11 ms·

Alfred Anaya Put Secret Compartments in Cars so the DEA Put Him in Prison (2013)

120 points by joering2 8y ago

eanaya 8y ago
I'm alfred anaya older sister. He doesnt deserve 24 years in prison. He has served his time. Hoping for a miracle and hope the law of first drug offenders comes through and that he is selected to be free. His kids and family miss him so much. He's not a bad person.
dfundako 8y ago
Discussed quite a while ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8443727 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8443727
- hkarthik 8y ago
  Previous discussion was all about whether what he did was illegal or whether he was complicit. I'm actually most saddened by this part. When he was 8 years old, Alfred Anaya destroyed his mother’s vacuum cleaner in the pursuit of knowledge. “I took it apart because I wanted to find the motor inside,” he recalls. “I was so young, I thought the motor would work all by itself even after I took it out. I didn’t realize it needed to be plugged in to go.” His mother was upset but hardly surprised to discover her ruined vacuum, for she knew all about her youngest son’s rabid curiosity. Alfred was forever disassembling Sony Walkmans or clock radios so he could fill his favorite junk drawer with circuit boards, which thrilled him with their intricacy. His childhood doesn't seem much different from many of us hackers. I wonder how different his life would have been if he had been noticed by a technically savvy and connected benefactor who could have sponsored him. I could easily see someone like him being discovered at an early age going on to do breakthrough work with the benefit of a better education and circumstances. His poverty probably prevented the potential opportunities he could have had in life. This feels like one of the big challenges that needs to get solved. We need to find ways to bring people up like this up out of poverty so they don't end up making bad choices and ending up on the wrong side of the law. Feels like such a waste.
  - alphabettsy 8y ago
    I agree with you, but also have to say that what he did shouldn’t be outside the law imo.
  - kimdotcom 8y ago
    Did he make a bad choice, or is the law unjust? Same with the CFAA abuses.
  - netsharc 8y ago
    I wonder if it's an education problem. I would wager there's quite a few of us who would be attracted to legally questionable work for big payoffs. Even FBI higher-ups have sold secrets to foreign countries for money. And according to the article, he was discovered after all, the stereo shop that hired him were impressed by his installer work.
- x3n0ph3n3 8y ago
  Funny how I also happened to link to this article in a related discussion yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17396913 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17396913
- joering2 8y ago
  +1 I haven't seen it back then, it came yesterday in someones comment and I found it shocking! The reasoning behind DA that he made the illegal business blooming possible shocked me. We should put Zuckerberg in jail because thanks to Facebook, ex cons are finding each other and their conspiracies are blooming. We should put Page behind bars because Google makes possible to find "how to make bombs" DYI. We should put AT&T officials behind bars because thanks to internet, online crime is booming! Also Apple officials because I'm sure crminals use iPhones. Its really shocking and saddened this particular DA approach to destroy his life. The man didn't do anything illegal and he didn't want to become snitch. So they send jury after him. And because he is covered with tattoos and likes strips clubs, guess his place is 25 years behind bars. /s
joshuaheard 8y ago
I remember this article ... from 2013.
PurpleBoxDragon 8y ago
In this particular case, he had all reason to believe his work was being used by some to do illegal things. But even then, is that any different than the people who work on TOR knowing full well it is used to abuse children, or who work on military weapons knowing that innocent people are targeted? Should a gun seller who has reason to believe the buyer might do something illegal with their be punished for making the sell anymore than any of the tech products used to circumvent laws (from minor laws dealing with content piracy to major laws dealing with child abuse)? Can we draw a definite consistent lines on where helping criminals commit crimes is moral, where it is immoral, where it is legal, and where it is illegal?
- dfundako 8y ago
  I believe there is a huge difference between you working on something that has the main function of facilitating an illegal enterprise and you working on something that has a tiny minority mis-using your product for illegal purposes. Silk Road vs Craigslist is an example that comes to mind.
  - modzu 8y ago
    sometimes things that are illegal are not immoral and there are also plenty of things that are immoral but not illegal.
  - PurpleBoxDragon 8y ago
    I wonder how much of Tor usage is for illegal activities, including black markets, compared to legal activities? And doesn't it seem fickle that the same action may or may not be legal depending upon how many people use Tor for legal vs illegal activities? What happens if last year it was primarily for legal purposes but this year some new black market site took off and people are primary using it for that now?
- devoply 8y ago
  For whatever reason the law cares greatly about the intention of work. If it can be proven without a doubt that your actual intention is to facilitate breaking the law you can get into a lot of trouble as is the case here. Economic activity can't have the primary purpose of facilitating someone breaking the law.
kstenerud 8y ago
As a well traveled non-American, the US justice system truly boggles the mind. Elected judges, jury trials, vengeance-oriented punishments, complete lack of rehabilitation or reintegration, medieval prison conditions... In Iraq, I wouldn't be surprised. In the USA, I'm simply aghast.
- KindOne 8y ago
  What country are you from?
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - kstenerud 8y ago
    Canada, although I've lived all over the world. Thus far, the best systems I've seen are in Japan, Norway, and Germany.
    - decacorn 8y ago
      watch the Staircase on Netflix. You will utterly lose complete faith in US justice system.
    - influx 8y ago
      Japan has a conviction rate of over 99%, most of which are secured on the back of a confession. https://californiainnocenceproject.org/2013/01/japan-concerned-over-false-confessions/ https://californiainnocenceproject.org/2013/01/japan-concern...
      - travmatt 8y ago
        I can’t tell if you’re critiquing the Japanese justice system, but US prosecutors abuse plea bargaining just as badly.
