this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2025
499 points (99.6% liked)

News

33209 readers
3507 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

What a cowinky-dink!

top 32 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 115 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

System crash my ass most of these agencies have support deals with Cloud providers for their data-storage. What we really need here is evidence of which Cloud providers they are contracted with and sue them for the information.

[–] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 67 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

don't need to sue. fire off a subpoena at the agency for a list of all cloud data supporters, and then fire off subpoenas at them.

Discovery is a bitch if you're trying to cover shit up, and yes, you can subpoena 3rd parties if they have data you need to prove your case. (For example, security recordings from neighboring properties that look in the direction of whoever you're really going after.)

[–] Mirshe@lemmy.world 14 points 14 hours ago

Worst case, "too bad, the data is on the disc, here's a forensic service. You're the government, it's not financially onerous to order this".

[–] saltesc@lemmy.world 15 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

Even then, 14 year old me still figured out how to recover my data from the disk after my "system crashed". Took a trip to the library to Google it and grab a list of CMD commands.

There's just no way that data is magically gone from cloud or system failure.

[–] PKscope@lemmy.world 92 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (1 children)

Sounds like a win by default for the plaintiffs, if I were the judge. Somehow, I doubt it will go that way or that easily, but in a sane or just world, any destruction of evidence, whether purposefully or by negligence (by not having the information backed up in duplicate), is a straight-up tacit admission of guilt.

[–] Echolynx@lemmy.zip 26 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Improper handling of pertinent evidence is what got Alec Baldwin a mistrial. It is seriously impactful.

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 3 hours ago

Fruit of the poison tree. It becomes completely inadmissible, and rightfully so.

[–] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 83 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

ICE is claiming the computer ate its records the day after it was sued for abuse.

404 Media reports that after ICE’s Bridgeview Detention Center outside Chicago was sued October 30 for allegedly abusing detainees, the agency said that two weeks of video footage that could have shown how immigration detainees are treated in the facility was lost in a “system crash” on October 31.

“The government has said that the data for that period was lost in a system crash apparently on the day after the lawsuit was filed,” one of the lawyers representing detainees, Alec Solotorovsky, said in a Thursday hearing about the footage, according to 404 Media. “That period we think is going to be critical … because that’s the period right before the lawsuit was filed.”

[–] KoboldCoterie@pawb.social 104 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

In a sane justice system, this would be treated with utmost contempt and all accusations against them that could have been proven by this would be considered to be factual unless ICE could disprove them. In our justice system, it will probably result in no penalties for anyone involved.

[–] halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world 32 points 15 hours ago

Juries are directly instructed that they can make that exact assumption. Destroying evidence means the jury will assume it was damaging. So to bother doing so, the actual evidence is almost surely worse than what they would assume.

4.19 LOST OR DESTROYED EVIDENCE 

If you find that the government intentionally [destroyed][failed to preserve] [insert description of evidence] that the government knew or should have known would be evidence in this case, you may infer, but are not required to infer, that this evidence was unfavorable to the government. 

https://www.ce9.uscourts.gov/jury-instructions/node/674

[–] higgsboson@piefed.social 7 points 15 hours ago

Adverse inference is very much a thing.

[–] AlphaOmega@lemmy.world 26 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

When a system crashes it doesn't just start randomly deleting videos. HDD recovery should be possible, where are the backups?

100% BS.

[–] frongt@lemmy.zip 9 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

"System crash" is used here in the general sense, not the specific behavior of a program closing or a device turning off. Could be that shit went so wild that the system became unusable. Or a power outage caused data corruption. Or a buffer overflow overwrote critical data. I could go on.

But I don't think any of this happened. I think they just deleted it. Maybe they'll magically find another copy in a few weeks.

[–] AlphaOmega@lemmy.world 2 points 11 hours ago

Time to pull out that electron microscope and get some hard drive recovery

[–] xxce2AAb@feddit.dk 36 points 18 hours ago

Sounds like a revolting "consciousness of guilt" and "obstruction of justice" smoothie to me.

[–] AbidanYre@lemmy.world 28 points 16 hours ago (3 children)

government lawyers said that “we don’t have the resources” to keep preserving surveillance footage from the detention facility. In a seemingly flippant remark

Just how many billions of dollars would it take to back up your shit?

[–] MuskyMelon@lemmy.world 12 points 15 hours ago

All the billions but it's still gonna have system issues if it's evidence against them

[–] BanMe@lemmy.world 5 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

When you're dealing with round the clock FOIA and subpoena requests, because you have a whole department designed to violate people's rights, it really does add up

[–] fodor@lemmy.zip 5 points 12 hours ago

No. It doesn't. Backing up business documents is trivial. Every major company does it.

[–] _wizard@lemmy.world 4 points 13 hours ago

$201 Billion

[–] Archangel1313@lemmy.ca 26 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) (1 children)

"Tee-hee-hee...oops! Did I do that?"

[–] thesohoriots@lemmy.world 5 points 17 hours ago (1 children)
[–] AmbitiousProcess@piefed.social 3 points 17 hours ago

"I can explain, your honor... whoopsies! :3"

[–] NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 20 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

It's so crazy that all these government systems just happen to fail before someone is murdered or evidence is requested.

They really should hire a better IT team.

[–] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 10 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

They really should hire a better IT team.

Orrrrrrrrrr, and hear me out......

Disolve ICE entirely!

[–] NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 3 points 12 hours ago

ICE isn't the only one who seems to have IT problems when something is requested of them.

[–] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 16 points 16 hours ago

Here's how I see this.

"They did an illegal thing!"

"Well, they are required to videotape everything with body cameras. We'll just look at the video"

"We don't have the video"

"You didn't have the video last time either. Or the time before that."

"It was destroyed."

"Well, then you can't prove your case."

[–] paraphrand@lemmy.world 11 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Someone should pass a law demanding redundant backup systems for such things.

[–] Xaphanos@lemmy.world 8 points 17 hours ago

Look up FedRAMP.

[–] theneverfox@pawb.social 10 points 3 hours ago

Wait... How does a "system crash" delete the past 2 weeks of surveillance video? That makes no fucking sense at all

[–] village604@adultswim.fan 7 points 17 hours ago

Why the fuck is a government department storing their data in some dude's house?

[–] vrighter@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 2 hours ago

they are legally obliged to have a backup strategy, no?