Comment by jbapple | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jbapple | Hacker News Reader

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In response to your (first?) edit:

> The woman in the couple declared it right before the shooting[0].

I'm not questioning that she declared allegiance. I'm asking if she was in private contact with anyone. If you were responding to that, can you show me where that is in the NYT article you linked? I don't see it.

> Do you want a notarized letter from the deceased?

Let's try to keep this civil, please.

> Do you really view this as a government overreach or are you just trolling?

I actually believe the things I am saying. I am not saying them to anger or upset you or anyone else. Please do not let the fact that we disagree about the scope of the 4th Amendment cause you emotional suffering.

I am not ready to declare it overreach, because I do not know all of the evidence yet. This is why I have been saying things like "Do we have reason to believe that there is evidence of any pending crimes or any old unsolved crimes on the phone?" and "did they say or hint that they had been in contact with that group" and "I have not followed the news on this shooting, so I would not be shocked if the answer were 'yes, there is some evidence of a conspiracy'."

If there is no such evidence, I do think it is overreach, but my opinions on policy are not fixed in stone, and I sometimes change my mind about them when presented with new arguments, ideas, or philosophies.

> Under what circumstances, if any, would you see as justified a search of someone's email? phone? house?

I doubt anyone has a complete enumeration of all circumstances under which they feel a search is justified. I would feel torn if there was lousy circumstantial evidence that the phone would solve or prevent crimes, I would be in support of a warrant if there was strong evidence, and I am opposed to a warrant with no evidence. One thing I would call strong evidence is a shooter having announced that he or she was part of a terrorist cell in the US.

I will no longer reading or responding to your edits that are "edited to reply". If you want to discuss with me further, please reply to reply by using the "reply" button. I will not be editing any of my posts to "edit to reply".

You keep switching between legal and normative requirements. We disagree on the 4th amendment in the same way that scientists and climate change deniers disagree about global warming. You have a fringe understanding of it with no support from the relevant literature and your arguments about it are poorly structured, deny evidence, and rely on intentionally misunderstanding context and terms of art.

The legality of searching for evidence is pretty open and shut because you need probable cause. The point of a search is to gather evidence, requiring the evidence that would be the result of a search is obviously a non-starter as a system.

Shooting a bunch of people and saying you're with ISIS is plenty of probable cause for a search. I don't see how you're waiting for "all the evidence" here since all the relevant facts are in and they're sufficient. Whether or not she was conversing privately with ISIS counterparts would be the resulting information of the search.

> One thing I would call strong evidence is a shooter having announced that he or she was part of a terrorist cell in the US.

The only way to read this in light of our previous discussion is that saying "I'm in ISIS!" and then shooting up a bunch of civilians is insufficient to prompt a post-mortem search of the attackers' affairs, instead they need to say "I'm in ISIS and there are a bunch of us!" and then shoot a bunch of civilians.

Bravo sir, I have been well and properly trolled.

> You keep switching between legal and normative requirements.

If I did so, it was a mistake. My reference to the 4th Amendment, for instance, should have said "how the 4th Amendment ought to protect us". I did not mean to imply that I am trying to predict what warrants the justice system will or will not grant.

> You have a fringe understanding of it

I think I mentioned the 4th amendment just the once. I have been trying to stick to normative arguments.

> The point of a search is to gather evidence, requiring the evidence that would be the result of a search is obviously a non-starter as a system.

I think this is a point where we truly disagree. I think a system can function in which some evidence that a search will yield results is required before the search is conducted. I do not think that the evidence must be airtight. Note that I am speaking about what I think is possible and just and right, not what the law says now or the justice system does now.

> The only way to read this in light of our previous discussion is that saying "I'm in ISIS!" and then shooting up a bunch of civilians is insufficient to prompt a post-mortem search of the attackers' affairs

Did the shooter say she was "in ISIS", or that she pledged allegiance to the leader? There might be a difference in this case. I have read that there is religious significance to a pledge of allegiance in ISIS's theology that might make a pledge indicative of ideological alignment and a membership "in ISIS" indicative of being in actual conversations with ISIS.

> Bravo sir, I have been well and properly trolled.

Please, let's try to be civil.

> Did the shooter say she was "in ISIS", or that she pledged allegiance to the leader?

Either one would seem to constitute probable cause for an association. Of course we don't know if she was actually in ISIS, or just agreed with their beliefs. But how would we know without conducting further investigation? You seem to be demanding a somewhat unreasonably large burden of proof, when all that is needed in this case is probable cause. Frankly, even if she hadn't verbally declared allegiance to ISIS, I don't think it's a stretch to say there's probable cause for connection to other terrorist groups. The fact that she did say that makes it a slam dunk.

> I think a system can function in which some evidence that a search will yield results is required before the search is conducted. I do not think that the evidence must be airtight.

We do have such a system. The evidence you're describing is called probable cause, and that's the whole point. I'm not sure of any reasonable definition of probable cause that this situation wouldn't satisfy. Moreover, your objections seem to be in the form of vague misgivings rather than concrete arguments. You haven't precisely described what would constitute sufficient evidence for an investigation, but instead seem to just be saying "there's not enough right now." I think this is what's behind GPs frustrations responding to your posts.

The point of a search is to gather evidence, requiring the evidence that would be the result of a search is obviously a non-starter as a system.

That kind of reasoning allows wholesale collection of communications data by the NSA and other agencies. Since that practice has been widely criticized, there must be something missing from your argument.

> evidence that would be the result of a search

No one is advocating warrantless searches or not requiring reasons for warrants.

If I want to get a warrant to see who you're calling, it is inherently a broken system that requires the list of people that you called as cause to obtain that warrant.

Any kind of reasoning allows wholesale collection of communications if you misread it properly.

Ah, so you do agree with the premise that there must be compelling evidence to warrant a search?

In that case, all you(pl.)'re haggling over is the "price point" of how much evidence is required to support how invasive a search. I'm unsure how that results in the kind of heated debate that seems to happen here.

Oh well...

I got trolled :(

not at all. I'm just pointing out that you're both trying to make your points in such a convoluted way that neither is gaining any ground.

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