Comment by jimrandomh | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jimrandomh | Hacker News Reader

> The defense motion claims that beginning in December 2009 government agents planted microphones in three locations near the entrance of the courthouse at 401 Marshall Street in Redwood City: inside a metal sprinkler box attached to the wall, in a large planter box and in vehicles parked on the street. The hidden microphones were activated at least 31 times through September 2010, according to the filing. > > The only authorization came from attorneys working for the FBI and Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, the motion states.

In one sense, this is a small thing. There isn't any allegation that the recordings caught privileged attorney-client communication or jury deliberations. But it is an attack on the integrity of the legal system, and it's part of a pattern of attacks on the legal system that adds up to a serious threat to the rule of law.

Defendants are asking for these recordings to be quashed. That is what is customary, but it is not sufficient; there need to be consequences for those who did it and who authorized it. The defendants are only incentivized to argue as far as necessary for their own defense; it is up to the judges to censure the parties responsible.

Who is above the law? The FBI is above the law...! Who follows the rules? Not the FBI, not the FBI.

But do let us surveil all your conversations, we promise we won't abuse the privilege. You know you can trust us, because we follow the law.

Read Glen Greenwald's book Liberty and Justice for Some.

The rule of law is largely a joke that the powerful trick the weak into accepting. The constant drilling away at the supposed sanctity of the legal system is evidence that the people who run things really don't care so much about attorney client privilege or due process.

The rule of law was a real thing for much of American history, and it's a real thing in many other countries. If we want it back, we can't be tricked into thinking this problem is in any way universal or inevitable.

There have always been problems in the US and elsewhere. It's a continual fight. Saying "woe is us, it's all rotten, we can't do anything" is capitulating in the worst sort of way to those who would take away our rights.

"woe is us, it's all rotten, we can't do anything" is the motto of the current generation and self fulfilling.

Oh my god YES, the cynicism in politics and about the process is the quickest, surest way to guarantee that the people who hold those attitudes will be proven right.

"Those politicians are all the same, there's no point in voting or being politically active, it's all going to hell, etc."

It's so not true, and it's just the kind of disempowering disregard for one's own agency that anyone who's greedy for power would love to hear. Man, when I hear that shit now, I just want to shake those people and say, "YOU'RE THE PROBLEM!!"

You're right, it is a continual fight. It never ends. There's no final set of laws or behaviors we're going for. The process is what matters.

It's not binary. The rule of law has quite often failed to protect the legal rights of Black Americans, for example. (even laying aside the historical problems when rule of law didn't even provide legal rights.)

>The rule of law was a real thing for much of American history

When was that?

If this really is what Greenwald is saying, than he's pretty solidly turned into the Glenn Beck of the left.

The rule of law might not seem always fair, but it hampers the powerful much more than the weak. As an example: None of the billionaires in my city have set up their own duchy pressed us into an army, enforcing their own laws. Their taxes, while not as high as I would like, in fact pay for much of our city budget including city services. Even the poor in my city have access to clean water and the library system.

Just because we have to fight to maintain the sanctity of the legal system and because every actor isn't perfect, does not mean that it's entirely corrupt and captive. I would ask you to take a moment to compare the current rule of law, rule of law in a developing country, and rule of law without the rights guarded by a nation-state.

>>The rule of law might not seem always fair, but it hampers the powerful much more than the weak.

I guess we live in different realities. The powerful have proven over and over that they are capable of subverting the system in their own favor using their resources and influence.

>>As an example: None of the billionaires in my city have set up their own duchy pressed us into an army, enforcing their own laws.

They haven't set up their own duchies with private armies because they haven't had to. The state already protects them. Here is a direct quote from Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations:

“Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.”

>I guess we live in different realities. The powerful have proven over and over that they are capable of subverting the system in their own favor using their resources and influence.

At least the post you are replying to had the courtesy of providing supporting arguments.

I don't think I agree with the extreme nature of the premise a number of comments up the thread, that said my favorite example of this:

http://www.vaildaily.com/article/20101104/NEWS/101109939 A hedge fund manager had his criminal charges substantially reduced over the victim's objections because having a felony would mean the hedge fund manager would have to admit what he did to his clients. The defendant in question struck a bicyclist in a hit and run, drove far away and called for roadside assistance for his car never mentioning anything about the bicyclist he left with lifelong injuries. Of course the excuse is that after he was caught he agree to pay some restitution to the victim...

Anyway, just a crazy story that I figured I'd share so not really a study of real national trends or anything.

Are you kidding me? Prisons are filled with poor black drug offenders. If you're wealthy you can literally be a convicted paedophile sex offender and not do time.

The fact you attribute clean water as a sign of a functioning justice system shows how low your bar is.

Edit: I will say we have rights that exist. You just need to able to afford high power attorneys to prove such.

> Prisons are filled with poor black drug offenders

How is that an example of the justice system not functioning? 80-90% of people think drugs other than marijuana should be illegal. 32% see drug abuse as a "crisis" and another 55% as a "serious problem": http://www.people-press.org/2014/04/02/americas-new-drug-pol....

People thinking drug use is dangerous and making it illegal, and then putting people in jail for trafficking in drugs (which accounts for the vast majority of sentences), is not a failure of the justice system.

