> In general if a criminal goes free despite having evidence against him just because the evidence was not obtained legally ... it sounds rather wrong to me.
Then you are terribly shortsighted. It is "innocent until proven" guilty" for many very good reasons. We have only the word of the government that this man is guilty.
The government has ALL the cards and power, the innocent need protection from it more than we need to punish the guilty.
The accused aren't geniuses; the fact that the government didn't build a solid case against him with physical evidence, wiretaps, keyloggers, etc. means he really wasn't that important. The fact that they have such a high profile suspect and can't make the case against him without a fishing expedition makes me VERY suspicious.
The fact that they are willing to drop the case makes me wonder how much of what they have is induced, entrapped, or outright fabricated.
I'm not talking about _this_ particular case. (I'm not sure that accessing a dubious website is in itself a crime; obviously the police accessed the site too).
Presumably the police _can_ prove it, but the court simply refuses to even _see_ the evidence.
> Presumably the police _can_ prove it, but the court simply refuses to even _see_ the evidence.
Then you are required to assume that the police CANNOT prove it.
I have several system administrator friends who have actually dealt with CP on their systems. Every single time it was discovered to have been planted by the FBI attempting to fish for pervs.
So, yeah, I'm gonna give the accused a whopping benefit of the doubt. CP is such a hot button issue and so amazingly rare that I always assume that the government or its agents are up to something nefarious first and that someone is a despicable human being second.
Perhaps my Bayesian prior is wrong, but I kinda doubt it.
Then you are terribly shortsighted. It is "innocent until proven" guilty" for many very good reasons. We have only the word of the government that this man is guilty.
The government has ALL the cards and power, the innocent need protection from it more than we need to punish the guilty.
The accused aren't geniuses; the fact that the government didn't build a solid case against him with physical evidence, wiretaps, keyloggers, etc. means he really wasn't that important. The fact that they have such a high profile suspect and can't make the case against him without a fishing expedition makes me VERY suspicious.
The fact that they are willing to drop the case makes me wonder how much of what they have is induced, entrapped, or outright fabricated.