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Comment by ianstallings | Hacker News Reader

Warning: this opinion probably won't fit into the HN zeitgeist.

If you commit a crime online don't be surprised when they seek to gain evidence against you. This isn't a liberty issue. This is a you're probably a criminal issue and law enforcement is coming after you. I don't protect drug dealers in my neighborhood because of their right to free speech and personal liberty so why would I protect these guys?

It just always makes me chuckle when criminals won't face the fact that they are criminals. They'll deflect, ignore, and basically try anything to escape the reality - they broke the rules of society and now society wants to punish them.

And just to give you a little background - I've done some time in a few bids for violence and drugs. I know what it means to be a criminal because I grew up as one. I have no pity. None. You should've made better decisions. I made a choice to leave that behind a long time ago, and you should too.

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> "They'll deflect, ignore, and basically try anything to escape the reality - they broke the rules of society and now society wants to punish them."

I think most people, criminals or otherwise, understand this quite well. In fact, I'd guess that criminals understand it better than non-criminals.

What some people don't seem to understand (or even want to think about) is that the law is often a pitiful and nationally embarrasing reflection of ethics. Laws don't get passed because they are good, or helpful, or promote some positive thing. They get passed because enough politicians could be convinced (sometimes by bribery, sometimes by real or implied threats) to vote for them. Why anyone imagines that the resulting laws have a significant correlation with what's good for an individual's rights and freedom is totally beyond me.

Gandhi, MLK, and the U.S. Founding Fathers were all criminals of their times. Sometimes the world needs people to break the law to show how broken the law really is. If you or anyone else judges them solely because the label "criminal" applies to them, then I have no pity for you.

>Gandhi, MLK, and the U.S. Founding Fathers were all criminals of their times. Sometimes the world needs people to break the law to show how broken the law really is.

Except those individuals fought the laws and the people behind them. They did not simply try to circumvent the unjust laws. It is tougher to take the moral high-ground when you aren't striving for change. These people are not battling some great injustice, they are breaking [perhaps unjust] laws for their own personal gain (either monetarily or recreationally).

Lots of slaves just escaped.

It's is not anyone's place to assign to the oppressed the duty of changing their oppressors' minds.

The Founding Fathers were just victorious. Being powerful enough to deter enforcement is not a reliable indicator of moral high ground.

I'm not saying oppressed people have a responsibility to change things or that being powerful means you have moral weight behind you. I am saying that breaking an unjust law has no moral value. Gandhi, MLK, and the U.S. Founding Fathers have the moral high-ground because they fought for change. The guy buying pot over the internet is only serving himself. Grouping them all together just because they broke [potentially] unmoral laws is dismissing the motives and sacrifices of the former group.

People who break the law are criminals, period. It doesn't matter if the law is just or unjust, or whether or not you personally agree with it. The simple fact is that the majority of citizens don't want online drug dealing to be legal, so it isn't legal.

Equating drug dealers with Ghandi, MLK and the US Founding Fathers is a stretch at the least and outright offensive at worst. These people aren't making bold political statements. They're selling drugs.

If you think that drugs should be legal, convince your fellow citizens to vote to make them legal. MLK, Gandhi and the Founding Fathers did what was necessary to change laws that they felt were unjust. Criminal behavior isn't the same thing as civil disobedience, and there are no shortcuts.

People who break the law are "criminals, period" only in the most uninteresting sense. I certainly would not make any claim that most drug dealers are acting in political protest - I don't know enough to say, and would be unsurprised if the overwhelming majority had purely a narrow profit motive; but I do want to raise the issue that breaking laws is often a powerful part of convincing our fellow citizens to change them. MLK very specifically argued that it is our moral responsibility not to obey an unjust law.

The simple fact is that the majority of citizens don't want online drug dealing to be legal, so it isn't legal.

Last I saw, several US states were legalising marijuana sales. It seems that attitudes are shifting.

Your statement is also simplistic: a majority of citizens don't care one way or the other about catching undersized lobsters, yet it's illegal. Trademark infringement is another such law. Then there are laws that the public kind've want but the people in power don't, so they don't get made (eg protection for whistleblowers). The simplest counterexample is tax law. Taxes are incredibly unpopular, yet laws requiring taxes exist.

