On 3/22/2011 7:34 PM, Jerome Baum wrote: > Let's rephrase what you said: "From the government alleging 'this person > used a OpenPGP to hide evidence of his crime' it was clear that there > was, in fact, evidence of his crime."
Yes: it's a tautology. A prosecutor is not allowed to make an allegation in court for which they do not have evidence. If the prosecutor says, "this person used OpenPGP to hide evidence of his crime," the prosecutor must be able to present the spoiled evidence and demonstrate it was connected to a crime: otherwise that allegation is barred from the courtroom. How that evidence should be interpreted, how much weight it should be given, etc., is solely the purview of the jury. But if the government says, "this person used a bloody knife to murder someone," then yes, that's evidence there's a dead body that was killed with a knife, because otherwise no judge would allow the prosecutor to make that claim. > Where were you involved? Quoting dictionary.reference.com: ad hominem: > "attacking an opponent's character rather than answering his argument." It's everything-the-government-does-is-evil claptrap that I have no patience for. I am no particular fan of the government, but to think that it would so nakedly act in such a way is ridiculous. > I guess we are talking about different trials. I am talking about a > trial pertaining to the original crime (child abuse), into which "he has > gpg installed" was entered as evidence To repeat what I told you earlier: *there was no such trial*. This is an urban legend in the community. No one has ever been able to produce a citation for me. I've asked, quite a lot of times, and I've done my own digging in Westlaw trying to find it. To the best of my knowledge, it doesn't exist. What exist instead are different trials for evidence spoilation and related charges, in which the defendant's possession of those tools is directly related to the charge. _______________________________________________ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
