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US Supreme Court releases leak investigation report
- anigbrowl 4y agoSpoiler: they didn't ID the leaker, and also didn't interview any of the justices.
- gremlinsinc 4y agoWe've done nothing, and we're all out of options, confused pikachu face. Though, personally I think this leak probably was good as it at least got public discourse going around the subject even though the justices ultimately went against public sentiment for reasons. I'm personally WAY more concerned about Justice Thomas and Ginny Thomas and their links to the insurrection attempt, and other undermining of democracy.
- ribosometronome 4y agoAmerica hasn't been lacking in abortion discourse in awhile. The leak potentially effected the outcome of both the decision and November's election -- more undermining of democracy.
- kube-system 4y agoIt certainly influenced the election and undermined the judiciary, but I'm not sure it undermined democracy.
- irrational 4y agoFor me, it mainly undermined my trust in the Supreme Court. I’d already lost trust in congress and the presidency. Now I have lost trust in all three branches of government. Complete corruption across the board.
- kube-system 4y agoPower didn't start corrupting people yesterday. That sentiment is pretty much the entire reason why the US government was designed to have three branches that checks and balance each other. You don't need to trust anyone in particular if you can trust the process.
- irrational 4y agoWell, I no longer trust the process. That was the basic meaning behind everyone is corrupt.
- kube-system 4y agoI understand, i’m saying I don’t think it’s reasonable to make that jump. The process has design features to specifically allow it to function even when run by corrupt people. That was the entire point, since the beginning.
- LarryMullins 4y agoSCOTUS is the least democratic of the three branches of government. Trust in SCOTUS hardly qualifies as trust in "democracy" at all. Unless I guess you're using "democracy" in a sense that is synonymous with all aspects of American government, which would be a mistake.
- _justinfunk 4y agoAre you all trying to make reference to the American Republic? We aren't a democracy, although our system does have democratic features.
- econonut 4y agoIt is not the duty of the Supreme Court to follow public sentiment.
- bediger4000 4y agoAbsolutely right! SCOTUS should continue to just call balls and strikes.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- matthewdgreen 4y agoIt’s the duty of the court to maintain the public’s trust in the institution: without that trust the law doesn’t matter very much. This court has not been doing that very well, as evidenced by sharp changes in the opinion polling. This leak, evidence that justices are sharing unpublished opinions with interested parties, and the current weak-tea investigation are only part of the problem. But they’re big problems.
- Alupis 4y agoThe SCOTUS is not supposed to be swayed by public opinion. The only thing that is supposed to matter is the Constitution itself, and any amendments Congress has ratified along with case law, etc. ie. if you are upset by something SCOTUS didn't agree with you on - be mad at your Congresscritter - they are the only ones with the power to change the Constitution and law. However, there has been a growing push among some of our population that whatever is deemed popular today should be declared constitutional. That's just not how our system works - by design and for good reason. The founders went to great lengths to ensure a populism movement could not change our federal government on a whim. Populism movements, often based on emotional arguments rather than reality, change too rapidly and easily to form a stable platform for a long-lived government. The erosion of public trust in the institution that is the SCOTUS is based purely on populism movements of late. Without going into specifics - the particular issues that are said to be causing this alleged erosion of trust are simply not Constitutional issues. Yet, the people demand it be so regardless... kind of the hallmark of a modern populist movement.
- pessimizer 4y ago> I'm personally WAY more concerned about Justice Thomas and Ginny Thomas and their links to the insurrection attempt, and other undermining of democracy. I'm more concerned about global warming, but you can be concerned about more than one thing.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- ru552 4y agoTLDR: They haven't found the leak.
