Unencrypted chat history is a prime target for police

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/1874605

A 17-year-old from Nebraska and her mother are facing criminal charges including performing an illegal abortion and concealing a dead body after police obtained the pair’s private chat history from Facebook, court documents published by Motherboard show.

  • WasPentalive@lemmy.oneEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I once heard that “Anyone can be charged with a crime if they can be watched closely enough for long enough.”

    • Grimpen@lemmy.caEnglish
      0·
      1 year ago

      I remember that from Don’t Take to The Police. Since gotchas I can think of is touching an eagle feather lying on the ground (endangered animals plus a market for poachers). Point being, that it’s essentially impossible to say with certainty that you’ve broken no law.

      • WasPentalive@lemmy.oneEnglish
        0·
        1 year ago

        And there are so many laws that it is impossible to know all the laws that apply in any given moment. Basically, you always have -something- to hide.

      • Grimpen@lemmy.caEnglish
        0·
        1 year ago

        Found the quote:

        The complexity of modern federal criminal law, codified in several thousand sections of the United States Code and the virtually infinite variety of factual circumstances that might trigger an investigation into a possible violation of the law, make it difficult for anyone to know, in advance, just what particular set of statements might later appear (to a prosecutor) to be relevant to some such investigation.

        Stephen G. Breyer, You Have the Right to Remain Innocent

        It’s used around 4:40 in the Don’t Take To The Police video.

    • maynarkh@feddit.nl
      0·
      1 year ago

      I would like to quote a Hungarian movie classic from 1969 (it was sitting in a box for a decade until it somehow got past the censorship):

      Mutasson nekem egyetlen embert ebben a tetves országban, akire ha kell, 5 perc alatt nem bizonyítom rá, hogy bűnös! Magára is, magamra is, mindenkire!

      Show me a single person in this flea-ridden country who if needed, I can’t prove in 5 minutes that they are guilty! You, me, everyone!

      Other great quotes from the same movie:

      Ahol nem vagyunk mi, ott az ellenség.

      Where we are not, there is the enemy.

      Ezeken lovagol maga? Amit a vaksi szemével lát? A süket fülével hall? A tompa agyával gondol? Azt hiszi, fölér az a mi nagy céljaink igazságához?!

      Are you hung up on these things? What you see with your blind eyes? What you hear with your deaf ears? What you think with your blunt mind? Do you believe these are comparable to the truth of our great cause?

      Just if you thought that these people are not the same as the commies were way back when. Authoritarians tend to be alike.