Alfred Anaya Put Secret Compartments in Cars so the DEA Put Him in Prison (2013) | Hacker News Reader

Alfred Anaya Put Secret Compartments in Cars so the DEA Put Him in Prison (2013)

wired.com

120 pointsjoering253 comments

(Repeat of comment from discussion almost four years ago, with minor spelling and style edits):

The article mentioned he was appealing. That has happened and he lost. Here is the appellate court opinion: https://cases.justia.com/federal/appellate-courts/ca10/12-30...

Something is mentioned there that either was not mentioned in the Wired article or I missed it: Anaya admits that he knew particular customers were buying compartments for illegal purposes. He just didn't know what particular illegal use they were going to be put to. He's basically arguing that to "knowingly" join a conspiracy, you have to know its objectives and scope, and he says he lacked that knowledge.

It's probably a bad idea to do business with people who want to use code words when they talk to you on the phone. The appeals court mentions an intercepted call where Anaya told the drug traders he could put "3 speakers" in a Camry for $2,500, where "3 speakers" meant a compartment to hold 3 kilos.

His sentence is way too long. He's not the linchpin of the drug trade the prosecution made him out to be, but he does not appear to be quite the innocent bystander Wired makes him out to be either.

Your cognitive dissonance is because in higher strata of first world society, indirection is an extraordinarily popular get-out-of-jail-free card. Only a single level of indirection sufficiently enables all sorts of financial manipulation. See Wells Fargo as just a simple example.

Simple C-style pointer indirection is increasingly disallowed in lower strata as this example illustrates. The higher strata are going to handles-level and greater layers of indirection in the meantime.

Sure, much of the economy runs on abstraction. It's not like Walmart or Amazon (let alone their suppliers) know how their customers will use their products.

On the other hand, there are exceptions like "know your customer" rules for banks, big companies policing their supply chain (including subcontractors) and art dealers asking provenance to be documented.

Turning products into services (subscriptions and app stores) tends to break the abstraction.

This article was about a very leaky abstraction.

Reminds me of an article about some powerful men on wall street that do not use email. Doing most of your written communication through an assistant would give you a great deal of plausible deniability. Also reminds me of someone else constantly in the news these days.

As a well traveled non-American, the US justice system truly boggles the mind. Elected judges, jury trials, vengeance-oriented punishments, complete lack of rehabilitation or reintegration, medieval prison conditions... In Iraq, I wouldn't be surprised. In the USA, I'm simply aghast.

As an American: same.

It makes more sense when you consider that in many U.S. states, the criminal justice system is used as a political weapon. Felony disenfranchisement is an important means of keeping minority populations from the ballot box. If you don't like how minorities vote, targeted laws and selective policing, prosecution, and sentencing can help you suppress their votes.

From the article:

> he was confident that a jury would sympathize with his plight.

Hoping for a sympathetic jury in California might not be a bad gamble, but for a man with a Hispanic name and appearance, the odds are not so good in Kansas.

Not just the states, the DEA and FBI are important legal weapons as well.

It should be noted this case took place in Federal court, where judges are appointed, not elected. It should also be noted that you can waive the right to a jury trial and get a bench trial instead.

Wait, you’re against jury trials?

Absolutely. With a professional judge (NOT an elected judge!), you're in the hands of someone with years of training in law and justice. With a jury, you've got 12 yahoos off the street who don't know anything about the law or the tricks lawyers play, let alone what their own rights and obligations are. That's why American criminal court cases are "battles"

Compared to German proceedings, juries are only marginally better than trial by ordeal.

In the US, you can waive your right to a jury trial. When someone has a jury trial, it's because they elected to exercise their right to do so. They could have chosen to have a bench trial with only a judge. The state actually prefers for people to have bench trials because jury trials are more complicated and expensive.

Jury trials benefit defendants. If you think that your fellow citizens would sympathize with your plight, maybe even exercise jury nullification, you want a jury trial. If you think your case isn't likely to win anyone over, but that you can get off based on legal technicalities, you want a bench trial.

Judges are not always elected - it depends on the jurisdiction and type of judge. This is a complicated issue, but having seen firsthand how far the legal interpretation of the law drifts (because of the insularity of the legal community) from the popular sentiment that drives legislation, I'm strongly for some judges being elected. On top of that, appointed legal "expert" judges often do not deserve the respect you're according them. "Years of training in law and justice", in my experience, has the tendency of engendering in people a belief that they are better, wiser, and more right than anyone else.

What I've found is that jury systems tend to favor the "competition" model of justice, where prosecution and defense are locked in combat, with the judge as referee. Lawyers are gauged based on their ability to win cases rather than their ability to practice law well. Underhanded and unfair tactics, rather than receiving criticism, are honored and celebrated. It very much follows the American model of "win at all costs."

