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Comment by jrochkind1 | Hacker News Reader

Never, ever, ever, talk to the prosecutors.

Learn from this story, and just don't talk to them.

The dangerous part of this story is that she reports her grand jury experience as a success, suggesting that you _can- talk to the state and 'win'. Maybe it was as successful as she thinks, maybe it wasn't. And we can't say that you can _never_ be succesful talking to the prosecutors; never say never. But what we can say is that they are _experts_ at 'winning' in those confrontations, they've trained for it and practice it every day, no matter how smart you are you're _probably_ going to end up hurting yourselves or your friends and loved ones by talking to the prosecutors.

Stick with the conclusion from the first part, never, ever, talk to the prosecutors.

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This is a tricky subject but I feel compelled to point out that it's not so simple. If I hadn't talked to the USAO when I received a proffer letter in 2006, I might have been in Aaron's position trying to defend myself at trial for doing nothing wrong. Instead, the U.S. Attorney (a different one) decided to drop the issue (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/13/technology/13secure.html).

I don't know if there's really a lesson to be learned from the story other than to be very careful when it comes to doing anything that might be even remotely perceived as "hacking" because the justice system is incredibly broken. You don't get to choose your prosecutor.

"Do not talk to the police" does not mean "do never cooperate or be utterly destroyed".

There may be some damn good reasons to cooperate, but you need an attorney to estimate the impact of any statement you make, even if you did nothing wrong.

You were the potential defendant, and you were facing indictment and prosecution for a crime 95% of jurors wouldn't understand, and your lawyer probably suggested that you accept the proffer. I can see how that might be a good idea, because a proffer is a gateway to the prosecution offering immunity, a good plea deal, or dropping the case entirely.

Talking to the police/feds/prosecution under other circumstances, or accepting a proffer when you're not under investigation or without advice of counsel, is where the problem lies.

Don't talk to police, either, according to this law school professor: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc

This is an insightful video to watch. I've seen it before and have to say it didn't hit on any of the obvious reasons that its a bad idea to speak to the police.

I felt sick reading her account and couldn't finish. She is not the person I would want by my side going through something like that. In spite of being a "reporter on hackers" she was extremely naive of the system. How can anyone in the right mind recommend that the prosecution reads a document called the "Guerilla Open Access Manifesto"?

It's a good thing to read, even so. Melancholy and sad, but not something I regret reading. It's not as informative (in terms of actionable advice) as the article on HN about how to (politely) not talk to investigators, but it showed the depths of how adversarial they can make it -- it's a game for them.

FBI is also on that list: http://www.browardbeat.com/broward-probe-302-reasons-not-to-...

"Federal agents have the right to lie to you-and to put you in prison if you lie to them. Any citizen who makes even a single-word false utterance (”no,” “yes”) to a federal agent faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine." : http://jimbovard.com/blog/2010/08/18/the-crime-of-lying-to-t...

They try to make witnesses contradict themselves, so that they can invoke this law and scare them into testifying what they need to hear.

It's especially true with the FBI or any other person connected with the federal government in an investigation. Making false statements is a separate crime in itself. 18 USC § 1001 [1]

[1] http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1001

[Fascinating article published originally in WSJ] http://ourtaxdollarsatwork.wordpress.com/2012/04/11/federal-...

[How to Avoid Going to Jail under 18 U.S.C. Section 1001 for Lying to Government Agents] http://corporate.findlaw.com/litigation-disputes/how-to-avoi...

How do you come to this conclusion? It doesn't appear she had much of a choice. Her two successful lawyers in a fancy, shiny, expensive office gave her this advice:

"I asked my lawyers to refuse, and we fought about it, repeatedly. They brought up things from my past that could be used against me; not criminal behavior per se, even they admitted, but they wanted me to have immunity."

Different people have different situations; no single piece of advice can apply to all people. Speaking for myself, if somebody placed me in a tricky position where my past could be used against me I would always put myself first if it meant protecting myself and my family.

Being a single mother is tough enough; being a single mother, struggling with money, involved in things you don't understand, being threatened by people with significant amounts of power (is it hard to believe eventually they would have done something to threaten her daughter?) would be enough to convince most normal people to speak. Given the information she had at the time she made a rational (debate-fully wrong) choice.

While there may be strong arguments for the case that the prosecutor's actions are unethical, ultimately Aaron's actions put her into this situation. His blaming her for her actions after being caught up in his battle, while wanting to protect herself and her child, is offensive to me.

It's sad that she beats herself up - she lost in a game she was not trained or skilled enough to win, a game somebody else forced her to play.

1) She ended up deciding those lawyers were crap, right?

