
Alfred Anaya Put Secret Compartments in Cars so the DEA Put Him in Prison (2013) - joering2
https://www.wired.com/2013/03/alfred-anaya/
======
tzs
(Repeat of comment from discussion almost four years ago, with minor spelling
and style edits):

The article mentioned he was appealing. That has happened and he lost. Here is
the appellate court opinion: [https://cases.justia.com/federal/appellate-
courts/ca10/12-30...](https://cases.justia.com/federal/appellate-
courts/ca10/12-3010/12-3010-2013-08-16.pdf?ts=1411095378)

Something is mentioned there that either was not mentioned in the Wired
article or I missed it: Anaya admits that he knew particular customers were
buying compartments for illegal purposes. He just didn't know what particular
illegal use they were going to be put to. He's basically arguing that to
"knowingly" join a conspiracy, you have to know its objectives and scope, and
he says he lacked that knowledge.

It's probably a bad idea to do business with people who want to use code words
when they talk to you on the phone. The appeals court mentions an intercepted
call where Anaya told the drug traders he could put "3 speakers" in a Camry
for $2,500, where "3 speakers" meant a compartment to hold 3 kilos.

His sentence is way too long. He's not the linchpin of the drug trade the
prosecution made him out to be, but he does not appear to be quite the
innocent bystander Wired makes him out to be either.

~~~
yourapostasy
Your cognitive dissonance is because in higher strata of first world society,
indirection is an extraordinarily popular get-out-of-jail-free card. Only a
single level of indirection sufficiently enables all sorts of financial
manipulation. See Wells Fargo as just a simple example.

Simple C-style pointer indirection is increasingly disallowed in lower strata
as this example illustrates. The higher strata are going to handles-level and
greater layers of indirection in the meantime.

~~~
skybrian
Sure, much of the economy runs on abstraction. It's not like Walmart or Amazon
(let alone their suppliers) know how their customers will use their products.

On the other hand, there are exceptions like "know your customer" rules for
banks, big companies policing their supply chain (including subcontractors)
and art dealers asking provenance to be documented.

Turning products into services (subscriptions and app stores) tends to break
the abstraction.

This article was about a very leaky abstraction.

------
kstenerud
As a well traveled non-American, the US justice system truly boggles the mind.
Elected judges, jury trials, vengeance-oriented punishments, complete lack of
rehabilitation or reintegration, medieval prison conditions... In Iraq, I
wouldn't be surprised. In the USA, I'm simply aghast.

~~~
refurb
Wait, you’re against jury trials?

~~~
kstenerud
Absolutely. With a professional judge (NOT an elected judge!), you're in the
hands of someone with years of training in law and justice. With a jury,
you've got 12 yahoos off the street who don't know anything about the law or
the tricks lawyers play, let alone what their own rights and obligations are.
That's why American criminal court cases are "battles"

Compared to German proceedings, juries are only marginally better than trial
by ordeal.

~~~
Amezarak
In the US, you can waive your right to a jury trial. When someone has a jury
trial, it's because they elected to exercise their right to do so. They could
have chosen to have a bench trial with only a judge. The state actually
prefers for people to have bench trials because jury trials are more
complicated and expensive.

Jury trials benefit defendants. If you think that your fellow citizens would
sympathize with your plight, maybe even exercise jury nullification, you want
a jury trial. If you think your case isn't likely to win anyone over, but that
you can get off based on legal technicalities, you want a bench trial.

Judges are not always elected - it depends on the jurisdiction and type of
judge. This is a complicated issue, but having seen firsthand how far the
legal interpretation of the law drifts (because of the insularity of the legal
community) from the popular sentiment that drives legislation, I'm strongly
for _some_ judges being elected. On top of that, appointed legal "expert"
judges often do not deserve the respect you're according them. "Years of
training in law and justice", in my experience, has the tendency of
engendering in people a belief that they are better, wiser, and more right
than anyone else.

~~~
kstenerud
What I've found is that jury systems tend to favor the "competition" model of
justice, where prosecution and defense are locked in combat, with the judge as
referee. Lawyers are gauged based on their ability to win cases rather than
their ability to practice law well. Underhanded and unfair tactics, rather
than receiving criticism, are honored and celebrated. It very much follows the
American model of "win at all costs."