The genesis of laws is a lot more complex than magically popping in and out of existence with popular demand.

"If you think that drugs should be legal, convince your fellow citizens to vote to make them legal."

The burden of enlightening someone should never fall upon anyone but that someone. To argue that avoiding imprisonment isn't a burden would be the definition of sophism.

To claim that people who are actively hiding their identities, deny, destroy evidence, pass blame, abrogate responsibility - and make sometimes millions of dollars tax-free by doing so are just revolutionaries for the progression and advancement of our society is ... disingenuous at best.

No one has claimed they are 'just' revolutionaries. The founders of the US wanted to stop paying as much in tax. In the process they set up the most decentralized system of their time.

The level of taxation was not a central concern of the founders, nor was the US system any more decentralized than, say, the Holy Roman Empire.

States rights, separation of justice, executive, and legislative branch, equal senators per state, congress numbers by population, no central bank, right to bear arms, jury of your peers...

These are all decentralization of power. The Roman empire had an emperor.

The Holy Roman Empire is a different institution than the Roman Empire; it had an official with the title "emporer" but it also featured rather extreme decentralization of power. And it existed at the same time as the early US. In some respects, it was the direct model for the decentralization in the US system.

Also, "no central bank" wasn't domething that made the US decentralized compared to other contemporary systems. First, because central banks were extremely rare at the time, and second because the central banks of the time, and most modern ones, are a means of transferring power out of the government to private capitalists, so they further decentralize government power.

Neither was retaining the British jury system.

>It just always makes me chuckle when criminals won't face the fact that they are criminals.

"I know, right? Why don't all those damn sodomites just take their chemical castration and shut up and accept the fact they're criminals?"

>>It just always makes me chuckle when criminals won't face the fact that they are criminals.

>"I know, right? Why don't all those damn sodomites just take their chemical castration and shut up and accept the fact they're criminals?"

"I took mine, and I'm thankful for it every day. No pity."

My favorite legal defense, moral relativism.

"One day, this heinous crime I have committed might not be illegal. Knowing that, how can you possibly convict me!?"

The general stance that "you broke the law, now you're a criminal" may be technically correct, but most people issuing such statements group "criminals" into a singular group and feel that the serial murderer and the child rapist are no different than the guy that forgot he had an orange in his car when crossing the border. "You've broken the rules of society, you are no better than a vagabond!"

In light of this, how can one not lose faith in the law when so many laws that punish people for stupid things are on the books just because a bunch of religious people want to force everyone to "follow their religion" to a minor extent or how the system is setup in a way that encourages government prosecutors to view the people in the cases that are put on their desk as little more than pawns in a game to "make a name" for themselves?

[There's also the fact that judges/lawyers try to hide the idea of jury nullification from juries too...]

Welcome to life in a democracy. Stupid people voting for stupid laws. Why can't we just put the smart people in charge?

Because everyone at the 51st percentile and below for intelligence forms a voting majority, and systematically disenfranchising people based on their intellect would invite abuse of the voter qualifications systems.

So we can't just put the smart people in charge. We have to slowly educate the stupid people out of existence, until the dumbest 51% are finally capable of determining the best people to make decisions, based primarily on their aptitude, rather than on their popularity.

When voting for county dogcatcher, for instance, people would look for "D.V.M." after the candidate's name, rather than "(D)" or "(R)". When people want to hire me, they look at my resume, not my hairline, lapel pin, or party affiliation.

Hey, here's an idea! What's the political science equivalent of FizzBuzz? Whatever it is, you can't get on the ballot unless you can do that thing, live, unaided, and in front of witnesses.

Because all the smart people are smart enough to see how much of a soul-sucking cluster-fuck politics is. That, and one could argue that if they're put on this earth to live a life of happiness, how could one ever possibly achieve this through a life in politics, knowing what they are getting themselves into?

Ehhh, that's a hand-wringing, self-serving generalization.

"We have the answers. We're just not soulless enough to want to go through (and perhaps change, in the process) the effort to supply them and make them help."

