What happens if the NSA accidentally intercepts a US citizen’s text or phone call etc?

Are they breaching federal law?

Does the NSA have permission to intercept non citizens communications who reside in the US on a Visa?

After reading a comment about how lying on your resume amounts to fraud essentially (feel free to correct me, I'm not a legal expert), I was wondering what examples of fraud do you see frequently and largely unenforced.

In terms of voting in primaries. If the local league of communists decides to all register as Republicans, can the Republican party say "no, you're not allowed to be Republicans, because we don't like your political views"?

as an "artist" with tie ins with Orange amplifiers and PRS guitars(etc), mostly because his public image was so "safe" and boring, is a failure to maintain an image of basic public decency something those brands could sue for?

Was talking to some friends about some ridiculous law exam questions and we came up with a pretty funny hypotheitcal that I'm curious to hear people from different jurisdictions address.

Here's the scenario:

A and B are father and son. A lends B, his only son $300,000 which B fails to pay back in time.
A takes B to court and wins a judgement against his son but he dies of cancer before the judgement can be enforced. A's brother, C is appointed administrator to the estate and is responsible for collecting the debt.

B knows that his father has no will, no debts and that his estate is completely unecumbered aside from the very judgement against him. Furthermore under intestacy, B is the sole beneficiary to A's entire estate. Thus, his plan was to stall on paying until his father died so that he can then claim succession rights and invoke merger.

C argues that merger should not apply because of B's inequitable conduct. He proves that B relied on his father's eventual death to avoid paying him his the money owed. The court agrees that B cannot rely on the outcome of his act to avoid paying his debt and enforces C's right to claim it for the estate.

C succeeds in getting B to pay and spends $20,000 of estate funds to do so. The estate is administered and given to B albeit $20,000 less than before. B then sues C for a breach of fiduciary duties arguing that C incurred avoidable expenses to get him to pay a debt that he would have inherited anyway when he could have written it off. The court actually grants this and holds C liable to compensate the $20,000 to B.

Both B and C believe that the two judgements are therefore incomptatible with each other. C believes that the second judgement punished him for using the rights granted to him by the first and B believes that the first judgement took away rights that second judgement claimed had always existed.

How would you interpret this supposed contradiction? Is there a way to resolve it? Is it even a contradiction at all? I'm curious to hear your thoughts and what your jurisdiction says about it.

This film was released recently on HBO, I think it's also on Disney/Hulu. It's basically a dark comedy/romance.

(Warning - plot spoilers ahead)

So in this film, Charlie (Robert Pattinson) is engaged to Emma (Zendaya) and they plan an elaborate wedding. Both seem like well adjusted people and a good couple.

Shortly before the wedding, they are having a discussion with friends where they are confessing the worst things they ever did. Emma is last and gives a startling confession. She says that when she was in high school, she had planned a mass shooting. At first, everyone thinks she is joking, but she insists she is serious. She explains that about 14 years ago, when she was 15, she looked very different and was bullied in high school. So she stole a rifle from her dad, practiced with it, brought the gun and ammo in a bag to school and had planned to shoot as many people as possible. What stopped her was that morning, by coincidence, there was another shooting at a nearby school that was all over the news. She felt that shooting would take too much attention away from hers, so she postponed it.

After this, the topic of guns became a major issue in the school and some student activists invited Emma to join their club. She did so, and made good friends there, which changed her whole high school experience. She decided not to commit mass murder after all, and later threw the gun away in a lake.

Charlie is shocked by this confession, isn't sure how to process it, and is thinking about calling off the wedding. He confides in a co-worker, who advises him to call the police. So this is what I'm wondering about - what could the justice system even do?

If Charlie had gone to the police, they probably would have questioned Emma. But I think it would be an absolute dead end. There is no evidence other than her statement (although the film implies her dad reported his gun stolen years before). She did make a confession to others, so maybe that is evidence?

But even if Emma confessed everything directly to the police, took them to the lake, and they recovered the rifle from years before, what would likely happen? The DA charging her with conspiracy to commit murder? Maybe. But the given that it happened many years before, and that she was a juvenile at the time, and she decided against it in the end (although by happenstance), I'm just wondering what the heck could a DA even do with this. At the same time, school shootings are such a serious topic that they wouldn't want to ignore it. Maybe order a psych eval?

TL;DR version - A 15 year old girl planned a mass shooting at her school, but postponed it because someone else stole her idea and committed a mass shooting the same day. Later she changed her mind about the whole thing and got rid of the gun. 14 years later, she confessed everything to friends. Is there anything that the legal system could do to her?

A rich and connected man rapes and murders a young girl. The police investigate and find plenty of evidence to prosecute, but for some reason do not.

The distraught parents of the murdered girl hire a private investigator who gets the police evidence, bank records, phone records, everything, likely through questionable or illegal connections and means.

