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.
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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.
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
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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)
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.
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.
Oh no! What would happen to them if they were caught?
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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.
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because the plain text is rather clear
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.
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed”.
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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.
I don’t believe that would happen
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.
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.
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You seem to be under the impression that the prosecution would admit they got the data from there in the first place. They wouldn’t. Police and prosecutors lie and judges let them, no longer the neutral arbiters of dispute but the hammer of (in)justice.
They do this all the time, as others reminded me the term for it is parallel construction, and they almost always get away with it. This information is classified so it’s not like even if you suspected they found the information there you could subpoena it and prove it. If you could prove they had access to it there they would claim they didn’t notice it and there case came about in another way.
And if both of those arguments failed, judges might just let it through anyway on a decades old (unconstitutional) scotus precedent that says if authorities acted in good faith fruit from the poisoned tree can be used. ;
You really don’t know how bad the courts are, most people don’t. No one makes a big deal out of it so how would you know, unless you were sensitized to it first seeing firsthand them abuse their power.
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But as I said you wouldn’t be able to prove they got it in that raid. You wouldn’t be able to subpoena the information from that raid to prove they found it then at all. And even if you could, that precedent allows them to use it anyway.
I know it’s supposed to work the way you are talking about, but it doesn’t anymore. For a very small number of people does it work the way it’s supposed to, and that was before this administration went mask off.
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there would be no way to hide that they accessed the data
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.
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Always ironic when they complain about others not following orders.
Well, they can try and put it in as evidence somewhere, but no judge would ever accept it after this
Narrator: And they searched the data anyway.
I would be highly surprised if they haven’t yet cloned the drive
Send these criminals to the hauge
As if they would not have already copied everything on those drives that was days ago. As if they wouldn’t copy it anyway and lie about it.
This judge, magistrate whatever should’ve never betrayed the 1st amendment with that warrant in the first place, now is covering for his betrayal with this order that makes it look like he’s balancing the 1st amendment and pretends like they don’t already have the information.
