A US judge on Wednesday blocked federal prosecutors from searching data on a Washington Post reporter’s electronic devices seized during what one press freedom group called an “unconstitutional and illegal” raid last week.
US Magistrate Judge William B. Porter in Alexandria, Virginia—who also authorized the January 14 raid of Post reporter Hannah Natanson’s home—ruled that “the government must preserve but must not review any of the materials that law enforcement seized pursuant to search warrants the court issued.”
The government has until January 28 to respond to the Post’s initial legal filings against the agent’s actions. Oral arguments in the case are scheduled for February 6.
Good thing I totally trust the DOJ to follow court orders.
Always ironic when they complain about others not following orders.
In this case they would have to as there would be no way to hide that they accessed the data without a warrant and also the material would be rendered inadmissible and whoever the DOJ was hoping to jail gets to walk away free
How do you figure that? They already would’ve accessed it, and they are looking for who is talking first, they can find evidence elsewhere if this is disallowed. And they could absolutely violate this without the court knowing, not the least as the court is working on the honor system with these cops.
IT guy here, unless the computer case was sealed, they could pop the drive and use it to make a disk image or simply clone it to another drive, the only way I can see how that could be detected is if you have a log of how many hours it has been powered on and compare it to the drives log.
And even that would require a software layer log that wouldn’t kick in until the software is fully booted. There would have to be a hardware layer controller logging spin up via firmware for that to work.
If they threw this into a cloaner, there’s really no way to tell.
But they wouldn’t even need to do all that, they would just shop around for a trump appointment judge in a nearby district, and then convince them to retroactively rubber stamp a warrant based on some flimsy probable cause, exactly like the Patriot Act was written for. No need to parallel construct.
The point is, none of that data can be used as evidence. If the DOJ presents any evidence that could only have come from that drive (cloned or otherwise) their entire case goes out the window and they get in trouble. Though with the way consequences are being ignored lately I doubt that’s their main concern.
They can always use parallel construction
Same issue. It’s called chain of evidence, something that is required for evidence to be admissible.
No matter what solution one can come up with the origin of the evidence is needed
They present a viable way they found that evidence. They’ve been doing this since forever, using illegal information, then constructing a plausible case for how they found it legally for the courts, which only matters if the accused has good lawyers in the first place.
Parallel construction is a tactic that is used specifically in situations similar to this, in the interest of hiding illegal evidence usage by investigators (amongst other things)
Oh no! What would happen to them if they were caught?
If caught they could be on the receiving end of a rebuke from the judge. I know, pretty serious blow to their feelings but sometimes harsh measures are neccessary.
The material is declared inadmissible and whoever they are prosecuting gets to walk free
Assuming the courts actually follow their own rules, which depending on the judge is a crapshoot now. And if it got there through appeals, the SC is just as likely to allow because they’re complicit.
Also, they’ll still have to data to do whatever the fuck else they want to with it. Like going after others.
Exactly, getting the data was the point, discovering who was talking was the point. They can construct ways to find them and prosecute them from there.
Erm in this case they would. Yes the Trump administration has had a lot of leeway but the Judicial system is not a full on rubber stamp just yet.
And as for the Supreme Court no they actually won’t because the plain text is rather clear. You need a warrant to collect evidence.
“Have a warrant for the phone and whatever is on it? If not sorry per the explicit saying of the constitution it is inadmissible.”
And those others also getting released as it relied on warentless material.
So is the 2nd amendment, that hasn’t stopped them even before the modern political climate. The entire text is a single sentence, explicitly in reference to a regulated militia. That doesn’t stop them from saying it means everyone and their fucking dog.
Given who is in power now the whole “it gives you the constitutional right to a fire arm.” Might want to be reconsidered.
(To be clear not saying Charlie Kirk’s “mass shootings is an acceptable thing to keep our guns.” Logic is still absolutely BS. It’s just with the State on the Federal level and in every Republican controlled state turning to Facisim at a rapid pace a community defense that is armed is looking rather valuable to have.)
Totally agree. They wanted to insist we can be armed, so we will.
A reminder that the California gun control stuff really kicked off in the 1960s when Reagan, with NRA support, passed gun control laws in response to the Black Panthers arming themselves to monitor the cops. And the Black Panthers have started showing up in Minnesota. History loves to repeat itself.
I don’t believe that would happen
How on earth do you even detect that a drive has been accessed? What is there to hide?
I think what he’s saying is, even if they do access it, they can’t ever bring any of that info into a court anywhere without admitting they accessed it.
They can only use information they obtain illegally from this data that has some kind of parallel construction from another source.
Yeah if the data was from a source that the courts considered legal then it would then be viable
Well, they can try and put it in as evidence somewhere, but no judge would ever accept it after this