[asterisk-biz] on the topic of fraud

Sun May 17 19:33:52 CDT 2009

Amen


>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: asterisk-biz-bounces at lists.digium.com [mailto:asterisk-biz-
>>bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Trixter aka Bret McDanel
>>Sent: May-17-09 8:14 PM
>>To: Commercial and Business-Oriented Asterisk Discussion
>>Subject: Re: [asterisk-biz] on the topic of fraud
>>
>>On Sun, 2009-05-17 at 17:02 -0400, SIP wrote:
>>> If this guy had been defrauding AT&T and Verizon out of money by
>>using
>>> up their minutes and not paying bills, then fine.
>>
>>I disagree with the "then fine" part.  Its a civil matter not a
>>criminal
>>matter if that was all he was doing.  Failure to pay your bills should
>>not land you in jail (or the potential for that) in this country unless
>>you do it through fraud (which is what is alleged in this instance).
>>The allegations go beyond just using minutes and not paying bills.
>>
>>They are alleged to have committed fraud (18 USC 1342 or so, mail,
>>wire,
>>etc are all right next to each other and I forget which is which) by
>>forging documents which were used to grant the line of credit (ie
>>instead of prepay or some other mechanism).  The same types of things
>>apply if you lie on a credit card application, mortgage application
>>(why
>>the Clintons had issues during the "white water" stuff, they checked
>>the
>>box saying they would live there for the first year to get a lower
>>interest rate).
>>
>>Now there is the whole 10th amendment argument of whether or not the
>>federal government even has the right to do this ("regulate" as per
>>article I section 8 Clause 3 initially meant "to make regular" not to
>>tax, legislate, or anything else) but that is a totally separate
>>discussion :)
>>
>>
>>>  I'm assuming AT&T and
>>> Verizon were smart enough to cut him off at some point. And now the
>>FBI
>>> is involved. Would it have honestly taken a lot of extra work to hire
>>a
>>> data forensics team to advise them before they actually went on the
>>> raid? Would that extra two days of planning have meant a massive
>>> difference in the back payments?
>>>
>>The FBI has a team based out of Quantico, which is the group that wrote
>>the "take everything" policy.  This includes criminal and innocent
>>systems.  They need to be able to replicate the environment exactly for
>>trial, and until you figure out what is and what is not part of it its
>>safer from a prosecution perspective to take everything.
>>
>>The fact that the agents in charge went on vacation just after and made
>>it really difficult for the innocent customers to get at least copies
>>of
>>their data let alone their hardware back is a bit over the top, they
>>should have left someone in charge that could have dealt with that.
>>
>>They usually do not respond well to claims that stuff needs to be
>>returned, and the problem is that if it never goes to trial they can
>>keep the systems forever.  Now generic fraud like 18 USC 1342 has a 5
>>year statute of limitations, so they can keep it for 5 years unless
>>they
>>can get some additional crime tossed in there, such as financing by a
>>FDIC insured entity (perhaps some of the systems were leased with
>>similarly fradulent documents), which would mean its a crime against
>>the
>>government and thus a 10 year statute of limitations.  After the
>>statute
>>has expired they cant justify keeping the systems, but to keep systems
>>for 5 years basically makes them all but useless in the enterprise
>>anyway.
>>
>>Software being developed, graphics for webpages, etc all qualify as a
>>"artist work in progress" which per first amendment rulings by SCOTUS
>>they have to return immediately upon being notified, yet they regularly
>>do not do this.
>>
>>Note that they do not need to charge anyone, only have an investigation
>>into a crime that has a statute of limitations of X to seize and keep
>>the equipment for that duration.  At the end of the day, yes they can
>>make an affidavit to a judge to get a warrant even if the affidavit
>>contains inaccurate, incomplete, or incorrect information, seize
>>equipment and only return it after its no longer valuable.
>>
>>They can even rely on conflicting statements made by some informant,
>>for
>>example the informant can be obviously just telling stories until they
>>get the one they like (it happens more than you think in the federal
>>system) and based on those statements they can get a warrant.  They
>>have
>>"qualified immunity" in doing this, meaning that you have to show that
>>they knew they lied in the affidavit to sue them, and once the judge
>>signs the warrant they have "absolute immunity" which means that from
>>that point on you cant sue (unless you can pierce the "qualified
>>immunity" layer first).
>>
>>Judges have ruled that as long as the FBI agents are doing what any
>>other FBI agent would think is reasonable they have immunity.
>>
>>
>>So um yeah..  The flipside is that there are customers out there that
>>want phone service and currently do not have any, and it may entail
>>some
>>consulting work to get  them back where they were before all of this.
>>So if anyone is wanting to get a few extra customers they should look
>>at
>>this as an opportunity and try to contact those companies (which may be
>>hard given phone/email systems are now offline :)  and offer services
>>to
>>them.
>>
>>
>>
>>--
>>Trixter http://www.0xdecafbad.com     Bret McDanel
>>pgp key: http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x8AE5C721
>>
>>
>>
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