Uber finds one allegedly stolen Waymo file on an employee’s personal device • Hacker News Board

Re: Uber finds one allegedly stolen Waymo file on an employee’s personal device

#331

Post by dx034 » Thu, Apr 06, 2017, 2:39 PM UTC

pc86 wrote: post #326

unprepare wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me it sounds like you are saying no, an employer cannot compel you to give them your personal information, but that they can terminate your employment if you refuse to hand it over is that what you meant? I think 08-15's concern was more along the lines of an employer having the ability to demand someone to give up their personal information without their consent.

A company cannot make you give them any personal information without your consent. They can of course fire you for not doing so.

That of course is only valid in a few countries. In most European countries, firing someone for that would immediately be overturned by a court.

Re: Uber finds one allegedly stolen Waymo file on an employee’s personal device

#332

Post by dx034 » Thu, Apr 06, 2017, 2:45 PM UTC

KallDrexx wrote: post #320

filereaper wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate to piggyback on the top comment, but could somebody explain the 5th Amendment and its implications here. I'm not a lawyer, nor am I from the USA. I've heard of the fifth, but never fully understood it in scenarios like this.

When you are being questioned by authorities, even if you are 100% clear/not guilty in the matter the simple fact of the matter is that it is very unlikely that you will be 100% accurate in your testimony to the authorities. Little details (even when correct) can be twisted by the authorities who have an incentive to get a conviction. So the fifth amendment was created to give legal protection to individuals who do n…

The judge specifically says that the 5th is only valid in criminal cases and leads to adverse inference in a civil case like this. Meaning the judge is very well able to assume that files ended up at Uber if they don't show enough effort to produce proof. So the fact that the employee uses the 5th hurts Uber significantly in this case.

Re: Uber finds one allegedly stolen Waymo file on an employee’s personal device

#333

Post by clubm8 » Thu, Apr 06, 2017, 2:59 PM UTC

DannyBee wrote: post #157

A lot of people seem confused by the idea that a party can request personal documents someone else has. Just like in criminal land, civil land has subpoenas. Parties can issue subpoenas for most things to other parties. In federal court, civil subpoenas are covered by Federal Rules of Civil Procedure rule 45. https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/rule_45 Outside of the exceptions listed, yes, you would be required t…

Is there anything one can do to reduce the risk of a disovery fishing request on my personal devices?

Or is simply working for a company being sued sufficient to be compelled to produce my personal devices?

For example, if I stated that my personal phone does not contain any work accounts, and does not access the work network, instead relying on 4G? Or would I have to leave my smartphone at home? Or would not even that be sufficient? :/

This entire concept is deeply troubling to me.

Re: Uber finds one allegedly stolen Waymo file on an employee’s personal device

#334

Post by sctb » Thu, Apr 06, 2017, 3:01 PM UTC

visarga wrote: post #277

> highly functional a judge Best joke I read today.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14046594 and marked it off-topic.

Re: Uber finds one allegedly stolen Waymo file on an employee’s personal device

#335

Post by pc86 » Thu, Apr 06, 2017, 3:05 PM UTC

dx034 wrote: post #331

pc86 wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A company cannot make you give them any personal information without your consent. They can of course fire you for not doing so.

That of course is only valid in a few countries. In most European countries, firing someone for that would immediately be overturned by a court.

Considering this is an American federal court case between two American companies, concerning an American employee, for actions in America, I don't think "Yes but in Europe..." is relevant.

Re: Uber finds one allegedly stolen Waymo file on an employee’s personal device

#336

Post by DannyBee » Thu, Apr 06, 2017, 3:25 PM UTC

clubm8 wrote: post #333

DannyBee wrote: post #157

A lot of people seem confused by the idea that a party can request personal documents someone else has. Just like in criminal land, civil land has subpoenas. Parties can issue subpoenas for most things to other parties. In federal court, civil subpoenas are covered by Federal Rules of Civil Procedure rule 45. https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/rule_45 Outside of the exceptions listed, yes, you would be required t…

Is there anything one can do to reduce the risk of a disovery fishing request on my personal devices? Or is simply working for a company being sued sufficient to be compelled to produce my personal devices? For example, if I stated that my personal phone does not contain any work accounts, and does not access the work network, instead relying on 4G? Or would I have to leave my smartphone at home? Or would not even th…

"Is there anything one can do to reduce the risk of a disovery fishing request on my personal devices?"

If it's fishing, you can push back. If it's reasonably targeted to result in actionable evidence, probably not :)

"Or is simply working for a company being sued sufficient to be compelled to produce my personal devices?"

Probably not quite without a good reason. To be clear, it's not just companies. If you were, for example, getting divorced, acrimoniously, expect to have your personal devices subpoenaed (my ex was a family lawyer, this happened all the time)

"This entire concept is deeply troubling to me."

Remember that the goal of the civil justice system is not to let people hide things. They just want to resolve the disputes. The best way is "put all evidence and cards on table". So they try to do that.

In cases where it is embarrassing or whatever, you can get protective orders on who may have access, etc.

But you should fully expect, in any lawsuit, company, your neighbor, whoever, that if they have good reason to believe you have relevant evidence on your personal device, you'll be forced to produce it.

If you don't have relevant evidence, i would push back hard.

But also note. Misuse is strongly actionable:

"(1) Avoiding Undue Burden or Expense; Sanctions. A party or attorney responsible for issuing and serving a subpoena must take reasonable steps to avoid imposing undue burden or expense on a person subject to the subpoena. The court for the district where compliance is required must enforce this duty and impose an appropriate sanction—which may include lost earnings and reasonable attorney's fees—on a party or attorney who fails to comply.

