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State has a duty to prosecute law breakers. This is a load bearing wall of civil society. Everywhere. Making sweeping general statements is good for riling up

State has a duty to prosecute law breakers. This is a load bearing wall of civil society. Everywhere. Making sweeping general statements is good for riling up the mobs but I would implore HN readers to be more pragmatic about these things. Look at the context. This person sought to ignite racial tensions for personal gain. He was given a sweetheart deal. The State is going after him and those protected him. They (the State prosecutors) have every right to collect and gather evidence to build the case.

avs733 7y ago
yes we have seen you know how to make this comment. Another way to look at that 'duty' is to say [The] state has a responsibility to ensure justice for all. That may seem like the same thing but vagueness is at times valuable given that life rarely satisfies the black and white dichotomies many of us would prefer.
- drevil-v2 7y ago
  What exactly are you saying? That the State should let this one go?
  - deleted 7y ago
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  - avs733 7y ago
    More so that laws are a social construct. We can have a discussion about how the state should behave without using catastrophic examples to shift debates about principles and policies. The post I was responding to sees the role of the state as a absolutist binaric executor of often fuzzy laws and rules. The context of this example doesn't have any affect on whether or not that naive belief is a path to a functional and just society. Whatever happens with Smollett, or the next example, simply doesn't support a belief that every crime should be prosecuted. There was a (hamfisted but entertaining) TNG episode about this for gods sake...
hnuser123456 7y ago
The media seeks to ignite racial tensions for personal gains all the time, shouldn't we prosecute them too?
- drevil-v2 7y ago
  I think CNN just found out the answer to that the hard way. They settled with that Covington kid.
- deleted 7y ago
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- ohithereyou 7y ago
  This is yet another reason why for profit media should be taxed like cigarettes and liquor. People like it, it's bad for them, and it costs money to undo the damage it causes. Plow the money into courses on basic reasoning, civics, and grants to non-profit, independent media so that the people benefit when for profit media pushes a war for profit or racial divison for more ad revenue.
  - throwno 7y ago
    NY Times was so sad that WW3 didn't pop off this morning. Better luck next time, assholes.
  - fennecfoxen 7y ago
    This suggestion befits an authoritarian dictatorship which seeks to control the press and muffle its critics, but it is ill-suited for a people who wish to remain free.
- bilbo0s 7y ago
  Everyone seeks to ignite racial tensions for personal gain. Politicians, journalists, even a lot of people on HN are out doing it in the comments all the time. But you can't prosecute every jay walker, nor every speeder. That doesn't necessarily mean that you shouldn't punish any speeders. The problem here is that they are going about it in the wrong way. Issuing a warrant that says, "Well, show me everything this guy ever did, and I'll tell you the crime I want to prosecute him for later." That's not how most warrants work. Most of the time it's, "We suspect X evidence generated in the commission of Y crime is at Z location". What this does is say, "We need all his data to figure out exactly what crime was committed". That's an ominous warrant.
nilkn 7y ago
He allegedly did something quite bad, and if guilty I’d like him to face justice. But if the cost of convicting him is setting a precedent that effectively strips hundreds of millions of people of their privacy and subjects us all to an unofficial form of state surveillance, then let him walk.
- drevil-v2 7y ago
  The State has always been able to look up phone records, bank records, land records, criminal records, medical records etc etc as in order to pursue justice and prosecute. This is a necessary "evil". We give up some freedoms so that we have a civilisation and an orderly society. And this isn't setting up any precedent that is egregious. This is on the front page of Chicago Tribune newspaper and on the front page of HN. This is not some shady in the shadows invasion of privacy. Those things do happen and I think we should preserve our outrage for those moments. Otherwise it just becomes background noise to be constantly and without context offended.
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  - bilbo0s 7y ago
    >Those things do happen and I think we should preserve our outrage for those moments That creates an almost arbitrary, "this fits my worldview so I'll support rights this time" thought process. Like, "Well, this guy's a Nazi so we should trample his rights. But this woman's an abortion activist, so we should be sure to protect hers." How do you propose we prevent ideological blindness in the protection of rights? Should we take the government's word that, "this time, it's really worth trampling rights"? Or would you create an unbiased oversight board that tells us when protecting rights is appropriate? Or should each person look at a case and decide for themselves whether or not they should take a stand against rights infringement?
    - drevil-v2 7y ago
      I would argue that there are no rights being "trampled" here at all.
Mirioron 7y ago