Platitudes rarely change things.

Whether you think so or not, personal incentives motivate people in their careers, salary being one of the biggest and weightiest. I'm not saying there aren't that many personal incentives to a life of politics, but at face value isn't exactly the most attractive career path.

Politics isn't just about being smart, though. It's about being 'charming' (sometimes for better, sometimes for worse), charismatic, a good communicator (notwithstanding the teams of people behind the scenes to help with this).

I get that it's not everyone's desired path (it's certainly not mine), I just think that saying "many of us are smart enough to have the answers, we just choose not to get involved in politics" is perhaps an... underestimation... of the complexity of some of society's problems.

Some idiots think that's exactly what they did.

Well let me clarify what I said above a little more to give you some perspective of where I'm coming from. I'm not making a moral judgement of what you did. I'm making a statement of fact - society will punish you for not following the law. And if you know that up front and you willingly ignore it because you think you're in the right, well don't be surprised when you come into conflict with law enforcement and authority. Take that responsibility on your shoulders, because you chose to act a way that would get you locked up.

> Take that responsibility on your shoulders, because you chose to act a way that would get you locked up.

Would you say this (with a straight face) to Alan Turing in 1952?

"What did you expect having a private homosexual relationship in a society where that is illegal? Just take the chemical castration or the jail sentence. Why are you getting so upset about this?"

Yeah that totally applies here. Because all situations are alike and all statements apply to every situation. All thoughts that I have can be summed up above. This is simpleton thinking. Sorry I'm not falling for your completely irrelevant shit.

Leave it to a hacker to be given two options and picking a third.

Drug opponents aren't just some religious nuts though. Aside from marijuana, the overwhelming majority of the population supports keeping drugs illegal. Support for legalizing things like cocaine is under 10%. And the homosexuality reference above is a red-herring. Nobody ever broke into someone's house in a state of diminished cognition because of gay sex.

Ya, well given the propaganda this is hardly surprising...

"Nobody ever broke into someone's house in a state of diminished cognition because of gay sex...."

I... wouldn't be too sure about that.

> Drug opponents aren't just some religious nuts though.

You're making a comment in the context of the article. All of the parent comments to mine made much broader statements in response to the root comment that was a more general statement. "If you break the law, then you have no right to complain when you go to jail." This is what I was responding to. It touches more than just drug law.

"If you break the law, then you have no right to complain when you go to jail." This is what I was responding to.

You can say whatever you like when you are jailed. But I have limited sympathy, which I reserve for true victims of circumstance. You (usually) knew it was illegal when you did it.

It's fine to disagree with the law, to protest it, to seek change. But "doing it anyway and hoping you don't get caught" is not an attempt at civil reform.

BUT you do have a right to object to unreasonable punishment. That's absolutely within your rights. "His sentence is way too long for his crime" is a discussion I'm happy to have.

Do you have the same lack of sympathy for homosexuals living in repressive societies? If they are not willing to be stoned to death for protesting the (often religion-based) law are they just a bunch of hypocrites?

Even in less repressive societies it was not that uncommon for drawing attention to your homosexual nature to make you a lightning rod for hate crimes. And the reaction of the rest of society wasn't "I'm appalled that such a thing would happen." It was, "What did he expect announcing that he was gay?" In the face of such attitudes, you blame the person being oppressed for not wanting to fling themselves under the bus?

That's mainly an issue with the poverty of the English language, in most languages, they are categories of criminals and they are called differently.

That's blatantly not true. The English language is overflowing with options, at different levels of character or crime, when it comes to describing people.

Murderer, killer, rapist, pedophile, wife beater, convict, criminal, felon, thief, liar, embezzler, con artist, forger, bum, hobo, dishonest, deceitful, traitor, unethical, petty criminal, cheat, scammer, scam artist, pick pocket, snake oil salesman, chiseler, crooked, unfaithful, drunk, addict.

And a thousand more various categories to toss people into (some refer to crimes, some refer to moral character or life situation, and some blend multiple attributes depending on context).

