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The subpoena is from Homeland Security Investigations at LAX airport. They deal specifically with crimes that involve international transport. So this is human

by mike_d 6y ago

The subpoena is from Homeland Security Investigations at LAX airport. They deal specifically with crimes that involve international transport. So this is human trafficking, drug smuggling, money mules, etc. To be honest the rest of it is just standard "we have some phone numbers" boilerplate. Same thing was probably sent to Facebook, Twitter, etc. with the hopes that someone was dumb enough to login and check their messages from a burner phone. Edit: Rereading it, this is a grand jury. They likely already know the who, what, why, and how. Signal's response will go to support other evidence that they may have recovered from cell phones or cell network. Grand juries historically result in a 95%+ chance of indictment so this isn't a fishing expedition.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
roflc0ptic 6y ago
The structure of grand juries makes it so that the defense is unable to mount a defense. The fact that grand juries often result in indictment has vanishing little relevance for whether or not it’s a fishing expedition. Further, no one is saying it is a fishing expedition. It’s a request for information that Signal isn’t designed to be able to answer. You’re also just speculating about the nature of the crime, but saying it confidently, like, oh, this is definitely true. You don’t know.
- tialaramex 6y ago
  Grand Juries are a really weird American thing†. The Grand Jury is entirely dependant on the prosecutor for guidance, so as an outsider it appears to me that their real purpose is to enable politically appointed prosecutors to pretend this anonymous "Grand jury" decided not to prosecute somebody when in reality what happened is that the prosecutor didn't want to. So now it's not the prosecutor's fault an obviously guilty person walked free, and yet conveniently they don't need to prosecute anybody they don't want to. † Americans didn't invent them, but they did keep them after everybody else went "Wait, this is a terrible idea" and abolished the Grand Jury.
  - raverbashing 6y ago
    But trial by jury continues to be used in several countries (maybe in more restricted ways but it still a thing) or is there something special about a "Grand Jury"?
    - homero 6y ago
      Yes a grand jury is just the prosecutor and jury. It's secret and the defendant doesn't even know. It's a way to start a case, not sure when a prosecutor needs or doesn't need a grand jury.
      - NovemberWhiskey 6y ago
        It's usually the misdemeanor / felony boundary.
      - at-fates-hands 6y ago
        There are reasons in which it is an appropriate or desirable alternative to a preliminary hearing. The California Grand Jury Association cites multiple surveys that have been taken of California district attorneys, who listed the following factors as influential in the decision to seek a grand jury indictment rather than using the preliminary hearing: • High public interest in the case; • The fact that a preliminary hearing would take more time than a grand jury hearing; • The necessity for calling children or timid witnesses who would be subject to cross‑examination at a preliminary hearing; • The ability to test a witness before a jury; • Where the secrecy of the grand jury may allow defendants to be charged and taken into custody before they can pose potential danger to a witness' safety or flee from the jurisdiction; • Where the identity of undercover agents needs to be protected; • The existence of a weak or doubtful case which the district attorney wishes to test; • The opportunity to involve the community in case screening; and • Whether the case involves malfeasance in office. https://www.pooleshaffery.com/news/2014/december/a-crash-course-in-the-american-grand-jury-system/ https://www.pooleshaffery.com/news/2014/december/a-crash-cou...
        wildfire 6y ago
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- mike_d 6y ago
  > You’re also just speculating about the nature of the crime, but saying it confidently, like, oh, this is definitely true. You don’t know. HSI is a fairly narrowly scoped law enforcement agency. I've dealt with multiple agents over there, and at one point considered joining when I wanted to get out of computers. But feel free to call the press office and ask if you don't want to believe a random on the internet.
Khaine 6y ago
There’s a facetious saying in legal circles about the ease with which prosecutors can secure indictments in grand jury cases: You can get a grand jury to “indict a ham sandwich.” The legal aphorism has long been attributed to Sol Wachtler, former chief judge of New York’s Court of Appeals, based on a piece that appeared in the New York Daily News in January 1985. Mr. Wachtler told the paper that the state should scrap the grand jury system for bringing criminal indictments. The piece summarized his view, with brief quotes: “district attorneys now have so much influence on grand juries that ‘by and large’ they could get them to ‘indict a ham sandwich.’” Mr. Wachtler became even more firmly linked to the saying two years later, when Tom Wolfe, a classmate of the judge at Washington and Lee University, credited him with the “ham sandwich” line in “The Bonfire of the Vanities.” From https://www.wsj.com/articles/indict-a-ham-sandwich-remains-on-the-menu-for-judges-prosecutors-1527863063#:~:text=There's%20a%20facetious%20saying%20in,Counsel%20Robert%20Mueller's%20Russia%20probe https://www.wsj.com/articles/indict-a-ham-sandwich-remains-o.... I remember hearing it on Law and Order!
- dharmab 6y ago
  I served on a grand jury and remember one case that I thought was very shaky. We only passed that by around 85% rather than our usual 100%.
Loughla 6y ago
>Grand juries historically result in a 95%+ chance of indictment Is this automatically assumed to be a good thing? If so, why?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
> They deal specifically with crimes that involve international transport. So this is human trafficking, drug smuggling, money mules, etc. So Signal is being used for human trafficking? And they are deliberately making it easy to do that kind of activity on Signal without law enforcement knowing? Sounds like the app stores should ban them and AWS should kick them off. I disagree with the above sentiment, but I think end to end encryption apps will be treated like that in the near future.
- vineyardmike 6y ago
  Nah. Apple likes privacy and encryption (they claim) so it’s have a hard time justifying that. Also the founder of signal is very well connected to the Silicon Valley who’s who.
bberenberg 6y ago
Having sat on a grand jury, the 95% is because it's a rigged system. The DA has to convinces 50% of the people that there is a 50% chance that their one sided story is possibly true. This is a lower bar than individuals are held to at cocktail parties.
- refurb 6y ago
  So it may not be great, but what’s the alternative? The prosecutor decides independently when to bring charges? Is that better? It just seems to skip a step.
  - dharmab 6y ago
    Many US states use judges instead of grand juries. Many countries use panels of two "citizen judges" (lay persons who serve for a single term) and one career judge.
  - bberenberg 6y ago
    My understanding is that a panel of judges outperform grand juries, and petit juries in nearly every scenario. Sorry I don't have references on hand to support this. I currently think the main benefit of juries is to educate the public on how screwed up the whole process is. It was a waste of time in terms of protecting anyone involved, but brought my trust in the criminal judicial system to an all time low.
dharmab 6y ago
Having served on a grand jury, one of the first things we did was delegate the management of documents (including subpoenas) to the court staff. We didn't issue our own subpoenas; that would have been thousands of documents we didn't have the time to manage. > Grand juries historically result in a 95%+ chance of indictment so this isn't a fishing expedition. There were cases presented to us which did not result in any indictment vote as new information was discovered or persons involved made deals with the prosecutors. The prosecutors didn't have us vote on things they weren't sure about, but that doesn't mean they never made mistakes.

