By John Q. Hosedrinker 
A U.S. District Court judge recently ruled the National Guard’s deployment to Washington, D.C. was illegal. Judge Jia Cobb determined the Pentagon overstepped its authority by ordering troops for non-military crime-deterrence without city leadership’s permission. This stemmed from the former president’s deployment of the National Guard to combat perceived rising crime, despite crime statistics actually decreasing. The court found the president lacked authority to federalize law enforcement in American cities, particularly in Washington, D.C.
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Let’s dive right into this, shall we? The story is that ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is suddenly missing crucial evidence, and it all happened right after they got hit with a lawsuit. The official explanation? A “system crash.” Right. Color me skeptical. This isn’t just a minor inconvenience; we’re talking about a significant legal development with potentially serious repercussions.
The immediate reaction, as you can probably imagine, is a mixture of outrage and disbelief. There are IT professionals who know data can be recovered, so why aren’t they going after the hard drives? Some are already calling it illegal and demanding accountability, which is a pretty understandable response given the circumstances. The missing evidence, being government property, should be readily available. The argument is that this constitutes “spoliation of evidence,” which is a big deal in the legal world. Judges take this very seriously, and it can mean serious consequences for ICE.
The legal system relies on the preservation of relevant documents, and when those documents disappear under suspicious circumstances, it throws the whole process into question. It’s like the old “the dog ate my homework” excuse, but in the context of a major government agency. Many people are pointing out that ICE’s credibility is already shaky, and this only adds fuel to the fire. “The dog ate my war crimes,” is a fitting darkly humorous description. It’s a convenient narrative for a seemingly inconvenient situation. The likely outcome? A summary default judgement against ICE. This is a big win for the plaintiff.
The conversation naturally veers towards deeper implications, including the idea of insurance policies for law enforcement. The suggestion is that if officers were held financially responsible for the actions of their department through insurance, it might encourage better behavior and accountability. The cost of a few bad apples would be too costly for departments, creating an incentive for oversight. This is because it could make bad officers more expensive to keep. The focus quickly turns to the parallels, too. Like the Secret Service phones from January 6th, the evidence seems to have simply vanished.
The core of the issue: if you’re being sued and your defense is, “Oops, we lost the evidence,” the plaintiff is probably going to win. It is a slam dunk case. It calls to mind similar situations where evidence mysteriously disappears, like that infamous episode of *Bob’s Burgers* where the TV show director burned the video footage. The familiar patterns of obstruction of justice come to mind, and the use of delay tactics.
And let’s be honest, does anyone really believe this “system crash” narrative? Government systems are supposed to have robust data backup solutions. Even if the original hard drive was destroyed, there should be backups, either physical or in a government cloud. Many people are remembering similar situations and predicting this type of outcome. The common retort? The dog ate my homework. Or perhaps, in this case, the computer ate the evidence.
The idea of weaponized incompetence is also raised. It is a crime to fail to keep these records. The “system crash,” with no backup, is not just incompetence; it’s a potential felony if we are to believe the data was lost by accident. The Secret Service and its lost text messages from January 6th are a point of comparison to underscore the pattern.
Many of these reactions are coming from experienced IT professionals, who know that the explanation is just an excuse. Modern government IT infrastructure doesn’t just lose data like this. Evidence has stringent governance requirements, and a “system crash” wouldn’t cause a loss of data unless there was gross negligence in how the systems were set up. Backups are critical. The possibility to recover data before new data overwrites previous files also comes up, highlighting the urgency of the situation.