I don't know how serious a crack in the front casting on a Tesla is, but this kind of policy is pretty egregious.
I don't think Tesla would do this unless management consider it very serious.
if electronically stored information that should have been preserved in the anticipation or conduct of litigation is lost because a party fails to take reasonable steps to preserve it, and it cannot be restored or replaced through additional discovery, the court only upon finding that the party acted with the intent to deprive another party of the information to use in the litigation may presume that the lost information was unfavorable to the party.
"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." - Cardinal Richelieu
what sort of context could be added which exonerates that behavior?
if the context exonerates it, why not have a policy of including context?
if it's somehow benign, but cited out of context, why not just provide the context?
and, if such exonerating context doesn't exist, wouldn't society prefer they not get away with patenting something obvious?
The quintessential example is an alibi. If the cops accuse me of shooting someone in SF, but I was in Berkeley at the time, I might be tempted to tell them that. But then, when they produce a faulty eye-witness, who says they saw me in SF that evening, suddenly I need to discredit that witness in order to resolve my alibi. Meanwhile, if I hadn't said anything, the witness's claim that I happened to be in the same city on the same day as the murder is nowhere near enough evidence to cause me any problems.
you have an equal need to disprove the claims of a witness regardless of whether you have an alibi
additionally, regardless of whether there's a witness, all you need to do is prove you were in Berkeley to remove yourself as a suspect
so the two things (alibi, witness) seem orthogonal
> why not just provide the context?
Because lawyers might find ways to dismiss/challenge it?
so, the problem spurring such a policy is that they don't want to be implicated on the record in doing bad things - they want to get away with what society doesn't want them to get away with
that means the policy is bad for society.
(I was the person who provided the ancedote.)
I guess I need more convincing, 1st that there is indeed full context exonerating the "obvious" quote from meaning what the words mean, and 2nd that it wouldn't work to just provide that context to resolve the matter (e.g. if it truly is exonerating context, why wouldn't providing the context exonerate?)
when I asked for that detail, I just got a snide, uninformed remark about the answer being obvious, from someone who clearly could not come up with an answer
I’m sorry but you might consider patenting your mind reading device.
It seems pretty easy to imagine engineers spending week/months/etc. solving a specific problem the solution to which might seem pretty ‘obvious’ to them when they actually manage to arrive at it. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s actually obvious ..
> wouldn't work to just provide that context to resolve the matter
Why take the risk? And even if you end up winning at the end having to prove something like that will still result in additional costs and/or delays.
Your reasoning seems to be based on vague assumptions based on a very vaguely described situation. I find it hard to understand how can someone feel so certain about it with close to zero real context.
indeed, with no detail provided, we're forced to make assumptions, or ask for detail
I chose the latter, that is why I included this in my post:
> I guess I need more convincing, 1st that there is indeed full context exonerating the "obvious" quote from meaning what the words mean, and 2nd that it wouldn't work to just provide that context to resolve the matter (e.g. if it truly is exonerating context, why wouldn't providing the context exonerate?)
when I asked for that detail, I just got a snide, uninformed remark about the answer being obvious, from someone who clearly could not come up with an answer
I would like a response to that part of the post if you feel up to providing it, please
> "Do this only orally" is always to hide evidence from a future court discovery.
That is, I've followed enough court cases and news reports to have seen things taken egregiously out of context to agree there could be valid reasons to limit discoverable communications (though not in Tesla's specific case), especially because so few people seem to argue in good faith anymore. For example, lots of times in long email or slack threads people throw out ideas, even if they're not particularly well thought out, because that's part of what being in an open, healthy organization entails. And then I've seen these communications presented as some sort of official corporate position instead of brainstorming.
What you're describing is still fine because a solid defense is to look at someone taking something out of context and going, "would you mind continuing reading?" where someone else follows up shooting down $controversial_thing because liability etc.
The only reason not to create that record in the first place is because you weren't interested in compliance from the get go, and you were banking on the "naive first violation" defense.
Been there, seen it in action, left because of it. Ethical abandonment, no matter how it is gussied up, is ethical abandonment. There is always time for doing what you should to keep your nose clean.
E.g., Germany: StGB 201 § 201 Verletzung der Vertraulichkeit des Wortes https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/stgb/__201.html
In some places, secret recordings are useless as evidence (e.g., two-party consent states in the United States), while in others even illegal recordings may be admissible anyway (e.g., Sweden).
For example, in Germany, a lot of the privacy culture (and therefore, laws) came about because of how the secret police terrorised the common people, for example, using secret recordings and worse (e.g., secret evidence).
But in other places, sure, I would agree with you.
EDIT: I know there are places where secret recordings are illegal but don't know the expected penalties. Recordings are probably legal in a "one-party consent" state. Be wary; certain kinds of recording may be illegal even if recording is legal in general.
In a lawsuit, you will be required to hand over all relevant records. It is illegal to destroy them or fail to hand them over. The penalties for doing so could be severe.
But even if you get away with it, hiding evidence would be wrong. Don't respond to sleaze with yet more sleaze. Maybe you'll win the fight or maybe you'll lose it, but you will always lose something of yourself.
Is it wrong, or just illegal some places?
Is it only "sleaze" where it's illegal, or everywhere?
https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_stgb/englisch_st...
These companies know that worker bee call center drones say things all the time that the company doesn't want preserved in a court of law later- mainly promises that the company doesn't want to have to uphold if they were outside policy. They take it very seriously. I suspect any major company with something to lose has a similar policy.
In the US it's either one party (the majority of states) or all party.
What I do is I inform and get consent from hotline agents during the call.
If a business states that the call may be recorded, then they are already consenting. Therefore your recording would be the 2nd party consenting.
"Determining which jurisdiction’s law controls in cases involving recording devices or parties in multiple states can be complex, so it is likely best to adhere to the strictest applicable law when in doubt, and/or get the clear consent of all parties before recording."
So it doesn't seem to be simple to determine what's legal in any given situation.
I said it before, musk himself is a big con, so I am not shocked that’s a policy in there.