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Life hack: don't store anything you don't want to explain in front of a judge. For practical purposes, "store" includes "put in a computer". Consider that: -
by elipsey 7y ago
Life hack: don't store anything you don't want to explain in front of a judge.
For practical purposes, "store" includes "put in a computer".
Consider that:
--Saying you committed a crime is definitely incriminating, so storing that is probably not in your best interest.
--You are not qualified to know that you are _not_ breaking the law.
--In fact, the only way to determine this affirmatively is by trial.
--If you think no one important cares, you might still piss off someone important later (Corollary: pissing off someone important is a good way to find out whether you have broken the law).
- 2Ccltvcm 7y agoThis is the best argument in favor of strong privacy laws I have heard so far
- imgabe 7y agoI don't think privacy laws extend to things that have been subpoenaed by a court or collected as evidence.
- milankovic 7y agoWell, if it's collected as evidence, it is obviously too late.
- elipsey 7y agoThey might prevent fishing expeditions though. I would encourage readers to see Moxie Marlinspike's essay on this subject. The thesis is that the ability to capriciously and selective prosecute anyone is stiffing to dissent, and prevents political change. Students of recent US history understand that this is far from purely theoretical. "if everyone’s every action were being monitored, and everyone technically violates some obscure law at some time, then punishment becomes purely selective. Those in power will essentially have what they need to punish anyone they’d like, whenever they choose, as if there were no rules at all. Even ignoring this obvious potential for new abuse, it’s also substantially closer to that dystopian reality of a world where law enforcement is 100% effective, eliminating the possibility to [directly] experience alternative ideas that might better suit us." https://moxie.org/blog/we-should-all-have-something-to-hide/ https://moxie.org/blog/we-should-all-have-something-to-hide/ Edit: To be clear, I think you make good point that privacy laws won't save you from a subpoena. However, they are probably useful for other reasons; this was why warrants and other notions of due process were created to begin with, including the requirement that a warrant or subpoena be limited in scope to that material which is relevant to a particular charge or investigation. I think one big problem today is that people are ordered to surrender "everything on your phone and cloud", etc. This is at least equivalent to search warrant for "your filing cabinet", if not "everything you have ever written or said."
- Dkastro92 7y agoThis is very interesting. We surrender, for example, to the posibility of preventing the suffering of people by the acts of others becouse that, would make us dystopian.
- elipsey 7y agoRespectfully, did you read the article? The thesis is that dragnet surveillance is stifling to political change and may result in an ossified society. There are trade-offs other then security vs safety.
- woofie11 7y agoThere are quite a few lines one has to cross before subpoenas and similar that don't exist with a cloud provider, employer, ex-wife, contractor, hacker, etc.
- sophacles 7y agoBut privacy laws can prevent things from being stored, and thus reducing their ability to be gathered by subpoenas etc, particularly some n years later.
- JustSomeNobody 7y agoIs it? You could still be asked to turn over document during a trial, no?
- milankovic 7y agoI think the important point is: You can't turn over a document that does not exist.
- saltminer 7y agoBut "strong privacy laws" don't prevent these documents from being created. It's idiots saving hard evidence of the crime, and no amount of legislation can teach people to be better criminals.
- davidgerard 7y agoIn this case it's about financial communications in the workplace that are required to be recorded for compliance. Amazingly enough, there are more than zero traders who are sufficiently arrogant bozos that they will chat, on these recorded channels, about coordinating to break the law, stating on the recorded channel that they know they are breaking the law.
- duality 7y agoDo these "life hacks" apply in other developed countries, or is the US special in this way too?
- JumpCrisscross 7y ago> Do these "life hacks" apply in other developed countries If by “developed” you mean the U.K., Australia, France, Germany or Japan, then yes. Parsimonious retention is a generally prudent measure.
- farss 7y ago"(Corollary: pissing off someone important is a good way to find out whether you have broken the law)." ^this^
- feintruled 7y agoOne of my personal mottoes is - assume that anything you write about an individual in an electronic message will at some point be read by that individual and phrase it accordindly It has served me well - I can't count the number of times I've seen a message forwarded unexpectedly (or been able to scroll down a long email chain to see some juicy stuff).