Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Atlas of Surveillance

atlasofsurveillance.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 140 posts

Re: Atlas of Surveillance

#11

Post by jjoonathan »

AWildC182 wrote: post #9
pc86 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuinely curious, in what context is it perjury? My understanding of parallel construction is: 1. Officer receives information $A through inadmissible means (which may be illegal, but not necessarily) 2. With information $A, officer is able to "prove" that a suspect perpetrated a given crime 3. Officer pieces together proof from possible unrelated, but admissible evidence - $B and $C, let's say. 4. And this is the p…

I think the issue is that in the moral sense if something is inadmissible but is used to obtain admissible evidence, everything derived should also be inadmissible (GPL style). In this case the officer in perjuring himself by trying to pass off inadmissible evidence as admissible but this is more of a play on words than actual legal doctrine if I understand it correctly. What I think OP is saying is that it should be…

Moral? Legal. "Fruit of the poisonous tree" is an established legal principle.

Re: Atlas of Surveillance

#12

Post by dllthomas »

pc86 wrote: post #7
dllthomas wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We really need to start calling "parallel construction" what it is: willful, premeditated perjury.

Genuinely curious, in what context is it perjury? My understanding of parallel construction is: 1. Officer receives information $A through inadmissible means (which may be illegal, but not necessarily) 2. With information $A, officer is able to "prove" that a suspect perpetrated a given crime 3. Officer pieces together proof from possible unrelated, but admissible evidence - $B and $C, let's say. 4. And this is the p…

The officers are lying to the court about how the case was built. That is often relevant to a defense (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit_of_the_poisonous_tree) and they are lying in this way specifically to deprive defendants of the ability to challenge the collection of that evidence.

Intentionally and materially lying to the court is clearly perjury.

Re: Atlas of Surveillance

#13

Post by lmkg »

pc86 wrote: post #7
dllthomas wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We really need to start calling "parallel construction" what it is: willful, premeditated perjury.

Genuinely curious, in what context is it perjury? My understanding of parallel construction is: 1. Officer receives information $A through inadmissible means (which may be illegal, but not necessarily) 2. With information $A, officer is able to "prove" that a suspect perpetrated a given crime 3. Officer pieces together proof from possible unrelated, but admissible evidence - $B and $C, let's say. 4. And this is the p…

The principle of the "Fruit of the Poisoned Tree" says that if $A is inadmissible, then evidence derived from $A is inadmissible. The perjury is claiming (possibly a lie by omission) that $B was not derived from $A. Sometimes this involves a (more direct) lie inventing an alternate history for $B.

Perjury may or may not be the correct or most applicable transgression. Point is, if $A is what led to the collection of $B, then $B should be inadmissible. Presenting $B at trial is a violation of rights.

Re: Atlas of Surveillance

#14

Post by ultramundane8 »

pc86 wrote: post #7
dllthomas wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We really need to start calling "parallel construction" what it is: willful, premeditated perjury.

Genuinely curious, in what context is it perjury? My understanding of parallel construction is: 1. Officer receives information $A through inadmissible means (which may be illegal, but not necessarily) 2. With information $A, officer is able to "prove" that a suspect perpetrated a given crime 3. Officer pieces together proof from possible unrelated, but admissible evidence - $B and $C, let's say. 4. And this is the p…

I believe the simplest perjury in this case is that the officer necessarily lied about their probable cause.

Re: Atlas of Surveillance

#15

Post by jyrkesh »

apazzolini wrote: post #10
pc86 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuinely curious, in what context is it perjury? My understanding of parallel construction is: 1. Officer receives information $A through inadmissible means (which may be illegal, but not necessarily) 2. With information $A, officer is able to "prove" that a suspect perpetrated a given crime 3. Officer pieces together proof from possible unrelated, but admissible evidence - $B and $C, let's say. 4. And this is the p…

1. Officer receives information $A through inadmissible means (which may be illegal, but not necessarily) 2. With information $A, officer is able to "prove" that a suspect perpetrated a given crime 3. Knowing information $A, officer makes up bullshit showing that he reached $A solely from investigating leads from $B and $C. 4. $A is now admissible because the officer can show a link leading to $A from $B and $C, but…

Interesting...so it's kinda like clean-room reverse engineering, except that there's no mandate for the clean-room?

I'd be interested to see what a clean-room-like proposal would look like for evidence collection. I.e. independent agencies that can't share evidence/information between them.