This gladiator approach to justice becomes all the more apparent when there's a high profile case, where every tactic, every gambit, every "blow" to the opposition is cheered on by onlookers, like it's some kind of UFC match.

America hasn't actually progressed very far from frontier justice.

> What I've found is that jury systems tend to favor the "competition" model of justice, where prosecution and defense are locked in combat, with the judge as referee. Lawyers are gauged based on their ability to win cases rather than their ability to practice law well. Underhanded and unfair tactics, rather than receiving criticism, are honored and celebrated. It very much follows the American model of "win at all costs."

This is the case on legal dramas and very high profile cases, perhaps, but certainly not the vast majority of cases that actually go to trial - there is no interested audience that cares for most cases. Certainly the system is set up to be adversarial (though it generally isn't so much in practice), but for the most part, that benefits defendants.

Yes, I suppose if you're worried about Law and Order and the Public Peace, it's easier to just route everyone into a system that effectively mirrors the American plea bargaining system. But I'd rather a hundred guilty men go free because of their showboating lawyers than one innocent man go to prison. I'm not really clear on what "underhanded tactics" you have in mind; the ones I know well are practiced generally by law enforcement and public prosecutors, who necessarily hold most of the cards, and they do it for bench trials too.

But again, I think it's important to emphasize that the jury trial is an option for a defendant in a criminal case. It's an important option that no state-driven process can replicate, because you're ultimately ceding the case to the law and your peers, instead of just one or more out of touch, even elitist, judges, who may be "interpreting" the law very far from its plain reading or intent (in accordance with established legal practice) and who may take a very dim view of illegal behavior that society at large doesn't care about (say, smoking weed.)

> America hasn't actually progressed very far from frontier justice.

I think this remark deserves some expansion, since there's no obvious connection between frontier justice and the American jury trial system; it comes across as a wholly unsubstantive statement that's meant to tarnish it rather than explain it.

Where I disagree is with jury nullification. If I can convince a jury of my peers that although I may be guilty, the law is immoral, I can be found not guilty.

Good luck getting a judge to do that.

> Absolutely. With a professional judge (NOT an elected judge!), you're in the hands of someone with years of training in law and justice. With a jury, you've got 12 yahoos off the street who don't know anything about the law or the tricks lawyers play, let alone what their own rights and obligations are.

It may reflect a difference in culture, but as an American, I feel juries are an important institutional check in a democratic society. Ultimately, the law is meant to serve the people, so the people should not just be subject to it, but they should also have an active role in its administration.

I think that any deficit in jury quality should be addressed by improving the quality of the people the jurors are selected from, though increased legal education in the public schools. Perhaps the law should also be rendered in plainer language to make that easier. While there will always be legal specialists, I think it's important that the people themselves understand the law to a good degree.

Some Yale Law professors find the German justice system much more equitable than the American system, and show how American prosecutors use plea bargaining as a torture technique - the essay is called torture and plea bargaining.

https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?arti...

> With a jury, you've got 12 yahoos off the street

It was originally written as a 'jury of your peers', though it seems to be a good strategy to make sure the jury is the furthest thing from that.

I spent 8 weeks on a murder trial as a jury member. I have to admit that my fellow jurors exceeded my expectations.

People generally wanted justice to be done. Genuinely assume someone innocent and the prosecutor bearing the burden to prove to otherwise.

Were there people who didn’t quite grasp some of the concepts? Sure, but other jurors quickly reined them in. The judge did a very nice job in explaining the role of the juror and was there to answer any questions.

It really made me feel much better about justice being done with jury trials.

It's easy to feel good about the system you know... until you're blessed to see an alternative in action.

Have an anecdote you care to share?

I sat in on a drug trafficking trial in Hamburg. There was one judge, two lay judges, a scribe, and two lawyers. It was just a normal room with office tables and very little ceremony. The witnesses were mostly questioned by the judge, with some questions from the lawyers to clarify. The defendant admitted to the crime, and then the rest of the trial was examination of the circumstances (you can't just plead guilty and then be sentenced). Although the lawyers "worked" for each side, the primary purpose of the questioning was to get to the truth. At the end, the lawyer for the state thanked the defendant for being candid. Both lawyers then offered their idea of a fair outcome, and then the judge declared a recess while she decided the verdict (what laws the defendant is judged to have violated) and punishment. The judge was lenient, and sentenced the defendant under a law requiring a lesser punishment, due to the circumstances (she was working for her boyfriend).

