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Just a friendly reminder that due process is a thing in the US. Let's allow some time for the texts, emails, testimony, etc. to come out. Everyone seems to hav
by sjbase 9y ago
Just a friendly reminder that due process is a thing in the US. Let's allow some time for the texts, emails, testimony, etc. to come out.
Everyone seems to have reached conclusions about this on very suspicious circumstances, but almost zero facts.
- bluetwo 9y agoTrue, but from what we do know, a full investigation is warranted.
- mikedouglas 9y agoDue process is a legal concept, and fundamentally, a restriction on the state (for very good reasons). I think it's fine for commenters on an internet board to use P(crime was committed|shady trading patterns) > 0.5.
- eanzenberg 9y agoDue process for punishment applied from public gov't bodies. However, people can and will reach conclusions based on the evidence laid before to make their judgements to whether be Equifax customers or not. I realize this may seem like mob-mentality or mob-rule but there's some nuance here. When you see such gross negligence do you wait until hearings and court judgements which can easily take years before voting with your wallet?
- glitcher 9y agoIndividual consumers did not choose to be Equifax customers, and as far as I know there is no way for me to "opt out" and effectively have all of my data removed from Equifax (including all future data).
- ianai 9y agoYep. They're more of a defacto government than a corporation at this point.
- sjbase 9y agoTrue. Small comfort, but if you're a purchaser of credit rating data, you may have some flexibility in who you purchase from.
- zentiggr 9y agoWon't make much difference in this new world of "assume that SSN is compromised, now what do you use?" I'm already trying to figure out how to push locally for dropping SSNs from processes, no matter how Sisyphean it feels.
- ams6110 9y agoThe terms and conditions of any loan, credit card, or other credit account include a release or disclosure that covers reporting the account and payment history to credit reporting agencies. So technically, we did "opt-in" when we accepted credit. The way to "opt-out" is to never use credit.
- omegaworks 9y agoThis kind of contractual oligopoly should be explicitly disallowed. It's exactly the kind of place regulation should step in, much like it has with anti-competitive non-competes, forced-arbitration clauses, and IP-creator protections in some states.
- jstarfish 9y ago
- emodendroket 9y agoWell, I, personally, am not the US court system, and am free to draw whatever conclusions I like by whatever standard.
- alexanderstears 9y agoDue process is important but there's a norm of competency for executives at a publicly traded company and there's a legal theory called "constructive knowledge" that asserts managers at a company are presumed to know what their underlings know. Together, these are very damning for the executives who traded after the security breach. Prejudging their guilt isn't favorable and we should avoid doing it as a commitment to our legal system but people would have to ignore their eyes to come to the conclusion that this isn't what it looks like.
- ianai 9y agoI'd argue that the size of equifax and its impact on everyone's lives pushes the matter beyond simple constructs of the legal system. I don't have an option to not do business with them so they shouldn't have any excuses.
- alexanderstears 9y agoThere's a German jurist by the name of Carl Schmitt who would have some interesting things to say about the matter.
- CWuestefeld 9y agoI'll probably be sorry for this, but... why doesn't this same standard apply in the political sphere? A few years back, it seemed that a huge number of people were willing to give President Obama, and even Lois Lerner, a pass on illegal actions of the IRS based on exactly this theory: it's the responsibility of the manager to know what their underlings are doing. And I don't mean to pick on just Obama. Ronald Reagan, patron saint of the GOP, skated on just such a thing with Iran-Contra. They got Oliver North to be a scapegoat and insulate Reagan and Bush. So if you're wanting blood from the Equifax execs, think about who you've given a free pass to before.
- alexanderstears 9y agoshockingly, the people who write the rules didn't really write them for easy application to the political class. Constructive knowledge really only holds in corporations (and I'm not an attorney but I think it holds in organized crime organizations as well). And it was enhanced with Sarbanes Oxley which was passed in the early-2000s. Also, I'm under the impression that federal prosecutors appear very reluctant to actually use it in court and where they do use it, they usually have more direct evidence of wrong doing. However, I get the sense that prosecutors know it exists and the Justice Department under Obama did use it to extract those massive fines from banks (albeit with no admission of wrong doing, a get out of jail free card for the criminals in the firm, and the firms that retained Eric Holder's law firm seemed to get more favorable settlements).
- EnFinlay 9y agoZero facts? The fact is that 3 people sold between the company finding out and the public finding out. In fact, there is only one fact missing which is evidence that they knew of the breach. Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that we have n-1 facts? (or n-3, one for each person)