I don't think the GP is saying that at all.

It would just be nice to have a bit of balance. I don't think we should scrap online anonymity because some of its uses, in opposing tyrannical powers, whistleblowing and similar, are too important.

But we should still recognise that it has costs. Anonymous online abuse can and does have very serious consequences, including depression and suicides. Too often the argument is presented as one-sided.

That's a pretty naive view of what lawyers do and when they're needed. A lawyer is just an expert in certain things, and they assist people who need to do something they aren't themselves an expert at:
- If you want to present a persuasive case in court, you want someone who is an expert in reviewing and presenting evidence. A lawyer can be that person
    You also want someone who can explain the case to the court in a persuasive way. A lawyer can be that person.
- If you want to prepare a contract that does what it's meant to you need someone who is an expert in precise writing. A lawyer can be that person.

Moreover your points about society are just flat-out wrong. If you look back at the societies of history you will almost always find lawyers, or people offering an equivalent service. I say "almost" because I'm sure there will prove to be an exception, but after a flick through the Wikipedia entries for the major historical civilisations I couldn't find any.

And the idea that laws are complicated because lawyers want them to be complicated is a nice soundbite with no substance. Laws are complicated because the world is complicated. They are an attempt to make clear rules in a world that isn't made up of simple black-and-white issues. They're full of political compromises. And they're drafted by human beings who make mistakes. If the only thing keeping laws complicated was that it was being done deliberately, don't you think we would have fixed that by now?

The sweeping statement was that Greenpeace "don't give a flying fuck about the environment". That the CEO flies to work seems pretty hypocritical to me, I just don't think it means that the whole organisation is ambivalent about the environment.

That article only mentions the word Marx once and doesn't use it to describe the founder's views - not really sure what you were trying to prove with it?

Maybe you could point me to Greenpeace's campaign to stop you driving a car. Their website specifically says they aren't anti car, and they are campaigning for cleaner cars (which isn't really consistent with not wanting any cars at all) but I suppose you'd say that that's what they would say...

When I think of products derived from animals I tend to think of things like milk and eggs - both sources of B12, both things that vegetarians eat - not "shit and fur".

I think you've managed the trifecta there:
1. Sweeping statements without any explanation or evidence.
2. Use of the word "marxism" in a way that means nothing at all.
3. Claim that those on the left are just trying to oppress you (again without any explanation or evidence, obviously).

Some people would think that you put "every man" in quotation marks because it's a quotation, but it isn't. Brianna Wu does not use the phrase "every man" a single time. She doesn't claim that all men are sexist, or say anything like it, so you can safely put your righteous indignation aside.

The biggest generalisation that she does make is saying that "it’s telling that men in the gaming industry, or simply commentators, refuse to listen to the reality of these situations and try to help" - which seems borne out by reactions like assuming her article is a sexist overgeneralisation when you clearly haven't read it.

The court actually took a pretty sensible view on this, I think.

The judge's reasoning was that the use of data that was recovered and stored was (as a matter of law) subject to the same test of reasonableness as what could be recovered in the first place. He considered trying to decide how long was reasonable now, but decided that he wasn't in a position to do so, since he didn't know how the investigation would go. Better for a later court, looking back on all the facts, to decide whether what was done was reasonable, than for him to try to decide what would be reasonable based on a guess as to what would happen.

In other words, there are limits on storage and use of the data, although they aren't rigid, and a court may be called on to decide whether they have been breached at a later date.

"No difference"?

Yep, exactly the same...

Who else is going to pay the neutral third party? The tooth fairy?

Whoever you choose is going to be paid by the state.

I think it is easy to imagine circumstances where what you call a 'blanket' search - a search for specific categories of evidence, but which isn't limited by particular approved keywords - would be justified. I would expect it to be common, because I would expect it to be the only reasonable way to conduct the search in a great many cases.

