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Comment by newsclues | Hacker News Reader

If LEO gets data/evidence illegally and they are unable to use it for prosecution, leaking it is the modern anonymous phone call equivalent.

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> If LEO gets data/evidence illegally and they are unable to use it for prosecution

Law Enforcement Agencies work in cooperation with DOJ and they obtain evidence with the use of warrant[1] which is issued by court.

Speaking of obtaining illegal evidence you can search for numerous court cases where judges turned blind eye on questionable methods of obtaining evidence using hacking techniques. Some of those cases were seizure of Dark Web websites and their servers. Courts will always protect government agencies because they want to be cohesive and in synergy.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrant_(law)

True, there are judges who are massively corrupt who fail to observe the Fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine[0]. But I’ve certainly read accounts of judges doing the right thing and tossing ill-gotten evidence. It’s just so unusual that I can’t find examples in the limited time that I’m willing to search the web. So… that kinda says something.

But the point being that it’s not universal that judges will facilitate such methods.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit_of_the_poisonous_tree

This gives a weird sort of incentive to "report" stuff anonymously...

"reports on the web say" can often be used to get court ordered investigations - no matter the validity of the anonymous info.

So "illegally obtained info" can spawn "legal" routes to investigate the same...

Right, hack it, leak it, it becomes public, can be used in court. But my guess is this is Biden telling Putin we can do it too.

Hmm, just because it is publicly available doesn’t mean it was legally obtained. Leaks seem like a perfect example here.

Right but it may be that the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. Let's say if the CIA leaked it and then FBI used it. CIA operations are highly classified so we would never know if they leaked it, if they did.

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