There is no plea bargaining. There are no deals. Criminal cases go to trial, always. The purpose of the trial is not to "win" or "lose"; it's to get to the truth, no matter what it is, disrupt peoples' lives as little as possible while still serving justice, and everyone takes that purpose VERY seriously. I was also impressed at how quickly it was completed (3 hours).

A person is presumed innocent until proven guilty. This means that they won't even lock a defendant up (aside from the initial holding and processing that takes about 1 day). There is no bail. They only jail someone pending trial if they are a flight risk or would tamper with the trial (happens in less than 1% of cases). Police cannot pressure defendants into pleading anything. Defendants can't even plead guilty or innocent - that's for the courts to decide. They take the "getting to the truth" part very seriously.

What you are referring to is an inquisitorial court system, as opposed to an adversarial court system. You might have known that already, but no one in this thread as mentioned those terms so I thought I'd throw them out there. There are pros and cons to both approaches. I'd caution you from basing your opinion on that court system from that case, since it seems the defendant openly admitted to committing the crime. I'd compare what happened there to what would happen in a criminal trial where the defense pleads guilty.

Seeing as how you don't like the idea of jury trials, I'm curious what your opinion is on lay judges.

I would assume that the lay judges are there to keep the professional judge's feet on the ground. Their opinions are non-binding, but would in theory have at least some influence, and provide a reality check with what the greater population thinks.

How that actually works out in practice, I don't know. A study would be useful.

Maybe he meant indictments? The US is one of the few places that has Grand Jury Indictments. Most regions leave that up to the prosecutor.

You’re missing one of the greatest abuses of the American justice system - plea bargaining.

What country are you from?

Canada, although I've lived all over the world. Thus far, the best systems I've seen are in Japan, Norway, and Germany.

Japan has a conviction rate of over 99%, most of which are secured on the back of a confession.

https://californiainnocenceproject.org/2013/01/japan-concern...

I can’t tell if you’re critiquing the Japanese justice system, but US prosecutors abuse plea bargaining just as badly.

In this particular case, he had all reason to believe his work was being used by some to do illegal things. But even then, is that any different than the people who work on TOR knowing full well it is used to abuse children, or who work on military weapons knowing that innocent people are targeted? Should a gun seller who has reason to believe the buyer might do something illegal with their be punished for making the sell anymore than any of the tech products used to circumvent laws (from minor laws dealing with content piracy to major laws dealing with child abuse)?

Can we draw a definite consistent lines on where helping criminals commit crimes is moral, where it is immoral, where it is legal, and where it is illegal?

So, if you are acting during the normal course of business, you are not liable. If someone tries to buy a rope from your store saying they are going to use it to strangle someone, you can sell it to them anyway, you are not liable.

The prosecution is arguing he is a co-conspirator. The biggest evidence mentioned in the article was that the guy asked Alfred to make a compartment big enough to store 10 kgs [of cocaine]. As in, he literally specified how big the compartment needed to be in terms of kgs of drugs. That wouldn't fall under the normal course of business, that's doing custom work specifically to aid in an illegal activity.

I think another fun comparison is car seller. Their products are 100% going to be used in a crime at some point. It's just not as effective as this guy's compartments.

> Their products are 100% going to be used in a crime at some point.

Citation needed

Perhaps overly pedantic, but I would imagine that practically all cars are used to commit traffic violations (speeding, rolling stop at a stop sign) by even very careful drivers.

I believe there is a huge difference between you working on something that has the main function of facilitating an illegal enterprise and you working on something that has a tiny minority mis-using your product for illegal purposes. Silk Road vs Craigslist is an example that comes to mind.

I wonder how much of Tor usage is for illegal activities, including black markets, compared to legal activities? And doesn't it seem fickle that the same action may or may not be legal depending upon how many people use Tor for legal vs illegal activities? What happens if last year it was primarily for legal purposes but this year some new black market site took off and people are primary using it for that now?

sometimes things that are illegal are not immoral and there are also plenty of things that are immoral but not illegal.

For whatever reason the law cares greatly about the intention of work. If it can be proven without a doubt that your actual intention is to facilitate breaking the law you can get into a lot of trouble as is the case here. Economic activity can't have the primary purpose of facilitating someone breaking the law.

The State is extremely punitive, especially when inconvenienced. So many people are happy about handing power to these institutions, but get in the way of them, inconvenience them, and they'll stomp you out of existence. They have a myriad of legal weapons, which will only grow over time, so even if you think you're complying with the law, there's probably something you missed, or some loophole they can use.

> Curtis Crow and Cesar Bonilla Montiel, the men at the top of the organization, received sentences half that length.

The sentence length shows how punitive this was. They wanted to make an example out of Alfred because he made their jobs harder.