I would agree with you if our legal systems were built for that, but our legal systems are built to deal with a society that has privacy. People unknowingly commit crimes, or implicate themselves in crimes, all the time, because there are too many ways to do that. No reasonable person can be expected to avoid committing crimes when the government itself can't even keep track of the number of criminal laws there are.[0] You're supposed to follow rules that the government itself can't even keep count of. This works reasonably well as long as the government doesn't have evidence about everything you've done, but the moment that they can track a large chunk of your life is when this system stops working. With data from Google they can prosecute you for all the things you've done wrong or seem to have done wrong. It just takes an ambitious prosecutor to do it. This pretty much destroys the point of the fifth amendment. The "Don't Talk to the Police" lecture [1] is still relevant today, but if the state has this much evidence of what you do, then I'm not sure that will protect people. It is a nightmare scenario if this sets a precedent on law enforcement being able to vacuum up all of your data about your life. I agree that Smollett seemingly getting a slap on the wrist was outrageous, but I think that this is Pandora's Box that they're playing with. [0] https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2013/03/frequent-reference-question-how-many-federal-laws-are-there/ https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2013/03/frequent-reference-questio... [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE
- drevil-v2 7y ago
  I wrote this comment elsewhere below but it still applies The State has always been able to look up phone records, bank records, land records, criminal records, medical records etc etc as in order to pursue justice and prosecute. How is this any different?
  - analog31 7y ago
    In my view, the state has to ask a court to approve the purpose of each request, based on a reasonable hypothesis about what might be found. How this seems different is the lack of any limitation on the kind of content that can be turned over. And in my view, that was a mistake on the judge's part for approving such a sweeping request. For instance if I were accused of committing a crime against X, then I suppose that Google could be asked to turn over e-mails that I wrote about X, but not e-mails about my bicycle. This is how the system prevents the state from going on a hunting and fishing expedition.
Dylan16807 7y ago
> State has a duty to prosecute law breakers. This is a load bearing wall of civil society. Everywhere. That doesn't mean there should be enormous databases of everything people do for the state to access at will.
- dx87 7y ago
  What does that have to do with the case being discussed? A judge issued search warrants for information that Google has. Your hyperbole about the government being able to access anyone's information whenever they want isn't helpful to a conversation about privacy.
  - wolco 7y ago
    At anytime a judge could order your information and put a secret gag order. A valid concern. The government seizes domains they deem possible copyright infringement. One judge order could open the floodgates.
    - greenyoda 7y ago
      > At anytime a judge could order your information For a judge to issue a warrant, a prosecutor or cop has to swear that they have probable cause to believe that you've committed a specific crime. Judges can't just write warrants arbitrarily. (Of course, this process can be abused, but it's still pretty far from a judge being able to authorize pulling the data of random people.) The Fourth Amendment says: "... no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
      - wolco 7y ago
        Why makes probable cause against you in some direct or indirect way? You worked here and had access to x you fit a profile or someone you know you are an enemy of the state No one needs to break an oath.
  - 7y ago
keanzu 7y ago
I don't see how the context of his alleged crime (he's not been found guilty of anything) is relevant. Beyond a felony/misdemeanor the means available to the state to build a case/prosecute should be identical regardless of the specific crime alleged.
jcims 7y ago
Doesn’t seem like the issue is with the state, it’s that we’re entrusting third parties with enough information to paint an incredibly intimate portrait of our personalities and proclivities. This in turn is available to the state at essentially zero cost, which may then be leveraged heavily to ensure compliance.
- Mirioron 7y ago
  You're right. The issue indeed is that these companies can just vacuum up all of this data and keep it around. The problem, however, is that this is possible now. This means that if people (or companies) somehow figure out a way to either keep this information from the state or keep this information from being collected, then the state themselves could start collecting (some of) this information. We've seen it before that intelligence agencies don't seem to care about spying on their own citizens through technicalities and then abusing that information.
bitexploder 7y ago
This is all fine in theory. But why this guy? With limited prosecutorial resources, why are they doubling down on this guy? That is what I am always suspicious of.
- keanzu 7y ago
  Why not this guy? Possibly because he generated a little too much infamy and now the public wants blood. Or maybe the prosecutor believes in the defendant's guilt and thinks they can make a strong case. Maybe a mix of both. Perhaps you'd prefer the prosecutor look at some other case but then the exact same question could be asked - why that guy? So why not this guy?
  - bitexploder 7y ago
    I imagine they have a lot of more serious crimes to pursue. This just seems to be high publicity so it is getting more resources. That means other crimes with high impact victims get de-prioritized. Plus it is Chicago, it is still rather corrupt there. I would mistrust anything with publicity involved until it is proven to be valid.
