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Comment by tedunangst | Hacker News Reader

How is this different than shredding all the junk mail you receive, then having the Feds show up and say that you're obviously involved in a mail fraud conspiracy because you failed to properly forward a misdelivered letter?

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The issue here is not that the destruction is evidence for involvement; that was established otherwise. The issue here is that individuals knowingly destroyed evidence with the intent to obstruct investigations.

How do you determine it was evidence if it is destroyed? Who knows if I deleted conspiration notes instead of porn?

It's on the state to establish that it was evidence. In this case, they did some computer forensics.

The trouble is, no amount of "computer forensics" can explain the reason why records disappeared. May be it was a virus, a bug in browser or someone else had access to the computer.

Nobody can say for sure if he did it knowingly or not, and this isn't the point. One thing is when you try to hide the evidence (i.e. it can be proved that you lied about it), but you fail to. The other thing is when there's no evidence. You cannot charge man with anything if there's no evidence of crime, but you "think" he destroyed it on purpose (prior to investigation). Maybe he deletes browser history on the daily basis. It's OK. There's nothing wrong with it. Shouldn't be. No matter how "suspicious" it seems to you, your suspicions don't matter.

Nobody can say for sure if he did it knowingly or not

And nobody can say absolutely for sure whether a murderer had the mens rea to charge him with first degree.

The issue here is that individuals knowingly destroyed evidence with the intent to obstruct investigations.

This issue is that they now have the tools to charge you with obstructing an investigation that hadn't even begun yet, when you took the action.

We all understand how this scenario is obstruction:

1. -Investigation Begins-

2. Police:We would like to see #source_of_potential_evidence.

3. Person:Sure thing. -deletes #source_of_potential_evidence-. Oh, sorry guys, I don't have that.

This is what happened:

1. Person:Oh, this doesn't look good. I don't think I want to keep this on my computer. -deletes #source_of_potential_evidence-

2. -Investigation Begins-

3. Police:We would like to see #source_of_potential_evidence.

4. Person:Sorry guys, I don't have that.

If there is not yet an investigation, it's not yet evidence. How can you be held responsible for destroying evidence if it's not yet evidence?

This isn't about maintaining the integrity of investigations. It's about giving prosecutors the ability to get people when they otherwise couldn't.

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