...

Paragraph (c)(1) gives specific application to the principle stated in Rule 26(g) and specifies liability for earnings lost by a non-party witness as a result of a misuse of the subpoena. No change in existing law is thereby effected. Abuse of a subpoena is an actionable tort, Board of Ed. v. Farmingdale Classroom Teach. Ass'n, 38 N.Y.2d 397, 380 N.Y.S.2d 635, 343 N.E.2d 278 (1975), and the duty of the attorney to the non-party is also embodied in Model Rule of Professional Conduct 4.4. The liability of the attorney is correlative to the expanded power of the attorney to issue subpoenas. The liability may include the cost of fees to collect attorneys’ fees owed as a result of a breach of this duty."

Re: Uber finds one allegedly stolen Waymo file on an employee’s personal device

#337

Post by DannyBee » Thu, Apr 06, 2017, 3:29 PM UTC

kelnos wrote: post #205

DannyBee wrote: post #157

A lot of people seem confused by the idea that a party can request personal documents someone else has. Just like in criminal land, civil land has subpoenas. Parties can issue subpoenas for most things to other parties. In federal court, civil subpoenas are covered by Federal Rules of Civil Procedure rule 45. https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/rule_45 Outside of the exceptions listed, yes, you would be required t…

I think also in this case it's a matter of Uber telling its employees, "hey, if you have any of this stuff on your personal laptops, you'd better give it to us" (with the perhaps-implicit "or we might fire you" on the end of it). Two of the employees are playing ball, but Levandowski has clammed up (and Uber, to the judge's amusement, is allowing him to do that without repercussions).

Uber firing you may not be the worst of it. You can end up in jail for contempt until you comply: "The rule is also amended to clarify that contempt sanctions may be applied to a person who disobeys a subpoena-related order, as well as one who fails entirely to obey a subpoena. In civil litigation, it would be rare for a court to use contempt sanctions without first ordering compliance with a subpoena, and the order might not require all the compliance sought by the subpoena. Often contempt proceedings will be initiated by an order to show cause, and an order to comply or be held in contempt may modify the subpoena's command. Disobedience of such an order may be treated as contempt"

Obviously, can't hold you in contempt (or at least, can't punish you) if you validly took the 5th, but ...

Re: Uber finds one allegedly stolen Waymo file on an employee’s personal device

#338

Post by erikpukinskis » Thu, Apr 06, 2017, 4:18 PM UTC

komali2 wrote: post #172

matt4077 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The taking of 14,000 documents is actually assumed to be true currently for the purposes of this case. That's because Uber is in no position to deny it, only Lewandowsky could. And he can't deny it, because then he could no longer invoke his right to remain silent. Of course, the documentation from Waymo/Google is also pretty strong apparently. Simply saying "I didn't do that" would be insufficient.

> Uber is in no position to deny it, only Lewandowsky could. And he can't deny it, because then he could no longer invoke his right to remain silent. So he should give up his 5th amendment right to fend off an accusation? I don't think so, that doesn't sound like justice to me. >documentation from Waymo/Google is also pretty strong apparently. pretty apparently Come on man, you know what angle I'll go for here. Why a…

> So he should give up his 5th amendment right to fend off an accusation? I don't think so, that doesn't sound like justice to me.

No, he could give up his 5th amendment right to save Uber money. This is a civil proceeding not a criminal one.

Re: Uber finds one allegedly stolen Waymo file on an employee’s personal device

#339

Post by benchaney » Thu, Apr 06, 2017, 5:49 PM UTC

caf wrote: post #210

milesrout wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's good for everyone that the police can't skirt around the rules of discovery and present 'last minute evidence' that denies peoples' right to a free trial, yes.

The context here is civil cases (I think the GP means "respondent" rather than "defendant"?)

Respondent is the term for the party advocating against overturning a previous ruling during an appeal. Defendant is correct in this case because this is not an appeal.

Re: Uber finds one allegedly stolen Waymo file on an employee’s personal device

#340

Post by ABCLAW » Thu, Apr 06, 2017, 6:21 PM UTC

tempestn wrote: post #209

Animats wrote: post #62

Judge Alsup: "If your guy is involved in criminal activity and has to have criminal lawyers of the caliber of these two gentlemen, who are the best, well, okay they got the best. But it’s a problem I can’t solve for you. And if you think I’m going to cut you some slack because you’re looking at—your guy is looking at jail time, no. They [Waymo] are going to get the benefit of their record. And if you don’t deny it—if…

As an aside, it's striking how poorly someone can come off when their conversational speech is quoted verbatim. A lot of cutting and some paraphrasing goes on when publishing interviews to avoid this. Doesn't appear to be an issue in this discussion, but if a clearly intelligent judge can come off as somewhat dithering on reading a transcript, it's a good reminder to give others the benefit of the doubt when they're…

For your first few transcripts, it will stick out at you. After you've read a few transcripts from nervous people giving a deposition, you'll see what dithering properly looks like. You'll also begin to see that overly fluid long pieces of prose in back-and-forth discussion aren't natural - they indicate an individual has rehearsed their statement.

In this case, almost every person in that room was top-in-class quality. Not a single argument point was misstated by counsel and Judge Alsup's position was carefully crafted so as to be defensible upon appeal, while also being no-nonsense and get across the gravity of the situation to Uber counsel.