91–100 of 316 posts
The Fourth Amendment didn't help here, unfortunately. Or, perhaps fortunately. Still, 25 years for possessing kiddie porn, damn.
The harshness of sentence is not for the action of keeping the photos in itself, but the individual suffering and social damage caused by the actions that he incentivizes when he consumes such content.
> As the district court correctly ruled in the alternative, the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule supports denial of Maher’s suppression motion because, at the time authorities opened his uploaded file, they had a good faith basis to believe that no warrant was required So this means this conviction is upheld but future convictions may be overturned if they similarly don't acquire a warrant?
At the time, what they did was assumed to be legal because no one had ruled on it. Now, there is prior case law declaring it illegal. The ruling is made in such a way to say “we were allowing this, but we shouldn’t have been, so we wont allow it going forward”. I am not a legal scholar, but that’s the best way I can explain it. The way that the judicial system applies to law is incredibly complex and inconsistent.
This ends up feeling a lot like gambling in a casino. The casino can afford to bet and lose much more than the individual.
Wow, do I ever not know how I feel about the "good faith exception." It feels like it incentivizes the police to minimize their understanding of the law so that they can believe they are following it.
> It feels like it incentivizes the police to minimize their understanding of the law so that they can believe they are following it. That's a bingo. That's exactly what they do, and why so many cops know less about the law than random citizens. A better society would have high standards for the knowledge expected of police officers, including things like requiring 4-year criminal justice or pre-law degree to be elig…
> Google’s hash match may well have established probable cause for a warrant to allow police to conduct a visual examination of the Maher file. Very reasonable. Google can flag accounts as CP, but then a judge still needs to issue a warrant for the police to actually go and look at the file. Good job court. Extra points for reasoning about hash values.
I'm trying to imagine a more "real-world" example of this to see how I feel about it. I dislike that there is yet another loophole to gain access to peoples' data for legal reasons, but this does feel like a reasonable approach and a valid goal to pursue. I guess it's like if someone noticed you had a case shaped exactly like a machine gun, told the police, and they went to check if it was registered or not? I suppos…
This is something I don’t think needs analogies to understand. SA/CP image and video distribution is an ongoing moderation, network, and storage issue. The right to not be under constant digital surveillance is somewhat protected in the constitution.
I like speech and privacy and am paranoid of corporate or government overreach, but I arrive at the same conclusion as you taking this court decision at face value.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule supports denial of Maher’s suppression motion because, at the time authorities opened his uploaded file, they had a good faith basis to believe that no warrant was required This "good faith exception" is so absurd I struggle to believe that it's real. Ordinary citizens are expected to understand and scrupulously abide by all of the law, but it's enough for law enfor…
The courts accept good faith arguments at times. They will give reduced sentences or even none at all if they think you acted in good faith. There are enough situations where it is legal to kill someone that there are laws to make it clear that is a legal situation where one person can kill another (hopefully they never apply to you). Note that this case is not about ignorance of the law. This is I knew the law and w…
> Google’s hash match may well have established probable cause for a warrant to allow police to conduct a visual examination of the Maher file. Very reasonable. Google can flag accounts as CP, but then a judge still needs to issue a warrant for the police to actually go and look at the file. Good job court. Extra points for reasoning about hash values.
Is it reasonable? Even if the hash was md5, given valid image files, the chances of it being an accidental collision are way lower than the chance of any other evidence given to a judge was false or misinterpreted.
Unfortunately the decision didn't mention this at all even though it is important. If it was even as good as a md5 hash (which is broken) I think the search should be allowed without warrant because even though a accidental collision is possible odds are so strongly against it that the courts can safely assume there isn't (and of course if there is the police would close the case). However since this has is not that good the police cannot look at the image unless Google does.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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Icky things were historically made illegal all the time, but most of those historical examples have not fared well in retrospect. Modern justice systems are generally predicated on some quantifiable harm for good reasons. Given the extremely harsh penalties at play, I am not at all comfortable about punishing someone with a multi-year prison sentence for possession of a drawn or computer generated image. What exactly…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is out of date The language has changed as we (in civilised countries) stop punishing sex work "porn" is different from CASM In the bad old days pornographers were treated the same as sadists
The language is defined by how people actually use it, not by how a handful of activists try to prescribe its use. Ask any random person on the street, and most of them have no idea what CSAM is, but they know full well what "child porn" is. Dictionaries, encyclopedias etc also reflect this common sense usage. The justification for this attempt to change the definition doesn't make any sense, either. Just because som…
I think people who want others to stop using the term "child porn" are actually arguing the opposite of this. Porn is good, so calling it "child porn" is making a euphemism or otherwise diminishing the severity of "CSAM" by using the positive term "porn" to describe it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm trying to imagine a more "real-world" example of this to see how I feel about it. I dislike that there is yet another loophole to gain access to peoples' data for legal reasons, but this does feel like a reasonable approach and a valid goal to pursue. I guess it's like if someone noticed you had a case shaped exactly like a machine gun, told the police, and they went to check if it was registered or not? I suppos…
The main factual components are as follows: Party A has rented out property to Party B. Party A performs surveillance on or around the property with Party B's knowledge and consent. Party A discovers very high probability evidence that Party B is committing crimes within the property, and then informs the police of their findings. Police obtain a warrant, using Party A's statements as evidence. The closest "real worl…
I could easily see an AirBNB owner calling the cops if they saw, for instance, child abuse happening on their property.
> As the district court correctly ruled in the alternative, the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule supports denial of Maher’s suppression motion because, at the time authorities opened his uploaded file, they had a good faith basis to believe that no warrant was required So this means this conviction is upheld but future convictions may be overturned if they similarly don't acquire a warrant?
> the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule supports denial of Maher’s suppression motion because, at the time authorities opened his uploaded file, they had a good faith basis to believe that no warrant was required This "good faith exception" is so absurd I struggle to believe that it's real. Ordinary citizens are expected to understand and scrupulously abide by all of the law, but it's enough for law enfor…