Ashcroft Targets U.S. Cybercrime

[Black Unicorn]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Petro" <petro at bounty.org>
To: <cypherpunks at cyberpass.net>
Sent: Tuesday, July 31, 2001 3:38 AM
Subject: Re: Ashcroft Targets U.S. Cybercrime


> At 10:29 AM -0700 7/30/01, Black Unicorn wrote:
> >----- Original Message -----
> >> At 7:20 AM -0500 7/26/01, measl at mfn.org wrote:
> >> >On Thu, 26 Jul 2001, Petro wrote:
> >> >You are confusing "civilians" and LEOs.  Only civilians are held to the
> >> >personal knowledge standard.  Leos are held to profoundly lower
probablity
> >> >models.
> >>
> >> In order to arrest someone they have to have some sort of evidence that
not
> >only was a crime committed, but that the person they arrested has some
> >reasonable probability of actually having committed that crime.
>
> >Uh, no.
>
> >If I were a duly appointed law enforcement official I could arrest you for
the
> >kind of shoes you were wearing.  You'll have recourse eventually, but it
will
> >be after a 24 hour (or so) stay in the pokey and posting bail and hiring an
> >attorney, and....
>
> As a lawyer (and I strongly suspect based on your writing here over the
years that you're not this kind of lawyer) if someone came to you wanting to
sue the NYPD over whatever the legalese is for "false imprisonment" and had
documents to prove that they'd been arrested for wearing purple oxfords on
blue flue tuesday, would you buy a new BMW or a Mercedes?

Neither, because that case would be unlikely to net much more than $10,000 in
settlement.  Hell, the guy who was violated with a baton and has effectively
no colon anymore got a measely few million from the city.

I have done white collar crime work, some related to forced disclosures, but
false imprisonment cases are usually civil cases against private defendants.
It's very hard to get a jurisdiction to pay for "injusticies" committed where
duly sworn law enforcement officials were acting in an official capacity.

> >> Maybe "know" is a little strong, "suspect" is probably a better way of
> >putting it.
> >
> >You're reaching for the criteria by which the legitimacy of the arrest will
be
> >judged ex post.  The terms you are grappling to find are "reasonable
> >suspicion" and "probable cause."  The point you are missing is that
typically
> >the only downside for the officer in making an "illegal arrest" is that the
> >case will get tossed.  Big deal.
>
> I was trying to stay away from "terms of art" where possible, since while I
know what the english words "reasonable suspicion" mean, I know they are also
used in a lot of cop and lawyer shows, as well as by cops and lawyers,
therefore they are overloaded terms and not always in scope.

Granted.

>
> >I suggest you attend 3 years of law school or otherwise educate yourself in
> >the matter before presenting yourself as an authority on the issue and
> >blathering off for paragraphs on end about nothing in particular.  Sheesh,
at
> >least invest in a copy of black's law dictionary or something.  It's common
> >respect for the rest of the list members.
>
> I am seriously thinking about Law School, and several times during this
"conversation" I have made it clear that (1) I am not a lawyer. (2) I am not
speaking from a position of educated authority. I am speaking from *my*
reading of the Constitution and discussions with lawyers and Cops, as well as
other stuff I've read and thought about over the years. I've made it evident
that I do not believe this is the way things *are*, but rather what *I*
believe would work better.

You overestimate the average contextual awareness level of the typical
cypherpunk reader I think.

[...]

> >> Here's how it works (and there is a case going on right now about this).
The
> >government says "you have to have a tax stamp to own <x>". Then doesn't
> >provide you any mechanism to actually *get* that stamp.
> >
> >Chicago does this.  It requires registration for all handguns.  No
> >registrations have been issued since the early 70s or so.  It's been
> >challenged over and over.  It stands.  And will.
>
> Really? You mean *that's* why I couldn't find a gun store in Chicago the
whole 7 years I lived there?
>
> And it was the early 80s during the Byrne administration that new firearms
registrations were halted (although rumor had it that if you knew the right
people, or had a good enough reason you could still get one registered. Of
course, that is normal for Chicago). Registration started in 1968, the law
stoping registration apparently came into effect in 1982.
http://user.mc.net/~chevelle/handgunbans.htm

I stand corrected.  I had confused the 1968 date with the cesasation of
registration issuances.