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> If it was a few decades ago, the kind of things happening in these chats would have happened in person or on the telephone with nobody necessarily recording i

> If it was a few decades ago, the kind of things happening in these chats would have happened in person or on the telephone with nobody necessarily recording it. Or on paper, maybe by memo. And they would have destroyed the paper evidence just the same, and claimed helplessness in the face of so much paper that had to be kept, and that the suspicion of their motives amounts to being convicted before trial. Same sort of arguments, except for the people handling paper holding on to data wasn't a matter of getting a few people to click around for a few days, it was wrangling dozens of banker's boxes of paper. Trucks and warehouses. > It's kind of weird that we've turned formerly ephemeral things into "evidence" just because they could optionally be stored. This is literally what evidence is. It's something that you carefully collect and store to review later in connection with something else. You don't have to "store" the knife you stabbed somebody with or the gun you shot someone with (you've already got enough use out of them) but if somebody destroys them, they're destroying evidence. Even if you threw it out with the kitchen trash, and you always take out the trash on Thursdays.

AnthonyMouse 4y ago
> Or on paper, maybe by memo. You're not getting out of the problem that the distinction is essentially arbitrary. You could record everything you say in private. Every single frame that appears on any screen in the company was in some piece of memory at some point in time. What principled distinction are you proposing between what is and isn't a crime to not actively retain? If the feds essentially want to wiretap you, why should that happen at your expense instead of theirs? Even in cases when you're innocent? > This is literally what evidence is. It's something that you carefully collect and store to review later in connection with something else. You don't have to "store" the knife you stabbed somebody with or the gun you shot someone with (you've already got enough use out of them) but if somebody destroys them, they're destroying evidence. There is a distinction between physical objects and information. If you have a knife, destroying it isn't an ordinary thing to do. Meanwhile we have serious concerns about TLC solid state drives which make them unsuitable for many purposes because you can only erase and rewrite them about a thousand times. Computers inherently operate by rearranging bits. Writing something new coincides with erasing what was there before. Keeping everything forever isn't feasible. So where's the line?

AnthonyMouse 4y ago

> Or on paper, maybe by memo. You're not getting out of the problem that the distinction is essentially arbitrary. You could record everything you say in private. Every single frame that appears on any screen in the company was in some piece of memory at some point in time. What principled distinction are you proposing between what is and isn't a crime to not actively retain? If the feds essentially want to wiretap you, why should that happen at your expense instead of theirs? Even in cases when you're innocent? > This is literally what evidence is. It's something that you carefully collect and store to review later in connection with something else. You don't have to "store" the knife you stabbed somebody with or the gun you shot someone with (you've already got enough use out of them) but if somebody destroys them, they're destroying evidence. There is a distinction between physical objects and information. If you have a knife, destroying it isn't an ordinary thing to do. Meanwhile we have serious concerns about TLC solid state drives which make them unsuitable for many purposes because you can only erase and rewrite them about a thousand times. Computers inherently operate by rearranging bits. Writing something new coincides with erasing what was there before. Keeping everything forever isn't feasible. So where's the line?