    - cavisne 7y ago
      Something that should never be overlooked in this case is that after police identified the suspects and made arrests Smollett still stuck to his lie. He was ready to send innocent people to a potential life sentence or the death penalty (which is how hate crimes are treated), and in fact is still maintaining his lie. All over a contract dispute. Evil stuff.
      - Fezzik 7y ago
        Not to diminish what a dunce this guy was, but the only crimes currently punishable by death in the US are ones in which the victim has died. And maybe treason, espionage, and other weird crimes against the government. Those are unclear at the moment.
    - 7y ago
JumpCrisscross 7y ago
> They (the State prosecutors) With a warrant they convinced a court to issue. This is totally different from e.g. dragnet surveillance.
- viggity 7y ago
  Exactly this. I've seen cases where a prosecutor has gotten a John Doe warrant to send to cell companies that effectively asked for the IDs of all phones that were present the closest cell tower at the times of multiple robberies (eg "give me all phones that were present at ABC tower on Monday at 1pm, DEF tower on Tuesday at 4pm, AND GHI tower on Thursday at 10am). Which obviously only the robber is likely to show up on. To me, they're effectively searching my data even though I don't meet all the criteria because I was only near one tower one day. This is way different than what the court did to Smollet. They already had tons of dirt on him - and thus probable clause to dig deeper. I'd be weary of them using this data to try to go after him for some obscure crime completely unrelated to the false report (e.g. pics of him walking his dog in a state park that forbids pets).
  - chrisco255 7y ago
    They did this very thing to associates of Trump in the course of the Mueller investigation. Unrelated tax issues, failing to register as a foreign agent and other charges were brought against certain individuals for things they did years before they joined the Trump campaign. Whatever your thoughts are on this, there is already established precedent for it.
    - modo_mario 7y ago
      Which all seem like notable things to encounter when doing an investigation like that and to not drop when encountered? 'Let's look if money was sent from x to y. Get bank and tax statements. Well (it didn't come from x but) it sure as hell wasn't taxed' It's not like this was brought up as part of a single court case if not related which would make it a relevant precedent here.
dreamcompiler 7y ago
You're completely missing the point. Whatever Smollett did or didn't do is immaterial. What is material is that Google, Facebook, etc are now single points of privacy failure that make abuse by law enforcement much easier than it used to be. This case may or may not be an example of said abuse, but the potential is clearly there. The solution is to retake control of our digital lives from these companies. In a democracy the job of the police must be difficult.
russler23 7y ago
“Ignite racial tensions”? There was no chance of that happening. Smollett was a laughingstock the day the story hit the news. Foxx declined to prosecute because she correctly saw it as a ridiculous and embarrassing stunt. Another thing to keep in mind: “igniting racial tensions” as an investigatory justification was how MLK got labeled the gravest domestic security threat to the United States. You’re advocating a categorical justification with a fraught and bloody history. Better civilian oversight is overdue.
- brigandish 7y ago
  > There was no chance of that happening Mens rea is the guilty mind required for something to be a crime. Intent matters as much as outcome or chance of outcome in the judgement of whether a crime has occurred, and explains the use of "sought" in the comment you replied to.
  - russler23 7y ago
    Well, it hadn’t even entered my mind that increasing racial tensions could be a crime, so that didn’t make it through my legal framework. Why did it occur to you?
    - brigandish 7y ago
      His actions and motivations in committing a crime, alleged or proven, are relevant, that's why it entered my mind - he is under investigation for a crime, is he not? Igniting racial tensions doesn't need to be the crime, just as stealing money to pay off debts doesn't make paying off debts a crime, but it's still relevant in showing mens rea and the kind of mens rea e.g. knowing, negligent, reckless etc and in assessment of the effects of his actions.
    - russler23 7y ago
      I guess I’d call it an appeal to racial sympathy more than anything else. If Chicago wants to charge him with filing a false report, they can go right ahead, but I’m pretty sure they don’t need his personal records to establish that.
titzer 7y ago
What a sweeping authoritarian view on human rights. I'm sorry but this really raises my hackles. The state absolute does not have every right to collect and gather evidence to build a case with such a sweeping dragnet. There is a reason that search warrants have to be specific and evidence of even obvious other crimes is not admissible. There is nothing pragmatic about being totally ignorant of Fourth Amendment protections that have been eeked out, injustice after injustice, over two centuries.
matheusmoreira 7y ago
> They (the State prosecutors) have every right to collect and gather evidence to build the case. They should have the right to do it. Actually doing it should be as difficult as humanly possible. It should not be as easy as sending a letter to Google and getting a suspect's entire life records in return.
- ddalex 7y ago
