mitnick testified in 1992 or so that cops could track people like this. they labeled him as a conspiracy nut. but he was right
fwiw those "nuts" they call people like him and me is a testicular reference, as in "has nuts".
/rant
An Oakland shooting reveals how cops snoop on cell phones
41–50 of 51 posts
Re: An Oakland shooting reveals how cops snoop on cell phones
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why let the evidence stand? Shouldn't it be preferable to exclude the illegally-obtained evidence and punish the police for obtaining it illegally?
I think it depends on whether you think justice should seek truth or some sort of malleable truth theater. Causing an actual criminal go unpunished when extremely convincing evidence of guilt is known (but concealed from the jury) only further harms the victims.
Illegally-obtained evidence shouldn't be inadmissible just because it was obtained illegally, but because it is co-mingled with the motives of the official who broke the law to obtain it. You can't possibly know if the evidence is even reliable and accurate because it could just as easily be fabricated to further those illegal motives.
Re: An Oakland shooting reveals how cops snoop on cell phones
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
an informant names some suspects, looking up the location of the suspects' phones seems acceptable to me. Wasn't the "secret informant" a wiretap they didn't want subject to legal scrutiny? That's the impression I got from the article?
FTA: "At times, cops have gone as far as to falsely claim the existence of a confidential informant while in fact deploying this particularly sweeping and invasive surveillance tool." The author suggests - between the lines anyway - that the authorities claim there's a CI, when really that CI is a Stingray. To apply that logic to this case, the CI "X" seems to be a convenient way to get around pesky constitutional pr…
Yep. There was no informant. The implications are quite unacceptable.
Re: An Oakland shooting reveals how cops snoop on cell phones
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the situation where knowledge of guilt has been found by unjust means, how does ignoring that knowledge promote justice. > Some would view such violations as, themselves, inherently and fundamentally unjust Exactly. Which is why the government should be held accountable to the victims of that abuse, not accountable to itself.
> In the situation where knowledge of guilt has been found by unjust means, how does ignoring that knowledge promote justice. Because not ignoring that knowledge enables the propagating of injustice. Fighting for justice is a futile effort if delivering justice also delivers one or more instances of injustice (it is a pyrrhic victory). This idea is the root of the biblical notion of "eye for an eye" (also part of a p…
No, this is not dichotomous-- There are at least five parties experiencing various degrees of harm: victims of crime, law enforcement, actually guilty criminals, falsely accused criminals, and the general public.
The actually hard part is divining the difference between actually guilty criminals and falsely accused criminals. That's the only valid reason for the justice system to act in this space. And that's also exactly what this extra knowledge clarifies.
We can always go full-retard with the utilitarianism. If you're going to allow injustice to happen to the few to the benefit the many, why even bother prosecute anyone for anything? Shut the farce down.
Or perhaps we could remove the bubble wrap that we allow government to hide behind and hold law enforcement directly accountable for its harm to the public and to the falsely accused. We don't have to play moral dominoes.
Re: An Oakland shooting reveals how cops snoop on cell phones
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the situation where knowledge of guilt has been found by unjust means, how does ignoring that knowledge promote justice. > Some would view such violations as, themselves, inherently and fundamentally unjust Exactly. Which is why the government should be held accountable to the victims of that abuse, not accountable to itself.
> Which is why the government should be held accountable to the victims of that abuse The exclusionary rule holds the government accountable to victims of abuse, by removing the value that the government sought to gain by the abuse and the expense of the victim (it is imperfect, of course, in that it fails where the abuse was targeted at some use other than criminal prosecution.) Any mechanism that fails to prevent t…
That argument rests on the asserted non-existence of alternate mechanisms to hold the government accountable when they abuse the general public. Believe it or not letting criminals walk free is actually not the only available mechanism for addressing government abuse. It's just the mechanism our government has chosen for itself.
Re: An Oakland shooting reveals how cops snoop on cell phones
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You can view government as an imperfect tool that attempts to achieve the goal of justice, or your can view government as the definition of justice. You could also view "justice" in such a way that the claim that a victim of crime "deserves justices" is, to the extent that it is meaningful, completely inapplicable to the concept of criminal punishment. > It's a question of whether to judge an imperfect tool based o…
In the situation where knowledge of guilt has been found by unjust means, how does ignoring that knowledge promote justice. > Some would view such violations as, themselves, inherently and fundamentally unjust Exactly. Which is why the government should be held accountable to the victims of that abuse, not accountable to itself.
>In the situation where knowledge of guilt has been found by unjust means, how does ignoring that knowledge promote justice.
By signalling to police that whatever sketchy things they did to obtain the knowledge won't be available to help them achieve their goal.