- ProAm 4y agoThankfully. "Sunlight is one of the best disinfectants"
- wyldfire 4y agoOf course - this principle is an excellent one and applies to very many areas of government. But there are exceptions and I'd argue that many/most of the exceptions are good things. Exceptions include: * voting records - many/most countries use secret ballots. But we didn't always (in the US)! Before secret ballots, votes were subject to coercion and bribery. * jury deliberations - juries deliberate in secret and then publish their verdict to the court. * espionage - controversial to say the least, but spies can be a net benefit (or a necessity) depending on your perspective. Based on this you could make the case that draft opinions for the court to review among the court might be similar to jury deliberations and perhaps could be considered something that should not be released (or should only be released years/decades after a ruling or after the relevant opinion authors retire). Or you could make the case that you have here that "sunlight is one of the best disenfectants" -- but in that case I would just prefer that all draft opinions become public all the time, not just controversial ones. I think we can all surmise that if that were the requirement, the Justices would find a way to discuss their opinions among the Court without requiring a published draft opinion.
- travisgriggs 4y agoAlso: More secrecy needed in the future, so us justices can figure out our own thoughts in private.
- saboot 4y agoI remain convinced Alito leaked it himself to create a distraction
- zeroonetwothree 4y agoBased on what evidence?
- PM_me_your_math 4y agoGut feelings, what else matters?
- shapefrog 4y agoMy uncle Jim said on facebook that his ex wifes stepson has a friend who works at the supreme court in the parking lot who told him it was definately true.
- irrational 4y agoGood enough for me!
- saboot 4y agoBecause he's done it before https://www.axios.com/2022/11/29/supreme-court-alito-ethics-2014-leak https://www.axios.com/2022/11/29/supreme-court-alito-ethics-...
- pcaharrier 4y agoI found it interesting that a lot of the reasons the report gives for not being able to identify the leaker seems to boil down to pretty basic cyber hygiene. "The investigators were not able to readily search and analyze all event logs because at the time the system lacked substantial logging and search functions."
- pcaharrier 4y ago"There was no evidence discovered that anyone emailed the draft opinion to anyone else, although technical limitations in the Court’s computer recordkeeping at the time made it impossible to rule out this possibility entirely."
- oneoff786 4y agoThere’s a very real chance that this boils down to someone deleting the message from their sent box.
- anonporridge 4y agoThe real question is whether this lack strong of auditability is due to IT incompetence or by deliberate design. I'd buy either explanation.
- rayiner 4y agoThe court system operates almost entirely on trust and the threat of career-ending consequences for breach of trust.
- rayiner 4y agoThe federal courts have very basic computer systems. When I was a clerk a decade ago in a circuit court, we didn’t even have a document management system or version control. I think there might have been a shared folder with word versions of old opinions.
- zeroonetwothree 4y agoI'm not surprised, it seems like it was always a longshot to find out who it was.
- cuuupid 4y agoAt least this is an improvement from the “hacker known as 4chan” days. I’m a bit confused by this report though, did they do forensic analysis on the devices of all employees who would’ve had access or only some and rely on interviews for the rest? I imagine if someone leaked it they probably wouldn’t immediately admit to it just when asked.
- kube-system 4y ago> The investigators collected Court-issued laptops and mobile devices from all personnel who had access to the draft opinion.
- floxy 4y ago>I imagine if someone leaked it they probably wouldn’t immediately admit to it just when asked. "At the conclusion of the initial interviews, each employee was asked to sign an affidavit, under penalty of perjury, affirming that he or she did not disclose the Dobbs draft opinion to any person not employed by the Supreme Court, did not disclose to any person not employed by the Supreme Court any information relating to the Dobbs draft opinion not made public through means authorized by the Court, and had provided all of the pertinent information known to him or her relating to the disclosure or publication of the Dobbs draft opinion. Each employee was then asked to swear to the truth of the statements in the affidavit before a Notary Public. Each of these employees signed a sworn affidavit. A few of those interviewed admitted to telling their spouses about the draft opinion or vote count, so they annotated their affidavits to that effect. If investigators later determine any personnel lied to the investigators, those personnel would be subject to prosecution for a false statement in violation of 18 USC § 1001."
- PuppyTailWags 4y agoOne of the things that confuses me is that the Justices and the employees are categorizes as two different entities i.e. saying something akin to the people with access are 82 employees and the Justices. But then all the investigation only says the employees. Does that mean all the justices weren't given the same scrutiny?
