171–180 of 805 posts
Let's be clear here. The laws Uber violated here were bad laws. They were the result of a semi-corrupt relationship between city governments and taxi cab companies. Uber has been the prime mover in killing these laws. That's a good thing.
Laws about accessibility and safety are bad laws?
I don't see why this is so bad. They're a private business, and they're allowed to do business with whom they will. It doesn't really change anything w.r.t the fact that they're skirting regulation, especially if the given origin story is true. Pretty tame compared to the other stuff we've been seeing from Uber, lately.
"Q: What sorts of acts may constitute obstruction of justice? A: Obstruction may consist of any attempt to hinder the discovery, apprehension, conviction or punishment of anyone who has committed a crime. Q: Does obstruction of justice always involve bribery or physical force? A: No. One particularly murky category of obstruction is the use of "misleading conduct" toward another person for the purpose of obstructing…
How diabolical! In a world where privacy has been traded away for convenience, it's poetic justice where a startup uses data mining techniques to subvert the government. This is the same government that would have no issues to use the same techniques to spy on its own people for its own motives. I'm neither on Uber nor the government's side in this case, just simply making an observation. The lack of data privacy see…
Holy shit that's actually impressive in how deceitful it is.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>What can I do if I don't like the service a state provides You can vote. >The state is a huge corporation No.
Voting is an illusion of choice. You have the choice to use Uber or not, You don't have a choice when it comes to following the law. How is state not a huge corporation?
The state is an entity designed to mitigate risk for the benefit of all, which ends up benefiting the few due to implementation problems
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For what it's worth, the US government requires income tax to be paid on foreign earnings, even while living and working overseas. To avoid that, you'd have to also renounce citizenships, which is expensive and at the government's discretion.
Indeed. It is very difficult to renounce citizenship entirely. Doubly so because most emigration targets don't grant full citizenship. The US is really awful about this. Americans are not allowed to opt out of their citizenship without extreme measures.
Maybe that wall isn't for keeping Mexicans out?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is an absurd false equivalency. The NSA isn't tracking down drivers, this is local law enforcement. They could be investigating a crime related to an Uber driver, but not specifically about the legality of the service. What if you were just robbed or assaulted by a driver and Uber sends fake data about nearby cars when a cop is trying to use the app to track them down?
>What if you were just robbed or assaulted by a driver and Uber sends fake data about nearby cars when a cop is trying to use the app to track them down? Then I'd say "wow, why is this cop using an inaccurate and highly-likely-to-be-thrown-out-in-court method when the LEA has a stingray that allows them to track the driver directly and accurately?" >this is local law enforcement Yes, the poor, good, moral, ethical lo…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
IAAL (but i've only done small amount of criminal work). A crime has been committed, even if they don't pick up the officials. If uber is operating illegally, the drivers that have picked anyone up have committed a crime. Keeping the cars away from the officials trying to ticket and prosecute those drivers is the obstruction. That is, it's not the "avoiding sting" that causes it to be obstruction, because the crime w…
But the city's goal with these sting operations wasn't to catch and prosecute drivers/uber for previous trips. It was to catch them in the act for a single trip and prosecute them for that. To use another analogy, if I'm a drug dealer and the cops try to buy drugs from me in a sting operation and I somehow figure out that they're cops and walk away before doing a deal is that obstruction of justice? Because I think t…
Errr, sure it is. Their investigatory mechanism happen to be to try catch them on a trip they could prove originated in the city, giving them probable cause to stop them and ticket them.
This just happens to be easier to do as a sting.
"It was to catch them in the act for a single trip and prosecute them for that."
That is just the method, not the purpose of the investigation.
Your argument is what would be called "a distinction without a difference"
If the FBI is looking for illegal uranium sellers, and they try to buy/bust a low level guy as part of the investigation, it does not make the investigation about the buy/bust, it's still to catch and prosecute illegal uranium sellers.
Here, the investigation's goal was to catch and prosecute uber drivers driving illegally. In any case, it doesn't matter.
Remember "Obstruction may consist of any attempt to hinder the discovery, apprehension, conviction or punishment of anyone who has committed a crime. "
Not "the crime you are currently investigating", but any crime.
For example, oneo the the federal statute says: "(a) Whoever willfully endeavors by means of bribery to obstruct, delay, or prevent the communication of information relating to a violation of any criminal statute of the United States by any person to a criminal investigator shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned not more than five years, or both."
(emph mine)
(Ignore the bribery part, there's a ton of these statutes,i'm just pulling out one)
"To use another analogy, if I'm a drug dealer and the cops try to buy drugs from me in a sting operation and I somehow figure out that they're cops and walk away before doing a deal is that obstruction of justice? Because I think that's basically what is (was?) happening here. "
This isn't obstruction, but it's not what is happening here.
Imagine if the cops were investigating you for dealing drugs. They already had evidence you deal drugs. They ask your friend where you are, even just to talk to you, to try to get cleaner evidence, and he deliberately lies about where you are to protect you. Congrats, that's obstruction in a lot of jurisdictions. No sting reuired.
Here, the cops are asking the uber app where the drivers are. They know or have probable cause to believe the drivers have committed crimes (again, the sting part is just about having a very clean prosecution, it's not required or necessary here). Uber deliberately lies about where the drivers are, with the purpose of protecting them from this investigation.
You can ignore the sting they were doing completely. The crime was complete the second a law enforcement officer, trying to investigate the crimes of an uber driver, opened the app in an attempt to find a driver (even just to talk to!) and got fake results.