by mike_d 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

roflc0ptic 6y ago

The structure of grand juries makes it so that the defense is unable to mount a defense. The fact that grand juries often result in indictment has vanishing little relevance for whether or not it’s a fishing expedition. Further, no one is saying it is a fishing expedition. It’s a request for information that Signal isn’t designed to be able to answer. You’re also just speculating about the nature of the crime, but saying it confidently, like, oh, this is definitely true. You don’t know.

tialaramex 6y ago
Grand Juries are a really weird American thing†. The Grand Jury is entirely dependant on the prosecutor for guidance, so as an outsider it appears to me that their real purpose is to enable politically appointed prosecutors to pretend this anonymous "Grand jury" decided not to prosecute somebody when in reality what happened is that the prosecutor didn't want to. So now it's not the prosecutor's fault an obviously guilty person walked free, and yet conveniently they don't need to prosecute anybody they don't want to. † Americans didn't invent them, but they did keep them after everybody else went "Wait, this is a terrible idea" and abolished the Grand Jury.
- raverbashing 6y ago
  But trial by jury continues to be used in several countries (maybe in more restricted ways but it still a thing) or is there something special about a "Grand Jury"?
  - homero 6y ago
    Yes a grand jury is just the prosecutor and jury. It's secret and the defendant doesn't even know. It's a way to start a case, not sure when a prosecutor needs or doesn't need a grand jury.
    - NovemberWhiskey 6y ago
      It's usually the misdemeanor / felony boundary.
    - at-fates-hands 6y ago
      There are reasons in which it is an appropriate or desirable alternative to a preliminary hearing. The California Grand Jury Association cites multiple surveys that have been taken of California district attorneys, who listed the following factors as influential in the decision to seek a grand jury indictment rather than using the preliminary hearing: • High public interest in the case; • The fact that a preliminary hearing would take more time than a grand jury hearing; • The necessity for calling children or timid witnesses who would be subject to cross‑examination at a preliminary hearing; • The ability to test a witness before a jury; • Where the secrecy of the grand jury may allow defendants to be charged and taken into custody before they can pose potential danger to a witness' safety or flee from the jurisdiction; • Where the identity of undercover agents needs to be protected; • The existence of a weak or doubtful case which the district attorney wishes to test; • The opportunity to involve the community in case screening; and • Whether the case involves malfeasance in office. https://www.pooleshaffery.com/news/2014/december/a-crash-course-in-the-american-grand-jury-system/ https://www.pooleshaffery.com/news/2014/december/a-crash-cou...
      - wildfire 6y ago
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
mike_d 6y ago
> You’re also just speculating about the nature of the crime, but saying it confidently, like, oh, this is definitely true. You don’t know. HSI is a fairly narrowly scoped law enforcement agency. I've dealt with multiple agents over there, and at one point considered joining when I wanted to get out of computers. But feel free to call the press office and ask if you don't want to believe a random on the internet.

