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I'm confused, fnordfnordfnord; what is it you (and others in this thread) think you're arguing about? You and rayiner and Aleynikov all agree that it's fine an

by jholman 12y ago

I'm confused, fnordfnordfnord; what is it you (and others in this thread) think you're arguing about? You and rayiner and Aleynikov all agree that it's fine and reasonable that Aleynikov was pardoned. There's no argument to be had about that. Aleynikov thinks that the FBI agents who arrested him did so improperly. rayiner is doubtful, and would like to hear if anyone can convince him. Your arguments for why the FBI agents acted improperly amount to "yeah, but it turns out that ....". This arguments are not a good reason to not arrest someone. They're a good reason to find someone innocent after trying them. Sometimes circumstances are such that an innocent person looks highly suspicious to reasonable people with a reasonable amount of evidence. In those cases, it's reasonable, though unfortunate, that law enforcement arrest and charge that innocent person. Isn't it? As far as I can tell, rayiner is right.... we have no evidence that Aleynikov was arrested improperly.

s_q_b 12y ago
My concern is that the investigation of the incident relied solely upon the word of Goldman Sachs. An agent essentially parroted back what Goldman employees told him, putting it in the form of a criminal complaint, and without further investigation, had him arrested. My challenge to the validity of the arrest is that there was no independent investigation performed prior. This wasn't just contempt prior to investigation, it was arrest prior to investigation. Now, I will acknowledge that probable cause is a very low standard, and it is likely that there isn't a legal course of action here.
- tptacek 12y ago
  People keep explaining how that isn't true, and that there was much more than GS's word backing the charges up, so much so that Aleynikov had to rely on a technicality to evade a conviction, one that was closed immediately after he used it: https://www.congress.gov/congressional-record/2012/11/27/senate-section/article/S6978-3 https://www.congress.gov/congressional-record/2012/11/27/sen...
  - s_q_b 12y ago
    We're arguing past one another. I am discussing the investigation and arrest, not the subsequent trial or any evidence brought to light therein. If you read the complaint, the trial transcript, or even the top post here, it's abundantly clear the so-called investigation relied solely upon the word of Goldman Sachs's employees. The FBI agent even admitted that he did not understand the nature of the crime at the time he filed the complaint. >"McSwain later conceded that he didn’t seek out independent expert advice to study the code Serge Aleynikov had taken. (“I relied on statements from Goldman employees.”) He himself had no idea of the value of the stolen code (“Representatives of Goldman told me it was worth a lot of money”) or if any of it was actually all that special (he based his belief that the code contained trade secrets on “representations made by members of Goldman Sachs”)...The F.B.I.’s investigation before the arrest consisted of trusting Goldman’s explanation of some extremely complicated stuff, and 48 hours after Goldman called the F.B.I., Serge was arrested." Your argument amounts to: "Sure, but the guy was guilty and only got off on a technicality, so who cares." People keep explaining the dire problems with this viewpoint, and I don't know why it needs to be continually repeated.
    - tptacek 12y ago
      If someone steals a million dollar painting from a private gallery, you think the police should need a statement from a 3rd party art historian in order to make an arrest?
      - s_q_b 12y ago
