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Comment by joseflavio | Hacker News Reader

There are at least 3 scary factors in this. 1 - What will be next crime that is big enough that justify using this? File sharing? Drinking in public? Jaywalking? Driving above the speed limit? 2 - The data is collected forever! Our current law system is not just in a situation which the prosecutors can dig your past to find problems! Imagine you do some graffiti (ok, I know it is vandalism) to express your indignation, now, if you are ideologically an enemy of the state, they can dig for crimes your whole life...! 3 - The collected data can be used to prosecute you but it can not be used to innocent you.

edit: spelling

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> The collected data can be used to prosecute you but it can not be used to innocent you.

Actually that would constitute a Brady violation[1]:

> The prosecutor must disclose exculpatory evidence known only to the police. That is, the prosecutor has a duty to reach out to the police and establish regular procedures by which the police must inform him of anything that tends to prove the innocence of the defendant.

Now, it's at the discretion of the prosecutor, but if you had evidence that evidence was withheld then can exercise some recourse against the prosecutor. Often-times it results in a re-trial rather than a cash settlement or the case being dismissed.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brady_disclosure

The problem is that as the data came from "parallel" investigations, it is way easier for the prosecutor justify that he did not have access to information that could innocent you, no?

Just a friendly tip: innocent generally isn't used as a verb in English. We generally use words like exonerate, absolve, or clear to mean "prove innocence."

Your meaning was clear, just saw that you'd done it a couple of times. :)

He's so adjective he verbs nouns.

Courts have held it is still a brady violation, even if the prosecutor did not know, if, say, the police knew.

Otherwise, prosecutors would just avoid knowing.

Attorney here.

What's perhaps scarier is that the prosecutor wouldn't even know when / if possible exculpatory evidence exist or whether their evidence is fruit of the poisonous tree (fancy way of saying legitimate evidence that is found as a result of illegal search & seizure). I spoke with 3 buddies yesterday that are prosecutors and they told me they hated this concept of "parallel construction," they felt like it took prosecutorial discretion out of their hands and made their job—to uphold our laws—more difficult.

Now, there are bad prosecutors out there. People motivated by politics and self interest, but they are the few. The folks that just want convictions and to better their stats. Those folks will likely never care where they get the ammunition to "put away the bad guys."

"Now, there are bad prosecutors out there. People motivated by politics and self interest, but they are the few."

There's probably more than a few. Consider the large number of cases that have been overturned in Illinois and Texas over that last decade or so. Many of these folks were railroaded and only saved by volunteers and brave attorneys.

And for all the damage these "common" criminals did, consider that much of the recent massive economic fraud done and damage caused by well connected "businessmen" and "bankers" will not go punished due to lack of enforcement and statue of limitations.

TANJ!

If you dig into it, you're probably looking at a relatively small subset of District Attorney/State Attorneys whose offices handle a high volume of cases.

Look at anyone like a cop, nurse, teacher, CPS worker, etc that works in a highly dysfunctional community, you'll find that some folks get really jaded and start to see things that don't really exist. The things that these people see are horrible and some folks can't cut it. It's hard to unsee the 30-40 active child abuse cases that a Chicago CPS worker deals with every week, and the support structures in the organizations are often nonexistent, which allows bad behavior to take place.

They stop thinking of the people in the community as people and see them as perps. Potentially exonerating evidence is perceived as a speed-bump or excuse.

Potentially a few in each county.

There are also people that using information coming through "fusion counterterrorism centers" to initiate civil forfeiture cases - having nothing to do with terrorism, but enjoying very little protection for the victim once the word "terrorism" is said.

If NSA total surveillance is used in this manner - imagine the possibilities. You take a large sum of cash out of your bank account - or mention to a friend you're going to do a large purchase this weekend. The surveillance dragnet alerts the local authorities, they stop you for traffic violations, take the cash and the car and any valuable property that is on you and now you face the prospect of very costly and unsure legal battle to get it back - since forfeiture cases have no presumption of innocence and no requirement of criminal conviction, and to invoke terror clauses you only need terror-related investigation going on - and as NSA has recently explained us, literally everything is relevant for terror investigations and thus can be considered "related".

If you think I'm exaggerating, read this: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/08/12/130812fa_fact_... This is already happening, albeit small scale. Anti-terror information centers are already being used for it. But total surveillance makes this kind of abuse much easier to perpetrate on a scale.

As for those being "the few" - if they are so small group, why the "good guys" don't stop them? It looks like many of those maybe wouldn't do it themselves, but they have very little against it being done right next to them and against benefitting from it.

You could troll them too, though. Tell a friend that you are taking out a large sum of money to pay for something. Travel using a rental car or by bus. Carry cards that say "don't spy on me" and hand them to the police officers when they come for you. Sue police for harassment. After all, they can't arrest you for saying what you want in private...

I think trolling is going to become an important part of our ecosystem before long, especially when it comes to fuzzing data miners and frustrating their data collection activities. Enough trolling and the system will be too expensive to follow up on.

Trolling guys with guns and a monopoly on violence seems like a bad idea to me.

You're no better then Russia then, just think of it. Only you don't enjoy the general public' understanding that the government is your enemy and friends must be protected from it.

While I like the principle... Expensive for who? The government hasn't ever really shown much concern for how much things cost.

Now, there are bad prosecutors out there. People motivated by politics and self interest, but they are the few.

Indeed but even more, even a "bad prosecutor" wants discretion. When a prosecutors become the mere cog in a concocted theater, they are just window dressing and the "parallel constructors" hold all the strings.

I suppose we can take some comfort that even not-perfect people can want democracy because they don't want one person who isn't them holding the strings.

Couldn't you ask the LEO during cross if they obtained any information from the SOD? Put them in a position to perjure themselves (not that you'd know if they lied or not).

Are you talking about the same government that waited a few days to read someone's Miranda rights, because they thought that if they don't read them, the suspect doesn't have those rights?

Or the same government that thinks that if it torture peoples and holds them indefinitely without charges in another country, then it's okay, because it didn't happen in their country?

You think that government cares to divulge secret info that would make someone innocent in a trial?

> it torture peoples and holds them indefinitely without charges

Actually, the policy of holding them indefinitely after having been tortured is based on the assumption that they will be extremists after having been tortured.

Yes it is as insane as it sounds: the military is torturing them, and then holding them in custody because they were tortured.

I'd say that is a case of them not be incorrect, per se, just evil as fuck.

It's like Catch-22 but horrific instead of funny.

The only difference is that fiction is funny, reality is horrific.

The prosecutor isn't going to be withholding exculpatory evidence, because the NSA won't be passing along exculpatory evidence in the first place.

when you say "innocent" I think you mean "exonerate".

It actually sounds better - innocent as a verb. :-)

To my ear, it doesn't sound better, FWIW, even when I'm frequently on board with verbing.

Verbing weirds language.

verbing words is perfectly cromulent in english

> The collected data can be used to prosecute you but it can not be used to innocent you.

If you're innocent, you're innocent, no matter what the cops and courts say.

I think the verb you are looking for is "acquit". Or the slightly longer but more general "prove your innocence".

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