I am a litigator. We regularly conduct similar searches during what Americans would call discovery - the pre-trial process where you look for evidence. Even if you know exactly what sort of thing you're looking for and are using specialist software designed for this process, it can take hundreds of man-hours and cost well over a hundred thousand dollars to search a large body of correspondence. I can tell you from experience that it is very difficult to pick keywords in advance without making them incredibly broad. If the person may have done something that they don't want to set out explicitly in an email, it can easily be impossible.

There is a strong public interest in effectively investigating crimes and bringing the perpetrators to justice. There has to be some mechanism to get access to email correspondence in order to conduct that investigation. In a big investigation, I can't see that it would be reasonable to require Google to carry out the searches required - it should be done by the police. I therefore think it is entirely plausible that a 'blanket' search warrant would be granted, and I haven't seen any reason not to trust the judge's assessment - after all, he has heard the evidence and you haven't.

How do you square the fact that you say in relation to the password question it would be impossible to prove, but when considering the other examples you are happy to draw inferences if there is sufficient surrounding evidence. Why can't you draw inferences from surrounding evidence when considering the question of whether someone remembers a password?

I would make two points in response.

First, your factors that might make someone not remember a password are all real, but the judge can take them into account. The judge can weigh up the different possibilities - that's what they are employed and trained to do - and decide whether it's plausible that the defendant cannot recall the password. Often they will probably conclude that the prosecution hasn't proved that the defendant could remember the password; sometimes, though, there will be enough evidence. Unless you are arguing that there is no amount of evidence that can prove this beyond reasonable doubt - in which case, see my second point, which is that this is not restricted to this situation - I don't think your factors prevent the law working (although obviously they must be borne in mind).

Second, your example of the seemingly pre-meditated murder is at the extreme end of the evidence available, but there are lots of situations that are much more difficult. For example:
i. A person gives incorrect financial information to an investor and profits as a result. If they knew it was incorrect they may be guilty of fraud. Did they know it was incorrect at the time?
ii. A person is a passenger in a stolen car. If they knew it to be stolen at the time they may be guilty of an offence. Did they know it was stolen when they got in (assume they weren't involved in the theft)?
iii. An accountant receives money from his client, which unknown to him was stolen. If he suspected at the time that the client might be engaged in criminal conduct, he may be guilty of a money laundering offence. Did he suspect?

You could find hundreds more examples - those are just three that occurred to me off the top of my head, and probably aren't the most troublesome. The point is that proving whether a defendant actually knew a particular fact, or actually had a particular thought, is a common issue in criminal prosecutions. It can be difficult to prove, but it's not impossible and the courts are used to dealing with these types of case.

I suggested a range of factors in the GGP post that would suggest he had or had not forgotten.

I don't see how this is in principle harder than other state of mind questions - these are all hard, but they are an inevitable part of the criminal law.

Why is this different to any other time when the court has to make judgements about someone's state of mind - whether that's a killer who says they only intended to hurt them, or someone who says they took things by accident?

I would agree with you if we had to answer the question "does he remember the password" in a vacuum, but we don't.

The court can look at factors that make it more or less likely that he forgot it: did he use it regularly? Does he have a good memory? Is he accustomed to using long passwords? Did he use it shortly before his arrest?

It can also look at factors that bear on his credibility: did he immediately say that he had forgotten the password, or was this the last in a line of excuses that had been proved untrue? Has he been generally truthful and cooperative? Did he seem honest in the witness box, or was he evasive and defensive?

If (in theory - I don't know the facts of the actual case) the defendant had used the password five minutes before his arrest, had an unusually good memory, repeatedly lied to the police after being arrested and only claimed to have forgotten when his previous claims were proved untrue, I think it would be perfectly legitimate for the court to apply something like Bayes' theorem to infer that it was sufficiently likely that he remembered the password to be proved beyond reasonable doubt. I don't see why it is different in principle to other situations where the court looks at all the evidence to decide whether someone is lying.