- rectang 8y ago
  As an American: same. It makes more sense when you consider that in many U.S. states, the criminal justice system is used as a political weapon. Felony disenfranchisement is an important means of keeping minority populations from the ballot box. If you don't like how minorities vote, targeted laws and selective policing, prosecution, and sentencing can help you suppress their votes. From the article: > he was confident that a jury would sympathize with his plight. Hoping for a sympathetic jury in California might not be a bad gamble, but for a man with a Hispanic name and appearance, the odds are not so good in Kansas.
scarface74 8y ago
I’m torn. On one hand, he knew what he was doing was on the edge of the law and he knew he was abetting illegal activity. But on the other hand, in tech, we have something like the DMCA where companies can be found harmless if they are abetting illegal activity as long as they aren’t directly complicit. Also, the drug trade would never happen without the help of corrupt white collar criminals who are never prosecuted. Law enforcement could have offered him witness protection. His biggest fear was endangering his family. From another perspective even on that, I wouldn’t put myself in a position where I’m surrounding myself with dangerous people. His completely above board speaker installation business probably could have supported him. Yeah, I’m being really ambivalent about the situation. I’m no lover of the “War on Drugs” or the “justice system”, but he knew what he was doing.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
vuluvu 8y ago
From the school of bad faction, un-fucking-readable,Tom Wolfe would be rolling in his grave :]
mnm1 8y ago
It's so sad that such a wonderful creative person's life is once again destroyed by dea and prosecutor scum. These barbaric scumbags are the ones who should be jailed without parole for making our society so violent and ugly. While the blame is shared with lawmakers, who are equally to blame for their barbaric hate that created such laws, the power lies with police and prosecutors to properly enforce and not enforce laws. Unfortunately in the US, the only incentives police have for their actions are money and power. Of course the uphold the status quo. It makes them richer and more powerful at the expense of other people's lives. Them being under the umbrella of "justice" allows them and the general, idiot public to pretend like these actions are not barbaric and evil, that these actions are not motivated by hate, racism, and greed. But people with even half a brain can see through this facade. Too bad such people are in such a minority, they never even have a chance to get on juries. That's how the final piece of the puzzle falls into place. Being judged by a jury of morons. This is so called "justice" so that we can all pretend we live in a civilized society as long as it doesn't affect us. One day, I hope these police and prosecutor scum will pay for the lives they've ruined and the people they have tortured and murdered. I hope...
tzs 8y ago
(Repeat of comment from discussion almost four years ago, with minor spelling and style edits): The article mentioned he was appealing. That has happened and he lost. Here is the appellate court opinion: https://cases.justia.com/federal/appellate-courts/ca10/12-3010/12-3010-2013-08-16.pdf?ts=1411095378 https://cases.justia.com/federal/appellate-courts/ca10/12-30... Something is mentioned there that either was not mentioned in the Wired article or I missed it: Anaya admits that he knew particular customers were buying compartments for illegal purposes. He just didn't know what particular illegal use they were going to be put to. He's basically arguing that to "knowingly" join a conspiracy, you have to know its objectives and scope, and he says he lacked that knowledge. It's probably a bad idea to do business with people who want to use code words when they talk to you on the phone. The appeals court mentions an intercepted call where Anaya told the drug traders he could put "3 speakers" in a Camry for $2,500, where "3 speakers" meant a compartment to hold 3 kilos. His sentence is way too long. He's not the linchpin of the drug trade the prosecution made him out to be, but he does not appear to be quite the innocent bystander Wired makes him out to be either.
- yourapostasy 8y ago
  Your cognitive dissonance is because in higher strata of first world society, indirection is an extraordinarily popular get-out-of-jail-free card. Only a single level of indirection sufficiently enables all sorts of financial manipulation. See Wells Fargo as just a simple example. Simple C-style pointer indirection is increasingly disallowed in lower strata as this example illustrates. The higher strata are going to handles-level and greater layers of indirection in the meantime.
  - mattthebaker 8y ago
    Reminds me of an article about some powerful men on wall street that do not use email. Doing most of your written communication through an assistant would give you a great deal of plausible deniability. Also reminds me of someone else constantly in the news these days.
  - skybrian 8y ago
    Sure, much of the economy runs on abstraction. It's not like Walmart or Amazon (let alone their suppliers) know how their customers will use their products. On the other hand, there are exceptions like "know your customer" rules for banks, big companies policing their supply chain (including subcontractors) and art dealers asking provenance to be documented. Turning products into services (subscriptions and app stores) tends to break the abstraction. This article was about a very leaky abstraction.
leoh 8y ago
If you are against his 24 year imprisonment, his family has a Gofundme https://www.gofundme.com/r4d2ys https://www.gofundme.com/r4d2ys
ahallock 8y ago
The State is extremely punitive, especially when inconvenienced. So many people are happy about handing power to these institutions, but get in the way of them, inconvenience them, and they'll stomp you out of existence. They have a myriad of legal weapons, which will only grow over time, so even if you think you're complying with the law, there's probably something you missed, or some loophole they can use. > Curtis Crow and Cesar Bonilla Montiel, the men at the top of the organization, received sentences half that length. The sentence length shows how punitive this was. They wanted to make an example out of Alfred because he made their jobs harder.
- king_nothing 8y ago
  Three Felonies A Day is a great read... with the vast number of laws, it’s nearly impossible to be technically-legal at all times. Moreover, technical legal prosecutions are often used for political gains: silence enemies, boost stats for re-election or make an example of someone at random.

