Clearing your browsing history is a crime in
United States according to the Sarbanes-Oxley
Act of 2002
In a recent article published in The Nation, it revealed
the improper use of a law meant for completely different
purposes by by federal prosecutors. The Sarbanes-Oxley
Act of 2002 was meant to provide authorities with tools
to prevent criminal behavior by corporations. It was put
into practice after the Enron meltdown when it was
found out that executives or their servants following
orders torn into shreds every document they could think
of which may prove them guilty. The legislation’s goal
was to stop companies from committing large fraud and
then damaging the evidence of their conspiratorial
criminality while investigations were under way.
The appropriate section of Sarbanes-Oxley reads as
follows:
"Whoever knowingly alters, destroys,
mutilates, conceals, covers up, falsifies, or
makes a false entry in any record, document,
or tangible object with the intent to impede,
obstruct, or influence the investigation or
proper administration of any matter within
the jurisdiction of any department or agency
of the United States or any case filed under
title 11, or in relation to or contemplation of
any such matter or case, shall be fined under
this title, imprisoned not more than 20 years,
or both."
Khairullozhon Matanov, a friend of the Tsarnaev
brothers, the Boston Marathon bombers was interviewed
by the Federal authorities about his association with
them. However, the federal authorities never accused
him for any activity linked to the bombing nor have they
said that he was having knowledge of their plans or felt
for them. During the interviews, he did however
perpetrate a few small lies, of which none had any actual
relation to the case. For instance, he lied that he had
last time prayed with Tamerlan Tsarnaev together. On
that grounds,
… they charged him with four counts of
obstruction of justice. There were three
counts for making false statements based on
the aforementioned lies and—remarkably—one
count for destroying “any record, document or
tangible object” with intent to obstruct a
federal investigation. This last charge was for
deleting videos on his computer that may
have demonstrated his own terrorist
sympathies and for clearing his browser
history .
Based on the records section of Sarbanes-Oxley
mentioned above, the last charge was applied. The law
meant to stop and punish corporate wrongdoing is
instead used as a hammer against a private citizen to a
great extent. Some people may feel that any possible
application of a law is tolerable, especially in the
continual war on terror. However, if that law is ever used
against them, they might end up feeling differently about
it.
The most unpleasant or offensive part of this is that it is
being used to punish “pre-crimes.” When Matanov
deleted his browser history, he had not been accused of
anything and was not aware that he was under a formal
inquiry. His crime was not predictable that federal
agents may someday make a decision to examine him
and thus failing to maintain any self-incriminating
potential evidence.
As Hanni Fakhoury of the Electronic Frontiers Foundation
put it, the government is saying:
“Don’t even think about deleting anything
that may be harmful to you, because we may
come after you at some point in the future for
some unforeseen reason and we want to be
able to have access to that data. And if we
don’t have access to that data, we’re going
to slap an obstruction charge that has as
20-year maximum on you.”
The article in The Nation shows that this is not an
remote and unfair use of Sarbanes-Oxley, discussing
many other similar cases. Traders and bankers danced
away with multi-million dollar bonuses after their
criminally reckless maneuvering almost put an end to the
global economy. Their companies paid fines that are not
worth to be considered for market manipulations and
criminal money laundering. Until now, none of them have
go to jail and none of them have been sued under
Sarbanes-Oxley.
However, it is a different rule of law for an
undistinguished or average citizen. As more and more
data are stored online, the government wants and
believes it has the rights to access that data for policing
purposes. But Fakhoury disagrees.
“The idea that you have to create a record of
where you’ve gone or open all your
cupboards all the time and leave your front
door unlocked and available for law
enforcement inspection at any time is not the
country we have established for ourselves
more than 200 years ago.”
This law has been in the books for thirteen years now. It
has not managed to control the corporate wrongdoing,
but it is proving to be having a negative effect on
citizens who have never swindled a shareholder in their
lives. Combined with federal investigations through our
online communications and their efforts to break secure
encryption in our data storage, they want us to
completely give up our personal freedom of thought and
privacy.
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