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I was a little surprised that the legality of this was questioned, so looked it up. In Roman Law tradition this kind of action would apparently be called "peric
by yaix 15y ago
I was a little surprised that the legality of this was questioned, so looked it up. In Roman Law tradition this kind of action would apparently be called "periculum in mora". An example would be that you enter another person's apartment without consent, because you noticed a strong smell of gas on the other side of the door.
The OP in the linked article had strong reasons to believe that the people who submitted their credit card data were in imminent danger of large financial damages if he did not stop the fraud quickly.
Apparently (and to my surprise), in the US the idea of "periculum in mora" only applies to law enforcement agents (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exigent_circumstance_in_United_States_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exigent_circumstance_in_United_...), though. Does that mean you would have to let the apartment explode if the police is too slow to show up and stop the gas leak?
- sliverstorm 15y agoKnowing the US, yes, you'd have to let it explode. And then get sued for letting it explode. Of course, the alternative is to intervene, and get sued.
- ebzlo 15y agoIf you were to intervene and it still exploded, then God help you.
- seabee 15y agoOn the plus side, at least you won't get sued.
- sliverstorm 15y agoDon't be so sure. Death doesn't always stop them.
- Zak 15y agoIn the US, the legal concept of necessity applies. To oversimplify, you can do something otherwise illegal to prevent a worse outcome than the results of your act.
- there 15y agoyes, it may technically be illegal, but that is why we have trial by jury. unless the story sounded made up, i can't really imagine anyone convicting someone that smashed a window or broke down an apartment door to save someone's life. but really, who would vote this guy guilty of illegal access to a computer system when he was clearly helping phishing victims? and who would press charges against him in the first place, the hosting company where the phishing site was hosted?
- dmm 15y agoOften times details surrounding an act will be kept from the jury. That's how you get juries that send a husband who was growing pot for his cancer-stricken wife to jail. The context was kept from the jury.
- bluedanieru 15y agoJury nullification (basically what you're referring to here) was a major justification of juries in the first place as it was thought to be a check on state power, but of course the state has neutered it over the last century along with most other checks on its power. Jury nullification is mostly a memory at this point and juries are generally instructed only to consider whether the defendant actually broke the law as such - not whether the law itself is just.
- derleth 15y agoRemember that jury nullification was often used to acquit whites of killing blacks in a time and place when killing a given black could often have been seen as something akin to shooting a raccoon or other vermin. (This is why violating someone's civil rights is a Federal offense in modern American law: Homicide is a state offense, and the juries in the relevant state courts of that era would not convict for certain kinds of homicide. Federal courts were not nearly as prejudiced.)
- kevinskii 15y agoSpeaking as a former reserve police officer: Law enforcement agents have many more restrictions places on their conduct than private citizens do. That's why there needs to be an "exigent circumstance" exception for them specifically. Rest assured, a private citizen would be perfectly within his or her rights entering an apartment to stop a gas leak.