[wildmusings]

When you work somewhere, you end up having access to all sorts of stuff. E.g. through the issue tracker, you might be able to see things about projects that are supposed to be secret (as in company-secret, not government-secret). If you resign and your usb drive has a bunch of deleted files about that stuff, that has nothing to do with your job, that’s a reasonable basis for serious suspicion.

You don’t need a smoking gun of a crime to be suspicious that a crime may have been committed. Suspicious facts are plenty to start investigating, and a mountain of “circumstantial” evidence can even be enough for a conviction.

I don’t know anything about this case, and I’m not accusing this guy of anything, but your line of argument is wrong.

[mdorazio]

That's not how criminal investigation works, that's how a witch hunt works. In order to be a legitimate criminal investigation, the first part needs to be that an actual crime was committed, then suspicious activities are used to justify an investigation and possible conviction based on evidence. Otherwise, police could just run around arresting people because "that guy looks suspicious", search all their stuff and activities for something possibly illegal, and then say "look, we were right all along".

[perennate]

I agree, but keep in mind that Hongjin has merely been charged and not convicted yet. The evidence has not been presented in court yet, and it's quite likely that the evidence is going to be much much more comprehensive than the small set of facts that appeared in the SCMP article. If this is really all the evidence the FBI has, though, Hongjin will almost certainly not be convicted.

[zaroth]

Hasn’t stopped the FBI lately!

[baybal2]

It is your line of argument is wrong, patently wrong.

That's all about accusing a man of murder without proving that the person being murdered is dead. That's unjust, and is a joke of justice, and most fundamental legal standards of criminal law jurisprudence.

Man, who taught you all that?

[perennate]

In the U.S., the defendant can only be convicted if the evidence proves guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

Hongjin has not been convicted yet, so I don't follow the logic in your comment. The criminal case process has only just started and we have not seen the full evidence yet, and there has been no determination by the court system on whether or not he is guilty.

I think there is some confusion because of the differences in the judicial process between the U.S. and other countries like China.

I'm not saying the U.S. judicial process is perfect, but I think it's unreasonable to attack it before a verdict has even been issued.