If a person is a rapist, you call them a rapist and not a murderer, and people know the difference. If a person is a convicted thief, you can call them a petty criminal, and nobody would confuse that with being a serial killer.

Oh yeah sure, there is tons of words to describe criminals, but the problem is the word "criminal" itself works for all of them, if you look at the news and how people speak, you never see those words, you only see "it's a crime to do something" or "this guy is a "criminal".

I don't think you understand what "moral relativism" means. There was nothing implying such in the post you replied to.

In fact, it's anti-relativist to say that a certain law is immoral.

Ah, but we get but one life, and if something you are passionate about is illegal, other than by fighting to change the system, surely given the eternity of death, it makes far more sense to risk prosecution than go forever having never sought ones dreams?

We act as if the government is a legitimate, democratic entity, which of course it is on paper, yet the system is neither pure nor fair, and should we all be prepared to sacrifice everything to gain the simple personal liberty that was taken from us at birth?

Our wrath should be directed not at lawbreakers, but at the lawmakers who cause exceptional and unprecedented amount of harm through their corruption and stubbornness. Almost every problem associated with drugs other than the petty crimes of addicts are due to backwards drug policy which causes deaths due to poor/tainted drugs, alienation and fear for junkies, allows cartels and gangs to control production, and countless collateral damage.

On paper, you may be right, but it takes a callous and short sighted view to presume that any person deemed guilty of a crime are deserving of the punishment landed down to them not by the direct consequences of their actions, but other humans bent on exacting the will of those who's interests are neither rational nor inline with the general population.

It might be a comforting thought to hide in the mentality that if you break no law, you are safe, but life is far to short and precious thing to limit oneself to the life sanctioned for you by the powers that be.

So homosexuality can be considered a heinous crime?

... and sexually deviant ones at that! The worst kind of criminals!

I'll take a red herring #3 please. Thanks.

This matter is beyond using or selling drugs. The definition of crime is based on a law which isn't necessarily morally right.

For example, in my country, discussing LGBT or even marijuana would get you into serious trouble. Hence, as internet users, we should look beyond our time and space, ensuring freedom of speech.

I do agree that people should fight for what they think is right and change societies rules if they feel they are unfair. But we have systems in place to do this. They're not perfect but they are there. It's wiser to use them and try and change things than to just ignore the law because you don't agree.

Edit: This applies for the USA. Other countries I can't really speak about. Some are truly oppressive and I doubt just using the system would accomplish much. I understand that. I don't know how to solve that problem unfortunately.

The definition of crime is based on a law which isn't necessarily morally right.

So what is the correct action for the Fed? To ignore the law and not enforce it?

Seems to be exactly what the president has ordered w.r.t. Colorado/Washington legalization of marijuana, which is a schedule 1 drug...

Ok, similar, yes. But isn't that still a bit of a different issue? To my knowledge that had nothing to do with moral judgements and everything to do with conflicting laws at the federal & state levels, and the open debate over states' rights.

I don't know a lot about US law, but I'll try my best as an internet user.

As far as I know, the Fed is part of the government and, obviously, enforce its laws. If there's a war on drugs, the Fed will try to control these networks in the internet.

Similarly, in other countries, their 'Fed' will try to control LGBT, feminist and religious online communities. Although a different case, the Internet is still the same.

If one is American and doesn't have issues, he/she should at least recognize it is not the same in other places and times.

my understanding of the US legal system is that Feds really get to choose which laws they are going or not going to enforce. At the top level it is what is called executive action and power of pardon. For example, Obama has followed moral instead of laws in his immigration actions.

In two hours, the marijuana situation in Berlin is going to change significantly because two senators decided to amend the enforcement policy. Basically, German law allows for declining to prosecute the possession of small quantities. But the exact policy is set by each state, and is not actually a law.

So as of March 31st, there will be a zero tolerance policy in one specific park. It's one of the weirder and more short-sighted drug policies I've ever encountered, and a good example of this kind of move: from officially enshrined non-enforcement of a law to strict enforcement.

A good even handed analysis of this situation: http://sensiseeds.com/en/blog/gorlitzer-park-cannabis-cultur...