Example, police use defective probable cause to search a motorist's vehicle; and I don't just mean search, but really search, as in pull the carpets up, remove interior panels, remove all of the contents of the trunk, break down the tires and look inside; it is destructive. Although the car may be re-assembled, they never are returned to their pre-tossing state. The only thing preventing this from happening more often is the amount of labor involved in tearing the car up. Police (Feds sometimes do) don't have to pay for damaging someone's property when they do this. They don't even have to put it back together. Same goes for your home.
Re: An Oakland shooting reveals how cops snoop on cell phones
#47If three armed gang members are on the run after shooting someone, and an informant names some suspects, looking up the location of the suspects' phones seems acceptable to me. I have no doubt that stingrays are abused, but this specific instance, even if not legal, is ethical. That said, I do have issues with the OPD's incompetence and the prosecution's attempt at a cover-up. Seriously, why did the officer put himse…
>Have the same prosecutors hidden evidence from the defense in the past? I'd love to get answers to those questions.
Look up Alex Kozinski "There is an epidemic of Brady violations abroad in the land."
Re: An Oakland shooting reveals how cops snoop on cell phones
#48This is the first time I've heard of a pen register, apparently somewhat broad, modern parlance for things that capture phone data. It seems pretty damning that they spent the time to fax MetroPCS but couldn't, ya know, even get the pen register or ask a judge to ask if they thought it was a good idea. Maybe the bad guys are really bad, but sometimes I hope that they get off just to make the point that the cops are s…
For an excellent review of the nature of policing and wiretaps in particular, watch the TV show The Wire. On HBO now and Amazon Prime. (and I think the best TV show ever made.) It's fictionalized but written by an ex-cop and covers the drug trade in Baltimore.
David Simon was a former reporter. His lectures -- look for "the audacity of despair" -- are excellent:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRt46W3k-qw
(Long, poor audio, and lot of verbal ticks, but simply amazing.)
Re: An Oakland shooting reveals how cops snoop on cell phones
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
> In the situation where knowledge of guilt has been found by unjust means, how does ignoring that knowledge promote justice. Because not ignoring that knowledge enables the propagating of injustice. Fighting for justice is a futile effort if delivering justice also delivers one or more instances of injustice (it is a pyrrhic victory). This idea is the root of the biblical notion of "eye for an eye" (also part of a p…
No, this is not dichotomous-- There are at least five parties experiencing various degrees of harm: victims of crime, law enforcement, actually guilty criminals, falsely accused criminals, and the general public. The actually hard part is divining the difference between actually guilty criminals and falsely accused criminals. That's the only valid reason for the justice system to act in this space. And that's also ex…
> We can always go full-retard with the utilitarianism. If you're going to allow injustice to happen to the few to the benefit the many, why even bother prosecute anyone for anything?
That is quite a strawman coming out of nowhere! You can use Kant's Categorical Imperative for all I care to formulate my previous comment with something like:
"It is acceptable to do an unjust action in order to determine a person's possible guilt in a suspected crime."
(And I am sure the proponents of Utilitarianism were not learning disabled).
> And that's also exactly what this extra knowledge [unjust action uncovering evidence of guilt] clarifies.
Sure, but it is also a great way to damage the general public's well-being. I'm ignoring the obvious hindsight bias that is required, though that could be a separate argument. I instead would like to point out that if there is the idea of a "second class citizen" (a non-victim) whose rights are allowed to be trumped in order to bring justice for a "first class citizen" (a victim), society as a whole will shift to be one full of victims. I don't believe such a society would be healthy and cooperative. I posit instead it would be better for a society as a whole to prevent having victims in the first place (through some sort of comprehensive set of methods, e.g.: community building, decriminalization, education, better mental health solutions, etc) while maintaining equal rights. There does not exist a perfect justice system for each individual, but having the net effect across all of society being positive is a worthy goal.
> Or perhaps we could remove the bubble wrap that we allow government to hide behind and hold law enforcement directly accountable for its harm to the public and to the falsely accused.
I agree.
Re: An Oakland shooting reveals how cops snoop on cell phones
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, this is not dichotomous-- There are at least five parties experiencing various degrees of harm: victims of crime, law enforcement, actually guilty criminals, falsely accused criminals, and the general public. The actually hard part is divining the difference between actually guilty criminals and falsely accused criminals. That's the only valid reason for the justice system to act in this space. And that's also ex…
> We can always go full-retard with the utilitarianism. If you're going to allow injustice to happen to the few to the benefit the many, why even bother prosecute anyone for anything? That is quite a strawman coming out of nowhere! You can use Kant's Categorical Imperative for all I care to formulate my previous comment with something like: "It is acceptable to do an unjust action in order to determine a person's pos…
I disagree about the strawman. You would deny the victims concrete existing evidence of the accused's wrong doing--solely for the purpose of protecting the general public from some potential or abstract future harm. I disagree that this denial is actually necessary for preventing the potential or abstract future harm.