  Why not? How is this different from a warrant to search a home? Would you argue in that case that personal paper letters should be kept in a safe that's very difficult to open for law enforcement even if they have the warrant to do it?
  - matheusmoreira 7y ago
    > Why not? Because if it's too easy they will be tempted to do it as a matter of routine. > How is this different from a warrant to search a home? They have to actually go to the home in question in order to execute the warrant. They can't automatically search all homes.
    - ddalex 7y ago
      Even if tempted, they still would need to get warrants. They can't automatically search all accounts - they need to demonstrate the probable cause to a judge first.
guelo 7y ago
> Look at the context. The context is extremely partisan twisting of the justice system on all sides. Normally DA's have complete discretion to drop charges as they see fit. Because of the partisan outrage a Republican special prosecutor has been appointed to overrule the prosecutor and now he's on a witch hunt going through a year of Google records trying to find everything incriminating, this is a farce and high level corruption
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jacquesm 7y ago
They do. But I'm not in your jurisdiction. And this could happen to me too. And my company.
stiray 7y ago
Ok, lets look in context. In 1920 records were kept about beeing a jew. It was perfectly ok, no harm done, some record no one cared about. In 1942 those records became mortal, sponsored by state. Should we talk about anti-gay laws? One day it is fine, second day you can get prisoned. No one should keep such records as society is changing and not always to best. This is one of the reasons, privacy is one of fundamental human rights. And is blatantly violated for the profit.
- globuous 7y ago
  Maybe, do you have a source you could share please ? I often read this argument around but have not verified it. I've also heard some records produced under Napoleon were used. But this was a real crazy time. Hypothetical scenario (in the sense that I have not verified it, but I do think it's a very likely scenario to have happened): There were medical records of people with physical conditions before 1933 (so they could be treated) that were used under the Nazi regime to persecute them. Does that mean it that hospitals and doctors maintaining a list of medical records to treat their patients efficiently was a bad idea ? I don't have the answer to this, I just wanted to point out that this is a delicate issue that society needs to figure out fairly quickly if they want to have an influence its outcome. I wonder what godwin would have thought about all this :)
  - jacquesm 7y ago
    https://jacquesmattheij.com/if-you-have-nothing-to-hide/ https://jacquesmattheij.com/if-you-have-nothing-to-hide/
  - stiray 7y ago
    Just for the last part, for everything else you can use duckduckgo (or qwant). Anyway it is not such a hypotetical scenario, nazis were really killing the disabled persons based on their medical record (yes, qwant or duckduckgo for it). Yes, it is a bad idea that doctors keep those data. If insurance companies get those information (and my dentist said he was already aproached by some company to sell dental records, I wouldnt be surprised if this is a common practice in states) you will have issues. Same with employees etc., even if nothing wrong with your health but there is x% chance that you get terminal disease. Those records should be handed over to the patient, tamper proofed (no, not blockchain, just RSA will do fine) or stored, but encrypted with patient key. Actually when writting this I remembered that we (as in my country) are having a medical smart card that needs to be given to the doctor to access our medical records. Maybe we already have such a system. Anyway it is a bit sick comparing google with doctors. The need and trust is on completely different scale not to mention that trust between doctor and patient is handled by laws and hippocratic oath since 257 AD.
raxxorrax 7y ago
Even someone who has done wrong has a rights and I would think that a year of Google data would compromise too much information not relevant to the case. In my opinion this clearly qualifies as "unreasonable searches". Even if you have been naive enough to voluntarily share data with Google.
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tyingq 7y ago
Is there some line you don't want it to cross? As tech progresses, there will be increasingly more about everything you do that gets logged.
- codingdave 7y ago
  If any community has the power to reverse that trend, it is HN and the rest of the software community that actually builds the tech. I am constantly battling it in my own company, where they want to track everything our users do. And they even have some legit reasons for it, to use the data to build better UX, etc. I am the only person fighting against it, saying that tracking should be limited to only the cases where there is truly a compelling business question it can answer. If Google were to apply the same logic to their tracking, we'd be in a better place. For example, they may want real-time location data for the traffic alerts when using Maps. And they may desire some aggregated form of that data long-term. But I cannot see any business benefit to Google maintaining my personal location data at specific times and dates in the past. There is zero business benefit to keep that level of detail in their logging. Or, to answer your question more directly, that is the line I do not want to cross - where we are logging personal data "Just in case" we ever might need it. I'd like to see every piece of tracked data tied to a specific business need, and then have it deleted when that need no longer is relevant.

