dtrizzle

I know that the HN crowd supports this, but it can be a nightmare for a criminal defense attorney attempting to acquire exculpatory information. Remember, whenever a warrant is required to get data, that means the defendant cannot get stored data through ANY legal process. Thus by passing such a law, prosecutors and police can always get the data, but defense attorneys can never get the data.

For example: I’m the victim of an unprovoked attack and beat up by four men. One of the men records the attack and uploads the video to facebook, He makes it private, but shares it with a few friends to shame me. In the attack, I try to defend myself but am only able to get in a few hits on one of the men. The man that I hit goes to the police and accuses me of battery. I’m arrested and charged by a prosecutor for battery. I plan to claim self-defense at trial. I try to collect as much evidence as I can on my behalf.

With a warrant requirement, the video that I know exist on facebook which would show that these men beat me in an unprovoked attack and would certainly lead to a not guilty verdict is now completely inaccessible to me or my attorney. Think about that for a minute. And, as you probably know from watching Making a Murderer, the police have no duty to investigate potentially exculpatory information.

I’m not saying that a warrant requirement for stored data is a bad idea. But the ups and downs need to be considered. I never see anyone present the downsides that I present here. I’ve brought it up before on HN before and got very little attention. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10066879. No one will care until innocent people are convicted. I wish tech and legal people would work together on this to prevent the perverse consequences.

Here is an example of this happening: Facebook v. Superior Court: http://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/documents/A144315.PDF (This case is currently being reviewed by the CA Supreme Court.)

Here is a law review article on point: http://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent...

My background: California attorney for 7 years. Prosecutor for 4 1/2 years, defense attorney for 2 1/2 years. Tech savvy for a lawyer - Associates degree in Computer Science.

Edit 1: added link to law review article. Edit 2: added my background. Edit 3: added link to Facebook v. Superior Court.

I agree with you. My comment was more of a commentary on the unintended consequences of this: http://www.wired.com/2013/01/google-says-get-a-warrant/

On HN and most places on the internet, most people support the warrant requirement for most or all digital data. I do too, in a sense, as I believe law enforcement shouldn't have unfettered access to a person digital info.

However, as a defense attorney, I've learned that a consequence of the warrant requirement is that the defense has no legal way access to digital information during a defense investigation.

In effect, a warrant requirement for digital materials means only law enforcement and prosecutors can access them. However, an accused person's attorney cannot.

"If you were investigating a crime, you're in law enforcement." False.

Defense attorneys and their investigators also investigate crimes. This realization shows why the broadening the warrant requirement can have perverse outcomes.

Say you are defending a man accused of rape due to lack of consent. Let's also say that this is a false accusation that can be proven false because the accuser uploaded a video of the events which show consent to her Facebook account. Let's further say that the defense really wants access to this video. If a warrant is required, the defense can NEVER get it because there is no way under the law the defense can get a warrant (unlike a subpoena or court order).

Think about that for a minute. Everything that requires a warrant cannot be accessed by the defense, regardless of what is at stake (which is always life and liberty). Period.

PS: I'm not suggesting rape accusations are usually false. Just an example to illustrate the downside of a broad warrant requirement from someone who defends accused people.

Most of the time, defendant's are not invited to testify. Many times, they have no idea that a grand jury investigation is taking place.

Yes. Infractions are crimes so yes. For the most part, they are not treated as crimes. You cannot be jailed based on an infraction. Most job applications I've seen typically explicitly exclude requiring information about past infraction violations.

In CA, infractions are crimes so the reasonable doubt standard applies. See Cal. Pen. Code section 16. http://law.onecle.com/california/penal/16.html

My guess: 12 inch subwoofers and 26 inch rims.

No. Can't do AT&T (hate them). Can't do Android without the play store (no apps).

Texas is doing better than California on this issue: http://www.petersesq.com/2014/02/cell-phone-searches-ca-vs-t...

Law

I strongly consider attending one of these boot camps, but pulled out at the last minute because I became suspicious of their claims. I’m not saying the claims were untrue, but they were grand enough to make me nervous about dropping over $10,000.