120 points by joering2 8y ago

I'm alfred anaya older sister. He doesnt deserve 24 years in prison. He has served his time. Hoping for a miracle and hope the law of first drug offenders comes through and that he is selected to be free. His kids and family miss him so much. He's not a bad person.

dfundako 8y ago

Discussed quite a while ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8443727 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8443727

hkarthik 8y ago
Previous discussion was all about whether what he did was illegal or whether he was complicit. I'm actually most saddened by this part. When he was 8 years old, Alfred Anaya destroyed his mother’s vacuum cleaner in the pursuit of knowledge. “I took it apart because I wanted to find the motor inside,” he recalls. “I was so young, I thought the motor would work all by itself even after I took it out. I didn’t realize it needed to be plugged in to go.” His mother was upset but hardly surprised to discover her ruined vacuum, for she knew all about her youngest son’s rabid curiosity. Alfred was forever disassembling Sony Walkmans or clock radios so he could fill his favorite junk drawer with circuit boards, which thrilled him with their intricacy. His childhood doesn't seem much different from many of us hackers. I wonder how different his life would have been if he had been noticed by a technically savvy and connected benefactor who could have sponsored him. I could easily see someone like him being discovered at an early age going on to do breakthrough work with the benefit of a better education and circumstances. His poverty probably prevented the potential opportunities he could have had in life. This feels like one of the big challenges that needs to get solved. We need to find ways to bring people up like this up out of poverty so they don't end up making bad choices and ending up on the wrong side of the law. Feels like such a waste.
- alphabettsy 8y ago
  I agree with you, but also have to say that what he did shouldn’t be outside the law imo.
- kimdotcom 8y ago
  Did he make a bad choice, or is the law unjust? Same with the CFAA abuses.
- netsharc 8y ago
  I wonder if it's an education problem. I would wager there's quite a few of us who would be attracted to legally questionable work for big payoffs. Even FBI higher-ups have sold secrets to foreign countries for money. And according to the article, he was discovered after all, the stereo shop that hired him were impressed by his installer work.
x3n0ph3n3 8y ago
Funny how I also happened to link to this article in a related discussion yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17396913 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17396913
joering2 8y ago
+1 I haven't seen it back then, it came yesterday in someones comment and I found it shocking! The reasoning behind DA that he made the illegal business blooming possible shocked me. We should put Zuckerberg in jail because thanks to Facebook, ex cons are finding each other and their conspiracies are blooming. We should put Page behind bars because Google makes possible to find "how to make bombs" DYI. We should put AT&T officials behind bars because thanks to internet, online crime is booming! Also Apple officials because I'm sure crminals use iPhones. Its really shocking and saddened this particular DA approach to destroy his life. The man didn't do anything illegal and he didn't want to become snitch. So they send jury after him. And because he is covered with tattoos and likes strips clubs, guess his place is 25 years behind bars. /s

