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Man jailed for parole violations after refusing to decrypt his Tor node

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989 points heavyset_go | 1 comments | 16 Sep 25 12:10 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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tptacek ◴[16 Sep 25 13:26 UTC] No.45261951[source]▶
For whatever it's worth, the Reddit story here says that the federal courts used "fraudulent warrants to jail my husband again". Maybe! The other side of that story, via PACER, is a detailed parole violation warrant (you can hear the marshal refer to it in the video); the violations in that warrant:

1. Admitting to using cannabis during supervised release

2. Failing to make scheduled restitution payments and to cooperate with the financial investigation that sets restitution payment amounts.

3. Falling out of contact with his probation officer, who attempted home visits to find him.

4. Opening several new lines of credit.

5. Using an unauthorized iPhone (all his Internet devices apparently have keyloggers as a condition of his release).

These read like kind of standard parole terms? I don't know what the hell happened to get him into this situation in the first place, though.

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jMyles ◴[16 Sep 25 13:37 UTC] No.45262096[source]▶
This always happens though. Every time someone is thrown in a cage unjustly, the state tries to redirect us (yes, us, here in this forum and others like it) to look at other details of the situation, whether it's details of the person's political or personality or, in this case, details of this (also seemingly unjust) probation violation.

Who cares if he smoked weed or installed a VM or evaded a government keylogger? Those are all really shitty reasons to put someone in a cage, whether it's couched as "probation terms" or not.

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perihelions ◴[16 Sep 25 14:05 UTC] No.45262429[source]▶
I'll steelman the unpopular position: I think sobriety is a reasonable condition of freedom for someone with psychiatric self-control issues, that have lead them to commit felonies in the past.

Vandalizing your employer's infrastructure over a grudge is, I suggest, strong evidence of a major impulse control issue. It think it makes sense and is in the public interest, draconian as it is, that this person shouldn't be allowed to get high and have unmonitored internet access. The same place they've committed felonies before, on impulse.

Further context: his own defense lawyer filed a motion asking a court to find this guy mentally incompetent to stand trial,

https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/USCOURTS-txed-4_19-cr-00...

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klibertp ◴[16 Sep 25 15:08 UTC] No.45263360[source]▶
> I think sobriety is a reasonable condition of freedom for someone with psychiatric self-control issues, that have lead them to commit felonies in the past.

Were he high on weed, maybe he'd not commit the felony in the first place. Yeah, banning him from alcohol is fine, from stimulants broadly - also OK, but weed? Honestly? How often, statistically speaking, does smoking weed make a person aggressive? While this person may be an outlier, without precise information on it, I'd say the ban on weed is as sensible as a ban on butter or relanium. If it doesn't serve any obvious purpose (like with alcohol: being drunk makes you do stupid things more often), then maybe it's really just a way of harassing this person?

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IncreasePosts ◴[16 Sep 25 15:40 UTC] No.45263756[source]▶
Weed for normal people isn't a big deal, but weed for people on the cusp of mental illness or even just mental unwellness can exacerbate whatever issue they are facing.

Alcohol on the other hand mostly just knocks you out from doing anything too cerebral after you pass the ballmer peak. I say this as a person who prefers weed to alcohol 100x.

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1. klibertp ◴[16 Sep 25 20:53 UTC] No.45267892[source]▶
No, the problem here is not being dead drunk and immobile; it's everything before that. Even if you drink strong alcohol, it's going to take a while before you're that intoxicated - in the meantime, you have enough time to vibe-code Windows ME, so to speak (IOW, to drunk drive, throw fists at random people or harass them, get lost and robbed, etc...). People can spend long hours being drunk before collapsing, which is basically begging for trouble, almost no matter what they decide to do during that time.

As for mental health issues worsening due to THC - that's true, but alcohol has a much higher probability of causing or exacerbating such problems. On the other hand, the therapeutic use of THC has seen much better results than alcohol. If both happen to be legal in that jurisdiction, then banning weed but not alcohol really doesn't make sense. Further, even if possession is illegal, smoking itself (without inhaling, or however that went) isn't against the law in many places.

It really just seems arbitrary and strange, unless there was a psychiatric evaluation that we're not aware of, or this happened somewhere where weed is very strictly illegal (think alcohol in Saudi Arabia-level).