I mean, this is why we have due process and a trial, right? At which you can present evidence that you didn't purchase the domain. Probably it wouldn't even get that far.
If that happens, you'll get arrested in front of at least some of your neighbors, who might also find out why you were arrested. (Even some of the local cops might think you're just getting away on a technicality.) Eventually being found innocent or not charged may not matter to some of them.
You will be in jail, at least for a while. You now have an arrest record. When people ask, "Have you ever been arrested," the answer will be "Yes." You might lose your job.
Your computer equipment will be seized and police will go through it. It'll be used against you in and out of court—even things that are legal—if they think it makes you look bad or will get you to talk. Getting that equipment back after charges are dropped or you are found innocent in court may or may not be slow and byzantine.
You will need to pay a lawyer, both to defend yourself, and to help you get your equipment back.
...
Yes, this is all fixable... if you are not poor and not rather unlucky. But it will take time and money. Even if you don't lose your job, I'd estimate that it would cost you $20K on the low end for legal fees.
Also, if you've done anything else even slightly illegal, and the LEA finds evidence of that when searching your stuff, even though you've been careful and haven't had cause to attract their attention previously... well... that's another whole bunch of trouble.
The class issues are enormous; if you’re wealthy enough to be able to defend yourself, you’ll still only be treated with something only loosely approximating fairness at absolutely best.
However, if you can’t afford tens of thousands for an attorney, experts, etc, you’re pretty much fucked.
We need to seriously rethink how we treat the accused in this country, from automatic sanctions that are applied to any accused, to how much leeway the police and justice system have to destroy people’s lives before there’s even been any evidence presented of an actual crime.
And that's hoping you are a citizen. Because visa renewals (and permanent residency applications, etc) also ask the exact same question. Depending on the reason for the arrest, you can also be denied naturalization or be placed in deportation proceedings without an actual conviction being required. On the basis of your "moral character".
Among the ones who have partial bans they range from "No, unless you run a bank and the arrest was for alleged fraud or bank robbery" to "Basically yes, unless it's a really old arrest and the salary is below a threshold."
I can see it making a sort of sense in some edges cases. Would you hire a bartender who had been arrested six times on suspicion of DUI just because he was never convicted? I think that would be hard to justify, if my insurance company would even allow it. (So, in my opinion, it's better if I never found out!) However, in general I find the idea distasteful, uncharitable, and un-American.
That said, I suspect most employers just like to have as many legal reasons to reject an applicant as possible to make it harder to be sued (irrespective of whether those employers are racists). In Michigan they were more or less explicit that they put their ban in place because black people are being arrested and charged at rates disproportional to eventual convictions versus other groups.
The way you say it, it's like you think that more and more acquittals is evidence of guilt, but that doesn't make any sense to me.
Repeated arrests would be no accident of chance, but those repeated acquittals would even call into question a conviction in the future. Something is going on to generate false accusations.
You can't be forced to take (or, even, given additional punishment based on an advance-consent licensing provision, as California has and used to enforce) a blood alcohol test without a warrant under Supreme Court case law, and warrants take time.
https://www.mtvlaw.com/blog/2019/august/what-are-pennsylvani...
Unless the starts align the wrong way, generally the way its gonna go is first they will pull your background, and see that there is no criminal record, good credit and a tech job. So the first thing that is going to happen is that you will get a couple of FBI agents probably show up to your door and ask you questions. At which point you could sit down in front of your computer with them, pull up your accounts, and see the evidence of the transfer, all without answering questions with a chance to self incriminate.
That is not at all how the FBI operates. If they suspect you of operating a child porn ring they aren't going to just show up and ask questions, because if you are operating a child porn ring you will have nuked the evidence before they return with a warrant. They show up with a warrant. They will not allow you to touch the computer, because they won't want you to have a chance to nuke the evidence.
In any case, you don't need a clean record, good credit, or a tech job—which would actually be a liability here—to have an account with a domain registrar.