avs733 7y ago

yes we have seen you know how to make this comment. Another way to look at that 'duty' is to say [The] state has a responsibility to ensure justice for all. That may seem like the same thing but vagueness is at times valuable given that life rarely satisfies the black and white dichotomies many of us would prefer.

drevil-v2 7y ago
What exactly are you saying? That the State should let this one go?
- deleted 7y ago
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- avs733 7y ago
  More so that laws are a social construct. We can have a discussion about how the state should behave without using catastrophic examples to shift debates about principles and policies. The post I was responding to sees the role of the state as a absolutist binaric executor of often fuzzy laws and rules. The context of this example doesn't have any affect on whether or not that naive belief is a path to a functional and just society. Whatever happens with Smollett, or the next example, simply doesn't support a belief that every crime should be prosecuted. There was a (hamfisted but entertaining) TNG episode about this for gods sake...

hnuser123456 7y ago

The media seeks to ignite racial tensions for personal gains all the time, shouldn't we prosecute them too?

drevil-v2 7y ago
I think CNN just found out the answer to that the hard way. They settled with that Covington kid.
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ohithereyou 7y ago
This is yet another reason why for profit media should be taxed like cigarettes and liquor. People like it, it's bad for them, and it costs money to undo the damage it causes. Plow the money into courses on basic reasoning, civics, and grants to non-profit, independent media so that the people benefit when for profit media pushes a war for profit or racial divison for more ad revenue.
- throwno 7y ago
  NY Times was so sad that WW3 didn't pop off this morning. Better luck next time, assholes.
- fennecfoxen 7y ago
  This suggestion befits an authoritarian dictatorship which seeks to control the press and muffle its critics, but it is ill-suited for a people who wish to remain free.
bilbo0s 7y ago
Everyone seeks to ignite racial tensions for personal gain. Politicians, journalists, even a lot of people on HN are out doing it in the comments all the time. But you can't prosecute every jay walker, nor every speeder. That doesn't necessarily mean that you shouldn't punish any speeders. The problem here is that they are going about it in the wrong way. Issuing a warrant that says, "Well, show me everything this guy ever did, and I'll tell you the crime I want to prosecute him for later." That's not how most warrants work. Most of the time it's, "We suspect X evidence generated in the commission of Y crime is at Z location". What this does is say, "We need all his data to figure out exactly what crime was committed". That's an ominous warrant.

nilkn 7y ago

He allegedly did something quite bad, and if guilty I’d like him to face justice. But if the cost of convicting him is setting a precedent that effectively strips hundreds of millions of people of their privacy and subjects us all to an unofficial form of state surveillance, then let him walk.

drevil-v2 7y ago
The State has always been able to look up phone records, bank records, land records, criminal records, medical records etc etc as in order to pursue justice and prosecute. This is a necessary "evil". We give up some freedoms so that we have a civilisation and an orderly society. And this isn't setting up any precedent that is egregious. This is on the front page of Chicago Tribune newspaper and on the front page of HN. This is not some shady in the shadows invasion of privacy. Those things do happen and I think we should preserve our outrage for those moments. Otherwise it just becomes background noise to be constantly and without context offended.
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- bilbo0s 7y ago
  >Those things do happen and I think we should preserve our outrage for those moments That creates an almost arbitrary, "this fits my worldview so I'll support rights this time" thought process. Like, "Well, this guy's a Nazi so we should trample his rights. But this woman's an abortion activist, so we should be sure to protect hers." How do you propose we prevent ideological blindness in the protection of rights? Should we take the government's word that, "this time, it's really worth trampling rights"? Or would you create an unbiased oversight board that tells us when protecting rights is appropriate? Or should each person look at a case and decide for themselves whether or not they should take a stand against rights infringement?
  - drevil-v2 7y ago
    I would argue that there are no rights being "trampled" here at all.