Until someone has complained of being harmed, why not?

Discussing?

Wow. That's truly sad. I mean, if only talking about the subject already gets you into trouble, I don't want to know how LGBT people in your country actually live.

We always hear about these things in the newspapers and such and it always outrages me,, but to hear it from an actual citizen brings a different perspective, at least for me.

I truly hope this ends sooner rather than later OP.

This is a good reason why decentralized alternatives to sites like Reddit are needed.

It's one thing in a country like the USA where there is a (sometimes dubious) code of ethics and rule of law.

It's a completely different matter in an authoritarian society.

>Hence, as internet users, we should look beyond our time and space, ensuring freedom of speech.

What do you think drives the impulse to suppress free speech? And do you really think this is a free speech issue?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification

Law does not equal to the "rules of society", at best they asymptote the "rules of society", if there is even something like that.

In programming term, law is the formalized code (ie a program) of a society's moral stance. And as any computer program, it has bug, unintended behaviours, and changing one part of it will affect other parts due to unknown complexity. Imagine how hard it is to do random stupid CRUD app at scale, our moral code itself is complex and ambiguous, applying to a few hundred millions users and it's a big fat mess that's barely coherent.

I don't have an opinion on the whole "war on drugs" one way or another. But it's straight up dangerous to believe that the law is the be-all end-all in a society, especially when more basic ideals are put down to be less important.

> they broke the rules of society and now society wants to punish them

Contrary to popular belief, every single one of us here on HN are still human, not robots. And we are decidedly part of society.

Then perhaps you should use societies systems in place to change the rules, since you're part of it. Ignoring the law because you think you're morally right is kind of meaningless when talking about law enforcement. That's my point. This isn't about morality. This is about reality. You know they will punish you, you break the law, get caught, then complain that it's unfair? That's what a fool would do.

>they are criminals

They likely disagree that their "crimes" ought to be illegal, and do not accept the legitimacy of any punishment for such behavior.

Why should they have to "make a choice" and make "better decisions" when they don't believe what they've done is wrong?

Bernie Madoff didn't think he was doing anything wrong either. Why should he have to make a choice?

The only reason you are making this comment is because you don't believe drugs (and drug dealing) should be illegal.

Rosa Parks didn't think she was doing anything wrong either. Why should she have to make a choice? The only reason you are making this comment is because you believe drugs (and drug dealing) should be illegal.

Or is it different because fast forward to today, looking back those laws were obviously wrong?

There's nothing incoherent in only supporting people who commit crimes you believe shouldn't be crimes.

In fact, as others have pointed out, doing so is even legally recognized in the form of jury nullification.

> "Bernie Madoff didn't think he was doing anything wrong either."

Do you have a source for that? I would have expected that he knew that what he was doing was wrong, but did not care because he was greedy. Disagreeing with a law and disregarding the law are two separate concepts. People often do one without doing the other.

His apology that he delivered before sentencing suggests that he knew it was wrong. Of course it would be incredibly foolish to take such an apology at face value, but it would be interesting if there are any statements made by him at other times that contradict this.

Madoff stole people money. These guy entered a mutually approved transaction between adults, where both side are usually happy with the outcome.

Bernie Madoff harmed non-consenting individuals.

They likely disagree that their "crimes" ought to be illegal, and do not accept the legitimacy of any punishment for such behavior.

They should probably still accept the reality of the punishment, at least until the law is modified. Disobeying a law for moral reasons is only the first half of civil disobedience.

That's a view I would see nothing more than government propaganda. 'If you don't like the law, then you should break it and peacefully accept any punishments.' Should we tell homosexuals in some areas of the world that they should go ahead and draft up their wills and turn themselves to be executed because they should accept their punishment for their crime?

You seem to be assuming the government wants people to break its laws, so it gets to punish people.

It costs the government money to put people in prison; not only the cost of their food, shelter, supervision, etc. but also the cost of removing a taxpayer from the workforce. Furthermore, a democratically elected government that is increasingly imprisoning more and more of its people is not likely to remain popular. It is in the government's best interest to only enforce laws that the majority of people are happy to obey.

