If you are a criminal lawyer who is providing defense, that is acceptable because everyone is entitled to to a fair trial and defense.
If you are a criminal lawyer who is directly abetting in criminal behavior (eg. a Saul Goodman type) you absolutely will lose your Bar License and open yourself up to criminal penalties.
If you are a criminal lawyer who is in a situation where your client wants you to abet their criminal behavior, then you are expected to drop the client and potentially notify law enforcement.
> If you are a criminal lawyer who is directly abetting in criminal behavior
Not a lawyer myself but I believe this is not a correct representation of the issue.
A lawyer abetting in criminal behaviour is committing a crime, but the crime is not offering his services to criminals, which is completely legal.
When offering their services to criminals law firm or individual lawyers in most cases are not required to report crimes they have been made aware of under the attorney-client privilege and are not required to ask to minimize bad actors from using their services.
In short: unless they are committing crimes themselves, criminal lawyers are not required to stay clear from criminals, actually, usually the opposite is true.
Are you talking about Brian Steel? He was held in contempt because he refused to name his source that informed him of some misconduct by the judge (ex parte communication with a witness). That's hardly relevant here, the client wasn't involved at all as far as anyone knows.
any plausible attempt to minimize bad actors from using your service
I mentioned criminal lawyers because their job is literally to "offer their services to criminals or to people accused of being criminals" and they have no obligation whatsoever to minimize bad actors from using your service, in fact bad actors are usually their regular clientele and they are free to attract as many criminals as they like in any legal way they like.
Helping a criminal to commit a crime it's an entirely different thing and anyway it must be proved in a court, it's not something that can be assumed on the basis of allegations (their clients are criminal, so they must be criminal too).
That's why in that famous TV drama Jessy Pinkam says "You dont want a criminal lawyer, you want a Criminal. Lawyer.".
The premise of this story is that Telegram offers a service which is very similar to safe deposit boxes, the bank it's not supposed to know what you keep in there hence they are not held responsible if they are used for illegal activities.
In other words most of the times people do not know and are not required to know if they are dealing with criminals, but, even if they did, there are no legal reasons to avoid offering them your services other than to avoid problems and/or on moral grounds (which are perfectly understandable motives, but are still not a requirement to operate a business).
Take bars, diners, restaurants, gas stations or hospitals, are they supposed to deny their services?
And how would they exactly should take actions to minimize bad actors from using your service?
If someone goes to a restaurant and talks about committing a crime, is the owner abetting the crime?
I guess probably not, unless it is proven beyond any reasonable doubt that he actually is.
It doesn't matter if it's true or false it only matters what the justice system can prove.
> The premise of this story is that Telegram offers a service which is very similar to safe deposit boxes, the bank it's not supposed to know what you keep in there hence they are not held responsible if they are used for illegal activities.
This is the issue. Web platforms DO NOT have that kind of legal protection - be it Telegram, Instagram, or Hacker News.
Safe Harbor from liability in return for Content Moderation is expected from all internet platforms as part of Section 230 (USA), Directive 2000/31/EC (EU), Defamation Act 2023 (UK), etc.
As part of that content moderation, it is EXPECTED that you crack down on CP, Illicit Drug Transactions, Threats of Violence, and other felonies.
Also, that is NOT how bank deposit boxes work. All banks are expected to KYC if they wish to transact in every major currency (Dollar, Euro, Pound, Yen, Yuan, Rupee, etc) and if they cannot, they are expected to close that account or be cut off from transacting in that country's currency.
> That's why in that famous TV drama Jessy Pinkam says "You dont want a criminal lawyer, you want a Criminal. Lawyer.".
First, it's Pinkman BIATCH not Pinkam.
And secondly, Jimmy McGill (aka Saul Goodman) was previously suspended by the NM Bar Association barely 5 years before Breaking Bad, and was then disbarred AND held criminally liable when SHTF towards the finale.
At least in case of Section 230, distributirs that do not moderate do not need it because they do indeed have that kind of legal protection - see Cubby v. CompuServe for an example. Section 230 was created because a provider that did moderate tried to use this precedent in court and its applicability was rejected, and Congress decided that this state of affairs incentivized the wrong kind of behavior.
This is precisely why Republicans want to repeal it - if they succeed, it would effectively force Facebook etc to allow any content.
> This is the issue. Web platforms DO NOT have that kind of legal protection - be it Telegram, Instagram, or Hacker News.
e2e encryption cannot be broken though
> Safe Harbor from liability in return for Content Moderation is expected from all internet platforms as part of Section 230 (USA), Directive 2000/31/EC (EU), Defamation Act 2023 (UK), etc.
I have no sympathy for Durov and I don't care if they throw away the keys, but what about Mullvad then?
I guess that a service whose main feature is secrecy and anonymity should at least provide anonymity and secrecy.
> CP, Illicit Drug Transactions, Threats of Violence, and other felonies
you understand better than me that the request is absurd all of this is in theory, in practice nobody can actually do it for real, the vast majority of illicit clear text content are honeypots created by agents of various agencies to threaten the platforms and force them to cooperate. nothing's new here, but let's not pretend that this is to prevent crimes.
also: the allegations against Telegram are that they do not cooperate, but we don't actually know if they really crack down on CP or other illegal activities or not, because if they don't, the reasonable thing to do would be to shut down the platform, what does arresting the CEO accomplish? (rhetorical question: they - I don't want to throw names, but i think that the usual suspects are involved - want access to and control of the content, closing the platform would only deny them access and would create uproar among the population - remember when Russia blocked Telegram?)
also 2: AFAIK Telegram requires a phone number to create an account, it's the responsibility of the provider to KYC when selling a phone number, not Telegram's.
also 3: safe deposit boxes are not necessarily linked to bank accounts. I pay for a safety deposit box in Switzerland but have no Swiss bank account.
So my guess is EU wants in some way control the narrative in Telegram channels where the vast majority of the news regarding the war in Ukraine spread from the war front to the continent.
> First, it's Pinkman BIATCH not Pinkam.
Sorry. I'm dyslexic and English is not my mother tongue, but the 4th language I've learned, when I was already a teenager.
> was previously suspended by the NM Bar Association
that was the point. TV dramas need good characters and a criminal lawyer who's also a criminal is more interesting than a criminal lawyer who's just a plain boring lawyer that indulges in no criminal activity whatsoever.
isn't this the definition of "criminal lawyer"?