Mirioron 7y ago

I would agree with you if our legal systems were built for that, but our legal systems are built to deal with a society that has privacy. People unknowingly commit crimes, or implicate themselves in crimes, all the time, because there are too many ways to do that. No reasonable person can be expected to avoid committing crimes when the government itself can't even keep track of the number of criminal laws there are.[0] You're supposed to follow rules that the government itself can't even keep count of. This works reasonably well as long as the government doesn't have evidence about everything you've done, but the moment that they can track a large chunk of your life is when this system stops working. With data from Google they can prosecute you for all the things you've done wrong or seem to have done wrong. It just takes an ambitious prosecutor to do it. This pretty much destroys the point of the fifth amendment. The "Don't Talk to the Police" lecture [1] is still relevant today, but if the state has this much evidence of what you do, then I'm not sure that will protect people. It is a nightmare scenario if this sets a precedent on law enforcement being able to vacuum up all of your data about your life. I agree that Smollett seemingly getting a slap on the wrist was outrageous, but I think that this is Pandora's Box that they're playing with. [0] https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2013/03/frequent-reference-question-how-many-federal-laws-are-there/ https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2013/03/frequent-reference-questio... [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE

drevil-v2 7y ago
I wrote this comment elsewhere below but it still applies The State has always been able to look up phone records, bank records, land records, criminal records, medical records etc etc as in order to pursue justice and prosecute. How is this any different?
- analog31 7y ago
  In my view, the state has to ask a court to approve the purpose of each request, based on a reasonable hypothesis about what might be found. How this seems different is the lack of any limitation on the kind of content that can be turned over. And in my view, that was a mistake on the judge's part for approving such a sweeping request. For instance if I were accused of committing a crime against X, then I suppose that Google could be asked to turn over e-mails that I wrote about X, but not e-mails about my bicycle. This is how the system prevents the state from going on a hunting and fishing expedition.

Dylan16807 7y ago

> State has a duty to prosecute law breakers. This is a load bearing wall of civil society. Everywhere. That doesn't mean there should be enormous databases of everything people do for the state to access at will.

dx87 7y ago
What does that have to do with the case being discussed? A judge issued search warrants for information that Google has. Your hyperbole about the government being able to access anyone's information whenever they want isn't helpful to a conversation about privacy.
- wolco 7y ago
  At anytime a judge could order your information and put a secret gag order. A valid concern. The government seizes domains they deem possible copyright infringement. One judge order could open the floodgates.
  - greenyoda 7y ago
    > At anytime a judge could order your information For a judge to issue a warrant, a prosecutor or cop has to swear that they have probable cause to believe that you've committed a specific crime. Judges can't just write warrants arbitrarily. (Of course, this process can be abused, but it's still pretty far from a judge being able to authorize pulling the data of random people.) The Fourth Amendment says: "... no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
    - wolco 7y ago
      Why makes probable cause against you in some direct or indirect way? You worked here and had access to x you fit a profile or someone you know you are an enemy of the state No one needs to break an oath.
- 7y ago

keanzu 7y ago

I don't see how the context of his alleged crime (he's not been found guilty of anything) is relevant. Beyond a felony/misdemeanor the means available to the state to build a case/prosecute should be identical regardless of the specific crime alleged.

jcims 7y ago

Doesn’t seem like the issue is with the state, it’s that we’re entrusting third parties with enough information to paint an incredibly intimate portrait of our personalities and proclivities. This in turn is available to the state at essentially zero cost, which may then be leveraged heavily to ensure compliance.

Mirioron 7y ago
You're right. The issue indeed is that these companies can just vacuum up all of this data and keep it around. The problem, however, is that this is possible now. This means that if people (or companies) somehow figure out a way to either keep this information from the state or keep this information from being collected, then the state themselves could start collecting (some of) this information. We've seen it before that intelligence agencies don't seem to care about spying on their own citizens through technicalities and then abusing that information.

bitexploder 7y ago

This is all fine in theory. But why this guy? With limited prosecutorial resources, why are they doubling down on this guy? That is what I am always suspicious of.

keanzu 7y ago
Why not this guy? Possibly because he generated a little too much infamy and now the public wants blood. Or maybe the prosecutor believes in the defendant's guilt and thinks they can make a strong case. Maybe a mix of both. Perhaps you'd prefer the prosecutor look at some other case but then the exact same question could be asked - why that guy? So why not this guy?
- bitexploder 7y ago
  I imagine they have a lot of more serious crimes to pursue. This just seems to be high publicity so it is getting more resources. That means other crimes with high impact victims get de-prioritized. Plus it is Chicago, it is still rather corrupt there. I would mistrust anything with publicity involved until it is proven to be valid.
  - cavisne 7y ago
    Something that should never be overlooked in this case is that after police identified the suspects and made arrests Smollett still stuck to his lie. He was ready to send innocent people to a potential life sentence or the death penalty (which is how hate crimes are treated), and in fact is still maintaining his lie. All over a contract dispute. Evil stuff.
    - Fezzik 7y ago
      Not to diminish what a dunce this guy was, but the only crimes currently punishable by death in the US are ones in which the victim has died. And maybe treason, espionage, and other weird crimes against the government. Those are unclear at the moment.
  - 7y ago

