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It can be a trivial investigation. It is also a trivial piece of data to plant. Given the facts, I see no particular motivation for her to have sent the messa
by btilly 6y ago
It can be a trivial investigation.
It is also a trivial piece of data to plant. Given the facts, I see no particular motivation for her to have sent the message. However I do see a motivation for the department to try to frame her. And they've already established a willingness to make stuff up.
And I'd also want to know more about the setup. What is the machine used for? What else is on it? How is the logging set up?
Given the general incompetence shown, I wouldn't be surprised if the machine needed to provide ingress is also one that is publicly accessible for downloading data from the public. With lots of stuff in unlogged POST requests. If so, they could indeed have a request from her close in time to when the message was sent. And it might be legitimately hard to figure out whether she was doing something authorized or not.
- unityByFreedom 6y agoI agree, looks like a setup. She had already gone viral and didn't need more attention. Nothing gained, tons risked means she had no motive.
- tptacek 6y agoThose sound like the kind of things you establish at a trial, right?
- WaxProlix 6y agoRight, a fair and honest trial that you hold after seizing her property and assaulting her family in front of her with the full legal backing of the state. Seems good.
- tptacek 6y agoI don't see how you're connecting the dots between executing a search warrant and "unfair trial".
- btilly 6y agoNot in the USA. Our plea bargain system is so lopsided that 97% of criminal charges end with a guilty plea without a trial. Even if she is 90% sure of winning at trial, unless she has a million dollars lying around and a deathwish, it STILL isn't worth it to fight the system. I first looked into this after Aaron Swartz's suicide. Every time I've looked since it has seemed even more broken. This is bad news for anyone who cares about justice. And good news for any authorities who are trying to target someone that they don't like.
- tptacek 6y agoThat is not a remotely reasonable way of looking at the situation. Your odds in a criminal trial do not in fact reflect the likelihood that a random accused person will take a plea deal. If we're discussing police charging into houses of people accused of nonviolent crimes armed to the teeth, we're on the same page. But otherwise, I'm not clear what your suggestion is here.
- btilly 6y agoWhat is unreasonable about my way of looking at the situation? Look at what happened to Aaron Swartz. If he lost at trial, he was facing a lifetime in jail. They were also seeking damages that he had no hope of paying because his finances had already been drained by the legal fight. A legal fight that was projected to cost over a million dollars more than already spent. Or he could take a plea bargain. Which would have put him in serious debt, in jail for a few years, and made him a life-long felon. Or he could commit suicide. Which, of course, he did. In that surprisingly typical example, if his odds of winning were 90%, on average he spends as much time in jail if he chooses to fight. Which he couldn't afford to do. And you still have to accept that chance of losing your whole life in jail. In that situation, I'd probably have accepted the plea bargain. No matter how much I believed myself to be in the right. Given those incentives, it is somewhat surprising that 3% of people do choose to fight. But then again, that's down in the range of the portion of the population with serious mental illnesses.
- tptacek 6y ago
- zests 6y agoYou do not see any motivation here for a Covid activist to use a shared login to send an emergency message? The motivation was to save 17k lives.