Three Felonies A Day is a great read... with the vast number of laws, it’s nearly impossible to be technically-legal at all times. Moreover, technical legal prosecutions are often used for political gains: silence enemies, boost stats for re-election or make an example of someone at random.

If you are against his 24 year imprisonment, his family has a Gofundme https://www.gofundme.com/r4d2ys

I’m torn. On one hand, he knew what he was doing was on the edge of the law and he knew he was abetting illegal activity. But on the other hand, in tech, we have something like the DMCA where companies can be found harmless if they are abetting illegal activity as long as they aren’t directly complicit.

Also, the drug trade would never happen without the help of corrupt white collar criminals who are never prosecuted. Law enforcement could have offered him witness protection. His biggest fear was endangering his family.

From another perspective even on that, I wouldn’t put myself in a position where I’m surrounding myself with dangerous people. His completely above board speaker installation business probably could have supported him.

Yeah, I’m being really ambivalent about the situation. I’m no lover of the “War on Drugs” or the “justice system”, but he knew what he was doing.

Discussed quite a while ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8443727

Previous discussion was all about whether what he did was illegal or whether he was complicit.

I'm actually most saddened by this part.

When he was 8 years old, Alfred Anaya destroyed his mother’s vacuum cleaner in the pursuit of knowledge. “I took it apart because I wanted to find the motor inside,” he recalls. “I was so young, I thought the motor would work all by itself even after I took it out. I didn’t realize it needed to be plugged in to go.” His mother was upset but hardly surprised to discover her ruined vacuum, for she knew all about her youngest son’s rabid curiosity. Alfred was forever disassembling Sony Walkmans or clock radios so he could fill his favorite junk drawer with circuit boards, which thrilled him with their intricacy.

His childhood doesn't seem much different from many of us hackers. I wonder how different his life would have been if he had been noticed by a technically savvy and connected benefactor who could have sponsored him. I could easily see someone like him being discovered at an early age going on to do breakthrough work with the benefit of a better education and circumstances. His poverty probably prevented the potential opportunities he could have had in life.

This feels like one of the big challenges that needs to get solved. We need to find ways to bring people up like this up out of poverty so they don't end up making bad choices and ending up on the wrong side of the law. Feels like such a waste.

I wonder if it's an education problem. I would wager there's quite a few of us who would be attracted to legally questionable work for big payoffs. Even FBI higher-ups have sold secrets to foreign countries for money.

And according to the article, he was discovered after all, the stereo shop that hired him were impressed by his installer work.

I agree with you, but also have to say that what he did shouldn’t be outside the law imo.

Did he make a bad choice, or is the law unjust?

Same with the CFAA abuses.

+1 I haven't seen it back then, it came yesterday in someones comment and I found it shocking!

The reasoning behind DA that he made the illegal business blooming possible shocked me. We should put Zuckerberg in jail because thanks to Facebook, ex cons are finding each other and their conspiracies are blooming. We should put Page behind bars because Google makes possible to find "how to make bombs" DYI. We should put AT&T officials behind bars because thanks to internet, online crime is booming! Also Apple officials because I'm sure crminals use iPhones.

Its really shocking and saddened this particular DA approach to destroy his life. The man didn't do anything illegal and he didn't want to become snitch. So they send jury after him. And because he is covered with tattoos and likes strips clubs, guess his place is 25 years behind bars. /s

Funny how I also happened to link to this article in a related discussion yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17396913

I'm alfred anaya older sister. He doesnt deserve 24 years in prison. He has served his time. Hoping for a miracle and hope the law of first drug offenders comes through and that he is selected to be free. His kids and family miss him so much. He's not a bad person.

From the school of bad faction, un-fucking-readable,Tom Wolfe would be rolling in his grave :]

I remember this article ... from 2013.

It's so sad that such a wonderful creative person's life is once again destroyed by dea and prosecutor scum. These barbaric scumbags are the ones who should be jailed without parole for making our society so violent and ugly. While the blame is shared with lawmakers, who are equally to blame for their barbaric hate that created such laws, the power lies with police and prosecutors to properly enforce and not enforce laws. Unfortunately in the US, the only incentives police have for their actions are money and power. Of course the uphold the status quo. It makes them richer and more powerful at the expense of other people's lives. Them being under the umbrella of "justice" allows them and the general, idiot public to pretend like these actions are not barbaric and evil, that these actions are not motivated by hate, racism, and greed. But people with even half a brain can see through this facade. Too bad such people are in such a minority, they never even have a chance to get on juries. That's how the final piece of the puzzle falls into place. Being judged by a jury of morons. This is so called "justice" so that we can all pretend we live in a civilized society as long as it doesn't affect us. One day, I hope these police and prosecutor scum will pay for the lives they've ruined and the people they have tortured and murdered. I hope...

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