Civil disobedience is a technique that protesters who think a law is unjust use to take advantage of this interest. By deliberately disobeying the unjust law and accepting the punishment for it, they help put pressure on legislators to change it. The government prefers a situation in which no laws are ever broken--that's why it makes such an extensive effort to incentivize citizens not to break them--but in the case where enough people feel it is in their best interest to break the law even with the punishment that comes with doing so, as people who use civil disobedience do, then the law must change if it is to reflect the will of the people.

The example you gave re: homosexuals/death penalty is extreme, but follows the same principles, as long as that government is democratically elected. Most democracies don't get to the point where they're throwing the death penalty around willy-nilly though, thank God.

While the amount charged to the public (and the deleterious effects of liberal incarceration on communities) is real, the costs cited may be exaggerated. The "Kids for Cash" kickback system comes to mind. They can turn a profit.

It isn't the majority of all people that matters, just the most consistent individual groups of voters. And felons can't vote. How do you disenfranchise and silence entire communities of people? Disproportionately charge them with felonies. It's obviously broken.

Civil disobedience makes sitting ducks of powerless people. Idealism doesn't change laws, or political culture, or us-vs-them mentalities, or nepotism, or corruption, or revolving doors. Law makers change laws, and not easily. Occupy changed what exactly? Maybe it influenced the adoption of Cop Cams a little, but it had little effect on banking practices, and that system affects pretty much everyone.

Change isn't hopeless, but it doesn't work the way you'd hope it would.

People with power almost invariably attended a history class or two sometime in their lives, and remember what can happen to the Marie Antoinette's and Nicolae Ceaușescu's of this world.

If you were in power, and you feared civil unrest, it would be in your best interest to establish civil disobedience as the most severe form of legitimate protest. The idea that dissidents should not use violence but should instead submit themselves to arrest is very convenient for those who already have power.

In public schools across America, civil rights activists who advocated non-violent civil disobedience are lionized, while civil rights activists who advocated for techniques that did not involve martyrdom are either ignored or vilified. The first are given credit for the relative success of the civil rights movement, while the role of the later is severely downplayed. I do not believe that this is an accident.

You and washadjeffmad both make very important points. Thank you!

>It costs the government money to put people in prison; not only the cost of their food, shelter, supervision, etc.

Except when being used as a talking point to stir a base, they do not care. If anything, their budgeting practice of use it or lose it creates a desire to spend as much as they can.

And as the other commenters have pointed out, it is very very beneficial for the most virtuous form of protest to be 'break the law and accept punishment'.

... and how well does a society function if everyone gets to decide for themselves what rules they follow?

You're describing reality. When was the last time you jay walked?

Not a crime where I live. Some places run on civil law rather than the ad-hoc patchwork of common law.

I haven't in decades.

But then I live in Southern California and nobody walks here.

How does a society function when only a few make the rules for the many?

http://gawker.com/study-the-u-s-is-an-oligarchy-1563363760

As long as interactions between people are governed by the consent of all parties rather than unilaterally by the rules of one: pretty darn well. If what you're doing only affects you, only you ought to have jurisdiction.

Considering that police and normal people do this every single day, I'd say pretty well.

It doesn't matter if you disagree or not, it IS illegal.

Here's a hypothetical situation that will give you some perspective to consider:

Eating unhealthy food with a high fat and sugar content in your country is highly illegal. In this hypothetical country you live in, the offence of eating unhealthy food is a felony and punishable by time in prison. This law makes sense: It's for the good of the people. It's a victimless crime, but the war on unhealthy food needs to be enforced or else society will become so fat the entire system will collapse. People will be gorging themselves on big macs instead of showing up for work. Think about the children! The kids will get so fat they'll be unable to find a partner, and won't be able to get a job. People will become addicted to unhealthy food and permanently damage their bodies, causing them to die early.

We need to ban unhealthy food, and throw all of the law breakers in prison like they deserve.

It doesn't matter if you disagree or not, it IS illegal.

Damn straight. Where do I sign up?

You can't, that's illegal.

Legally, in some places homosexuality is punished by death. The law is the law, so should they just shut up and be executed?

