RE: Soliciting feedback on pre-emptive methods to protect Hive against a malicious court order ...
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Any action taken by an individual to thwart a court order puts them at risk of contempt.
Certainly very careful planning is necessary to implement any mechanism that can affect governance. Such mechanisms can be only implemented in the event of court orders. If carefully prepared, potential misapplication can be prevented. It is essential IMHO that witnesses who are at risk of being subjected to court orders are indemnified from liability to contempt, and witnesses should absolutely have the ability to veto any scheme they feel is not safe, or is not going to be effective. Given that prior involvement of witnesses in any such scheme, their security should be adequately assured.
Since we are discussing legal matters, it is necessary to consult competent counsel. @apshamilton is such competent counsel, and so I tag him here to seek his consideration.
Absolutely!
I wonder if there could be some sort of poison pill that can be tied to receiving payment as a witness.
What I mean by that is that you are required to declare an alternative account and you are required to immediately declare whether or not you are subject to or potentially subject to a court order.
As soon as that court-order field is switched to “Yes” the delegation to the alternative account is executed, by the underlying code (i.e. by one of the subsequent witnesses).
Or maybe switching that status to “Yes” simply causes your node to be skipped until a certain percentage of the voters reaffirm you as a witness, or maybe that action gives the remaining witnesses the power to collectively vote to initiate the delegation.
Could a court hold someone in contempt for merely informing a business partner that they are subject to a court order or may soon be?
The simple solution to this is for the witness that has been targeted by any legal proceedings to activate the dead man switch BEFORE any formal legal Court order is made.
This should be easy because the law is very slow and the deadman switch could be activated by phone in less than a minute.
Except in case of ex parte proceedings (where the targeted side is not there or given notice) the witness will have plenty of notice.
Even in the unusual case of an ex parte order, immediate activation of the dead man's switch will undermine the Court's jurisdiction over the witness and the fact that the witness is not actually 'in Court" makes a contempt of Court finding both legally problematic and practically difficult to enforce.
These sorts of orders are generally civil orders not criminal and don't have any international standing.
So the targeted witness can flip the dead man switch and legally leave the jurisdiction for good measure.
Hereabouts, in the United States of Shamerica, contempt orders enable jurists to indefinitely jail the subject until they agree to comply with whatever order of the court they are found in contempt of. I'm unaware of anyone that has been held captive more than a year in this way, but there's literally no limit I know of.
In the OP above, the court order was enforced the day the order was issued. I think you're probably right, that acting prior to such an order is the only way to avoid being held in contempt.
Thanks!
Damn. This along with Civil Asset Forfeiture really flies in the face of the whole land of the free stuff...
What about the provision that no more than 4 witnesses from a given jurisdiction can be in the top 20? I think that precludes a court order from any given jurisdiction being able to compel of fork, since 4 witnesses cannot force a fork.
Thanks for the suggestion.
This type of brainstorming is exactly what I was hoping to encourage.
Whereas it takes 17 out of the top 20, a coordinated governmental attack would be so improbable and, whereas government actions are very slow as @apshamilton mentioned, I think some prudent but simple countermeasures would suffice.
Also, limiting jurisdictions would require witnesses to declare their jurisdictions, which would actually aid a malicious government in identifying and targeting witnesses to attack.
This would require all witnesses to disclose their location or jurisdiction, as potentially any witness can get in the top 20 in a matter of one block (3s).
I hadn't realized this brainstorming, and appreciate the consideration.