        If someone steals a donut from a donut shop, do you think the police need a statement from a third party donut vendor to make an arrest? Silly analogies lead to silly conclusions, because they inherently obscure essential facts in the comparison. This wasn't a piece of tangible property, which the agent could understand. This was an immensely complicated issue to a lay person who admitted that he didn't really understand what had been stolen or how much it was worth. He just listened to Goldman Sachs say trust us and made an arrest within 48 hours. If you don't understand why its disturbing that the FBI blindly did the bidding of one of the most powerful corporations on Earth, there's simply no point in continuing to debate the issue.
fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
> rayiner is doubtful, and would like to hear if anyone can convince him. I doubt I could convince rayiner of anything, but I'll at least refute some of the more ridiculous things he says. >Your arguments for why the FBI agents acted improperly amount to "yeah, but it turns out that ...." No, I've responded to rayiner's suppositions that because some activity might be sketchy, it must be. [rayiner says](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9047068 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9047068) encrypting and exporting files to a repository in a foreign land is sketchy. I say, ssh, gzip, and svn are pretty normal tools that programmers use frequently. So are hosted servers in foreign countries. rayiner says that deleting .bash_history is sketchy, I say it's a reasonable, nay a responsible thing to do if failing to do so would leave sensitive information (such as a password) available for others to peruse. >This arguments are not a good reason to not arrest someone. They're a good reason to find someone innocent after trying them. IMO if the government is going to arrest a person, attempt to hold them without bond, settle for mere $700,000 bond, (arguably depriving the person of counsel); then the government's burden of "probable cause" ought to be a bit more substantial than "some bros down at Goldman Sachs said...", and this guy uses "subversion" software. We can't have the police running around arresting everyone who might have possibly committed a crime. There needs to be actual, you know, probable cause. >Sometimes circumstances are such that an innocent person looks highly suspicious to reasonable people with a reasonable amount of evidence. In those cases, it's reasonable, though unfortunate, that law enforcement arrest and charge that innocent person. Isn't it? What do you make of the fact that: >>"In the New York state case, a judge ruled the 2009 arrest was illegal. He threw out seized physical evidence, including computer hardware carrying the source code." and >>"New York State Supreme Court Justice Ronald Zweibel also barred prosecutors from using statements Aleynikov made to the FBI after his arrest at Newark Liberty International Airport." Are these judges unreasonable? Sure, mistakes happen, everyone deserves a Mulligan once in a while. That's not what we have here though. The FBI had plenty of opportunities to check their work, which was shabby. Instead of doing that, they forged ahead doing the bidding of Goldman Sachs, uncritically. And, now that the federal case has failed, GS has their hand up the back of a Manhattan DA. We can quibble about these little details more if you want but this whole affair has got a stench about it. >As far as I can tell, rayiner is right.... we have no evidence that Aleynikov was arrested improperly. No evidence? What's Zweibel's problem then?: >In a 71-page opinion, Justice Ronald A. Zweibel of State Supreme Court in Manhattan ruled that the F.B.I. “did not have probable cause to arrest defendant, let alone search him or his home.” The arrest was “illegal,” Justice Zweibel wrote, and Mr. Aleynikov’s “Fourth Amendment rights were violated as a result of a mistake of law.”

