Victims of Rape to be Asked to Hand Over Digital Devices in UK

[JDD]

There's a coworker/close friend of mine that is married to a subject of the Queen, and never fails to remind her of that reality when the opportunity presents itself.

The Magna Carta was pretty revolutionary in being a document that limits the power of the executive/gov, but our constitution definitely took it up a few notches with regard to putting the brakes on .gov power.


WRT the thread, I would have some serious concerns about a policy like this in the US. The big one that I am looking at is that you may be defacto compelling individuals to provide incriminating evidence against themselves in other, non sexual assault related, matters. It is a policy that is a powerful disincentive to reporting, potentially far more so than a disincentive to provide false reporting.

[Stephanie B]

WRT the thread, I would have some serious concerns about a policy like this in the US. The big one that I am looking at is that you may be defacto compelling individuals to provide incriminating evidence against themselves in other, non sexual assault related, matters. It is a policy that is a powerful disincentive to reporting, potentially far more so than a disincentive to provide false reporting.

Many people's lives are on their phones nowadays. Turning over a phone means opening all of that up for inspection/snarking.

If this is going to be done, we may need a system of "special masters" to determine what is relevant and what is not. As it is, I'd be extremely reluctant to hand a phone over to anyone else.

[TGS]

If this is going to be done, we may need a system of "special masters" to determine what is relevant and what is not.

You mean a judge issuing a warrant upon a finding of probable cause that evidence of a crime is on the device?

[Stephanie B]

You mean a judge issuing a warrant upon a finding of probable cause that evidence of a crime is on the device?

No. Someone whose job it is to examine the phone and determine what is material and what is not.

If I had video/photos of a crime and if I spoke up, the cops would be able to download everything on my phone, I'd keep my mouth shut. And I'll bet most folks would do the same.

[TGS]

No. Someone whose job it is to examine the phone and determine what is material and what is not.

If I had video/photos of a crime and if I spoke up, the cops would be able to download everything on my phone, I'd keep my mouth shut. And I'll bet most folks would do the same.

Someone has that job; the prosecutor makes a determination whether it is or not material, in consultation with the investigating officer. Any evidence of another crime that is come upon when reviewing the data is valid under the plain view doctrine.

I'm not "getting it". Do you want some mystical magical omniscient creature that will give the police only what you want to give them if they seize your electronic data?

[RoyGBiv]

I don't think that this is a bad thing, prima facia.

The devil is in the details.

[Stephanie B]

Someone has that job; the prosecutor makes a determination whether it is or not material, in consultation with the investigating officer. Any evidence of another crime that is come upon when reviewing the data is valid under the plain view doctrine.

I'm not "getting it". Do you want some mystical magical omniscient creature that will give the police only what you want to give them if they seize your electronic data?

Imagine, if you will, that I have an old Super 8mm camera with me. I take a movie of something happening. But when I offer to give that to the cops, they want to read all all of my collected letters, rifle through the photos I have in shoeboxes and albums, check my old phone bills for lists of who I have called, look through files, look at my banking records, write down the titles of the books I've bought and see who is in my address book and compare that to my Xmas card list..

That is the equivalent of what is on most people's smartphones.

(In my case, even though I've been retired for a little bit, there are emails and texts from clients that are arguably confidential.)

Can you see why I'd not be willing to give that roll of movie film to the cops?

[gtae07]

Someone has that job; the prosecutor makes a determination whether it is or not material, in consultation with the investigating officer. Any evidence of another crime that is come upon when reviewing the data is valid under the plain view doctrine.

I'm not "getting it". Do you want some mystical magical omniscient creature that will give the police only what you want to give them if they seize your electronic data?

Ideally, if the government could be trusted with such a thing, there would be an intermediary that would pass through only evidence germane to the case. “Plain view” applied to what an officer can physically see through the windows of a car on a traffic stop, or what’s sitting out during the execution of a valid search warrant, is one thing, because it’s limited to the physical world at a human scale. Applying it as “if I see one thing on your phone, then I get to see everything on your phone” is something else, because phones now extend into so much more of peoples’ lives than just the view through a car window or the physical items present in a house—and doubly so when you’re talking about witnesses and third parties, not suspects.

If I were in this situation (e.g. a witness to a crime) and had something like a video or photos of said crime being committed, I’d like to be able to provide that evidence without handing the government an open license to go on a fishing expedition through every photo, email, text message, location history, or anything else that could be stored on my phone, looking for things completely unrelated to the matter at hand.

Right or wrong, the advent of smartphones means that all aspects of a person’s life can now be tied up in one accessible node. The old evidence rules that allowed everything on, say, a camera to be searched through perhaps made sense 20 or 30 years ago, when cameras held low double-digit numbers of photos—and only those photos, stored on physical film. Not texts with my friends or my wife, not my browsing history, not all 2000+ photos I’ve taken in the past two years, not emails with records of financial transactions, and so on. I’m not aware of any other case where we require such a level of invasive examination of witnesses; we don’t require people who witnessed a convenience store robbery to submit to searches of their houses and cars (unless we can get enough evidence together to persuade a judge that they were accomplices or something), but apparently anything on a witness’s phone is fair game even if they’re just making a good faith effort to help? Sounds like a good way to disincentivize anyone from coming forward with information. Why should I provide evidence if my “papers and effects” can then be searched just like I was a suspect?

Worse yet is a scenario where the government subpoenas the electronics of everyone present—victim(s) and witness(es) alike, on the grounds of “you had a smartphone and were present, so we want evidence”—and then proceeds to harvest all that data, run some fancy algorithms on it, and start handing out charges based on everything else it found on all those phones. And then through the magic of facial recognition, subpoenas everyone present in the questionable photos, and searches their phones, and so on.

That may be a little absurd now, but I don’t think it’s that far outside the realm of possibility.

Leaving aside references to Cardinal Rechelieu and making the optimistic assumption that no crimes have actually been committed, why should the prosecution and government as a whole be entitled to full and open access to all of that information?

I know, I know, if I haven’t done anything wrong I should have nothing to hide.

[TGS]

@gtae07, @Stephanie B,

Many police departments possess instruments to just transfer the video file of the assault your just witnessed, so that shouldn't really be a problem. They'll probably ask to see the previous video to make sure you don't have multiple videos of the event, but if you witness an assault and the cops show up, you really shouldn't be afraid to tell them you have video of it. At least check with your local departments if they have this capability so you can make an informed decision instead.

[STI]

Maybe I'm the only dick here but I'll say it anyway.

I have zero sympathy for the situation of (mostly women) victims being asked to provide digital data to help determine whether they're making false accusations or whether there was a real crime. Thank the thousands of women worldwide who chose to abuse the "believe all women" line of shit we've been fed.

I hate rape. I also hate intentionally lying fake "victims" who create criminal charges for others and ruin lives.