Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How a federal spy case turned into a child pornography prosecution

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 178 posts

Re: How a federal spy case turned into a child pornography prosecution

#61

Post by tar_z »

jnbiche wrote: post #38
Govannon wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>but the Federal Government is completely sitting on it. Arguably in a democracy we Americans should all be blaming ourselves for that. Because of the whole voting/paying attention/holding elected officials accountable thing. The Federal Government is representative of our collective ability to do that well, plus our historic ability to do that well I suppose.

> Arguably in a democracy we Americans should all be blaming ourselves for that. I'll accept the blame for spending so many years falling for the two-party system. For that I'll take my blame. But for voting for candidates who turned out to be nothing like they presented themselves? Who outright and repeatedly lied during election season? (and here I'm talking about more than just the presidential level) I'm a reason…

what do you consume then?

Re: How a federal spy case turned into a child pornography prosecution

#62

Post by matt_wulfeck »

> The court also found that “there is no indication of any false statements having been included in the FISA materials.

Yes but how do we know that when it's kept a secret? We keep things like this from being a secret so that this very question can be determined.

"Trust us. It's legit."

Re: How a federal spy case turned into a child pornography prosecution

#63

Post by mineshaftgap »

ekianjo wrote: post #2

> In Gartenlaub’s case, the government made sealed filings, so neither the defense nor the public was able to see them. Based on the secret filings, the judge held that the government had shown probable cause that the house to be searched belonged to “an agent of a foreign power." That's typically what you read about foreign police states.

If the US is a police state then there is no country that isn't, but at least you get a lot of up votes.

Re: How a federal spy case turned into a child pornography prosecution

#64

Post by appleflaxen »

And the child porn charge doesn't really matter to the prosecutors. They offered to drop it in return for espionage data.

The insidious part of all of this is that everybody is guilty of something. And for a sufficiently connected person, you can find a sufficiently broad law that you can charge them with a serious crime.

Combine that with selective enforcement (witness the absence of charges in the wake of the subprime crisis), and you have an utterly arbitrary criminal justice system that only functions to protect and advance the interests of the 1%.

Re: How a federal spy case turned into a child pornography prosecution

#65

Post by ocschwar »

kstenerud wrote: post #50
darawk wrote: post #44

To be honest, nothing about this seems particularly bad. It seems like circumstantially there was some evidence that he may have been a spy, the government executed a FISA warrant on the basis of that belief, and then found evidence of child porn. I'm not generally a fan of secret warrants or broad search and seizure powers, but this really doesn't strike me as a particularly bad case. This seems, by and large, like…

Until you get to the money shot: "During his initial appearance in a federal courthouse in Santa Ana, Calif., the prosecutors indicated a willingness to reduce or drop the child pornography charges if he would tell them about the C-17, said Sara Naheedy, Gartenlaub’s attorney at the time." No evidence of downloading the porn. No evidence of viewing the porn. The only way, according to their own experts, is if someone…

It's a pity the reporter doesn't have enough savvy to give us the details we all want.

I mean, it's one thing to find the stuff in Downloads, along with browser history indicating it came from, oh /b/ on such and such a date, and with atimes` that make some sense.

It's another thing entirely for it to be in Downloads, with no browser history. Did he go into incognito mode?

But 4 drives? With no encryption? And no browser history? WTF?

Yeah, he;s convicted. By 12 people who probably have a blinking 12:00 on their microwaves.

Re: How a federal spy case turned into a child pornography prosecution

#66

Post by lsh123 »

SeanDav wrote: post #55

If, during the entire history of the USA, some FBI agents had never been proven to be corrupt, if judges had never been proven to be corrupt, if evidence had never been proved to be planted by authorities, then maybe, just maybe this would be justified. In the real world, however, this is very, very scary and I consider myself lucky I am not subject to this travesty. Since there does not appear to be any proof that h…

The past does not predict the future. Even if all the "ifs" were true, then it is still a bad idea and scary thing to do.

Re: How a federal spy case turned into a child pornography prosecution

#67

Post by ocschwar »

sneak wrote: post #14

Tell me again why well-off American programmers continue living in that country without the most basic of human rights? It's time to go. You can still access us-east-1 from the civilized bits of Europe, you know. It has now been between 2 and 10 years since the time where it became totally unreasonable to continue living there while other options are available to you. Don't wait until the trumped-up federal charges.…

You think permanent resident visas are easy to acquire ?

Re: How a federal spy case turned into a child pornography prosecution

#68

Post by at-fates-hands »

ekianjo wrote: post #12
nxzero wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might seem repeative or unwarrented, but to me, it's very clear that the... US is a police state.

More like, it has become like that. Because of complete disregard/disrespect for the US constitution. The constitution had numerous safeguards to restrict abuse of power, but the Federal Government is completely sitting on it.

>>> More like, it has become like that. Because of complete disregard/disrespect for the US constitution.

Which has infected every level of government.

From the president's "executive orders" every time he wants something done and congress refuses to do it, so he simply writes a new law and enacts it.

From supreme court nominees who believe more in "social justice" then interpreting the constitution which is their job, not to dole out fairness when they feel their has been an injustice done to some party.

From the do-nothing congress that simply doesn't work at all in the completely divided partisan environment they've created. No laws get passed, there is no working together for their constituents - which is their job. You can also toss in there the Republicans stone walling the supreme court nominee which has become high theater now - on both sides.

Our government is being run like a fucking game now and its infuriating and depressing all at the same time. Remember those days when the two parties would work together and pass acts and laws that were good for the country? Remember when the economy was shit and both parties worked together and solve the problems?

Yeah, I don't either.

Re: How a federal spy case turned into a child pornography prosecution

#70

Post by lettergram »

enlightenedfool wrote: post #36
ekianjo wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More like, it has become like that. Because of complete disregard/disrespect for the US constitution. The constitution had numerous safeguards to restrict abuse of power, but the Federal Government is completely sitting on it.

It will get worse when electorate instead of choosing the right candidates, chooses the more electable ones. The constitution cannot provide safeguard against ill-informed electorate. Not just the US, applies to any democracy. Most democracies have similar awesome constitution texts.

That's actually why historically only land owners could vote. They had the most to lose and we're the most educated.

Regardless of "right or wrong" that did provide a safeguard against the likes of people like Trump, probably Hillery and Bernie as well.

Post reply on HN