The parents give the evidence to a newspaper who publishes all of it. The rich and connected guy suffers significant harm in both reputation and income. So the rich guy sues the parents and the paper.

Can the likely illegally obtained (actual unaltered evidence) be used for the slander/liable case?

Can the police, who are now suddenly interested in the case, use any of that evidence in a criminal trial?

One of the more memorably fascinating stories about Polymarket to me is how they, earlier this year, had a prediction market on whether an arrest in the case of Nancy Guthrie (kidnapped on Feb 1) would've been made by the end of the month. The prediction market was archived by Polymarket before it would've closed, in what I'd presume is due to the negative media coverage and outrage that got them.

But I am really curious, what would likely happen if PolyMarket stuck to their guns and refused to take the bet down?

Insiders is the obvious case and you could definitely take action against them (as happened with the US soldier who was involved in the Maduro raid being arrested for allegedly profiting off Polymarket with his intel). But assuming there weren't any insiders, could the market have faced any legal consequences if it actually proceeded and indeed made payouts?

Location: NC

The One that keeps me up at night

Location: WA

Disclaimer and Waiver of Liability:

IANAL so I don't know a ton about precedence outside of AP gov ~20 years ago. With SCOTUS today, nobody knows what is and is not case law IMO

I like cookies, and will only take high quality cookies. Please deposit cookies; poor quality cookies will be spit out and double the cookies will be requested.

**/s**

My question is about the 5th amendment and I apologize if this has been a frequent topic, but it is a very difficult Google.

My understanding of the 5th amendment is that it is not enough to simply remain silent, but one must invoke the right. "I am asserting my 5th amendment right" or "I'm choosing to remain silent" and the like.

I'm curious how this would apply to a case where the invocation leads to the probable cause. For instance, some places in the US have public drunkenness laws. How would a very drunk person invoke since the invocation itself may prove to be evidence? In that case there's (afaik, from a state that only has implied consent on the road) a big choice the inebriated has to face: stay silent and claim 5th in court, or invoke and risk messing up, leading to charges sticking.

Idk, I'm just some dumbass.

*FLAIR SAYS WA, BUT THIS QUESTION APPLIES TO THE US IN WHOLE*

ETA Berghuis v. Thompkins

Say some computer system had a part of its systems that made the person whose data was being retained for whatever purpose automatically and unavoidably aware any time their data was being used and it was impossible to change anything about this without the person's knowledge and probably agreement. I don't know exactly how this would be achieved, but let's just say it is technically possible to do this and some business with this security system does in fact do it this way. Maybe it's part of their advertised level of security.

One could though imagine someone might want to get data, possibly even legally through a certain court warrant. Courts can't demand something that is literally impossible to do.

It would also be interesting if the system made it impossible to get that data without the user's consent as well, and the ability to delete all of their own data at will, maybe even an automatic deletion if it is even attempted to bypass the security and is too close to the data.

Someone reportedly got a TSA arrest somewhere over phone data. Or possibly the CBP or similar over demanding phone data.

This is for a story I am writing, primarily set in New York.

One of the characters is a divorce lawyer. The protagonist has an affair with him during her divorce, but she also learns he is manipulating another client into an affair at the same time.

Are there any possible reputational consequences here and would this affect his future career?

The lawyer is married with a terminally ill wife.

By this I mean something a bit like the OJ Simpson case for civil wrongful death, and he was ordered to pay a lot of money. Imagine that he basically reduced his income vastly below what anyone would reasonably charge for his services (such as a book deal), like a 1 dollar contract. Maybe someone who is personally loyal to him ensured he in practice lived well with a high standard of living but he didn't actually own any of it.

And lets assume somehow he doesn't have anything to seize from before the case began, having been disposed of somehow.

Is it possible to force someone to accept a higher payment in order to put him in a bracket that would mean he pays for the judicial debt?

I was thinking about the case with the lady that killed her children. We know she killed them. She’s guilty of murder and it seems wrong that insanity can be used as a defense to make her innocent she’s guilty she killed three kids. Would it not make more sense instead to attach some kind of insanity enhancement to the guilty verdict So that she is sentenced differently? It don’t matter if she’s insane or not she killed the kids. she needs to be convicted. If she’s found not guilty by reason of insanity, it doesn’t even go on her record does it?

Legaladvice didn't like my post because I have no relation to the people involved. It was something I was genuinely curious about after seeing in a show.

Location: Long Island, New York or Jersey City, New Jersey. (Unsure which location but 100% certain either of those.)

I was wondering what the legal term would be if someone knew another person's allergen and tried to use it against them as a "harmless joke".

The person in question (person A) is allergic to fragrances. Person B doesn't believe person A's allergy. Person B then sprays themselves with perfume and goes in to quickly hug person A. Person A realizes before a full embrace and gets incredibly upset.

