3 ms·

Quote: ""The state did its part by investigating and presenting its findings to the Cole County prosecutor, who has elected not to press charges, as is his prer

Quote: ""The state did its part by investigating and presenting its findings to the Cole County prosecutor, who has elected not to press charges, as is his prerogative," spokeswoman Kelli Jones said." If they would've continued, then the prosecutor would've been laughed out off the court by the judge. The lawyer defending the journalist would've called this the easiest case of his/her career. This statement is made to look official to save face. Plain truth is that the state simply fucked up badly, starting from the head all the way down to the tail.

sjansen 5y ago
Unfortunately that's not necessarily true. There are plenty of examples of prosecutorial over reach and unfair sentencing because our laws were written by people who fundamentally don't understand technology. It will probably take a few generations to fix that. Common sense won out in the case, but it certainly helped that the target was a reporter instead of a security researcher or ordinary citizen.
- night862 5y ago
  No, I think GP is correct in saying that the case would be laughed out of court. Persuing this case would have been a gift to the Post-Dispatch and Ian would have been a hero. Not only is this whole thing over literally right-clicking html, but this is a Reporter working for a local newspaper. Imagine for a moment that this story was about a regular person who is not employed as reporter with credentials and a portfolio. Depending on that individuals circumstances, it could easily be a life-ruiner. I could think of a few people.
- TigeriusKirk 5y ago
  My impression from previously looking into this case is that there probably was a violation of the law here, but that it would be absurd to prosecute it. The mistake here would be to assume that officials always correctly avoid absurd prosecutions.
  - Someone1234 5y ago
    > there probably was a violation of the law here He assessed a public web-page, found base64 encoded content, and decoded it. Please explain in exacting detail what you're claiming here both in terms of facts AND law.
  - Clubber 5y ago
    What law specifically?
- teddyh 5y ago
  > people who fundamentally don't understand technology. It will probably take a few generations to fix that. No, it won’t be fixed. You seem to imply that people are actually deciding things based on their understanding of the facts. I don’t think so. I think that people in these positions don’t care if they understand technology or not. They care about how they will look. If they can get away with pleasing their confederates by pretending they don’t understand technology, they will do so. If they could please them by pretending to understand technology and do the truthful thing, they would do that. They might (or might not) actually understand technology, but this has nothing whatsoever to do with what they will actually do. They will do the most profitable thing they can plausibly get away with. In a few generations, as you say, people might have less room to blatantly pretend they don’t understand a certain level of technology, but I have a feeling that techology itself will have become proportionally more complex, too, so nothing will change in practice.
mcherm 5y ago
> If they would've continued, then the prosecutor would've been laughed out off the court by the judge. The lawyer defending the journalist would've called this the easiest case of his/her career. Yes, I'm sure that would be true. Of course, I was ALSO sure that no governor would spend months (even after being well-informed about the matter by his advisors) railing against the journalist who reported this. I HOPE I'm right that the judicial system isn't suffering from the same malaise. But I'm not longer as sure of that as I used to be.

sjansen 5y ago

Unfortunately that's not necessarily true. There are plenty of examples of prosecutorial over reach and unfair sentencing because our laws were written by people who fundamentally don't understand technology. It will probably take a few generations to fix that. Common sense won out in the case, but it certainly helped that the target was a reporter instead of a security researcher or ordinary citizen.

night862 5y ago
No, I think GP is correct in saying that the case would be laughed out of court. Persuing this case would have been a gift to the Post-Dispatch and Ian would have been a hero. Not only is this whole thing over literally right-clicking html, but this is a Reporter working for a local newspaper. Imagine for a moment that this story was about a regular person who is not employed as reporter with credentials and a portfolio. Depending on that individuals circumstances, it could easily be a life-ruiner. I could think of a few people.
TigeriusKirk 5y ago
My impression from previously looking into this case is that there probably was a violation of the law here, but that it would be absurd to prosecute it. The mistake here would be to assume that officials always correctly avoid absurd prosecutions.
- Someone1234 5y ago
  > there probably was a violation of the law here He assessed a public web-page, found base64 encoded content, and decoded it. Please explain in exacting detail what you're claiming here both in terms of facts AND law.
- Clubber 5y ago
  What law specifically?
teddyh 5y ago
> people who fundamentally don't understand technology. It will probably take a few generations to fix that. No, it won’t be fixed. You seem to imply that people are actually deciding things based on their understanding of the facts. I don’t think so. I think that people in these positions don’t care if they understand technology or not. They care about how they will look. If they can get away with pleasing their confederates by pretending they don’t understand technology, they will do so. If they could please them by pretending to understand technology and do the truthful thing, they would do that. They might (or might not) actually understand technology, but this has nothing whatsoever to do with what they will actually do. They will do the most profitable thing they can plausibly get away with. In a few generations, as you say, people might have less room to blatantly pretend they don’t understand a certain level of technology, but I have a feeling that techology itself will have become proportionally more complex, too, so nothing will change in practice.

mcherm 5y ago

> If they would've continued, then the prosecutor would've been laughed out off the court by the judge. The lawyer defending the journalist would've called this the easiest case of his/her career. Yes, I'm sure that would be true. Of course, I was ALSO sure that no governor would spend months (even after being well-informed about the matter by his advisors) railing against the journalist who reported this. I HOPE I'm right that the judicial system isn't suffering from the same malaise. But I'm not longer as sure of that as I used to be.