joshuaheard 8y ago

I remember this article ... from 2013.

PurpleBoxDragon 8y ago

In this particular case, he had all reason to believe his work was being used by some to do illegal things. But even then, is that any different than the people who work on TOR knowing full well it is used to abuse children, or who work on military weapons knowing that innocent people are targeted? Should a gun seller who has reason to believe the buyer might do something illegal with their be punished for making the sell anymore than any of the tech products used to circumvent laws (from minor laws dealing with content piracy to major laws dealing with child abuse)? Can we draw a definite consistent lines on where helping criminals commit crimes is moral, where it is immoral, where it is legal, and where it is illegal?

dfundako 8y ago
I believe there is a huge difference between you working on something that has the main function of facilitating an illegal enterprise and you working on something that has a tiny minority mis-using your product for illegal purposes. Silk Road vs Craigslist is an example that comes to mind.
- modzu 8y ago
  sometimes things that are illegal are not immoral and there are also plenty of things that are immoral but not illegal.
- PurpleBoxDragon 8y ago
  I wonder how much of Tor usage is for illegal activities, including black markets, compared to legal activities? And doesn't it seem fickle that the same action may or may not be legal depending upon how many people use Tor for legal vs illegal activities? What happens if last year it was primarily for legal purposes but this year some new black market site took off and people are primary using it for that now?
devoply 8y ago
For whatever reason the law cares greatly about the intention of work. If it can be proven without a doubt that your actual intention is to facilitate breaking the law you can get into a lot of trouble as is the case here. Economic activity can't have the primary purpose of facilitating someone breaking the law.

kstenerud 8y ago

As a well traveled non-American, the US justice system truly boggles the mind. Elected judges, jury trials, vengeance-oriented punishments, complete lack of rehabilitation or reintegration, medieval prison conditions... In Iraq, I wouldn't be surprised. In the USA, I'm simply aghast.

KindOne 8y ago
What country are you from?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- kstenerud 8y ago
  Canada, although I've lived all over the world. Thus far, the best systems I've seen are in Japan, Norway, and Germany.
  - decacorn 8y ago
    watch the Staircase on Netflix. You will utterly lose complete faith in US justice system.
  - influx 8y ago
    Japan has a conviction rate of over 99%, most of which are secured on the back of a confession. https://californiainnocenceproject.org/2013/01/japan-concerned-over-false-confessions/ https://californiainnocenceproject.org/2013/01/japan-concern...
    - travmatt 8y ago
      I can’t tell if you’re critiquing the Japanese justice system, but US prosecutors abuse plea bargaining just as badly.
rectang 8y ago
As an American: same. It makes more sense when you consider that in many U.S. states, the criminal justice system is used as a political weapon. Felony disenfranchisement is an important means of keeping minority populations from the ballot box. If you don't like how minorities vote, targeted laws and selective policing, prosecution, and sentencing can help you suppress their votes. From the article: > he was confident that a jury would sympathize with his plight. Hoping for a sympathetic jury in California might not be a bad gamble, but for a man with a Hispanic name and appearance, the odds are not so good in Kansas.

