Rebekah Jones house raid for "security breach"

cosmicaug said:
  1. It's not even legally problematic for the police after the fact. Police are not considered to be obligated to tell anyone the truth.
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  1. It'll be problematic in the following civil suit against the state.

    Police may not be obligated to disclose facts and are empowered to lie to a suspect during an interrogation, sure; but lies made in statements directed at the public can still be tortious.
 
cosmicaug said:
It probably depends on what you mean by 'ordinary", on how big they are, on what they feel they have at stake and on how much money they are willing to spend on legal actions (which probably depends on how big they are).

We can certainly find examples of businesses that maliciously prosecute folk who find vulnerabilities (at all levels of stupid: from subtle exploits no one should have been expected to know about to just leaving sensitive things out there on FTP servers so that they are accessible with anonymous logins) and are open about it and communicate them to the company so that they may be addressed.
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You seem to be referring to civil complaints. Felonies and misdemeanors are criminal charges. Aside from bribing the DA, all a business can do about a criminal charge is call the cops. Money doesn't change that.
 
cosmicaug said:
The message I was replying to was responding to a comment I had made regarding how the impression given about her denying a warrant for 20 minutes was false in that it was clearly not supported by the bodycam video. That was the context in which I was seeing my response.

I don't believe that the police paying someone a visit is considered a violation of due process. If they had set foot in her house at that point, then it would have been but that did not happen. As for this being considered a search, it is also my understanding that currently it is considered that whatever can be seen from the outside is not considered a 4th Amendment violation.

And again, phoning in a request for a search warrant while ready to come on site is not unheard of either.
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When they come in force and prepared to use firearms against children I would think that the additional preparation of having a warrant in support of their action would be a standard step.

It isn't like they were just passing through and suddenly had some reason to want to go into the house.

They were there specifically to enter the home and remove private property. That was their intent from before they arrived. Certainly they didn't expect the people there to just let them in and take what they wanted without complaint.

The whole operation seems remarkably slipshod on their part.
 
quadraginta said:
You seem to be referring to civil complaints. Felonies and misdemeanors are criminal charges. Aside from bribing the DA, all a business can do about a criminal charge is call the cops. Money doesn't change that.
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No, I'm referring to how computer crime legislations seem to be written broadly enough that someone disclosing a vulnerability of a business can often be in legal jeopardy depending on how the business responds and if said business chooses not act in good faith.

My impression (as someone not in the field —so take it with a grain of salt) is that most of the time these days this doesn't happen & that usually companies realize that it is in their best interest to work with security researchers & others who may have found vulnerabilities. However, most of the time is not always and you still see cases of companies who will want to cover up vulnerabilities, act in bad faith & press criminal charges if none of that works.

But you are right and it's possible I'm confused. Money shouldn't change that.
 
quadraginta said:
When they come in force and prepared to use firearms against children I would think that the additional preparation of having a warrant in support of their action would be a standard step.

It isn't like they were just passing through and suddenly had some reason to want to go into the house.

They were there specifically to enter the home and remove private property. That was their intent from before they arrived. Certainly they didn't expect the people there to just let them in and take what they wanted without complaint.

The whole operation seems remarkably slipshod on their part.
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I don't think I can disagree with what you wrote.

Like even if they were hoping to to BS their way in, any case that anyone might hope to build against her would, presumably, require a seizure of equipment (as you point out, that was the express purpose of the visit).

It's one thing to BS their way in and then just happen to see some actionable thing that provides for probable cause. It would be a different thing altogether to BS their way in and then somehow persuade someone into voluntarily giving them their stuff. IANAL, but I really don't think that such a "voluntary" seizure would even hold up in court.
 
cosmicaug said:
  1. What law enforcement did a couple days ago has no bearing upon her guilt or innocence in regards to an event that happened on November.
  2. It's not even legally problematic for the police after the fact. Police are not considered to be obligated to tell anyone the truth.
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  1. That is why their narratives are so often at odds with video and physical evidence. Of course when they lie in a police report it is business as usual but if you do it is suddenly criminal.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
I believe the discussion was about had the police started the search before the warrant or had the warrant been obtained under false pretenses.
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That is just business as usual, remember police are allowed to lie so they lie to a judge and it is all good. See the Breonna Taylor search warrant.
 
cosmicaug said:
I don't think I can disagree with what you wrote.

Like even if they were hoping to to BS their way in, any case that anyone might hope to build against her would, presumably, require a seizure of equipment (as you point out, that was the express purpose of the visit).

It's one thing to BS their way in and then just happen to see some actionable thing that provides for probable cause. It would be a different thing altogether to BS their way in and then somehow persuade someone into voluntarily giving them their stuff. IANAL, but I really don't think that such a "voluntary" seizure would even hold up in court.
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There are a lot of games played with "consensual" searches, but this happens mostly in small quantity drug busts. To me it seems to be a curious anomaly in the American justice system that police are required to inform people of their fifth amendment right not to self incriminate (the Miranda warning) but they are allowed to bluff or bully citizens into giving up their fourth amendment protection against unreasonable search and seisure. In the case in this thread, though, it would seem highly unlikely that they would show up without search warrants in hand.
 
CORed said:
There are a lot of games played with "consensual" searches, but this happens mostly in small quantity drug busts. To me it seems to be a curious anomaly in the American justice system that police are required to inform people of their fifth amendment right not to self incriminate (the Miranda warning) but they are allowed to bluff or bully citizens into giving up their fourth amendment protection against unreasonable search and seisure. In the case in this thread, though, it would seem highly unlikely that they would show up without search warrants in hand.
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Yet in this case, they did exactly that.
 