- 4y ago
- floxy 4y agoNo mentions of TEMPEST or foreign adversaries.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- pastor_bob 4y ago>The investigators determined that in addition to the Justices, 82 employees had access to electronic or hard copies of the draft opinion. Makes me wonder how many of these are IT employees and what type of system they have in place. Do they borrow a secure system from another agency? Or do they just pass around google docs?
- pattisapu 4y agoWhen I clerked for a judge (not on the Supreme Court), she sometimes asked me to write two draft opinions -- one where one side wins -- and another where the other side wins -- and she used those materials in drafting her ultimate opinion. There are so many different things going on in how judges write. I hope that they can get some _sense_ of security again so that they feel the freedom to be as open-minded as possible in figuring out the cases before them.
- Waterluvian 4y agoI'm picturing a political cartoon where Lady Justice is blindfolded, but she's visibly sweating and nervous as she's aware of being completely crowded by people with magnifying glasses, smartphones on camera mode, etc.
- rgbrenner 4y agoThat part of their deliberations already occurred... the leak was after the majority of the justices voted to approve the draft. That's why the final opinion matched so closely to the leaked version.
- rayiner 4y agoWe have no idea what would’ve happened in a counter-factual scenario. The draft opinion is the first time the whole court sees the reasoning on paper. Even if the narrow holding doesn’t change, the reasoning used and the sweep of the rule articulated can and does change.
- pattisapu 4y agoAnd there is value in that being the first time the whole Court sees it. Cards on the table at one definite time. How much the author had to sweat to get there, to the extent it may matter at all, should show up in the results--a ruling written with a measured, judicial temperament.
- pattisapu 4y agoOh of course -- I just meant that I can envision a scenario where a judge is essentially writing out a thought-experiment as he or she is trying to figure out how to rule on a case -- and then that is leaked, etc. Even if it's a late-stage draft that's leaked, that comes with its own host of problems. Imagine a world where drafts are trotted out by lawyers seeking to argue their interpretation of an old opinion. "The Court originally was going to hold something like my opponent suggests, but that bit got deleted, your honor!" That would be another level of the problem of what we might call "arguing the changelog," using pieces of floor debate transcripts in the legislative history of a statute. Justice Scalia analogized that to "entering a crowded room at a cocktail party, and looking over the heads of the guests for your friends." And that's a concern on top of the potential for a chilling effect on the judiciary.
- stevespang 4y ago[dead]
- remarkEon 4y ago>The investigative team received outside assistance with a fingerprint analysis of an item relevant to the investigation. That analysis found viable fingerprints but no matches to any fingerprints of interest. This one is fascinating. Now I'm left wondering what the "item" is, or what constitutes "fingerprints of interest".
- mullingitover 4y agoI don't understand the point of an investigation here. It's not like there's any mechanism whatsoever to hold an unethical justice to account, and that's by design. There is literally no ethical oversight over the Supreme Court.
- Georgelemental 4y agoThe leaker was most likely a clerk or other lesser official, not a justice.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- LiquidSky 4y agoNah, the leaker was most likely Alito, who is on record as having done something like this before. He did it to keep Roberts's vote secure by publicly forcing the issue so he couldn't waver. That's why this report refuses to reach any conclusions, and why after initially thundering about the leak Roberts has been veeeeeeery quiet about this investigation.
- _-david-_ 4y agoAre you sure Alito is actually on record of having done it before? I know he was accused of doing it before, but as far as I can tell he never admitted it and no official investigation found any proof he did it. Am I missing something or are you jumping to a conclusion?
- Alupis 4y ago> Am I missing something or are you jumping to a conclusion? Sadly, I think you are missing Alito's political slant. That aspect typically makes him a super villain and, of course, guilty of all accusations. Accusations seem to carry far too much weight in modern times...
- dvt 4y ago
- wrp 4y agoThey were unable to identify the source due to poor IT security, which resulted from the sudden massive shift to WFH. We should be concerned with how much of an issue this is across all government and business.