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Ask HN: Should I testify?

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Re: Ask HN: Should I testify?

#71

Post by MichaelCrawford »

MichaelCrawford wrote: post #13

When the end comes and you look back on your life, how will reflect on the choices you made? I would testify. Consider that the law firm can subpoena you. If the choose to do that you would have no choice but to testify - or rather, you could be prosecuted if you choose not to.

In a moment I'm going to submit this as an HN story:

"Is There a Cause for Which You Would Give Your Life?" http://www.warplife.com/mdc/essays/mental-illness/give-your-...

For me, now, there are lots of such causes. But then I am fifty-one years old, I have witnessed a great deal of evil in the world and so would welcome the opportunity to make right that which is wrong.

Re: Ask HN: Should I testify?

#73

Post by varelse »

mkramlich wrote: post #68

do you have FU money in the bank? financially can you retire now? if not, I think its wiser to say no. Caveat if this is a case of something truly evil that was done. If its more of a protocol/regulatory/victimless kind of law, then I'd argue its not worth hurting yourself financially over. Again, unless you already have FU money in the bank. There is no single perfect advice anyone can give. This is my off-the-cuff…

As someone who is currently getting screwed over for helping someone out, by the person I helped out, because the thing I let him do was done improperly and it has caused ~$50K in damages I will likely end up footing, I agree 100% (I'm not going to provide details here just take it as given that I did someone a solid and they #$%^ed me hard in return, and yes, I have a lawyer, that's factored into the $50K).

IMO in our bizarre litigation-driven society, no good comes out of putting yourself out there unless you 100% CYA which is the mistake I made here. CYA or you'll (probably) be sorry.

Re: Ask HN: Should I testify?

#74

Post by jvdh »

I'm going to answer from my own experience, which may or may not fit your situation at all (you're kind of vague about it, so there's no way to judge). This is also in part inspired by the comment of humanarity (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9360218)

Several years ago in The Netherlands we had a website blockade of The PirateBay. Most ISPs had to block it, it was stupid, and it did not work at all. The ISPs were challenging it legally. The question got asked: "How effective is this blockade anyway? Can we measure it?".

I did not realise it at the time, but this was somewhat an identity inflexion point for me, and very much changed my career.

As a scientist in computer networking, with some knowledge of Bittorrent, I thought to myself, how hard can it be? I could take some torrents off TPB, record IP addresses passing by and checking which ISP they come from. I finished the bittorrent measurements, wrote a report, and tried to publish it. Only the dean and the faculty lawyer got wind of it, and they were not amused, and saw a risk of getting sued by the entertainment industry.

I challenged them on this, and noted that I would publish this, even without their support. Fortunately I also got full support of my professor, and we did get to publish it. It was used in the court case, and it helped show the ineffectiveness of the website blockade, so it got lifted.

This little weekend project changed my research interests, has made me focus on ethics in computer science research, and especially security research. This has changed much of how I initially planned my career, and it has gotten me to where I am now. I have enjoyed every minute of it, and months later also realised I was not happy with the way my career was going.

I took some risk in doing this, but it was something I believed in. The change was possible because I was a researcher at a university, so that made it somewhat easier.

Re: Ask HN: Should I testify?

#75

Post by porpoisemonkey »

humanarity wrote: post #64
porpoisemonkey wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. The OP is clearly asking for quantifiable responses about career impact and not platitudes.

I also thought so, and then I heard the real question

I agree with the sentiment but the issue I take with the original answer is that it is that it's completely unactionable. There's no litmus test defined for what "authenticity" to oneself is or how to achieve it, so there's no way for the OP to really take this information and tangibly apply it to their situation. In my personal opinion suggestion without actionability is not particularly useful and only convolutes the decision making process.

Re: Ask HN: Should I testify?

#77

Post by ForHackernews »

jszymborski wrote: post #61
mattvanhorn wrote: post #22

Tell them to subpoena you - then the choice to testify is not yours any more. You'll have to. But you can tell future employers that you were forced, if you'd like to.

Will future employers care that he was subpoenaed? Or will they just see the headline?

Any employer large enough to have a legal department understands a subpoena.

Re: Ask HN: Should I testify?

#78

Post by javert »

lisa_henderson wrote: post #44

Let's be realistic: there are many companies that won't hire you after this. The question is, are those the companies that you want to work for? It's a tough choice, of course. You mention that the company you worked at is popular here on Hacker News. So let's assume we are talking about Apple or Google or perhaps AirBnB. So from now on, when people look up your name, they will see something like "Testified against A…

There's got to be lots of companies that, as a policy, don't do illegal things. Especially smaller businesses that can't afford to break the law. But larger ones too.

Presumably, those kinds of places just wouldn't care if you testified against a former employer who broke the law. Because it just wouldn't matter.

Re: Ask HN: Should I testify?

#79

Post by ChuckMcM »

So if the law firm has contacted you then it makes things a bit clearer. Either you'll testify willingly or, if they feel your testimony is important enough, they will subpoena you to appear and you'll testify anyway. (or serve time in jail for contempt, which is not advised)

So it really isn't a choice of "do I or don't I" it is really about the choice you made when asked. The actual choice here may be whether or not you need representation.

Re: Ask HN: Should I testify?

#80

Post by javert »

lisa_henderson wrote: post #44

Let's be realistic: there are many companies that won't hire you after this. The question is, are those the companies that you want to work for? It's a tough choice, of course. You mention that the company you worked at is popular here on Hacker News. So let's assume we are talking about Apple or Google or perhaps AirBnB. So from now on, when people look up your name, they will see something like "Testified against A…

And to add to my other comment, I'm willing to bet that large companies that break the law in certain areas sequester those activities away.

They don't put their "regular, probably honest" employees into areas that are lawbreaking.

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