This gladiator approach to justice becomes all the more apparent when there's
a high profile case, where every tactic, every gambit, every "blow" to the
opposition is cheered on by onlookers, like it's some kind of UFC match.

America hasn't actually progressed very far from frontier justice.

~~~
Amezarak
> What I've found is that jury systems tend to favor the "competition" model
> of justice, where prosecution and defense are locked in combat, with the
> judge as referee. Lawyers are gauged based on their ability to win cases
> rather than their ability to practice law well. Underhanded and unfair
> tactics, rather than receiving criticism, are honored and celebrated. It
> very much follows the American model of "win at all costs."

This is the case on legal dramas and very high profile cases, perhaps, but
certainly not the vast majority of cases that actually go to trial - there is
no interested audience that cares for most cases. Certainly the system is set
up to be adversarial (though it generally isn't so much in practice), but for
the most part, that benefits defendants.

Yes, I suppose if you're worried about Law and Order and the Public Peace,
it's easier to just route everyone into a system that effectively mirrors the
American plea bargaining system. But I'd rather a hundred guilty men go free
because of their showboating lawyers than one innocent man go to prison. I'm
not really clear on what "underhanded tactics" you have in mind; the ones I
know well are practiced generally by law enforcement and public prosecutors,
who necessarily hold most of the cards, and they do it for bench trials too.

But again, I think it's important to emphasize that the jury trial is an
_option_ for a defendant in a criminal case. It's an important option that no
state-driven process can replicate, because you're ultimately ceding the case
to the law and your peers, instead of just one or more out of touch, even
elitist, judges, who may be "interpreting" the law very far from its plain
reading or intent (in accordance with established legal practice) and who may
take a very dim view of illegal behavior that society at large doesn't care
about (say, smoking weed.)

> America hasn't actually progressed very far from frontier justice.

I think this remark deserves some expansion, since there's no obvious
connection between frontier justice and the American jury trial system; it
comes across as a wholly unsubstantive statement that's meant to tarnish it
rather than explain it.

------
PurpleBoxDragon
In this particular case, he had all reason to believe his work was being used
by some to do illegal things. But even then, is that any different than the
people who work on TOR knowing full well it is used to abuse children, or who
work on military weapons knowing that innocent people are targeted? Should a
gun seller who has reason to believe the buyer might do something illegal with
their be punished for making the sell anymore than any of the tech products
used to circumvent laws (from minor laws dealing with content piracy to major
laws dealing with child abuse)?

Can we draw a definite consistent lines on where helping criminals commit
crimes is moral, where it is immoral, where it is legal, and where it is
illegal?

~~~
dfundako
I believe there is a huge difference between you working on something that has
the main function of facilitating an illegal enterprise and you working on
something that has a tiny minority mis-using your product for illegal
purposes. Silk Road vs Craigslist is an example that comes to mind.

~~~
PurpleBoxDragon
I wonder how much of Tor usage is for illegal activities, including black
markets, compared to legal activities? And doesn't it seem fickle that the
same action may or may not be legal depending upon how many people use Tor for
legal vs illegal activities? What happens if last year it was primarily for
legal purposes but this year some new black market site took off and people
are primary using it for that now?

------
ahallock
The State is extremely punitive, especially when inconvenienced. So many
people are happy about handing power to these institutions, but get in the way
of them, inconvenience them, and they'll stomp you out of existence. They have
a myriad of legal weapons, which will only grow over time, so even if you
think you're complying with the law, there's probably something you missed, or
some loophole they can use.

> Curtis Crow and Cesar Bonilla Montiel, the men at the top of the
> organization, received sentences half that length.

The sentence length shows how punitive this was. They wanted to make an
example out of Alfred because he made their jobs harder.

~~~
king_nothing
_Three Felonies A Day_ is a great read... with the vast number of laws, it’s
nearly impossible to be technically-legal at all times. Moreover, technical
legal prosecutions are often used for political gains: silence enemies, boost
stats for re-election or make an example of someone at random.