EDIT: Since people seem confused by certain FUD on this subject. The vast majority of "drug offenders" filling prisons are there for trafficking not possession: http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/Prisons_and_Drugs (only 5.3% of federal drug prisoners are serving time for possession; 91.4% are serving time for trafficking). And 80-90% of people support keeping cocaine and heroin illegal: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/17/drug-legalization-p....

Also account for the time lag between changing public opinion and changes in policy. As recently as 2001, 45% of people polled (and probably a much higher percentage of actual voters, who skew older and more conservative), opposed getting rid of mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent drug crimes.

Probably due to the inequality of enforcement. If everybody agrees something should be a crime but offender group A gets a 5 year sentence and group B gets 10 years or one gets community service and the other gets jail there's some kind of problem.

Study controlling for type of crime and circumstances finds ~10% more severe punishment for crimes black to white: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1985377

Evidence that despite approximately equal occurrences of consumption of narcotics black citizens are arrested much more frequently than white citizens: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/06/04/the-b...

We need not tell you to do more than what you're obviously capable of: find some research into the difference in outcome for black people and white people.

A successful rule of law functions in spite of, and not at the utter service to, the majority.

Did you even read the headline of the source you posted, let alone its content? It says the exact opposite of what you are claiming. Here's the sub-head: "Two-Thirds Favor Treatment, Not Jail, for Use of Heroin, Cocaine."

People do NOT support jailing offenders for minor drug offenders.

Your link is the opposite of what you claim - hell, the first paragraph clearly states that the bulk of people want rehabilitation rather than incarceration for users of harder drugs.

Isn't "trafficking" determined by amount, not activity?

I don't have appropriate legal citations, but yes, via the doctrine of "possession with intent to distribute" -- i.e. if you have more of the drug than one person could possibly hope to use, then courts have ruled that one can infer the person was intending to share or sell the drugs.

Your bar is too high; getting clean water consistently for almost a century straight, without any major interruptions, for 99% of the population is damn good proof that rule of law works.

Prisons are not in fact filled with drug offenders; the majority of all inmates are incarcerated for violent crimes.

http://harvardjol.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/HLL104_crop...

Your whole second paragraph has literally nothing to do with the rule of law, just a basic functioning state.

The rule of law and the basic functioning of the state is one and the same. The state sets and enforces the law. The state's strength and the consent/will of the populace determines the success of the state and the law.

The states in the Arabian peninsula have strong legal systems, yet they are highly inconsistent when it comes to serving the people. For example, Saudi Arabia has very strong legal enforcement, but you wouldn't want to be black or a woman there.

But "rule of law" is not really the way to describe them, despite "strong legal systems".

> The rule of law might not seem always fair, but it hampers the powerful much more than the weak. As an example: None of the billionaires in my city have set up their own duchy pressed us into an army, enforcing their own laws.

And the poor haven't sacked them or hauled them to the guillotine. I still feel like the rich are winning here.

> Even the poor in my city have access to clean water and the library system.

Were there attempts to take those away that were successfully stopped in court? Because otherwise, you seem to be hand-waving more than arguing.

I don't consider it "winning" that people aren't hauled to the guillotine. I consider it their basic human right.

This reminds me, BTW, how lots of people have recently, after the terrorist attacks in Paris, urged us to sing La Marseillaise, to express sympathy to the French. That is slightly funny: the lyrics are rather blood-curling.

Do you hear, in the countryside, the roar of those ferocious soldiers?

They're coming right into your arms to cut the throats of your sons, your women!

To arms, citizens, form your battalions,

Let's march, let's march! Let an impure blood water our furrows! (Repeat)

I mean, it looks like people confuse it with All You Need Is Love which just steals the intro from it.

> I don't consider it "winning" that people aren't hauled to the guillotine. I consider it their basic human right.

Well, duh. Did you miss the comment I was replying to, which suggested that the poor are better served by our system of laws than the rich are because the rich don't press them into servitude and they have clean water?

>The rule of law might not seem always fair, but it hampers the powerful much more than the weak.

Yes in theory, but not so much in actual reality.

As Aesop said: "We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office."

Rob a gas station and get 10+ years. Rob the world economy and get promoted to Secretary of Treasury and the most powerful Governor's seat of the IMF.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Lew

I wouldn't dispute that we do not all enjoy equal protection under the law. But I wonder how your belief accounts for instances where the "rule of law" has been prioritized by the courts over criminal investigations.

For a notorious example, consider that some members of the Weather Underground committed crimes that could easily have resulted in life sentences, yet they are free today because the court found the evidence against them was collected illegally. This may not be a typical example, but it would seem to conflict with the idea that the rule of law is "largely a joke."

"The rule of law is largely a joke that the powerful trick the weak into accepting."

If you're saying that in the US the rule of law has been corrupted to the point that it's largely a joke that the powerful trick the weak into accepting, then while that's a bit stronger than I'd agree with, I do see how you'd come to the conclusion.

If you're saying that rule of law itself is largely a joke that the powerful trick the weak into accepting, then that's a deeply concerning statement.

Which do you mean?

Pretty sure the former.

Real estate auction collusion is a big problem that robs people of 10s of thousands of dollars. I don't buy the argument that conducting your crimes on the courthouse steps should entitle you to any kind of protection.

Especially because we have a rubber-stamp process for registering and supervising investigatory projects like this.

It's only a small thing like someone firing a few rounds into a school but missing everyone is a small thing.

The article claims the recording devices were placed to catch bidders colluding in a real-estate auction. That particular moral high ground is unavailable here.

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