In most states the DCI is essentially the investigative division of the Office of Attorney General. From what has been reported, the evidence in this case was developed by the DCI. Until reported otherwise, you have to assume that the AG was advised and updated on the status of the investigation as it developed. How does the case get to the county DA without the AG first signing off on the prosecution?
Probably should have, but this was pushed on them. Thats why very few prosecuted primarily went the plea deal route. The damage was already done. These players were suspended and already had a scarlet letter before charges were ever brought. Had they let them off, 1. You would have had people clamoring for unfair treatment of players 2. They would have let the cat out of the bag that this was started by illegal searches.
Yes it will be very interesting to see what those concerns were. I still think the state will find it very difficult to state the geofence was a legal action without a warrant. The other question is why were the kids in the dorm ignored? Why was there action on just athletes? Although multiple people rights were likely violated. This isn't going away.
This is what I found on geofence:
Yep, and look at what you need to use the geofence . . . dun dun dun . . . a warrant. The issue here is rather than asking the information from an entity like google, they got the information from the software Kibana that they were using. Does that change the formula at all, I don't think so.
Kind of wondering out loud then, if a DCI agent has a legal question regarding an investigation or potential investigation, who do they ask? Does the DCI have their own internal lawyers to field questions, do they go to the AG, or some other person/entity?
Isn't it possible the underlings who initiated it lied and only now are saying oh I don't recall why I started that.
Really stupid for Ol' Kimbo to support this illegal investigation that hit both of the states two largest universities. Hard to recover from biting one hand that feeds you, let alone both.
Well Northern, you still think these were valid searches? Now DCI agents not only stating that these were illegal searches, but telling students to be honest and there would be no charges against them as they were going after fanduel, and then later using that information to charge them.
Not necessarily. The AG can have County Atty. Removed from office (or suspended) for failing to prosecute a case (unwilling prosecutor)…Not saying this is the case here…but, it raises an interesting possibility.
But it didn't, they went after the dorms first. Its just an upper agent or two, decided that wasn't the direction they wanted to go in.
And even his superiors put the stop to the dorm search as being too broad. The superiors did support the athletic-only facilities.
FWIW, I am right there with you in terms of being disgusted that the DCI appears to have illegally surveilled the athletes, etc. I think this stinks to high heaven and I want to see consequences here, not a sweep under the rug, etc.This is a case where a warrant was obtained to geofence an area and identify all devices within range in the investigation of a bank robbery. The federal appeals court ruled that the warrant was unconstitutional. So even when a warrant was obtained to investigate a crime as serious as bank robbery it was deemed by a federal appeals court to be unconstitutional. In other words the DCI has ****ed up big time here. Even if a warrant had been obtained, which it wasn't, a search like this had already been ruled unconstitutional and illegal. The people within DCI are obligated to know about this ruling and yet they proceeded regardless and then attempted to cover up their crime. People need to go to be held responsible for this entire debacle. Not to mention taking this illegally obtained information and turning it over to the NCAA. Absolutely disgusting
Federal Court in Virginia Holds Geofence Warrant Violates Constitution
In the first order of its kind, a federal district court has held that a warrant used to identify all devices in the area of a bank robbery, including the defendant’s, “plainly violates the rights enshrined in [the Fourth] Amendment.” The court questioned whether similar warrants could ever be...www.eff.org
So, the DCI decides to tap your cell phone. Not because you have committed any crimes but because they think you may have. They don't get a warrant. You ok with that.? I hope not because it is illegal on their part.
She supported it thinking the lies told by the DCI underlings were true.
$20 Bucks says it was the dorm where the athletes stay at. However someone had a little semblance of the consequences and didn't use that data. However they had already did an illegal search of all students. Then they did a secondary illegal search on the sports building. I have a pretty good hunch no is going to be using the geo location data any time soon at a university again.
If Iowa and Iowa State did NOT self-report, they would have opened themselves up to much more severe sanctions from the NCAA. You dont wanna give them an opportunity to come snooping around.
Further proof to not say squat to authorities without consulting a lawyer first.
Eh . . . You have DCI agents saying it was an illegal search with false pretenses to get confessions. I think we have enough here that we can make a pretty strong assumption DCI and the state is cooked. Now it comes down to the fallout, how much is there, or is it isolated to a couple DCI agents.
Oh boy. You got her. I'll bet she was standing outside the athletic facilities running the geofence herself!
Athletic only facilities at Iowa and ISU certainly make it easier to target those student-athletes, but doing the same investigation at UNI, Drake, or other colleges wouldn’t be that difficult either.
Who knows, there was obviously conversations. However she isn't the sharpest tool in the drawer and education and secondary education are far down her list of what she cares about. If an email or two came out that she thought this should be investigated or encouraged the investigation . . . lets just say things could get interesting. I can't remember who posted, but I do think someone within government or within DCI wanted to do this. Was it just a rogue agent? Based off the other DCI investigator, sounds like it goes farther up the chain. So where does it stop at?
