full-disclosure - Re: Tools accepted by the courts

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Message-ID: <200507051743.j65Hhdj8017796@turing-police.cc.vt.edu>
Date: Tue Jul  5 18:43:58 2005
From: Valdis.Kletnieks at vt.edu (Valdis.Kletnieks@...edu)
Subject: Re: Tools accepted by the courts 

On Tue, 05 Jul 2005 02:04:20 -1000, Jason Coombs said:

> I'm sorry but that's just absurd. How will there ever be 'evidentiary 
> standards' on the contents of my filing cabinet and my personal 
> pornography collection?

If the police seize the filing cabinet, and then leave it sitting out on
a loading dock, and it gets stolen and then recovered from a dumpster,
the defense attorneys can probably get any contents in it after the recovery
from the dumpster thrown out, based on "evidentiary standards" - the chain
of custody has been broken.

Similarly, there's standard ways of handling fingerprints, and DNA, and
fiber samples, and spent cartridges and bullets, and almost everything else,
so that the prosecution can prove that *this* fingerprint/bullet/DNA/elephant
was the same exact one, in the same condition as found.

> The police find the data where they find it. That's called 
> 'circumstantial evidence' and digital evidence will always be treated 
> exactly as such no matter who we successfully convince of the flaws 
> inherent in the filing cabinet or printed document/glossy photograph 
> analogy.

No - "circumstantial evidence" is evidence that doesn't actually tie the
perpetrator to the scene, but assists in building the case.  For instance,
the fact that your car got a parking ticket just around the corner from the
murder scene, 15 minutes before the murder, is circumstantial, but establishes
that there's a high likelyhood that you were in fact in the area at the time.
Similarly, if 45 minutes after the murder, you were stopped at an airport
security checkpoint in a very agitated state and carrying $75K in cash and a
one-way ticket to someplace we don't have an extradition treaty with,
that would be circumstantial as well.

> Please get a clue before you hurt somebody.

Amen.
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