If the only thing that shows up from all the data is literally a public DNS that points to a public ip address with questionable content, while you are leading a relatively normal life with all your other income accounted for, the agency (given that they have enough tech experience in cybercrime here) will most likely assume that you are a victim, and will go talk to you. Now of course, nothing is for certain, but statistically speaking, FBI doesn't go busting doors without prior investigation.
The advice of "not answering questions" applies mostly for situations where cops are looking for the guilty party, and you don't want to accidentally self incriminate (or if you are guilty, you have a higher chance of getting off)
FBI having records of you specifically in relation to a shady website is already past the point of looking for a guilty party - the people they send are specialized in cyber crime, are there to investigate the entirety of the situation with enough information about you already collected from all the sources like ISP logs, background check, and so on, all indicating that you are probably not guilty, as people who actually run sites like that statistically lead very different lives
You can refuse to answer questions and let them in, however that has a higher rate of a search warrant, seizure and possibly arrest. Or you could just show them your domain registrars, tell them that you have no idea where it came from, and then look up history that shows the transfer, and that could be the end of your trouble, without any self incriminating statements.
But let me tell you, I have had a couple of FBI agents show up at my door. And when I saw those badges, even though I know I've not done anything, I was nervous. Had a legit adrenaline dump. All because my address was the last known address of someone they wanted to speak with. This someone was male, brown hair, about the same height and build as me, etc. As soon as they noticed the similarities, it was not a "sit down in front of your computer and straighten this out" kind of situation. They are there for a reason - to find a criminal. They aren't there to shoot the shit with you and explain "it's all just a big misunderstanding".
If the FBI shows up at your door without a warrant, don't let them in and don't speak to them. If they insist, insist on having a lawyer present.
Luckily my situation ended up OK. I got a lawyer who specifically had experience with federal law enforcement and had them do all the "straightening up of the situation". But it cost me money and took weeks of what should have been "here is my driver's license, passport, and deed. I am me, not the other guy".
I believe for example, that it is extremely rare to have your door knocked down here in the UK. The police will generally politely knock and or ring the doorbell, and only knock your door down if you refuse to let them in.
It is a problem with the justice system.
It is also a problem with the registrar. The registrar operates in this environment and is seemingly breaking official ICANN rules.
I highly doubt that this is going to be the case if the warrant says that you’re wanted for child abuse imagery or human trafficking. I’m sure they’re lovely for small infractions, though.
There’s no need to send the swat team for a non-violent non-organised criminal, monster though they may be.
> I highly doubt
At least on paper UK police aim to take a more evidence-based light-touch community-building approach to policing, so I'd be curious what reasons you have to doubt this claim?
The assumption that US morality and culture applies globally is tiring and misses out on an opportunity for learning through comparison.
It's also worth noting that the author specifically called out in the article that the concern here is SWATing which has become such a notorious problem in some circles that the concept has made it into mainstream TV shows covering the practice.
Due process only counts when it's uniformly available, and there is ample evidence in the United States, and other countries that have similar policy, that the effectiveness of civil rights protections varies widely by economic status and ethnicity.
Good luck with that.
Even on completely spurious charges, you’ll spend time in jail, spend tens of thousands on legal fees, and spend months of your life sweating bullets.
Afterwards, you won’t even be able to sue the police thanks to qualified immunity.
Have you ever seen a no-knock raid? It happened to a house 5 houses down from where I live. They broke down the door and threw a couple of flash-bangs inside. Even from 5 houses away with all doors and windows closed, I could have sworn someone just fired off a cannon. Pretty sure they won't be fixing or paying for any damages either.
There was a somewhat-well-publicized incident a couple years(?) back when IIRC a shoplifting suspect (who was armed, I think) was chased by the cops, hid in a stranger's house, the police wrecked the house getting the guy out, and then didn't pay a dime to fix it, let alone anything to compensate for the significant inconvenience of having a messed-up house and having to have a lot of work done to repair it. Can't recall whether there were any successful lawsuits after, but the default was definitely, "nope, that's entirely your problem, we just break stuff, we don't fix it".
And that's for someone who wasn't even any kind of target for the police, but an innocent bystander.