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US Supreme Court releases leak investigation report

supremecourt.gov

21–30 of 108 posts

Re: US Supreme Court releases leak investigation report

#21
post #13

At least this is an improvement from the “hacker known as 4chan” days. I’m a bit confused by this report though, did they do forensic analysis on the devices of all employees who would’ve had access or only some and rely on interviews for the rest? I imagine if someone leaked it they probably wouldn’t immediately admit to it just when asked.

> The investigators collected Court-issued laptops and mobile devices from all personnel who had access to the draft opinion.

Re: US Supreme Court releases leak investigation report

#23
post #13

At least this is an improvement from the “hacker known as 4chan” days. I’m a bit confused by this report though, did they do forensic analysis on the devices of all employees who would’ve had access or only some and rely on interviews for the rest? I imagine if someone leaked it they probably wouldn’t immediately admit to it just when asked.

>I imagine if someone leaked it they probably wouldn’t immediately admit to it just when asked.

"At the conclusion of the initial interviews, each employee was asked to sign an affidavit, under penalty of perjury, affirming that he or she did not disclose the Dobbs draft opinion to any person not employed by the Supreme Court, did not disclose to any person not employed by the Supreme Court any information relating to the Dobbs draft opinion not made public through means authorized by the Court, and had provided all of the pertinent information known to him or her relating to the disclosure or publication of the Dobbs draft opinion. Each employee was then asked to swear to the truth of the statements in the affidavit before a Notary Public. Each of these employees signed a sworn affidavit. A few of those interviewed admitted to telling their spouses about the draft opinion or vote count, so they annotated their affidavits to that effect. If investigators later determine any personnel lied to the investigators, those personnel would be subject to prosecution for a false statement in violation of 18 USC § 1001."

Re: US Supreme Court releases leak investigation report

#24

Spoiler: they didn't ID the leaker, and also didn't interview any of the justices.

We've done nothing, and we're all out of options, confused pikachu face. Though, personally I think this leak probably was good as it at least got public discourse going around the subject even though the justices ultimately went against public sentiment for reasons. I'm personally WAY more concerned about Justice Thomas and Ginny Thomas and their links to the insurrection attempt, and other undermining of democracy.

> I'm personally WAY more concerned about Justice Thomas and Ginny Thomas and their links to the insurrection attempt, and other undermining of democracy.

I'm more concerned about global warming, but you can be concerned about more than one thing.

Re: US Supreme Court releases leak investigation report

#25
post #13

At least this is an improvement from the “hacker known as 4chan” days. I’m a bit confused by this report though, did they do forensic analysis on the devices of all employees who would’ve had access or only some and rely on interviews for the rest? I imagine if someone leaked it they probably wouldn’t immediately admit to it just when asked.

"all employees who were requested to do so voluntarily provided call and text detail records and billing statements for their personal devices for a defined period to the best of their abilities. The investigators reviewed the call and text logs retrieved but found nothing relevant in the limited logs."

All the other references that I can find look like they are limited to the Court's IT systems. That seems like it might yield evidence that someone contacted the press (if they were careless enough to use their personal device), but little else.

Re: US Supreme Court releases leak investigation report

#26

I found it interesting that a lot of the reasons the report gives for not being able to identify the leaker seems to boil down to pretty basic cyber hygiene. "The investigators were not able to readily search and analyze all event logs because at the time the system lacked substantial logging and search functions."

"There was no evidence discovered that anyone emailed the draft opinion to anyone else, although technical limitations in the Court’s computer recordkeeping at the time made it impossible to rule out this possibility entirely."

There’s a very real chance that this boils down to someone deleting the message from their sent box.

Re: US Supreme Court releases leak investigation report

#27
>The investigators determined that in addition to the Justices, 82 employees had access to electronic or hard copies of the draft opinion.

Makes me wonder how many of these are IT employees and what type of system they have in place. Do they borrow a secure system from another agency? Or do they just pass around google docs?

Re: US Supreme Court releases leak investigation report

#28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've done nothing, and we're all out of options, confused pikachu face. Though, personally I think this leak probably was good as it at least got public discourse going around the subject even though the justices ultimately went against public sentiment for reasons. I'm personally WAY more concerned about Justice Thomas and Ginny Thomas and their links to the insurrection attempt, and other undermining of democracy.

It is not the duty of the Supreme Court to follow public sentiment.

Absolutely right! SCOTUS should continue to just call balls and strikes.

Re: US Supreme Court releases leak investigation report

#29
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on what evidence?

Because he's done it before https://www.axios.com/2022/11/29/supreme-court-alito-ethics-...

I'm in broad agreement with you, Alito more than likely leaked it himself, which is why no leaker will be found, the justices are above scrutiny. Absent finding another person who we can prove did it, I'll hold on to that idea.

Re: US Supreme Court releases leak investigation report

#30
When I clerked for a judge (not on the Supreme Court), she sometimes asked me to write two draft opinions -- one where one side wins -- and another where the other side wins -- and she used those materials in drafting her ultimate opinion.

There are so many different things going on in how judges write. I hope that they can get some _sense_ of security again so that they feel the freedom to be as open-minded as possible in figuring out the cases before them.

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