261–270 of 596 posts
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So let the local officials bring a case.
I would be fine with that, but there's no reason that the federal government shouldn't also bring a RICO case for obstruction of justice.
Seems like a lot of people are confused/have questions about why Uber is being criminally investigated by the Department of Justice.* Here's why: 1. Uber is subject to the laws in the jurisdictions in which it operates. Evading authorities is textbook obstruction of justice. Not only did Uber build software that they used to evade authorities & break local laws in multiple states and countries, but they profited from…
Why do people still argue that? It makes no sense to me, even as a non-lawyer (but I've watched People's Court :))
Otherwise El Chapo could be arguing the same, I believe in people's rights to use drugs so I'm breaking every law in the books and making billions "while fighting for their rights"
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True. But considering RICO's original intent, investigating a software company for evading draconian local taxi regulations seems out of scope.
The whole point of RICO is to allow the feds to intervene when the criminal organization is too large and powerful for local governments to be able to effectively prosecute them. This is exactly what RICO was designed for.
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True. But considering RICO's original intent, investigating a software company for evading draconian local taxi regulations seems out of scope.
It's not out of scope. Uber is a corrupt organization. Here's to hoping that one of Travis Kalanick's numerous criminal actions (such as his decision to steal Google's self-driving tech) comes home to roost. There's now a material chance that Ubers investors (and many employees) will get zeroed out due to their reckless, willful, criminal actions. And frankly, that's fucking hilarious.
When was this proven? So far, those are nothing but allegations in a civil suit.
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That sounds as fake of a crime as money laundering. Certainly misleading officials that haven't identified as being on official business should not be a crime.
*as How is money laundering a "fake" crime?
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You would be incorrect. Humans, not companies, engage in civil disobedience. Regardless, whether its Ross, Travis or anyone else, why would or should ideological motivation be relevant to whether or not any given act is legal or how it should be punished? When libertarians, for whatever reason, choose to start businesses in CA, they are explicitly consenting to our government & to obeying our democratically enacted l…
Again, just for the sake of fun/discussion. Not trying to make any significant point here. > You would be incorrect. Humans, not companies, engage in civil disobedience. Is this a point of observation ("I've never heard of a company doing this"), law ("Companies have no legal grounds to claim civil disobedience"), or logic ("companies cannot act, only its constituent humans act")? If it's the first, I'm claiming to g…
I did not say that civil disobedience has no legal significance for humans--I said it has no legal significance for corporations. Nor did I say it was a source of sympathy--I said it could mitigate liability or punishment.
While it is not a defense for law-breaking by humans, asserting civil disobedience can mitigate punishment or liability for humans; it cannot be used to do the same for corporations.
Jurisdictions, laws and rules make it difficult to generalize (eg some courts accept some mitigating factors but not others), but I've never come across or heard of any case where a corporation could or did claim "civil disobedience" as a mitigating factor for liability or punishment.
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"For textbook obstruction one would need a criminal investigation that Uber was seeking to stymie." In the case i'm aware of, law enforcement was investigating criminal violations of local ordinances by unlicensed uber drivers. While i'm sure not a felony, that's definitely a criminal investigation they were seeking to stymie.
If you are going to bring obstruction charges you will want to base them on something greater than license violations. That's akin to the cop threatening me with obstruction charges for warning other motorcyclists about a speed trap. Conspiracy, on the other hand, is a serious crime unto itself.
(Your example is not close to what happened here, as again, that would have been more okay. They did not warn the drivers. They hid the law violating drivers from the cops when they knew the cops were looking for them, and did so to make themselves money. It would be more akin to being able to change what the cop sees so that, at your command, all he saw was people going the speed limit, and nothing else)
It's so strange how quickly all of this happened. Actually I guess it's been awhile. https://twitter.com/dhh/status/504374011711594496 was in 2014, wow.
You know, I remember posting on this site years ago that the Uber CEO was a terrible person (Based on a few interactions I had with him back when UberCab had about 5 employees) and being told by some prominent people that I was wrong. This was back when YC was talking about how "niceness" was a key quality in successful founders. Feels good to have my instincts vindicated.
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What lie is required? You buy 1000 pizzas a day from your pizza store, with cash you already have. You report all that income to the IRS. Where's the lie? Edit: Keep in mind if your original money you evaded taxes on, that's already a crime. As is committing crimes, if that's how you got the money. "Laundering" is just a non-crime used to make LE's job easy, expanding power and reducing privacy. AML and KYC laws are…
> You buy 1000 pizzas a day from your pizza store, with cash you already have. You report all that income to the IRS. So, assuming that money isn't illicitly gotten, I'm pretty sure that's not money laundering.