Given that the jury was convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that Horn had personally strangled the victim, I’m not seeing much room for doubt as to whether or not Horn knew the victim’s age. Might one of the jurors have demurred if he’d concluded that Horn thought the victim was 14 rather than 12?
In Lousiana, the law provides that it’s a more serious crime to kill someone 12 and under (or 65 and over). They certainly would have convicted him of some variety of homicide, yes, but being able to prove he knew the child was 12 was legally significant.
Smart phones are different because they have our daily lives on them. Now a days people are texting more than ever - very personal deep conversations are available to law enforcement or anyone else with access to your phone - as is your pictures, (often) where you have been, emails, bank data, all kinds of stuff that would have been difficult to compile and search even 10 years ago.
Years of case law had allowed law enforcement access to stuff while you were arrested - for example. Without even a warrant (recently this was reversed) - law enforcement abused this - cause they could (at least for a time). Even the Supreme Court has recognized the importance that smart phones play in our lives and the privacy protections they deserve.
Law enforcement still has access to the same info they had say 10 years ago - they want to listen into phone calls - no problem - they can get a warrant. They want to eavesdrop on text - same thing - the stuff that goes through the telcos is still up for grabs.
They want to read all the texts I’ve been sending for the past 2 years? Fuck them.
I’d wager to say more people have evidence of something they’d be embarrassed about on their smart phones more than they do in the rest of their house.
Without good encryption - and MORE IMPORTANTLY - the infrastructure on the phone that allows for the encryption not to be bypassed - it allows someone with resources and training access to your phone. The NSA is not able to defeat good encryption – they ARE able to get around the encryption by using bugs in software/hardware, keystroke capturing, setting up fake - or stealing others certificates, and all sorts of things. They actually have the ability to target computers going in and out of the country (say a dell going to Dubai) - that package is routed by UPS to secure facilities where spyware is installed or the computer is otherwise rendered useless from a security perspective. They don’t defeat the (strong) encryption - they get around the encryption.
The only way to make cell phones safe from say the Russians - is to also make them safe from Americans - any type of back door access that is enabled for law enforcement - is another layer of potential issues where software/hardware issues could allow another third party to enter. It weakens the phone in and of itself.
An analogy could be a master key on a physical lock. When picking a normal lock - you have one sheer line on each pin that you must find to then apply pressure to one by one until the lock is open. When you have a master key – there are two sheer lines on each pin. This makes it easier in some cases to find - in the individual parts of that pin column are now smaller and easier to physically manipulate.
Given the law as stated, being able to prove that the child is 12 is legally significant. I doubt that this proof was difficult to obtain, text messages or no text messages.
Are you suggesting that this is a strict liability issue? The age is relevant, but whether the murderer knew it or not isn’t?
You could be right. Generally, though, I’d expect to see some kind of a scienter element read into that law by the courts, but maybe not. I haven’t done the research one way or the other.
So to anyone who said only criminals have something to hide, what would have happened if there were smartphones and no warrant searches during Pre-Revolutionary War America? But I guess in the eyes of the Monarchy, the revolutionaries were criminals…
The latest development in the story – an FBI apparatchik tries to command the tide to reverse course at a Congressional committee hearing, but the committee members agree that she’s all wet:
I have a problem with that article - it makes it sounds like the government is asking for weakened encryption, something that can be hacked by them. But my understanding is that’s not the case. The government wants to have strong encryption that their master key can open. This is certainly technologically possible, just like it’s possible to encrypt a message that either one of two people can open with their private keys.
Whether that’s a good idea is another question entirely. I myself don’t want my government to be able to read my private communications, but at least let’s state it clearly. They’re not asking for hackable encryption, they’re asking for keys.
That’s a distinction without a difference. Building a backdoor key into the system is weakened encryption, because it inherently opens a new vulnerability (cracking or stealing the the backdoor key).
OK, so he finds it “depressing” that Silicon Valley can’t find a way to create a magical golden key that only the good guys can use. No word yet on whether he finds it similarly depressing that Wall Street can’t find a way to make everybody rich without anybody having to work, or that Detroit can’t find a way to make cars get 500 mpg while emitting only clean sweet breezes that smell faintly of lavender, or that Washington can’t find a way to balance the budget while giving out money to everybody instead of collecting taxes from them.