This prevents them from pleading ignorance or incompetence. There’s no way to say you didn’t know that you needed to keep records when a federal judge very specifically ordered you to do so.
That’s quite the national question more broadly but I look at it this way: if the administration and the Roberts court go all-in on a coup, there’s not going to be accountability without a lot of pain. In that scenario, this doesn’t matter except as evidence for some future tribunal.
However, these guys aren’t Mussolini, Franco, Salazar, etc. on their rise to power. The guy at the top is starting as a struggling octogenarian who even in his prime had an entire professional career based not on hard work but tax evasion and barratry. Most of his top delegates were selected for their social media profiles, not competency, and even within the right a lot of people disliked them personally even if they’re willing to overlook that for power. His supporters are quite loyal but are also being hit by a lot of his policies in ways which are hard to ignore.
That makes me think there are a range of scenarios where this does matter, as we can see right now. Cops tend to support Republicans but a number of them are stepping up to say this is outside of their professional standards. A lot of “law and order” suburban voters are seeing these videos not just as something they don’t approve of–especially the “he had a legal gun so we had to execute him” defense–but also recognizing that the administration completely lied about that and we know only because of the kind of evidence at risk here.
The Roberts court has taken significant moves to empower Trump, but it seems like they’re hedging their bets in key areas: note how the shield against prosecution was conditional leaving them an easy way to find the opposite in any future case, and how much of their support has been shadow docket moves designed to delay without setting a permanent precedent. I think they’re recognizing the fragility of the current administration and leaving a backup plan for the autogolpe failing.
Things like this force the administration’s supporters to be more open about what they’re doing, in ways which risk losing their less die-hard supporters. Blowing off a court order forces SCOTUS to either rule against the administration or go on the record inventing a new way the executive branch is above the law. I think they know that’s risky at a time when a majority of the country is starting to realize exactly what’s at stake.
Does it actually prevent them from pleading those? As far as I'm aware they're still able to make those pleass, albeit it's likely to be in contempt or is considered willfull blindness. I don't think a court order can actually prevent someone from pleading a certain way, but please let us know otherwise.
I'm still so confused how the issue became "her emails" when they were basically turned over, dealt with. Where-as oops, the Bush White House "lost" literally millions of emails & allowed people to delete whatever they wanted. This is the sort of hiding in the shadows evil shit that I wish Obama had tried to bring to light, tried to prosecute some people for.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_White_House_email_controv...
Marimar Martinez is trying to make public the records of what ICE did after they tried to kill her & accused her of being a terrorist. That would be interesting to see. Liars liars everywhere, no respect for society. https://chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/2026/01/26/marimar-...
It does. The judiciary has given the Executive a command that it is now part of Trump's "official duties" to ensure gets carried out. Failure to comply with that order may ultimately turn into a subordinate dismissal; but it will also be yet another time the executive failed to execute a lawful order from the judiciary.
This is all assuming Robert's plan was ultimately to give this admin enough rope to hang themselves with; and holding onto the "official duties" definition hitherto deliberately left undefined to act as the trap spring.
I wouldn't put money on that though. This SCOTUS other decisions have me thinking their a little more cushy with the Cheeto than not.
My read is that Roberts sees his court as an instrument of Republican power, not personal loyalty to one man, and so he’ll act in ways to keep power in their hands but will not give up power following him down.
Also, considering how much Trump needs a distraction from the consequences of this particular distraction from the Epstein files, I wouldn't want to be in an Iranian government or military leadership position over the next few days.
Destroying data when it is no longer needed is a good thing. So the very first thing that happens whenever there is a possibility of something going to court is the court orders everyone to not delete relevent information.
this should just be a formality. However if someone is trying to cover sonething up they can't say it wasn't because they throw everything away.
Deleting data according to a pre-defined schedule (often 90 days) is legitimate and standard. It's good that agencies do this, to limit exposure due to data breaches. And it's normal for courts to issue a preservation order for specific data relevant to a potential case.
It'd be better if the courts could actually deal with the case now instead of in 1-5 years, but alas.
> This chart includes categories for how long video is kept if it does not contain evidence of a crime [emphasis added]
So yes, some things are short (I did write "usually" for a reason), but even your link doesn't claim that video of a killing would be deleted in 90 days. It's evidence, 90 days would be ridiculously short for retaining evidence.
