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I wish I could upvote this comment more.

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 justice system in the US is so infuriatingly bad, I don’t even know where to start when it comes to fixing it.

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.

Not to mention the loss of voting rights once you’ve been convicted of a felony. Completely broken.

To add to this, it is insane that someone can be locked in jail for years without being convicted for a crime. In some cases innocent people have spent over a decade in prison before being exonerated!

> When people ask, "Have you ever been arrested," the answer will be "Yes."

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".

Where are you asked if you were arrested? I'm curious, since I've only been asked if I was convicted of a crime, so I thought it a bit odd.

Only about a dozen states ban employer questions about arrest records outright. More states have no restrictions on it at all. Another set of states bans asking about expunged or sealed records, but anything else is fair game.

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."

What seems bizarre is that an employer would care about a mistaken arrest.

There's often an implication that an arrest wasn't necessarily mistaken, even if no charges were filed, the charges were dropped, or the person was acquitted.

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.

DUI example is strange. There are blood alcohol tests, can't really avoid conviction if you fail the test. What's the explanation supposed to be for all the acquittals?

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.

> There are blood alcohol tests, can't really avoid conviction if you fail the test.

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.

In Pennsylvania, their implied consent law means refusal results in the suspension of your driver's license.

https://www.mtvlaw.com/blog/2019/august/what-are-pennsylvani...

Arrest records are generally public, in my experience. Perhaps it wasn't important to ask me since it would come up in a background check. But then so are conviction records. It's just not what I remember when applying to jobs, is all.

In my previous state it wasn't banned and I saw it on every application I ever filled out, but that was quite some years ago and my current state doesn't allow it. I've heard stories of people being fired for other reasons, but officially because the company did a background check later and the person had lied on their application.

That's interesting to me. Thank you for sharing.

Unlikely tbh.

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.

No lawyer would ever advise anyone to just “casually talk to FBI agents that show up at your door”.

Talking =/= answering questions.

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.

I generally like to think I'm a rather calm individual. It takes quite a bit to get me flustered.

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".

You're completely wrong and should lawyer up if they ever come to your door.

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 they suspect you of operating a child porn ring, they know that you will most likely take precaution and nuke everything if you even catch wind that you are under investigation, which is why they will subpoena your bank records, phone records, ISP records, and probably put surveillance on you.

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.