I basically did it the long way. I took as many classes as I could at my local community college (intro to cs, intro to programming, advanced programming, oop, data structures, assembly language and web development). I feel like I got a great education at the CS basics. I think I can code. I know pointers, hash tables, abstract data structures and other things that the boot camps don’t even seem to cover, but haven’t even been able to get a single interview.

Perhaps the real value in these programs is the career placement.

Wait for the Nexus 5. Rumor is that it will be announced tomorrow.

wordpress

5th Amendment, not 4th.

I hate headlines like this. Wealth is not finite.

I don't believe there is a difference legally. Courts tend to disregard the label applied to an amount.

I’m an attorney and have been pondering for hours about whether this would permit one to break their contract. Certainly, if the fee was a tax, one couldn’t break their contract since neither party really can control what the government does. But what gets me is that it appears to be a price increase disguised as a tax. Looking at the AT&T additional fees page, it’s clear that this fee essentially covers operating expenses. (ie: regular AT&T business costs). Labeling a price increase as an “administrative fee” or a “surcharge” doesn’t change the legal nature of it. Courts tend to look at what the fee is, not what it’s called. I’m going to do some research on this one.

What if the monthly fee was $100? From a legal standpoint, the amount of the fee doesn't matter. You really don't think we could invoke Section 1.3 of the contract?

I'm trying to find this fee on my bill. My AT&T bill labels every charge with a number. On your bill, is the new charge labeled or numbered?

Edit: I found the notice of the charge. It's on left-middle side of page 2 of my April 2013 bill and is called a Mobility Administrative Fee.

Edit 2: On my May 2013 bill, the charge is labeled #8.

Speaking of which, I need to buy a few Powerball tickets!

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2013/05/17/saturdays--550...

Too expensive. For $649, get an iPhone.

open-source it?

Several google tools don't have support for the standard 2-factor auth. Instead, you have to create a single use password for those devices. Watch the video on Cutts blog for info on how it works.

Since the standing issue was decided and made the rest of the case moot, the fair use analysis is dicta. Thus, it is not legal precedent.

Even if the judge did decide the fair use issue, it's precedential value would be low - applying only in the district where the decision was made. In this case, that would be the entire state of Nevada.

I rarely speak up on this issue because I'm sure most everyone in these parts disagrees, but I do prosecution and I believe it's important to at least see the other side of the issue. I understand why people want warrants. But I believe people thing it's as easy as filling it out and walking in and getting it signed.

As it stands now, our courts are jammed up. Courts set 10-30 trials to start when there is only one courtroom available. People have to wait in line for hours to pay for traffic tickets. Yes, they have to wait to give the government money. Police officers wait in court to get warrants read and signed. They wait hours. Sometime they have to come back days later to be seen by a judge.

In short, for a warrant requirement to be workable, we need a lot more judges, courts, and police officers.

As it stands now, a warrant requirement will make it impractical to prosecute lower level offenses due to the time and resources it would take to get a warrant. For instance, stalking cases, restraining order violations (with electronic contact), criminal threats, etc. will go unprosecuted. That leaves a whole lot of crime victims with very little recourse.

Assuming you do charge a cover for men, this is a really good way to get sued. See Angelucci v. Century Supper Club, 158 P.3d 718 (CA 2007) and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladies_night#California

As an attorney, I’m always concerned that my writing will not be my best work and people will think that I suck. Or that something I write will come back and bite me in the ass when I run for office or get vetted for some high powered job. However, fear or perfectionism can be paralyzing. Even as an attorney, you have to produce a lot of crap to produce good stuff. Judge Posner comes to mind. He blogs, writes about everything under the sun, and is brutally honest about his opinions regardless of the cost. Some of it is probably not the best and some of his opinions are off the wall. He also happens to be the most cited American appellate judge. Ben Casnocha touched on this here: http://ben.casnocha.com/2010/05/career-lessons-from-elena-ka...