------
leoh
If you are against his 24 year imprisonment, his family has a Gofundme
[https://www.gofundme.com/r4d2ys](https://www.gofundme.com/r4d2ys)

------
scarface74
I’m torn. On one hand, he knew what he was doing was on the edge of the law
and he knew he was abetting illegal activity. But on the other hand, in tech,
we have something like the DMCA where companies can be found harmless if they
are abetting illegal activity as long as they aren’t directly complicit.

Also, the drug trade would never happen without the help of corrupt white
collar criminals who are never prosecuted. Law enforcement could have offered
him witness protection. His biggest fear was endangering his family.

From another perspective even on that, I wouldn’t put myself in a position
where I’m surrounding myself with dangerous people. His completely above board
speaker installation business probably could have supported him.

Yeah, I’m being really ambivalent about the situation. I’m no lover of the
“War on Drugs” or the “justice system”, but he knew what he was doing.

------
dfundako
Discussed quite a while ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8443727](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8443727)

~~~
hkarthik
Previous discussion was all about whether what he did was illegal or whether
he was complicit.

I'm actually most saddened by this part.

 _When he was 8 years old, Alfred Anaya destroyed his mother’s vacuum cleaner
in the pursuit of knowledge. “I took it apart because I wanted to find the
motor inside,” he recalls. “I was so young, I thought the motor would work all
by itself even after I took it out. I didn’t realize it needed to be plugged
in to go.” His mother was upset but hardly surprised to discover her ruined
vacuum, for she knew all about her youngest son’s rabid curiosity. Alfred was
forever disassembling Sony Walkmans or clock radios so he could fill his
favorite junk drawer with circuit boards, which thrilled him with their
intricacy._

His childhood doesn't seem much different from many of us hackers. I wonder
how different his life would have been if he had been noticed by a technically
savvy and connected benefactor who could have sponsored him. I could easily
see someone like him being discovered at an early age going on to do
breakthrough work with the benefit of a better education and circumstances.
His poverty probably prevented the potential opportunities he could have had
in life.

This feels like one of the big challenges that needs to get solved. We need to
find ways to bring people up like this up out of poverty so they don't end up
making bad choices and ending up on the wrong side of the law. Feels like such
a waste.

~~~
netsharc
I wonder if it's an education problem. I would wager there's quite a few of us
who would be attracted to legally questionable work for big payoffs. Even FBI
higher-ups have sold secrets to foreign countries for money.

And according to the article, he was discovered after all, the stereo shop
that hired him were impressed by his installer work.

------
eanaya
I'm alfred anaya older sister. He doesnt deserve 24 years in prison. He has
served his time. Hoping for a miracle and hope the law of first drug offenders
comes through and that he is selected to be free. His kids and family miss him
so much. He's not a bad person.

------
vuluvu
From the school of bad faction, un-fucking-readable,Tom Wolfe would be rolling
in his grave :]

------
joshuaheard
I remember this article ... from 2013.

------
mnm1
It's so sad that such a wonderful creative person's life is once again
destroyed by dea and prosecutor scum. These barbaric scumbags are the ones who
should be jailed without parole for making our society so violent and ugly.
While the blame is shared with lawmakers, who are equally to blame for their
barbaric hate that created such laws, the power lies with police and
prosecutors to properly enforce and not enforce laws. Unfortunately in the US,
the only incentives police have for their actions are money and power. Of
course the uphold the status quo. It makes them richer and more powerful at
the expense of other people's lives. Them being under the umbrella of
"justice" allows them and the general, idiot public to pretend like these
actions are not barbaric and evil, that these actions are not motivated by
hate, racism, and greed. But people with even half a brain can see through
this facade. Too bad such people are in such a minority, they never even have
a chance to get on juries. That's how the final piece of the puzzle falls into
place. Being judged by a jury of morons. This is so called "justice" so that
we can all pretend we live in a civilized society as long as it doesn't affect
us. One day, I hope these police and prosecutor scum will pay for the lives
they've ruined and the people they have tortured and murdered. I hope...