JumpCrisscross 7y ago

> They (the State prosecutors) With a warrant they convinced a court to issue. This is totally different from e.g. dragnet surveillance.

viggity 7y ago
Exactly this. I've seen cases where a prosecutor has gotten a John Doe warrant to send to cell companies that effectively asked for the IDs of all phones that were present the closest cell tower at the times of multiple robberies (eg "give me all phones that were present at ABC tower on Monday at 1pm, DEF tower on Tuesday at 4pm, AND GHI tower on Thursday at 10am). Which obviously only the robber is likely to show up on. To me, they're effectively searching my data even though I don't meet all the criteria because I was only near one tower one day. This is way different than what the court did to Smollet. They already had tons of dirt on him - and thus probable clause to dig deeper. I'd be weary of them using this data to try to go after him for some obscure crime completely unrelated to the false report (e.g. pics of him walking his dog in a state park that forbids pets).
- chrisco255 7y ago
  They did this very thing to associates of Trump in the course of the Mueller investigation. Unrelated tax issues, failing to register as a foreign agent and other charges were brought against certain individuals for things they did years before they joined the Trump campaign. Whatever your thoughts are on this, there is already established precedent for it.
  - modo_mario 7y ago
    Which all seem like notable things to encounter when doing an investigation like that and to not drop when encountered? 'Let's look if money was sent from x to y. Get bank and tax statements. Well (it didn't come from x but) it sure as hell wasn't taxed' It's not like this was brought up as part of a single court case if not related which would make it a relevant precedent here.

dreamcompiler 7y ago

You're completely missing the point. Whatever Smollett did or didn't do is immaterial. What is material is that Google, Facebook, etc are now single points of privacy failure that make abuse by law enforcement much easier than it used to be. This case may or may not be an example of said abuse, but the potential is clearly there. The solution is to retake control of our digital lives from these companies. In a democracy the job of the police must be difficult.

russler23 7y ago

“Ignite racial tensions”? There was no chance of that happening. Smollett was a laughingstock the day the story hit the news. Foxx declined to prosecute because she correctly saw it as a ridiculous and embarrassing stunt. Another thing to keep in mind: “igniting racial tensions” as an investigatory justification was how MLK got labeled the gravest domestic security threat to the United States. You’re advocating a categorical justification with a fraught and bloody history. Better civilian oversight is overdue.

brigandish 7y ago
> There was no chance of that happening Mens rea is the guilty mind required for something to be a crime. Intent matters as much as outcome or chance of outcome in the judgement of whether a crime has occurred, and explains the use of "sought" in the comment you replied to.
- russler23 7y ago
  Well, it hadn’t even entered my mind that increasing racial tensions could be a crime, so that didn’t make it through my legal framework. Why did it occur to you?
  - brigandish 7y ago
    His actions and motivations in committing a crime, alleged or proven, are relevant, that's why it entered my mind - he is under investigation for a crime, is he not? Igniting racial tensions doesn't need to be the crime, just as stealing money to pay off debts doesn't make paying off debts a crime, but it's still relevant in showing mens rea and the kind of mens rea e.g. knowing, negligent, reckless etc and in assessment of the effects of his actions.
  - russler23 7y ago
    I guess I’d call it an appeal to racial sympathy more than anything else. If Chicago wants to charge him with filing a false report, they can go right ahead, but I’m pretty sure they don’t need his personal records to establish that.

titzer 7y ago

What a sweeping authoritarian view on human rights. I'm sorry but this really raises my hackles. The state absolute does not have every right to collect and gather evidence to build a case with such a sweeping dragnet. There is a reason that search warrants have to be specific and evidence of even obvious other crimes is not admissible. There is nothing pragmatic about being totally ignorant of Fourth Amendment protections that have been eeked out, injustice after injustice, over two centuries.

matheusmoreira 7y ago

> They (the State prosecutors) have every right to collect and gather evidence to build the case. They should have the right to do it. Actually doing it should be as difficult as humanly possible. It should not be as easy as sending a letter to Google and getting a suspect's entire life records in return.

