by not preserving it once he knew there was an investigation, he fell into the trap. He may have been ignorant of the trap, but he stepped in it.
That sucks. But I don't see a way around them getting him for that.
This sig intentionally left blank.
Why do you hate Social Justice?
We all have our own truth, and you're all, like, "there are objective differences between those two world views" and stuff, which is, like, so UNFAIR!
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
No, not that Enterprise. Businesses! Create a scheduled task to do it at regular intervals, or just set your browser to not save it in the first place. Then set tasks to empty caches, delete temp files, empty recycle bins, zero free space, etc. It's not destruction of evidence if it's part of your normal process. This is why businesses most businesses have document retention policies in the first place. "Oh, you want all our emails to/from your client from 3 years ago? Sorry, our retention policy is to only keep emails going 6 months back. Tough luck mate."
Also consider using whole disk encryption that isn't from a closed source vendor. Compelling a password in a criminal case against you is, legally*, almost impossible in the US now.
*Your mileage may vary. Impact from heavy objects is not covered. Bring a towel, you may need it after the waterboarding.
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
When incognito mode is outlawed, only outlaws will have incognito mode. :)
Unfortunately, there is a version of double jeopardy that has been approved by the court system. If you do something that is illegal under both federal and state law, you can be tried on both.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
If a person is found not guilty in a murder trial, how is it that they can be charged in a civil trial for damages from a murder they are not guilty of? If you don't see that as double jeopardy you are either blind, or a complete idiot who should live inside of a box and not be allowed to participate in society.
You then define a grand jury nearly absolutely incorrect. What you got right is that it's more people than a standard 12 person Jury, but 16 is the normal. You seem to imply it's a massive amount of difference, contrary to reality.
The rest is completely wrong, please go do some reading. I'd recommend going to a University Law page as opposed to Wiki so that you truly understand what a grand jury is. Check State vs. Federal grand juries, they are not the same. Lastly find out who gets to see a grand jury, because here is a hint.. most of us would never see a grand jury, but if you have power and money you will.
A grand jury does not charge anyone, they rule on whether or not the person "should" be charged. A prosecutor can always go outside of a grand jury ruling and file charges, but this is used as an "out" for a prosecutor not to process someone (though that was not the original intent). Grand juries are closed door, and do not necessarily use randomly selected members.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
If a person is found not guilty in a murder trial, how is it that they can be charged in a civil trial for damages from a murder they are not guilty of? If you don't see that as double jeopardy you are either blind, or a complete idiot who should live inside of a box and not be allowed to participate in society.
In the murder trial, that person was found "not guilty beyond reasonable doubt". That is an extremely high standard. In the civil court, there is a much lower standard: The court just has to find that the person is more likely to be the murderer than not.
In the Simpson case, would you be willing to deny justice to the Goldman family because police didn't have enough evidence against Simpson? And if he had been convicted, would you deny justice to the Goldman family because Simpson was already convicted once? That's pathetic.
No, it's not an extremely high standard. That is a constitutional defined basic standard. If a person is "not guilty" of a crime they can not be responsible for damages from that crime. That does not take rocket science level thought to understand, and prior to OJ who exactly was tried for similar civil damages for a crime they were found not guilty of? I await your list.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
It's actually not that uncommon. The criminal trial can certainly weigh heavily on a civil trial, but there are completely different (~95% vs. 51%) standards of evidentiary burden. It's not hard to imagine meeting one without meeting the other. And nowhere does the law, Constitution, or any basis of our judicial system state that being "not guilty" makes you in any way entirely free of any responsibility.
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.
The Bill of Rights states explicitly that you can not be tried for the same crime twice. There is no "but", "if", "we don't like that guy", or any other excuse. Until the OJ case it did not happen and would be thrown out if someone brought it up. Today it's happening frequently. See my comment below about the B&E charge and how stupid it is to have this form of double jeopardy... or any for that matter.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
The Bill of Rights states explicitly that you can not be tried for the same crime twice.
OJ was not tried for the same crime twice. He was tried once at a criminal trial and found not guilty. The subsequent civil trial was a claim for damages for wrongful death, and it was found that on the balance of probabilities he was responsible and should pay damages . He was not found "guilty" of anything and did not suffer a criminal punishment.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it