2) Her lawyers didn't care at all about protecting Aaron, they cared about protecting her -- because that's 'officially' what lawyers are supposed to do, throw everybody but their client under the bus. (If you WANT to do this too, and you're being offered immunity, well, that's different).

3) Non-political laywers will often not have good advice in political cases, in part but not entirely because of #2 above. And probably related to her deciding #1 above in the end.

YES, being involved in things you don't understand, being threatened by peopel with power, etc., YES, that is enough to convince most normal people to speak. I am NOT blaming those who are duped into speaking, again, the cops are EXPERTS at duping you. Which is why I'm saying, when you hear about this happening to someone else, the more people that learn from it the better: don't talk to the cops.

Now, if you actually _want_ to accept an immunity deal to 'snitch' on someone else (say, because you think they ought to go to jail), then okay. But, other than that, if you think you can actually make things better for you or someone else by talking to the police -- well, like I said, we can't say in 100% of cases that won't work, never say never: We can say that you are unqualified to have any idea if it will work or not, and that usually it won't. Don't talk to the cops.

Are you a lawyer or do you have extensive experience with the US law?

You're making some pretty blanket statements there and I'd appreciate knowing what's backing your statements up.

Check the video posted by another commenter. The whole thing is worth watching. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc

Could someone explain why she felt compelled to talk? She was advised to by her lawyers, and she was concerned that she'd be arrested if she didn't. Was it because she had a legal obligation to assist in the investigation of the crime?

IANAL. Not legal advice. I'm far from qualified to advise on legal matters. Entertainment purposes only.

Once you're given immunity, you can be compelled to testify, since the only restriction is on self-incrimination; self-incrimination is impossible once you have immunity. (Essentially, it's also only protection against self incrimination; you can be forced to incriminate others. There are limited exceptions for doctor/patient, priest/victim, spouses, attorney/client.) If you refuse at that point, it's potentially contempt of court.

Grand Jury rules are also somewhat different from trials.

IMO, she made some seriously bad life decisions in both retaining logs (making them is bad enough, but retaining them indefinitely is horrible), and in testifying. But not out of malice, just ignorance or something. The party to blame here is the prosecution and government for creating a world where random girlfriends and journalists need to be combatants.

You're bringing up a good point here. I think it is seriously chilling that I am only a subpoena away from giving up the secrets of my friends that are archived in my e-mail account, in Skype's logs or on Facebook. I know secrets that, although not illegal, I would go far out of my way to keep secret because they would jeapordize the livelihood of my friends. The US government can basically look these up if it finds a good reason to do so.

A hacker would berate me for keeping secrets on other people's machines, or berate my friends for communicating through insecure channels. But most people will simply never think this way. You could have said the same for phone conversations back in the day, but these were not logged indefinitely.

I think that the loosely restricted use of electronic records is a dark development.

> I think it is seriously chilling that I am only a subpoena away from giving up the secrets of my friends that are archived in my e-mail account, in Skype's logs or on Facebook.

Hahaha, no you're not. Gmail, Skype, and Facebook all have streamlined and well-trod paths for turning that stuff over to the feds. If it was truly serious business, you'd be lucky to even find out it had happened.

She says she was ill (from the car accident) while she was debating whether to accept the proffer, so she probably wasn't thinking completely clearly, perhaps overly affected by Aaron's paranoia. His paranoia was justified. Hers wasn't. They could scream at her lawyers, subpoena her laptop, subpoena her to testify before a grand jury... all of which they did anyway.

At least a few seasoned federal criminal defense attorneys suggest never accepting a proffer unless you're at serious risk of being prosecuted, which she wasn't.[1]

Suppose she didn't accept the proffer offer. Her laptop data still gets subpoenaed. She's still subpoenaed to testify before the grand jury. She takes the stand and takes the fifth. Either Steve doesn't give her immunity and she doesn't testify, or Steve gives her immunity blind (without having the opportunity to know what she's going to say first), in which case she's in exactly the same situation she ended up in.

Her lawyers probably decided that getting her to cooperate and accept the proffer might keep Steve from yelling at them so much, and it didn't violate their duty to her, since cooperating or not didn't affect her so much as it affected Aaron, so they advised her to cooperate. Since she wasn't a suspect and Steve was being hostile anyway, her laywers could have told her to do just about anything short of perjuring herself or disobeying subpoenas, and they would have adequately served their duty to their client; the outcome for her would probably have been similar, too: after the grand jury appearance, she never heard from Steve again.

[1] http://www.wisenberglaw.com/Articles/Queen-For-A-Day-The-Dan...

Long read only to have it summarized as that. I don't want to venture down that road ever.

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