My recent post, How-To Document Conspiracies and Other Crimes raised concerns with some readers since I did not address the legal niceties of the indictment. Burden of proof, claims not facts, etc. All of which were irrelevant to my point of using “secure IRC” to document a conspiracy or other crimes.
True or false, the indictment serves to illustrate the impact of self-documenting the commission of crimes, if indeed any crimes were committed.
What prompted this post was the suggestion that I was ignoring the “rule of law” in cases such as the one involving Lauri Love.
Perhaps the hacker community is unaware that the “rule of law” is a fiction which the sovereign sets aside at its convenience.
That has always been the case but the disturbing development during the Fear of Terror era, is that abandonment of the “rule of law” has become overt policy.
Iran-Contra is an example of abandoning the “rule of law” but at least those involved were talked about as criminals.
Fast forward to post 9/11 and examples of abandoning the “rule of law” explode: FBI instructs agents to conceal information from triers of fact U.s. v. Michaud, FBI hacking (FBI uses zero day exploits), Director of National Intelligence lies to Congress (Lies, Damned Lies, and Clapper (2015)), are just a few examples. (Is anyone keeping a list of the admitted lies to triers of fact and/or Congress?)
The public and unashamed abandonment of the “rule of law” along with any notion of an independent judiciary, has a deeply corrosive effect on the legitimacy of government.
Judges where alleged crimes against the state are prosecuted, should remember the state abandoned the “rule of law” first. It has no one but itself to blame for the consequences that follow.