Despite their excess length, I'm fairly sure I've got an idea of what you're aiming at.
You're noting that the large web site shutdown was probably a mistake but are using that argument to defend the basic mechanism. Seems like a reversal of the principle "better ten guilty men go free than one innocent man be punished" into "better a thousand innocents get hit with accidental collateral damage than one guilty man get away with having something really dangerous on the Internet".
Yes, it was probably a mistake. The point is when it gets easy for repressive measures to happen, they get sloppy and hurt innocents. And when a cop has the luxury not having to have a trial, things will be easy whether there's a judge involved or not.
Constitutional guarantees really do exist to "make the cops job hard". The urge for the good citizen to agree with the cops is too great.
And also, these action were carried out as "civil forfeiture" (in this case "virtual property") so my comments on this seem entirely justified - indeed, I don't think anything I said was specific to physical as oppose to "virtual" property.
Edit: It's not really the judge's "job to interpret evidence" fairly. There really aren't ANY uncorruptable experts on fairness. The ONLY, ONLY, ONLY thing that keeps the justice system honest is the public, adversarial institution of the trial itself (it's kind of like the market that regard - two would-be monopolists can be very honest with enough daylight on them). The trial system hasn't done a terribly good job lately but if it is entirely absent, you get really bad things.
You're noting that the large web site shutdown was probably a mistake but are using that argument to defend the basic mechanism. Seems like a reversal of the principle "better ten guilty men go free than one innocent man be punished" into "better a thousand innocents get hit with accidental collateral damage than one guilty man get away with having something really dangerous on the Internet".
Yes, it was probably a mistake. The point is when it gets easy for repressive measures to happen, they get sloppy and hurt innocents. And when a cop has the luxury not having to have a trial, things will be easy whether there's a judge involved or not.
Constitutional guarantees really do exist to "make the cops job hard". The urge for the good citizen to agree with the cops is too great.
And also, these action were carried out as "civil forfeiture" (in this case "virtual property") so my comments on this seem entirely justified - indeed, I don't think anything I said was specific to physical as oppose to "virtual" property.
Edit: It's not really the judge's "job to interpret evidence" fairly. There really aren't ANY uncorruptable experts on fairness. The ONLY, ONLY, ONLY thing that keeps the justice system honest is the public, adversarial institution of the trial itself (it's kind of like the market that regard - two would-be monopolists can be very honest with enough daylight on them). The trial system hasn't done a terribly good job lately but if it is entirely absent, you get really bad things.