scarface74 8y ago

I’m torn. On one hand, he knew what he was doing was on the edge of the law and he knew he was abetting illegal activity. But on the other hand, in tech, we have something like the DMCA where companies can be found harmless if they are abetting illegal activity as long as they aren’t directly complicit. Also, the drug trade would never happen without the help of corrupt white collar criminals who are never prosecuted. Law enforcement could have offered him witness protection. His biggest fear was endangering his family. From another perspective even on that, I wouldn’t put myself in a position where I’m surrounding myself with dangerous people. His completely above board speaker installation business probably could have supported him. Yeah, I’m being really ambivalent about the situation. I’m no lover of the “War on Drugs” or the “justice system”, but he knew what he was doing.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

vuluvu 8y ago

From the school of bad faction, un-fucking-readable,Tom Wolfe would be rolling in his grave :]

mnm1 8y ago

It's so sad that such a wonderful creative person's life is once again destroyed by dea and prosecutor scum. These barbaric scumbags are the ones who should be jailed without parole for making our society so violent and ugly. While the blame is shared with lawmakers, who are equally to blame for their barbaric hate that created such laws, the power lies with police and prosecutors to properly enforce and not enforce laws. Unfortunately in the US, the only incentives police have for their actions are money and power. Of course the uphold the status quo. It makes them richer and more powerful at the expense of other people's lives. Them being under the umbrella of "justice" allows them and the general, idiot public to pretend like these actions are not barbaric and evil, that these actions are not motivated by hate, racism, and greed. But people with even half a brain can see through this facade. Too bad such people are in such a minority, they never even have a chance to get on juries. That's how the final piece of the puzzle falls into place. Being judged by a jury of morons. This is so called "justice" so that we can all pretend we live in a civilized society as long as it doesn't affect us. One day, I hope these police and prosecutor scum will pay for the lives they've ruined and the people they have tortured and murdered. I hope...

tzs 8y ago

(Repeat of comment from discussion almost four years ago, with minor spelling and style edits): The article mentioned he was appealing. That has happened and he lost. Here is the appellate court opinion: https://cases.justia.com/federal/appellate-courts/ca10/12-3010/12-3010-2013-08-16.pdf?ts=1411095378 https://cases.justia.com/federal/appellate-courts/ca10/12-30... Something is mentioned there that either was not mentioned in the Wired article or I missed it: Anaya admits that he knew particular customers were buying compartments for illegal purposes. He just didn't know what particular illegal use they were going to be put to. He's basically arguing that to "knowingly" join a conspiracy, you have to know its objectives and scope, and he says he lacked that knowledge. It's probably a bad idea to do business with people who want to use code words when they talk to you on the phone. The appeals court mentions an intercepted call where Anaya told the drug traders he could put "3 speakers" in a Camry for $2,500, where "3 speakers" meant a compartment to hold 3 kilos. His sentence is way too long. He's not the linchpin of the drug trade the prosecution made him out to be, but he does not appear to be quite the innocent bystander Wired makes him out to be either.

yourapostasy 8y ago
Your cognitive dissonance is because in higher strata of first world society, indirection is an extraordinarily popular get-out-of-jail-free card. Only a single level of indirection sufficiently enables all sorts of financial manipulation. See Wells Fargo as just a simple example. Simple C-style pointer indirection is increasingly disallowed in lower strata as this example illustrates. The higher strata are going to handles-level and greater layers of indirection in the meantime.
- mattthebaker 8y ago
  Reminds me of an article about some powerful men on wall street that do not use email. Doing most of your written communication through an assistant would give you a great deal of plausible deniability. Also reminds me of someone else constantly in the news these days.
- skybrian 8y ago
  Sure, much of the economy runs on abstraction. It's not like Walmart or Amazon (let alone their suppliers) know how their customers will use their products. On the other hand, there are exceptions like "know your customer" rules for banks, big companies policing their supply chain (including subcontractors) and art dealers asking provenance to be documented. Turning products into services (subscriptions and app stores) tends to break the abstraction. This article was about a very leaky abstraction.

leoh 8y ago

If you are against his 24 year imprisonment, his family has a Gofundme https://www.gofundme.com/r4d2ys https://www.gofundme.com/r4d2ys

ahallock 8y ago

The State is extremely punitive, especially when inconvenienced. So many people are happy about handing power to these institutions, but get in the way of them, inconvenience them, and they'll stomp you out of existence. They have a myriad of legal weapons, which will only grow over time, so even if you think you're complying with the law, there's probably something you missed, or some loophole they can use. > Curtis Crow and Cesar Bonilla Montiel, the men at the top of the organization, received sentences half that length. The sentence length shows how punitive this was. They wanted to make an example out of Alfred because he made their jobs harder.

king_nothing 8y ago
Three Felonies A Day is a great read... with the vast number of laws, it’s nearly impossible to be technically-legal at all times. Moreover, technical legal prosecutions are often used for political gains: silence enemies, boost stats for re-election or make an example of someone at random.