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The article doesn't address a significant issue, when the FBI executed their warrants and shut down the private vault company, what should they have done with a

by jws 5y ago

The article doesn't address a significant issue, when the FBI executed their warrants and shut down the private vault company, what should they have done with any stored boxes not named in the warrant? Left them in an unguarded building with no legal way for the owners to access them?

34679 5y ago
Attempt to identify the owners and return the boxes without opening them.
- ascagnel_ 5y ago
  Serious question: how do you do that when the organization running the boxes was selling anonymized services? There's a Vice News article on this same event that's been shared elsewhere in the comment thread, and that article includes an advertisement the company put out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lT5AJh_j-GE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lT5AJh_j-GE The company is openly marketing itself as refusing any form of identification in order to provide total anonymity. Aside from the one user who claims they added identifying data to the exterior of the box, how do you propose identifying the owner of an otherwise-featureless box without opening it?
  - nybble41 5y ago
    You post a public notice saying where the deposit boxes are being held at the original physical location, the company's web site, the local papers, and any other likely locations. If anyone shows up claiming to own one of the boxes you follow the same authentication procedures the original custodian would have used. Then you leave them in private to unlock the box and remove their property. At no point during the claims process should the temporary custodian attempt to open any of the boxes or observe their contents, as that would be abusing their power to search presumably innocent parties outside the scope of the warrant. If sufficient time (decades, at least) passes without any claim after proper notice is given, the property can be considered abandoned. At that point someone may attempt to open the box by force.
  - 34679 5y ago
    >Howard tells Reason there was no attempt made by the FBI to contact him, his wife, or their heirs—despite the fact that contact information was taped to the top of their box. The article doesn't say if all of the boxes are marked in the same way, but at least that one was.
    - ascagnel_ 5y ago
      To me, there’s also the question of how the box was marked — safety deposit boxes have a locking outer door and a removable insert that can have a second lock on it. I would be shocked if USPV allowed this customer to post any identifying data on the outer door, and I haven’t seen a report either way on whether or not the FBI was allowed to open the outer door to access the insert if that’s where the label was placed. For what it’s worth, the original article is pretty awful — it provides only one perspective (that of a wronged customer), didn’t mention if the author contacted the FBI for comment, and also didn’t mention that the FBI was authorized to seize the “vaults” of boxes, but not granted the right to open the boxes themselves. Most of this is mentioned in other media reports, and in total paints this story very differently: USPV was involved with wrongdoing, there is a high likelihood that some boxes contain evidence of further crimes, but there will need to be some court-appointed team that has to go through the boxes in order to uncover this evidence while protecting all the other owners (and their identities) from the FBI.

by jws 5y ago

34679 5y ago

Attempt to identify the owners and return the boxes without opening them.

ascagnel_ 5y ago
Serious question: how do you do that when the organization running the boxes was selling anonymized services? There's a Vice News article on this same event that's been shared elsewhere in the comment thread, and that article includes an advertisement the company put out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lT5AJh_j-GE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lT5AJh_j-GE The company is openly marketing itself as refusing any form of identification in order to provide total anonymity. Aside from the one user who claims they added identifying data to the exterior of the box, how do you propose identifying the owner of an otherwise-featureless box without opening it?
- nybble41 5y ago
  You post a public notice saying where the deposit boxes are being held at the original physical location, the company's web site, the local papers, and any other likely locations. If anyone shows up claiming to own one of the boxes you follow the same authentication procedures the original custodian would have used. Then you leave them in private to unlock the box and remove their property. At no point during the claims process should the temporary custodian attempt to open any of the boxes or observe their contents, as that would be abusing their power to search presumably innocent parties outside the scope of the warrant. If sufficient time (decades, at least) passes without any claim after proper notice is given, the property can be considered abandoned. At that point someone may attempt to open the box by force.
- 34679 5y ago
  >Howard tells Reason there was no attempt made by the FBI to contact him, his wife, or their heirs—despite the fact that contact information was taped to the top of their box. The article doesn't say if all of the boxes are marked in the same way, but at least that one was.
  - ascagnel_ 5y ago
    To me, there’s also the question of how the box was marked — safety deposit boxes have a locking outer door and a removable insert that can have a second lock on it. I would be shocked if USPV allowed this customer to post any identifying data on the outer door, and I haven’t seen a report either way on whether or not the FBI was allowed to open the outer door to access the insert if that’s where the label was placed. For what it’s worth, the original article is pretty awful — it provides only one perspective (that of a wronged customer), didn’t mention if the author contacted the FBI for comment, and also didn’t mention that the FBI was authorized to seize the “vaults” of boxes, but not granted the right to open the boxes themselves. Most of this is mentioned in other media reports, and in total paints this story very differently: USPV was involved with wrongdoing, there is a high likelihood that some boxes contain evidence of further crimes, but there will need to be some court-appointed team that has to go through the boxes in order to uncover this evidence while protecting all the other owners (and their identities) from the FBI.