Of course, then a 9/11 happens and there's lots of hand-wringing about how "we had all the data we needed, the agencies just weren't allowed to talk to each other". Ugh...

Re: Atlas of Surveillance

#16

Post by dllthomas »

lmkg wrote: post #13
pc86 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuinely curious, in what context is it perjury? My understanding of parallel construction is: 1. Officer receives information $A through inadmissible means (which may be illegal, but not necessarily) 2. With information $A, officer is able to "prove" that a suspect perpetrated a given crime 3. Officer pieces together proof from possible unrelated, but admissible evidence - $B and $C, let's say. 4. And this is the p…

The principle of the "Fruit of the Poisoned Tree" says that if $A is inadmissible, then evidence derived from $A is inadmissible. The perjury is claiming (possibly a lie by omission) that $B was not derived from $A. Sometimes this involves a (more direct) lie inventing an alternate history for $B. Perjury may or may not be the correct or most applicable transgression. Point is, if $A is what led to the collection of…

IIUC, and I may not, that's slightly too strong and there are some circumstances where evidence that's (shall we say) barely inadmissible doesn't necessarily invalidate later evidence.

But in any case, whether the principle applies to a given instance is something that needs to be tested in court, and parallel construction is deliberately depriving the court of the ability to make a determination.

Re: Atlas of Surveillance

#17

Post by 24bug47 »

dllthomas wrote: post #6
CapitalistCartr wrote: post #2

There is no surveillance tech anyone can invent that won't be used at home against the domestic populace. And I do mean against. Parallel construction has become just another tool in the arsenal of control.

We really need to start calling "parallel construction" what it is: willful, premeditated perjury.

Well, most people have never heard of "parallel construction" in the first place, and chances are they mostly have no interest in learning about it.

So combatting willful ignorance would be the first step, but my optimism meter broke a while ago.

Re: Atlas of Surveillance

#18

Post by JoeSmithson »

dllthomas wrote: post #6
CapitalistCartr wrote: post #2

There is no surveillance tech anyone can invent that won't be used at home against the domestic populace. And I do mean against. Parallel construction has become just another tool in the arsenal of control.

We really need to start calling "parallel construction" what it is: willful, premeditated perjury.

There is nothing inherently wrong with parallel construction, it just means concealing a source. It seems like you have probably leant the term in the context of illegally obtained information, but that is orthogonal to concealing a source.

Parallel construction is a completely normal and legitimate process. People who use it like a spooky term akin to "enhanced interrogation" or "extraordinary rendition" are just loudly signalling they have little firsthand knowledge of law enforcement.

Re: Atlas of Surveillance

#19

Post by JoeSmithson »

lmkg wrote: post #13
pc86 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuinely curious, in what context is it perjury? My understanding of parallel construction is: 1. Officer receives information $A through inadmissible means (which may be illegal, but not necessarily) 2. With information $A, officer is able to "prove" that a suspect perpetrated a given crime 3. Officer pieces together proof from possible unrelated, but admissible evidence - $B and $C, let's say. 4. And this is the p…

The principle of the "Fruit of the Poisoned Tree" says that if $A is inadmissible, then evidence derived from $A is inadmissible. The perjury is claiming (possibly a lie by omission) that $B was not derived from $A. Sometimes this involves a (more direct) lie inventing an alternate history for $B. Perjury may or may not be the correct or most applicable transgression. Point is, if $A is what led to the collection of…

That's not right at all. Loads of stuff is inadmissible as evidence but not illegal. For example, in many countries phone intercept is inadmissible. For example, in The Wire, they might hear a drug deal being arranged on the phones, then arrange to be on patrol with a drug dog and find the stash. The phone recording would be inadmissible (even though it would help the prosecution), the evidence used to prosecute would have to be paralleled.

Re: Atlas of Surveillance

#20

Post by frandroid »

JoeSmithson wrote: post #18
dllthomas wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We really need to start calling "parallel construction" what it is: willful, premeditated perjury.

There is nothing inherently wrong with parallel construction, it just means concealing a source. It seems like you have probably leant the term in the context of illegally obtained information, but that is orthogonal to concealing a source. Parallel construction is a completely normal and legitimate process. People who use it like a spooky term akin to "enhanced interrogation" or "extraordinary rendition" are just lo…

So you're fine with money laundering as well? Because parallel construction is inadmissible evidence laundering.
Post reply on HN