Khaine 6y ago

There’s a facetious saying in legal circles about the ease with which prosecutors can secure indictments in grand jury cases: You can get a grand jury to “indict a ham sandwich.” The legal aphorism has long been attributed to Sol Wachtler, former chief judge of New York’s Court of Appeals, based on a piece that appeared in the New York Daily News in January 1985. Mr. Wachtler told the paper that the state should scrap the grand jury system for bringing criminal indictments. The piece summarized his view, with brief quotes: “district attorneys now have so much influence on grand juries that ‘by and large’ they could get them to ‘indict a ham sandwich.’” Mr. Wachtler became even more firmly linked to the saying two years later, when Tom Wolfe, a classmate of the judge at Washington and Lee University, credited him with the “ham sandwich” line in “The Bonfire of the Vanities.” From https://www.wsj.com/articles/indict-a-ham-sandwich-remains-on-the-menu-for-judges-prosecutors-1527863063#:~:text=There's%20a%20facetious%20saying%20in,Counsel%20Robert%20Mueller's%20Russia%20probe https://www.wsj.com/articles/indict-a-ham-sandwich-remains-o.... I remember hearing it on Law and Order!

dharmab 6y ago
I served on a grand jury and remember one case that I thought was very shaky. We only passed that by around 85% rather than our usual 100%.

Loughla 6y ago

>Grand juries historically result in a 95%+ chance of indictment Is this automatically assumed to be a good thing? If so, why?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago

> They deal specifically with crimes that involve international transport. So this is human trafficking, drug smuggling, money mules, etc. So Signal is being used for human trafficking? And they are deliberately making it easy to do that kind of activity on Signal without law enforcement knowing? Sounds like the app stores should ban them and AWS should kick them off. I disagree with the above sentiment, but I think end to end encryption apps will be treated like that in the near future.

vineyardmike 6y ago
Nah. Apple likes privacy and encryption (they claim) so it’s have a hard time justifying that. Also the founder of signal is very well connected to the Silicon Valley who’s who.

bberenberg 6y ago

Having sat on a grand jury, the 95% is because it's a rigged system. The DA has to convinces 50% of the people that there is a 50% chance that their one sided story is possibly true. This is a lower bar than individuals are held to at cocktail parties.

refurb 6y ago
So it may not be great, but what’s the alternative? The prosecutor decides independently when to bring charges? Is that better? It just seems to skip a step.
- dharmab 6y ago
  Many US states use judges instead of grand juries. Many countries use panels of two "citizen judges" (lay persons who serve for a single term) and one career judge.
- bberenberg 6y ago
  My understanding is that a panel of judges outperform grand juries, and petit juries in nearly every scenario. Sorry I don't have references on hand to support this. I currently think the main benefit of juries is to educate the public on how screwed up the whole process is. It was a waste of time in terms of protecting anyone involved, but brought my trust in the criminal judicial system to an all time low.

dharmab 6y ago

Having served on a grand jury, one of the first things we did was delegate the management of documents (including subpoenas) to the court staff. We didn't issue our own subpoenas; that would have been thousands of documents we didn't have the time to manage. > Grand juries historically result in a 95%+ chance of indictment so this isn't a fishing expedition. There were cases presented to us which did not result in any indictment vote as new information was discovered or persons involved made deals with the prosecutors. The prosecutors didn't have us vote on things they weren't sure about, but that doesn't mean they never made mistakes.