That doesn't apply here and you know it. This is the US justice system and I get tired of the red herring bullshit.

The US law where homosexuals were locked in cages less than 15 years ago, where their are still homosexuals in cages and under other punishments for actions that would have been legal if they had been heterosexuals (one example a child molester in Georgia who would have been protected under Romeo and Juliet laws had the young party been a girl instead of a boy). We still have a justice system where owning certain plants can get you years if not decades locked in a cage. If you smell any BS around here, I'd think the natural source would be the legal system.

Listen we are talking about two different things and that's my point. I don't care about moral judgements. This is about reality - if there is a law on the books, right or wrong, and you knowingly break that law, will you be surprised when law enforcement comes after you? This is about personal responsibility. You make a decision and you pay the consequences, right or wrong.

Well, looking through the article it seems as if the government wants Reddit to cough up the identities of these 5 people because they've spoken about or otherwise implied knowledge of who the administrators were on a drug trading operation. Now of course there might be prosecutors intending to charge them as accessories, but it might be as simple as wanting to compel testimony about the admins.

For example, Suppose you sell servers, and someone calls you up one day wanting 30 of them. You hit it off with this client, a friendship develops, and 6 months later that person, in an unguarded moment, says 'heh, I bet you never thought those 30 servers would end up as part of the 'Drugz, maaan' empire.' Now, unless you're a mandated reporter nothing criminal has occurred so far - you gained knowledge of criminal activity, but your friend hasn't ordered any more servers from you and so you're not taking part in any conspiracy, plus you were paid long before you learned this information (let's assume you can prove all this). However, if you bragged to someone else that you knew who the boss of 'Drugz, maan' is, then prosecutors would be able to subpoena your testimony whether you wanted to give it or not.

This is just a made-up example; I just want to point out that it's not necessarily a question of criminality or free speech. The government (ie the US government, following common law principles)has always been able to compel testimony except from a defendant or a small class of other people who have an intimate relationship with a defendant (doctor/attorney/clergy person). Even though a witness may object to being called and not want to help the prosecution at all (ie a hostile witness), there's still an obligation to testify truthfully. So, free-speech advocates, just because you're allowed to say something and you may not be putting your own freedom at risk, be aware that the subject of your speech could be impacted by your statements.

It is going to be really fun when being third party becomes a crime. When protesting the nth + 1 extension of the Disney protection laws become a crime. When having an unapproved relationship becomes a crime. When failing to report your family for their criminal actions becomes a crime.

This is what most people, even HN users, seem to fail to grasp about this slippery slope we find ourselves hurtling down. The surveillance engine is about control (not security), and as that "control" pervads more and more spaces previously reserved to the individual, I see, given current trajectory, no other end state than pre-crime and thought-crime becoming a reality.

Because buying and selling drugs is a mild crime which carry too harsh sentences. Especially considering the awful prison system which makes no attempt to help inmates become productive members of society.

I'm not sure why you think the majority of Hacker News would be against you.

There are uncomfortable uses of state power in the drug war, like FISA warrants and civil asset forfeiture. This is not one of them.

Edit after reading replies to your comment: Well, I guess I predicted wrongly.

There are two kinds of abuses of state power: one is when legal procedures are abused, which is what you described; the other is when, despite following proper procedures, the outcome is considered unjust. This is what many people feel about this situation.

I can understand that attitude, I don't think there's many on HN who would openly support the public sale of firearms with their serial numbers filed off.

Anti-terroism laws are great, the problem is that everyone is a terroist.

Anti-criminal laws are great, the problem is that everyone is a criminal.

Anti-drug laws can also be great, the problem is that relatively safe drugs are incredibly illegal, and applied typically against minorities, and extremely unsafe designer drugs arn't and circulate amongst the public.

It's not so black and white as I see it, anyway.

>Anti-drug laws can also be great

If we assume a definition of great that allows the following sentence to be true: Racial discrimination can be great.

I'm happy heroin is illegal. Locking people up who use heroin, not so much.

Heroin (diacetylmorphine) isn't illegal, it's a controlled substance. It's still prescribed fairly regularly, and has recognized medical uses.

