Hacker News Reader

Comment by 2xlbuds | Hacker News Reader

I'm curious as to what would actually happen if Twitter just decided to release the exact numbers. Would they be slapped with a fine? What if they didn't pay the fine? Would they be forced to be shut down? People would not tolerate that one bit.

View on HN

See the exponential fees Yahoo was threatened with (7.9 sextillion after a year) https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/2gjvrf/governme...

Almost certainly criminal charges, and possibly (probably?) ones that "pierce the veil" (ie, go after the executives/employees personally, not [just] the corporation).

Not exactly something anybody would really want to risk.

(I am not a lawyer, I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice).

Would any jury convict those people? I'd like to hope the answer is no. Again these are just rhetorical questions, I don't work for twitter.

Who says they'd be tried in a courtroom that even has a jury. Remember, we now know there are courtrooms with no juries.

They're the rooms no banker who helped cause a global economic crisis will ever see the inside of, but if you reveal that you have been required to turn over information to a secret government with a secret court against every principal of the Constitution, well... I imagine you'd know the color of the wallpaper pretty well.

It's not just the bankers that were spared of course, all the politicians that were partially responsible for the economic melt-down were shielded as well. From Greenspan to Clinton, nobody in D.C. was touched either.

The Fed has caused more destruction of wealth in the last 20 years than all the private sector bankers in US history have combined. Not a single person from the Fed will ever, nor has ever, gotten into trouble for it. They can destroy the US economy with insane rates, QE, stimulus measures, you name it. They can debase the dollar and steal trillions in savings from average Americans. They can encourage incredibly dangerous asset inflation and speculative behavior with 'free' money policies, and nobody will ever do anything about it.

We've always known there courtrooms without juries. For example, the Supreme Court does not have a jury.

Are there civilian federal criminal prosecutions without juries? I can't recall hearing of any.

The answer is substantially more likely to be yes for many juries. The charges are likely to be clear cut and the evidence pretty unambiguous. The judge will give the jury clear direction and they're likely to convict. Even if they don't, they'd probably be excellent grounds for appeal.

Fundamentally, the courts are there to uphold the rule of law. If the law's an ass then that's a job for the legislature.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com