Even for people who don't think the ICE agents committed a crime, the ICE agents and DHS have claimed that this was the outcome from actions by a "domestic terrorist" which certainly makes it evidence of a crime from their own perspective.
The agencies in question are unlikely to face any accountability. The agencies that would typically investigate something like this are no longer independent and, instead, are headed by feckless Trump loyalists. It doesn't matter whether it's legitimate, it matters whether it serves their ends. If they cared about process or the law they wouldn't have been labeling the victim a domestic terrorist within minutes of ICE agents murdering him.
Dissolve it and DHS. Investigate every single ERO agent and prosecute those that meet the bar. Bar all of them from future public service. Prosecute agency heads.
Good question. I suppose Trump doesn't much care, he already attempted to pardon that lady who gave balloting material to Mike Pillow. He'll just go issue the pardons and let the courts sort it out.
Or he could have the DOJ charge all of ICE, get the cases removed to federal court, then do an Eric Adams job on them. That'd be a sight to behold.
Sounds like federal government employees blocked access to the crime scene to state and local government employees. Presumably, this “order” is to help facilitate access without violence between federal and non federal government employees.
I mean you just have to look at all of the things that have been blocked by the courts in the last year. Deportations without access to counsel, federalized national guards, a variety of interim appointments...
And before you go there, yes, I am aware the administration has ignored court orders and played dumb afterward. That doesn't mean they've successfully ignored most judicial decisions.
Currently doing the rounds of non US but allied special forces and commando chat groups is the blunt response of US General Tony Thomas, former head of the Special Operations Command (2016 to 2019) to each and every one of the senior Trump administration pushing the domestic terrorist line.
Stephen Miller (for one of many) tweeted:
A would-be assassin tried to murder federal law enforcement and the official Democrat account sides with the terrorists.
General Tony Thomas responded with a high resolution image of the first shot taken, from the rear, execution style:
Not whether the photo was AI or not, and not whether he has fallen for it if it was.
It's still a strong comment on the situation likely formed from watching the dynamics of the situation in play on video from somebody that has experience in volatile policing of real and quasi war zones.
It's strength is from pushing back on the Miller-time obvious propaganda.
Where it falls down is engaging in fighting bald untruths and memes from the Whitehouse with likely more of the same.
In our part of the world, as in any part, we do bad things, our people do bad things, but we endeavour to hold their feet to fire when they do:
It's disapointing to see the official Whitehouse feeds being used for clowning about wrt serious events and the first response to tragedy being to obviously lie and deny.
Does that, in fact, mean that "the general has fallen for an AI hoax photo"?
What if it were posted in the full knowledge it was shitty AI assisted upscale still image generated from poor resolution cell footage from a distance?
The striking thing about the US forum discussions of the seceral ICE incidents including the two killings, both here on HN and elsewhere is the laser like focus on small details in a tiny windows of time.
There's scant attention paid to the bigger picture in which a small group has worked for a long time to stack the Supreme Court, find the right POTUS to front, and work to incite unrest in "enemy states".
What if it were posted in the full knowledge it was shitty AI assisted upscale still image generated from poor resolution cell footage from a distance?
Reduction of the response to the level of the Whitehouse which has been posting totally doctored images for much of 2025 + 2026.
> You get why that would be worse, right?
You understand this discussion has been implicit since the initial comment I first made above when I first referred to the image?
I dare say we come from different English as a First Language countries as you appear to be fixated on hammering out the obvious as if I was unaware.
Returning to your assertion that the image poster, General 'Tony' Thomas "has fallen for an AI hoax photo" I would ask you:
* was he really unaware this was a processed image?
* does that matter?
* does this affect his messaging, that in his opinion the state is executing civilians?
It's been kind of totally completely obvious to the meanest intellect from the outside looking in that the US has been circling down the drain of reduced attention span and increased meme battles for, what, a good decade at least now?
It's now hit the highest echelons and become embedded in both sides of the aisle and the military .. has SCOTUS started filing memes yet?
> I hope the US population can reign in Hegseth, Miller, Bondi, et al clown car.
There's not much chance of that. The courts may keep them within some guardrails but there's no stopping this save for the impossible impeachment+conviction.
Maybe public opinion will convince them to soften, e.g. the news of Bovino getting reassigned.