I think that's a bit pedantic. In context, it is quite obvious the comment is referring to the fact that heroin is illegal recreationally, and thus, not widely available.

Also, while I realise this discussion spans other countries, heroin is not prescribed in the US. In Canada, it is largely prescribed to heroin addicts and not as a pain management mechanism. While I believe it is prescribed in England and probably Europe, the point stands that heroin is illegal for most people in most places.

There are multiple 'grades' of criminals. All of them have one thing in common, they broke the law.

But the law is so widely varied that to group all these people under the same heading and to narrow it down to choice is in quite a few cases simply in error, depending on who you are, where you are and what your genetic make-up is.

Lots of things that are criminal in one place are considered health issues in another, mental health issues in a third and non-issues in a fourth.

Sounds like you're projecting a lot of personal stuff into this. I don't see why anybody would defend darknet dealers. You can't be a responsible dealer if you don't know who you're selling to. Simple as that.

The next two paragraphs you wrote a bullshit though. You said you "made a choice." I suppose that was after you did some time, yes? What did you do before that? Deflecting and ignoring perhaps? Give them a chance to learn.

"violence and drugs" One of these things is not like the other.

What is considered legal and ethical are not always the same thing. Please keep that in mind, the law is not the be-all and end-all. Eventually we reverse laws because we catch up and realize they made no sense. So even the concept of what is legal is very fluid.

The Internet is an information network. There are only two things you can do with it: transmit bits and receive bits.

If your local authorities recognize the right to freely speak (and freely receive speech) you cannot commit a crime online.

In the case of buying or selling contraband, the crime occurs when the contraband physically transfers possession. The network is neither necessary nor sufficient to commit the crime.

Please have a little pity, you never know. But that's beside the point of this article I guess.

I bet you've broken at least one law today, and yesterday, and you'll break one tomorrow. Should we have no pity on you? Would it be reasonable to say that you should make better decisions?

"This isn't a liberty issue."

Wrong. Everything is a liberty issue.

"This is a you're probably a criminal issue"

This is why this is a liberty issue. Or did everyone just forget that it's supposed to be innocent until proven guilty? Even in the fucking article you have Branwen saying that most of the guys are probably just red herrings but that one guy might be a valid target.

Yet here you are making broad, sweeping statements and dismissing any criticism of the justice process through the lense of "people get what they deserve"... and then you continue to attempt to establish your authority as a criminal as a means to prop up your other claims.

"I have no pity. None."

Let me ask you seriously, who of the people being targeted do you have no pity for? Is it only for NSWGreat? What about Branwen? The other guys? Are they all immediately criminals in your mind? Based off what evidence?

Here's another reason your post is asinine: the way the current system is set up, almost everyone commits a crime everyday. This hasn't applied quite as much in the computer world but due to the fact that the powers that be woke up and recognized the internet as a threat, more and more computer fraud and abuse act style legislation is popping up and pretty soon it will be the same online (e.g everyone commits an online crime once a day)

You do realize, through your self proclaimed vast experience, that the justice system is corrupted as fuck right, and that simply putting bad guys in jail isn't how it always works out right?

I don't see any crime being committed, except maybe thought-crime.

The reason I know you're lying is that anybody that I have met that has done any time says they wouldn't wish it on their worse enemy.

So your anecdote has become irrefutable evidence?

Some people enjoy prison. I imagine they're not common.

They're habituated to it maybe. It may be "comfortable" because they know it well and that familiarity allows people who likely had unstable home situations to appreciate the comparatively stable situation of prison to be preferable.

I had a whole response here but I took it out. I'll put it this way - you don't know what you're talking about and my name is right there in my nick. Do some investigation then return and tell me I'm lying.

OK tough guy. Maybe you just have a lot less empathy than the average criminal.

Most guys I know that have done time certainly don't love the cops. But when you get caught doing a crime they don't protest either.

And you call me tough guy. That's funny. I told you I committed crimes, that I was a violent person in the past. Then you attack me and you want me to be civil? I don't have that in me sorry. I'm a victim of the system you see. Pity me.

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