Proving possession

[newideas]

I was spinning my Godson's scenario to former law
enforcement officer the other day and here's what
I got: "the way it is done is that when you bust
an organization you seize the head guy. At that
point he'll do anything. That's when you take over
his enterprise in order to get to his contacts and
suppliers. You never announce a bust until you've
got the whole chain." I was wondering if that's
why "possession" seems to be the sticking point
in so many of these cases. They could get an
affadavit from a busted dealer stipulating that
some sort of shipping happened any time they
want, but if they present the real evidence
someone could come back on Dave as the one
shipping product.

[JD490]

Some of the problems with that is the law they use says possession of a decryption interception device is a criminal charge, but they would have to prove its only use is interception. A programmer isn't only used for that. They can't claim civil damages just because you are in possession of the device. Since the law they use doesn't give them punitive damages for possessing the device they can't win anything for that charge. Now if they win there case in court against you the US attorney's office could bring charges against you after that for possession.

Here is what they claim from the letter
See 18 U.S.C. § 2512(l)(b) (making it illegal to "possess" any electronic, mechanical or other device, knowing or having reason to know that the design of the device renders it primarily useful for the purpose of the surreptitious interception of an encrypted satellite signal).
What they don't tell you is the law they state doesn't give civil punitive award for possession only that it is illegal. The only way they can get money from you is either a law states a damage award for breaking that law or they prove you damaged them by breaking that law. The only way they can prove you damaged them is by proving you used the device. The longer Dave does this he is going to dig him self into a pit. If he drops all the civil cases before they go to trial then he is conducting a illegal business practice because he never intended to sue anyone just scare people into settlements. This is where the class action comes into the picture. The problem is this will take 3-5 maybe 7 years for everything to run its course. That’s going through appeals too.

[SHWAGNES]

Originally posted by JD490
What they don't tell you is the law they state doesn't give civil punitive award for possession only that it is illegal.

Here is how it will work based on the dollar amount towards damages Dave will be seeking. What they do is take the top 10% of subs which comes out to $2450.00 per year per sub and hell yes, there are people out there who can and do afford this type of bill just for TV. Lets talk about the plug and play ISO devices used by the ones who bought from dealers who advertise the use for satellite programming. To lie and chance perjuring your self in federal court is not worth the risk... I know in criminal cases in federal court the US attorney just has to prove your guilt you do not have to prove your innocents, weather civil court works the same way, I don't know for sure. I can tell you this much Federal judges hate these type of cases and lets not talk about jury selection which you can bet your a$$ some will be legit DTV subscribers. This is NOT some BS. small claims court this is for real take it lightly you'll lose. Lets say for example you lose in criminal court on DMCA case, you can bet your ass DTV will file a civil suit against you. Now lets say you lose in civil court to DTV can the USAO indict you on criminal charges and haul your a$$ back into court? You will not beat a conspiracy charge which is two or more people, this will be just one charge you'll face and yes to attempt to program an access card you committed conspiracy weather you received help or helped out.

These are just things that need to be thought about by ones who received letters and or may in the future. I personally believe if every person read the statutes involved with hacking Dave\Charlie 90%
wouldn't take the risk... Good luck to all :)

[newideas]

The law states a device whose design "renders" it
primarily useful for illegal purposes...
It purposely doesn't says "can be made" primarily useful for.
An unflashed Atmel device does not have a design
that "renders" it primarily useful for anything except
maybe as a puck substitute. The "rendering" is done
when it is flashed by the end user. The user may
also "flash" the chip to be a programmer, a door
opener, or any one of many other "primary" uses.
An pre-flashed unlooper is not renderable to do
much other than naughty things, but a 3 in 1 needs
to be rendered primarily useful by an end user.
Analogy: most scanners come with a full range of
frequencies built in, and are "strapped" to prevent
you from unlawful interception of cell phone calls.
If you unscrew the cover and take of the straps, you
have now "rendered" the scanner to be of many uses,
one of which is unlawful. But buying/possessing the
scanner itself was not unlawful because the design
of the device didn't render it primarily useful
for interception.

[ELF-CO]

Originally posted by SHWAGNES
… and yes to attempt to program an access card you committed conspiracy weather you received help or helped out. Nonsense. The legal definition of "conspiracy" is "An agreement between two or more persons to commit a crime or accomplish a legal purpose through illegal action".The act of attempting to program an access card cannot be proven to be a “conspiracy” by the letter of the law unless it can be proven that you entered into an agreement with another party to commit the illegal act. The mere purchase of hardware and/or software from a vendor does not a conspiracy make either. They have no control what you do with their hardware, anymore so than trying to establish that a gun manufacturer conspired with you to commit murder because you purchased and used their equipment to do so. Certainly you CAN be charged with conspiracy IF they can establish that more than one party was involved to accomplish the illegal act… but it still needs to be established. It is black letter law. It is not too difficult for an individual to download plans to hardware to build themselves and use software commonly available on the net to program an access card. Where is the conspiracy there?? Any lawyer practicing law telling you otherwise obviously needs more practice.