ddalex 7y ago
Why not? How is this different from a warrant to search a home? Would you argue in that case that personal paper letters should be kept in a safe that's very difficult to open for law enforcement even if they have the warrant to do it?
- matheusmoreira 7y ago
  > Why not? Because if it's too easy they will be tempted to do it as a matter of routine. > How is this different from a warrant to search a home? They have to actually go to the home in question in order to execute the warrant. They can't automatically search all homes.
  - ddalex 7y ago
    Even if tempted, they still would need to get warrants. They can't automatically search all accounts - they need to demonstrate the probable cause to a judge first.

guelo 7y ago

> Look at the context. The context is extremely partisan twisting of the justice system on all sides. Normally DA's have complete discretion to drop charges as they see fit. Because of the partisan outrage a Republican special prosecutor has been appointed to overrule the prosecutor and now he's on a witch hunt going through a year of Google records trying to find everything incriminating, this is a farce and high level corruption

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jacquesm 7y ago

They do. But I'm not in your jurisdiction. And this could happen to me too. And my company.

stiray 7y ago

Ok, lets look in context. In 1920 records were kept about beeing a jew. It was perfectly ok, no harm done, some record no one cared about. In 1942 those records became mortal, sponsored by state. Should we talk about anti-gay laws? One day it is fine, second day you can get prisoned. No one should keep such records as society is changing and not always to best. This is one of the reasons, privacy is one of fundamental human rights. And is blatantly violated for the profit.

globuous 7y ago
Maybe, do you have a source you could share please ? I often read this argument around but have not verified it. I've also heard some records produced under Napoleon were used. But this was a real crazy time. Hypothetical scenario (in the sense that I have not verified it, but I do think it's a very likely scenario to have happened): There were medical records of people with physical conditions before 1933 (so they could be treated) that were used under the Nazi regime to persecute them. Does that mean it that hospitals and doctors maintaining a list of medical records to treat their patients efficiently was a bad idea ? I don't have the answer to this, I just wanted to point out that this is a delicate issue that society needs to figure out fairly quickly if they want to have an influence its outcome. I wonder what godwin would have thought about all this :)
- jacquesm 7y ago
  https://jacquesmattheij.com/if-you-have-nothing-to-hide/ https://jacquesmattheij.com/if-you-have-nothing-to-hide/
- stiray 7y ago
  Just for the last part, for everything else you can use duckduckgo (or qwant). Anyway it is not such a hypotetical scenario, nazis were really killing the disabled persons based on their medical record (yes, qwant or duckduckgo for it). Yes, it is a bad idea that doctors keep those data. If insurance companies get those information (and my dentist said he was already aproached by some company to sell dental records, I wouldnt be surprised if this is a common practice in states) you will have issues. Same with employees etc., even if nothing wrong with your health but there is x% chance that you get terminal disease. Those records should be handed over to the patient, tamper proofed (no, not blockchain, just RSA will do fine) or stored, but encrypted with patient key. Actually when writting this I remembered that we (as in my country) are having a medical smart card that needs to be given to the doctor to access our medical records. Maybe we already have such a system. Anyway it is a bit sick comparing google with doctors. The need and trust is on completely different scale not to mention that trust between doctor and patient is handled by laws and hippocratic oath since 257 AD.

raxxorrax 7y ago

Even someone who has done wrong has a rights and I would think that a year of Google data would compromise too much information not relevant to the case. In my opinion this clearly qualifies as "unreasonable searches". Even if you have been naive enough to voluntarily share data with Google.

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tyingq 7y ago

Is there some line you don't want it to cross? As tech progresses, there will be increasingly more about everything you do that gets logged.

codingdave 7y ago
If any community has the power to reverse that trend, it is HN and the rest of the software community that actually builds the tech. I am constantly battling it in my own company, where they want to track everything our users do. And they even have some legit reasons for it, to use the data to build better UX, etc. I am the only person fighting against it, saying that tracking should be limited to only the cases where there is truly a compelling business question it can answer. If Google were to apply the same logic to their tracking, we'd be in a better place. For example, they may want real-time location data for the traffic alerts when using Maps. And they may desire some aggregated form of that data long-term. But I cannot see any business benefit to Google maintaining my personal location data at specific times and dates in the past. There is zero business benefit to keep that level of detail in their logging. Or, to answer your question more directly, that is the line I do not want to cross - where we are logging personal data "Just in case" we ever might need it. I'd like to see every piece of tracked data tied to a specific business need, and then have it deleted when that need no longer is relevant.