CORed said:
There are a lot of games played with "consensual" searches, but this happens mostly in small quantity drug busts. To me it seems to be a curious anomaly in the American justice system that police are required to inform people of their fifth amendment right not to self incriminate (the Miranda warning) but they are allowed to bluff or bully citizens into giving up their fourth amendment protection against unreasonable search and seisure. In the case in this thread, though, it would seem highly unlikely that they would show up without search warrants in hand.
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Yes it does seem odd that they didn't get the warrant first. Or just use police prerogative to lie about having a warrant to gain consent.
 
Wow - her hacking skills are awesome... “ the suit notes that state officials had posted the platform’s login credentials on the internet” Imagine being able to connect to the internet and find something? Hopefully the intelligence services will employ this amazing hacker.
 
We need top to bottom police reform in the US. Firstly, they should be absolutely isolated from any elected official's ability to influence. Secondly, they need to be bound to iron-hard rules of conduct that prohibit them from dishonesty in dealing with the public and forbidding them to use unjust, unreasonable force. They also need to be affirmatively required to protect all persons' rights while those persons are in their custody. As well as to perform their duty to all members of the public without favoritism or bias.
 
ChristianProgressive said:
We need top to bottom police reform in the US. Firstly, they should be absolutely isolated from any elected official's ability to influence. Secondly, they need to be bound to iron-hard rules of conduct that prohibit them from dishonesty in dealing with the public and forbidding them to use unjust, unreasonable force. They also need to be affirmatively required to protect all persons' rights while those persons are in their custody. As well as to perform their duty to all members of the public without favoritism or bias.
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The thing is ... most such rules already exist.

The problem is, they are not enforced. They are largely ignored by the cops, who know that they can ignore them with impunity because they won't get called for ignoring them.

And even when they do, they will just pull up stakes and get another cop job at the next cop shop down the road. About the only thing that seems to squash a cop's career is ratting out other cops for ignoring the rules. (Although acting like human beings and treating the people they encounter with respect might run a close second.)

More cops behind bars would see a change in behavior, but that generally won't happen because the poor dears might get mistreated if they get locked up for breaking the law.
 
quadraginta said:
The thing is ... most such rules already exist.

The problem is, they are not enforced. They are largely ignored by the cops, who know that they can ignore them with impunity because they won't get called for ignoring them.

And even when they do, they will just pull up stakes and get another cop job at the next cop shop down the road. About the only thing that seems to squash a cop's career is ratting out other cops for ignoring the rules. (Although acting like human beings and treating the people they encounter with respect might run a close second.)

More cops behind bars would see a change in behavior, but that generally won't happen because the poor dears might get mistreated if they get locked up for breaking the law.
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Then have isolated facilities in prisons just for cops... so they can all rot in jail together.
 
https://www.wptv.com/news/state/arrest-warrant-issued-for-former-florida-dept-of-health-analyst-rebekah-jones

https://twitter.com/GeoRebekah/status/1350524144434241536

(Or the Threadreader version at https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1350524144434241536.html)

BREAKING: FDLE found no evidence of a message sent last Nov. to DOH staff telling them to 'speak out' on any of the devices they took - the entire basis for the raid on my home in Dec. The warrant was based on a lie. We argued this in court just last week. This should be victory.

However, police did find documents I received/downloaded from sources in the state, or something of that nature... it isn't clear at this point what exactly they're saying I had that I shouldn't have had, but an agent confirmed it has nothing to do with the subject of the warrant

The raid was based on a lie. Still, the state has issued a warrant for my arrest - even though the 'crime' is not related to the warrant, the scope of the warrant, and they didn't wait for a third party to review confidential information on my computers. The new allegation...

... was issued the day after a Tallahassee judge told police that if they're not investigating a crime, they had to return my equipment. They didn't find proof of anything related to the warrant, so they invented something new to come after me for in retaliation.

To protect my family from continued police violence, and to show that I'm ready to fight whatever they throw at me, I'm turning myself into police in Florida Sunday night. The Governor will not win his war on science and free speech. He will not silence those who speak out.

A potential condition of my release may be no access to computers, internet or electronic devices. Bogus charges designed to silence and now jail me for being a scientist critical of the government. That's the textbook definition of #censorship.

The agent told my lawyer there would be only one charge, but emphasized that speaking out or going to the media may result in police "stacking" additional charges. All of this just to silence a critic of a governor who failed to do his job and got thousands killed as a result.

Saying goodbye to my family just now is the hardest thing I've ever done in my life.
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I'd be extremely skeptical of Jones' lawyer's claims. Even if this may have been a fishing expedition/intimidation campaign all along and even it were true that they found nothing related to what the warrant was supposed to be looking for, I don't think that fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine/exclusionary rule works the way they are implying.

Evidence would have to be thrown out if the search was illegal. In this case, that would mean that evidence would be thrown out if the warrant request was found to be illegal (which would make the search illegal). This is a much higher burden of proof than whether they found what they were looking for. Here they would have to demonstrate something like a lie having been used to obtain the warrant. If, for instance, the warrant was based on IP address matching (as some newspaper stories have claimed —this is key, as long as we don't know what the warrant was based on we can't say it was based on a lie) and no one had actually ever matched an IP address, that would count as an illegally obtained warrant & it would make the exclusionary rule applicable. On the other hand, them not finding what they were looking for (which is what Jones seems to be saying is the case) would not count as a lie (obviously, that's what they are trying to find out).

The scope of the warrant would be relevant. If police got a warrant to search your car it would not automatically give them permission to search your summer home. However, I am guessing that the scope in this case would simply be a forensic search of her devices. If they found something other than what they were looking for while searching them I doubt that the case could easily be made that they were searching out of scope. That is, if there's a valid warrant to search your laptop for the stolen Neiman-Marcus cookie recipe and they find a stash of child pronography instead, you are going to get charged with possession of child pornography even if they had not been looking for that in the first place.
 
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