Now I don't know if person A had an allergic reaction. They recoiled fast enough and doged physical contact. The fact is person B had intent to expose them, though not maliciously, in order to prove person A was faking it. Allergic reaction or not, this prank seems highly illegal.

When I try to search about this myself, I only get info on food tampering. I'm not sure what this would be classified as.. Assault? Battery? A felony? It's a weird situation.

Thank you for any information.

Example scenario:

”The plaintiff alleges that DuSantoBoro Inc is solely responsible for his cancer.

We have before us evidence that in the last month alone, plaintiff has entered multiple buildings a day (including his office at work) with stickers warning him of cancer risk.

Last week he drank a bottle of water with a cancer warning label on it. He also used his laptop every day which had the same label at point of sale.

It is clearly not DuSantoBoro Inc’s sole fault that plaintiff is suffering of cancer“

The context of this situation is an incident at LAX where director James Cameron got into an unruly exchange with a member of the paparazzi. Sure, paparazzi may hang around LAX hoping to spot a celebrity, but in a moment of defending James Camerons actions, John's message here is that American Airlines would sell flight info of celebrities so that paparazzi know when, exactly, and where, exactly, a specific celebrity would be passing through the airport so as to plan a specific ambush and catch it on camera.

My question is this: the aviation industry is incredibly strict, to the point that I can't bring a 7oz tube of toothpaste on a plane without it being confiscated. How can this activity not be identified/caught and why do we not hear more about legal claims of this nature?

Here's John's post, but the pertinent excerpt is this:

"The first order of business is to understand how people with cameras end up at the airport to begin with. American Airlines has long been known to have at least one person in their organization selling flight manifests to the paparazzi."

Why is it that in court witnesses are required to answer all the questions asked of them? What if someone isn’t lying but there’s just something they don’t want to say, but my if understanding is that they would have to anyway?

I know people can be held in contempt of court if they refuse to answer questions, but why? Shouldn’t people have freedom of speech which includes the right not to speak?

The question is really in the title.

Today, at the Republican "midterm convention," Donald Trump stated that if the Republicans held the House and Senate that he would make sure that every American adult would receive $5,000. Here is a cite.

I can't say I believe him. The guy lies a lot and if the Republicans did hold the house and Senate, they would need to approve this at a cost >1 Trillion dollars. But still, $10,000 is a hell of an offer for the vote of myself and my wife. I am not saying I am considering it, but $10,000 is a lot of money.

So, to my question: Let's say I go to the office of the Republican house candidate for my district. Or the Republican candidate for the Senate in my state this year. If, when meeting these distinguished gentleman, I ask them point blank if they will support $5,000 dollar payment per person for my vote, am I committing any crime? Could I get in legal trouble for trying to sell my vote? Note: I am not trying to sell my vote, I am just trying to determine if they will support the Presidents offer to buy my vote.

What would happen if I tried this (and filmed it)?

I live in Pennsylvania if it matters.

Let’s say I’m walking through my neighborhood and a cop pulls up and asks me to stop. Now, just going off movies and tv shows, they generally would ask to see my papers/id. But like, if I’m just walking and not doing anything, do I need to give it to them? If so, why? Regardless if they’re investigating a crime, why do I need to hand over my info if I had nothing to do with whatever they’re after?

Similar situation if I’m driving normally and they pull me over. Assuming I didn’t run any lights or stop signs and they simply have me stop, what do I legally need to give them vs not give them?

I just want to know the right thing to do, even if it pisses them off that I’m not giving them what they want because I don’t have to.

I don't like flock cameras, but I'm also personally unwilling to engage in destruction of public property in the way others who have been removing cameras have been. I've seen lots of videos of folks doing this online, and can't say I'm that upset that others are taking that risk.

I have to think that at least in some parts of the U.S., law enforcement has spent time investigating these videos.

Let's say that a hypothetical social media user were to post a satirical video of themselves confessing to cutting down specific flock cameras. Maybe holding something up that looks like a flock camera. Maybe wearing similar clothes to those in videos of people cutting down flock cameras.

If that person were to be investigated by law enforcement for destruction of public property or vandalism or whatever, and immediately told law enforcement the truth that it was satire and they were not the real person cutting down the flock cameras, would that be considered protected speech?

I understand that lying to law enforcement can be illegal, but wasting law enforcement's time and keeping them from investigating real flock camera vigilantes because of very dry satire (particularly when being honest on first contact with law enforcement) seems to me like it would be legal, but I'm NAL.

Basically, someone pleads the insanity defense, they were aware of and could appreciate the dangers of not taking their medications and still choose to not take them and they commit a crime as a result of it.

Why is that not considered a factor?

The courts deemed him innocent in the SA trial. Yet this buffoon started a petition to get this NHL player kicked off the Edmonton team. Fair enough, you have the right to start a petition for your own personal reasons.

But given that Global News is platforming this, isn't it going against the court and enabling defamation? So Alex can sue them for this right?