These judges can spend the rest of eternity issuing these orders but there is no mechanism to enforce it since the current administration has shown a complete disregard for precedence and mores.
I smiled when I saw the NYT headline asking for an "independent inquiry". Are they living in an alternate reality? These guys are not gonna give two fucks about what some toothless committee concludes three years from now.
The technical angle which is most of interest to me are building systems which preserve evidence. For example, how do you build a cloud sync service which prevents someone other than the owner of the phone from deleting videos without the owner’s consent (or in ways which allow them to regain access after being released) while still allowing people to delete things they might not want a hostile government to see. There are no silver bullets here but some really interesting trade offs.
None of that is present in the article, however, which essentially consists of a restatement of the headline. This post is essentially engagement bait.
There is a line across which happenings are universally relevant, and we have crossed it. This is especially important on platforms that are ostensibly enlightened.
There are borderline zero viable platforms for political discourse. Do not try to censor discourse here.
Why write like this on HN? It's the antithesis of its culture. Ironically, you're telling people to go somewhere else, which is itself an attitude that belongs in those other places.
My point is that there are plenty of other places to discuss this topic, e.g. Reddit and Facebook. The reason you don’t like those venues is because they produce conversation of the lowest common denominator. What you don’t realize is that’s really the only type of conversation you can have on this topic. So, by advocating for this topic on HN,
you are brining those aspects of Facebook and Reddit which you dislike here.
I did not post this article on account of a technical angle or lack thereof. I posted it because I believe the judge's order is a practical necessity in this situation, and to the extent that it is a practical necessity is an "interesting new phenomenon". The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) sought such a temporary restraining order this time because the BCA learned from the last time the federal government blocked the BCA from investigating a killing by ICE [1].
Because there is no other way to effectively say "I'm not interested in this kind of content". You say it in the comments, you get punished. There is no downvoting posts, flagging is the only thing that has an effect.
However, these guys aren’t Mussolini, Franco, Salazar, etc. on their rise to power. The guy at the top is starting as a struggling octogenarian who even in his prime had an entire professional career based not on hard work but tax evasion and barratry. Most of his top delegates were selected for their social media profiles, not competency, and even within the right a lot of people disliked them personally even if they’re willing to overlook that for power. His supporters are quite loyal but are also being hit by a lot of his policies in ways which are hard to ignore.
That makes me think there are a range of scenarios where this does matter, as we can see right now. Cops tend to support Republicans but a number of them are stepping up to say this is outside of their professional standards. A lot of “law and order” suburban voters are seeing these videos not just as something they don’t approve of–especially the “he had a legal gun so we had to execute him” defense–but also recognizing that the administration completely lied about that and we know only because of the kind of evidence at risk here.
The Roberts court has taken significant moves to empower Trump, but it seems like they’re hedging their bets in key areas: note how the shield against prosecution was conditional leaving them an easy way to find the opposite in any future case, and how much of their support has been shadow docket moves designed to delay without setting a permanent precedent. I think they’re recognizing the fragility of the current administration and leaving a backup plan for the autogolpe failing.
Things like this force the administration’s supporters to be more open about what they’re doing, in ways which risk losing their less die-hard supporters. Blowing off a court order forces SCOTUS to either rule against the administration or go on the record inventing a new way the executive branch is above the law. I think they know that’s risky at a time when a majority of the country is starting to realize exactly what’s at stake.
New word for me, thanks for that one. I'm sure it will come in handy.
I'm still so confused how the issue became "her emails" when they were basically turned over, dealt with. Where-as oops, the Bush White House "lost" literally millions of emails & allowed people to delete whatever they wanted. This is the sort of hiding in the shadows evil shit that I wish Obama had tried to bring to light, tried to prosecute some people for. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_White_House_email_controv...
Marimar Martinez is trying to make public the records of what ICE did after they tried to kill her & accused her of being a terrorist. That would be interesting to see. Liars liars everywhere, no respect for society. https://chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/2026/01/26/marimar-...
This is all assuming Robert's plan was ultimately to give this admin enough rope to hang themselves with; and holding onto the "official duties" definition hitherto deliberately left undefined to act as the trap spring.
I wouldn't put money on that though. This SCOTUS other decisions have me thinking their a little more cushy with the Cheeto than not.
this should just be a formality. However if someone is trying to cover sonething up they can't say it wasn't because they throw everything away.
