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Comment by bogositosius | Hacker News Reader

True. But considering RICO's original intent, investigating a software company for evading draconian local taxi regulations seems out of scope.

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RICO covers fraud and obstruction of justice, both of which could theoretically apply to Grayball (or not, depending on the facts uncovered).

>obstruction of justice

Fair point. Personally I still think this is overreach but I can follow the legal footing on that.

How is it an overreach to define finding who is a LEO and feeding them false information to deceive them and waste their time as obstruction of justice?

Because protectionist taxi regulations enacted and enforced by local officials are a local issue. Just because the DOJ can shoehorn a legal argument together to assert jurisdiction doesn't mean it isn't yet another overreach by the already bloated bureaucracy known as the United States government.

It's not a local issue when a multinational organization is doing the same thing across an entire country. Then it's rightly a federal issue.

If you start with the assumption that the US federal government is bloated and overreaching as a principle, then no matter the facts, you'll still arrive at the conclusion that the US federal government is bloated and overreaching. Logic isn't really relevant.

The whole point of RICO is to allow the feds to intervene when the criminal organization is too large and powerful for local governments to be able to effectively prosecute them. This is exactly what RICO was designed for.

Which local governments have tried mounting a substantive case and failed?

I don't know... Maybe the local governments that were blocked from investigating by Greyball?

Then let them build a case against Uber for its use of Greyball. Why is federal involvement under RICO statutes necessary to do that?

It's not out of scope. Uber is a corrupt organization.

Here's to hoping that one of Travis Kalanick's numerous criminal actions (such as his decision to steal Google's self-driving tech) comes home to roost. There's now a material chance that Ubers investors (and many employees) will get zeroed out due to their reckless, willful, criminal actions.

And frankly, that's fucking hilarious.

>such as his decision to steal Google's self-driving tech

When was this proven? So far, those are nothing but allegations in a civil suit.

Do you work for Uber or something? Because you seem awfully determined to be willfully dense about this issue.

Do you work for a taxi association? See how that pointless allegation swings both ways?

If you knew anything about civil litigation, you'd know that what is alleged in lawsuit filings is utterly pointless drivel as far as trying to use it to substantiate a point in a debate. Lawsuit allegations don't have to be factually true, which is why I asked where the allegation has actually been proven.

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