> I do not find "the justice system treats them differently... circular appeal to authority.
You may not know it, but you are effectively referencing the difference between a "rule of law" and a "rule by law" in the important parts at least.
This goes back to and falls under social contract theory, and the "rule of law" in society is meant as the final protection for its members, and to provide non-violent conflict resolution impartially, justly, and fairly, equal under the law, and accessible.
The moment the required components cease to exist, is the momentous beginning of a trend towards the failure of society, as it will naturally mean increasing violence and reversion to the natural order, rule of violence.
There is a valid argument to be made that despite many people claiming we have the former, we are actually living in the latter.
The latter allows many miscarriages, such as the infamous soviet judiciary example of, "you show me the person, I'll show you the crime".
Possession laws historically are also particularly problematic in this regard because evidence can be planted, or in the case of digital systems, induced creation of evidence involuntary (given how systems work and how callbacks can be injected by pointing software to a third-party resource to download), regardless there are many potential situations where the viewing of such horrifying material is unrelated to the choice of a person accused.
That of course doesn't appear to be the case here given what's been written, but nonetheless it is important to have firm, objective, and rational requirements to protect citizens. The trade-off is some small number of bad guys may get to go free as a result, and that's a tradeoff anyone should be glad for when it comes to corruption and how it devolves into tyranny unchecked.
The law rarely differentiates mitigating circumstances, often leading to a guilty until proven innocent situation for most, when these types of structural flaws are allowed. For example, there are locksmith tools that are considered burglary tools, and mere possession in some places is grounds for arrest (a felony), these tools share in common the physical shapes for other legitimate item uses.
System's without appropriate procedures and process for punishing abuses almost always leads to totalitarianism when no feedback system is in place to prevent such abuses from getting out of hand, which is why any true American should be up in arms when abuses happen as a result of corruption. Corruption can occur for a number of reasons that do not benefit a person. For a full treating of corruption, Johnston wrote a book on it ("Syndromes of Corruption").
Unfortunately, many judges today view the constitution as only being binding on government itself (in isolation), and have long taken the literal or constructive ruling instead of going with the spirit of the law, lessening our protections over time gradually but surely. This will eventually lead us to societal collapse.
It is a sad state of affairs, but regardless of the nature of the crime, the ends do not justify the means absent direct survival threats (which cannot be soundly argued in this case). Ends justifying means is only valid against existential threats.
When those means are allowed to change arbitrarily, the very next time it will be you or someone close to you on the sacrificial altar as a matter of some corrupt officials convenience, maybe merely for engaging in your protected rights to free speech to limit corrupt behavior or expressing disagreement in retaliation; there will only be an indirect link.
These tools are then ready made to be used in retaliation arbitrarily.
That said,
In this case, at least from what I've read, it appears a fairly clear cut case of fruit of the poisoned tree.
Law Enforcement could easily have applied for a warrant based on the probable cause of the hash matches, but instead chose not to. There is also the question of methodology Google uses in how they manage and enter new hashes into their hash database (which went unanswered).
They would have needed a warrant to justify everything else that came later. That is classic fruit of the poisoned tree. Thus it is a constitutional violation.
Additionally, I'm sure it comes as no surprise to most HN readers who are programmers, but hashes are not unique they are loose fingerprints related to structure but not giving fine detail for a exact match.
At its core, it is a finite field, which means that there can potentially be an infinite number of paths/files out there that match a same given hash.
Using a hash to match results of file structure, are not fool proof, and as a result of this ambiguity, it can potentially impinge legitimate activities, or obscure a chain of evidence without recourse.
For example, say that initial hash was not correctly identified when it was added to that watch list because maybe their AI false positived on it? Or it was submitted without review as being related to some censorable activity (legitimate under 1st amendment), all you have is a hash you can't verify the content.
This is how censorship or social credit can easily happen under a color of law in private parties hands; this has been covered extensively related to EU discussions on Client-Side-Scanning (and why its unreasonable given the repercussions for false-positives).
When you match only hashes, you don't know what the underlying content is aside from a likelihood/probability that it may be the same as some other file, which is why you need to be able to verify it is the exact same.
When your job is to find such people/things you should be doing what's needed (within the law) to ensure the strongest case possible.
The technical details matter, and processes must follow objective measures and be rational, and follow the constitution. Law is procedural, these are professionals. They should have gotten a warrant at the hash match.
Hashing collisions have happened in the past, mathematically this is known and expected given the structure of cryptographic hashes.
The investigators should have gotten a warrant to confirm.
The Failure to get a warrant here was a procedural failure, and left the door open for challenge. From what I can see in the write-up, it should be dismissed.
Failure to do so, effectively sets a precedent such that anything not directly addressed by a previous court can be construed as done in good faith to deprive people of their constitutional rights, allowing contradiction and further paralysis in the courts moving forward, and also promotes the interpretations that case law and legislative law override constitution protections.
Arguably, if the constitutional violation is found and admitted, there is no valid good faith exemption that can be applied to nullify the constitutional cure. The constitution supersedes everything else, including procedure, law, and case law.
The violation must be cured lest the entire constitution lose its power to non-enforcement (and the based system degrades towards tyranny), something that has been arguably happening as a result of long-standing corruption which goes unpunished.
Yes, the accused crimes may be heinous, but everyone is equal under the law. The moment this ceases to be true and happen with any regularity, is the day the rule of law has failed, and society then fails back to a natural law of violence. No one wants that.
It may not happen overnight, but it will happen regardless because history is full of examples where these dynamics cause those outcomes.
In many cases with very few exceptions today, judges who are older come to believe they are above the law, and fail to check their power, and in the end, they violate their sworn oaths. There is no punishment for them for this in most cases, and they never go back and correct mistakes they make (afaik, it is a rare exception if it happens at all).
Any true American should have a solid educational foundation in Social Contract Theory, and the basis for society. You are right to be concerned about the circular reasoning. In the absence of external objective measures, processes, and procedures, such circular reasoning inevitably devolves into delusion.