It'd be better if the courts could actually deal with the case now instead of in 1-5 years, but alas.
Not for government agencies. Data retention generally goes much longer than that, usually measured in years or decades, not days or weeks.
Documents are kept longer. But a court needs to think about the shortest possible retention time that any agency might have for any kind of evidence.
> This chart includes categories for how long video is kept if it does not contain evidence of a crime [emphasis added]
So yes, some things are short (I did write "usually" for a reason), but even your link doesn't claim that video of a killing would be deleted in 90 days. It's evidence, 90 days would be ridiculously short for retaining evidence.
Even for people who don't think the ICE agents committed a crime, the ICE agents and DHS have claimed that this was the outcome from actions by a "domestic terrorist" which certainly makes it evidence of a crime from their own perspective.
A future administration cold, but won't, choose to ignore the law about parsons just like this one is ignoring the law about murder and torture.
Or he could have the DOJ charge all of ICE, get the cases removed to federal court, then do an Eric Adams job on them. That'd be a sight to behold.
And before you go there, yes, I am aware the administration has ignored court orders and played dumb afterward. That doesn't mean they've successfully ignored most judicial decisions.
Stephen Miller (for one of many) tweeted:
General Tony Thomas responded with a high resolution image of the first shot taken, from the rear, execution style:https://x.com/TonyT2Thomas/status/2015629593265250810
I hope the US population can reign in Hegseth, Miller, Bondi, et al clown car.
It's obvious to all across the globe what's going here.
For reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_A._Thomas can be compared to the bio of the day drinking weekend warrior currently heading the US DoD.
Not whether the photo was AI or not, and not whether he has fallen for it if it was.
It's still a strong comment on the situation likely formed from watching the dynamics of the situation in play on video from somebody that has experience in volatile policing of real and quasi war zones.
It's strength is from pushing back on the Miller-time obvious propaganda.
Where it falls down is engaging in fighting bald untruths and memes from the Whitehouse with likely more of the same.
In our part of the world, as in any part, we do bad things, our people do bad things, but we endeavour to hold their feet to fire when they do:
* https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c04en9wllpxo
* https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-07/kumanjayi-walker-inqu...
It's disapointing to see the official Whitehouse feeds being used for clowning about wrt serious events and the first response to tragedy being to obviously lie and deny.
The agent kneeling on the ground is missing his head.
Does that, in fact, mean that "the general has fallen for an AI hoax photo"?
What if it were posted in the full knowledge it was shitty AI assisted upscale still image generated from poor resolution cell footage from a distance?
The striking thing about the US forum discussions of the seceral ICE incidents including the two killings, both here on HN and elsewhere is the laser like focus on small details in a tiny windows of time.
There's scant attention paid to the bigger picture in which a small group has worked for a long time to stack the Supreme Court, find the right POTUS to front, and work to incite unrest in "enemy states".
That would be worse.
You get why that would be worse, right?
> You get why that would be worse, right?
You understand this discussion has been implicit since the initial comment I first made above when I first referred to the image?
I dare say we come from different English as a First Language countries as you appear to be fixated on hammering out the obvious as if I was unaware.
Returning to your assertion that the image poster, General 'Tony' Thomas "has fallen for an AI hoax photo" I would ask you:
* was he really unaware this was a processed image?
* does that matter?
* does this affect his messaging, that in his opinion the state is executing civilians?
It's been kind of totally completely obvious to the meanest intellect from the outside looking in that the US has been circling down the drain of reduced attention span and increased meme battles for, what, a good decade at least now?
It's now hit the highest echelons and become embedded in both sides of the aisle and the military .. has SCOTUS started filing memes yet?
There's not much chance of that. The courts may keep them within some guardrails but there's no stopping this save for the impossible impeachment+conviction.
Maybe public opinion will convince them to soften, e.g. the news of Bovino getting reassigned.
> Judge grants order barring feds from altering or destroying evidence in Pretti shooting
There are borderline zero viable platforms for political discourse. Do not try to censor discourse here.
Topics != community. But that's obvious - there's no reason to ignore that fact unless you're trying to insult somebody for petty reasons.
(I'm not at the moment, which is unusual)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Ren%C3%A9e_Good#Inv...
This is a civil discussion, no flamewar, and yet it still gets flagged.