by jholman 12y ago

s_q_b 12y ago

My concern is that the investigation of the incident relied solely upon the word of Goldman Sachs. An agent essentially parroted back what Goldman employees told him, putting it in the form of a criminal complaint, and without further investigation, had him arrested. My challenge to the validity of the arrest is that there was no independent investigation performed prior. This wasn't just contempt prior to investigation, it was arrest prior to investigation. Now, I will acknowledge that probable cause is a very low standard, and it is likely that there isn't a legal course of action here.

tptacek 12y ago
People keep explaining how that isn't true, and that there was much more than GS's word backing the charges up, so much so that Aleynikov had to rely on a technicality to evade a conviction, one that was closed immediately after he used it: https://www.congress.gov/congressional-record/2012/11/27/senate-section/article/S6978-3 https://www.congress.gov/congressional-record/2012/11/27/sen...
- s_q_b 12y ago
  We're arguing past one another. I am discussing the investigation and arrest, not the subsequent trial or any evidence brought to light therein. If you read the complaint, the trial transcript, or even the top post here, it's abundantly clear the so-called investigation relied solely upon the word of Goldman Sachs's employees. The FBI agent even admitted that he did not understand the nature of the crime at the time he filed the complaint. >"McSwain later conceded that he didn’t seek out independent expert advice to study the code Serge Aleynikov had taken. (“I relied on statements from Goldman employees.”) He himself had no idea of the value of the stolen code (“Representatives of Goldman told me it was worth a lot of money”) or if any of it was actually all that special (he based his belief that the code contained trade secrets on “representations made by members of Goldman Sachs”)...The F.B.I.’s investigation before the arrest consisted of trusting Goldman’s explanation of some extremely complicated stuff, and 48 hours after Goldman called the F.B.I., Serge was arrested." Your argument amounts to: "Sure, but the guy was guilty and only got off on a technicality, so who cares." People keep explaining the dire problems with this viewpoint, and I don't know why it needs to be continually repeated.
  - tptacek 12y ago
    If someone steals a million dollar painting from a private gallery, you think the police should need a statement from a 3rd party art historian in order to make an arrest?
    - s_q_b 12y ago
      If someone steals a donut from a donut shop, do you think the police need a statement from a third party donut vendor to make an arrest? Silly analogies lead to silly conclusions, because they inherently obscure essential facts in the comparison. This wasn't a piece of tangible property, which the agent could understand. This was an immensely complicated issue to a lay person who admitted that he didn't really understand what had been stolen or how much it was worth. He just listened to Goldman Sachs say trust us and made an arrest within 48 hours. If you don't understand why its disturbing that the FBI blindly did the bidding of one of the most powerful corporations on Earth, there's simply no point in continuing to debate the issue.

fnordfnordfnord 12y ago

> rayiner is doubtful, and would like to hear if anyone can convince him. I doubt I could convince rayiner of anything, but I'll at least refute some of the more ridiculous things he says. >Your arguments for why the FBI agents acted improperly amount to "yeah, but it turns out that ...." No, I've responded to rayiner's suppositions that because some activity might be sketchy, it must be. [rayiner says](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9047068 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9047068) encrypting and exporting files to a repository in a foreign land is sketchy. I say, ssh, gzip, and svn are pretty normal tools that programmers use frequently. So are hosted servers in foreign countries. rayiner says that deleting .bash_history is sketchy, I say it's a reasonable, nay a responsible thing to do if failing to do so would leave sensitive information (such as a password) available for others to peruse. >This arguments are not a good reason to not arrest someone. They're a good reason to find someone innocent after trying them. IMO if the government is going to arrest a person, attempt to hold them without bond, settle for mere $700,000 bond, (arguably depriving the person of counsel); then the government's burden of "probable cause" ought to be a bit more substantial than "some bros down at Goldman Sachs said...", and this guy uses "subversion" software. We can't have the police running around arresting everyone who might have possibly committed a crime. There needs to be actual, you know, probable cause. >Sometimes circumstances are such that an innocent person looks highly suspicious to reasonable people with a reasonable amount of evidence. In those cases, it's reasonable, though unfortunate, that law enforcement arrest and charge that innocent person. Isn't it? What do you make of the fact that: >>"In the New York state case, a judge ruled the 2009 arrest was illegal. He threw out seized physical evidence, including computer hardware carrying the source code." and >>"New York State Supreme Court Justice Ronald Zweibel also barred prosecutors from using statements Aleynikov made to the FBI after his arrest at Newark Liberty International Airport." Are these judges unreasonable? Sure, mistakes happen, everyone deserves a Mulligan once in a while. That's not what we have here though. The FBI had plenty of opportunities to check their work, which was shabby. Instead of doing that, they forged ahead doing the bidding of Goldman Sachs, uncritically. And, now that the federal case has failed, GS has their hand up the back of a Manhattan DA. We can quibble about these little details more if you want but this whole affair has got a stench about it. >As far as I can tell, rayiner is right.... we have no evidence that Aleynikov was arrested improperly. No evidence? What's Zweibel's problem then?: >In a 71-page opinion, Justice Ronald A. Zweibel of State Supreme Court in Manhattan ruled that the F.B.I. “did not have probable cause to arrest defendant, let alone search him or his home.” The arrest was “illegal,” Justice Zweibel wrote, and Mr. Aleynikov’s “Fourth Amendment rights were violated as a result of a mistake of law.”