[colechristensen]

This is complete BS.

The complaint alleges that 1750 messages were posted on an communications system urging employees to blow whistles.

Those messages were linked to an IP address which Comcast pointed at Jones’ home.

Is that enough for a conviction? No, it’s not hard to establish reasonable doubt with that.

But that’s damn well enough for a search warrant to sieze electronics from somebody’s home. Being fired for insubordination, she had motivation, the terrible security practices gave her opportunity, and IP logs are a clear piece of evidence that it could be her.

That’s a pretty solid ground for granting a search warrant.

Hanging up on officers and denying them entry for twenty minutes is a good way to make them nervous about your intentions as well.

IPs can be spoofed? Sorry it would take a hell of a lot of sophistication for that to be what happened or outright evidence falsification on the prosecution. Is it more likely that a somewhat troubled woman logged in to work computers to try to stir up trouble or that a sophisticated act of framing occurred?

[colechristensen]

There is an additional piece of information which doesn’t shine a good light on her: https://cbs12.com/news/local/covid-19-dashboard-designer-fac...

A man got a restraining order against her, and after it expired she started harassing him again and posted explicit pictures of him on a wordpress site and sent it around to people who knew him. She was arrested and charges are pending trial.

This sounds like exactly the kind of woman capable of doing something like the search warrant accused.

[devwastaken]

"is it more likely" if you want to base criminal acts on "more likely" then you're making vast assumptions similar to tabloid drama. You or I don't know the facts of any of this until it's brought and argued in court. People lie, prosecutors lie, defendants lie and neither you nor I can magically predict the outcome. It can very well be occam's razor applies, however occams razor is a logical fallacy.

Officers have a well known history of not having a warrant and acting like they have a warrant so you'll give them implicit permission to search and seize. I don't blame anyone for denying them entry.

You don't have to spoof an IP. Depending on the system you just need a text editor. Are their access logs under good chain of custody? How would a tech illiterate judge know?

These are reasons why I wait for the text of the case.

[colechristensen]

A search warrant isn’t a conviction. You don’t need that much to get one granted and they had plenty.

[x86_64Ubuntu]

The point is why on earth would you send essentially a SWAT team for such a warrant. And no, it's not unsurprising that the data used to back a warrant or prosecution would be falsified. The US system is rife with all kinds of people being railroaded with shaky witness and cops lying about events.

[zaroth]

There was no SWAT team. They rang the bell, stood outside her house, called her on the phone multiple times, and eventually resorted to... knocking loudly.

[colechristensen]

She didn’t let them in for twenty minutes, hung up on the phone and wouldn’t answer the door.

That’s how you get officers fired up and concerned for their safety.

[int_19h]

You don't need to "get officers fired up" to get them concerned for their safety to the detriment of basically everybody else - the training that they get from the likes of Dave Grossman is basically all about getting them "fired up" permanently. Numerous examples of cops going in guns blazing, shooting dogs that run away from them, shooting random people, throwing flashbangs like they are candy etc.

Thing is, nothing that she is accused of requires this level of force, even if she's stalling. If they want her so bad, they can just starve her out.

[colechristensen]

None of that happened here, they didn't appear to use any force besides one officer maybe having his gun out.

They stood outside knocking on the door for twenty minutes rather annoyed.

[foepys]

> That’s how you get officers fired up and concerned for their safety.

What a sad statement about the US. There is something fundamentally wrong when police has to be so afraid of a person without any violence charges that they bring in the same specialists they use to resolve hostage or active shooter situations.

[colechristensen]

But they didn't, this wasn't a SWAT team.

They were all wearing short sleeves. At least one of them was wearing a bullet proof vest.

You can watch the body cam video, the police are just annoyed.

[dylan604]

Is it not possible that a motivated actor covertly sat outside her home to hack her WiFi and maliciously make those posts without her knowledge?

[colechristensen]

Sure, it's possible, but in order for that to make sense they would also have to compromise a computer in that house in order to post from so a search warrant could find that.

That's a pretty heavy duty conspiracy, and it would involve some pretty solid red-team skills. I really think it's beyond a dumb-ass politician to orchestrate such a fraud as a hit against a really low key political adversary. How hard do you think it would be to find a hacker capable and willing to do such a thing, and money to fund that?

On one hand you have this pretty advanced conspiracy which would require high level coordination with very skilled people in order to frame someone who barely matters.

On the other you have a woman who was recently arrested and charged with stalking after enduring a year long restraining order... and the question is if there is enough evidence that she logged on to work computers to write inflammatory things to old colleagues.

What's out there is surely enough for a search warrant. You have to believe a lot of advanced conspiracy theories to say this search warrant isn't valid. Even then the justification is... well it stretches the imagination. State-level framing for an inconsequential thorn in a republican governor's side.

It is possible, but it isn't reasonable.

I would fully expect a guilty plea in a month or two.

[sneak]

The seeking of a (potentially plausible) search warrant by the state to silence a publisher that is publishing things the state doesn't want published is the issue here, not the relative merits of the search warrant itself.

The state was using this as retaliation, not to further the investigation of a crime. That's just the cover story. Even if they make the hacking charges stick, this isn't about hacking at all, it's about publishing.

It's astounding to me to see people regurgitating unsubstantiated cop claims with no evidence.

[colechristensen]

If she did do it, logged on to a work system after being fired to spam a communications system encouraging people to blow whistles... I guess I don’t really care if the motivation to prosecute is political. That’s a pretty clear cut case of a crime being committed.

The defense about the justification for the warrant being dubious is just false. Unless somebody wants to claim the evidence is fabricated, don’t go searching for “experts” to come up with nonsensical refutations.