Uber finds one allegedly stolen Waymo file on an employee’s personal device

Re:Uber finds one allegedly stolen Waymo file on an employee... by chc on Wednesday April 05, 2017 @06:04PM (#14046063)

Leveling an accusation isn't hard, but making somebody plead the fifth in a civil case where they haven't done anything wrong is. When one of your executives is refusing to cooperate with an internal investigation because it might expose him to criminal liability, that's a little past "From my point of view, Waymo is evil."

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Re:Uber finds one allegedly stolen Waymo file on an employee... by komali2 on Wednesday April 05, 2017 @06:46PM (#14046379)

Making somebody? How should he have reacted? What exactly is the point of pleading the fifth if by doing so you incriminate yourself?

I plead the fifth when I get pulled over, am I a criminal? I don't understand. It seems to me the absolute smartest course of action - place the burden of proof entirely on the opposition, give them nothing to work with you don't have to.

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Re:Uber finds one allegedly stolen Waymo file on an employee... by chc on Wednesday April 05, 2017 @07:35PM (#14046678)

You seem to have missed the point that this is not a criminal case, so the Fifth Amendment doesn't apply here. By pleading the fifth, he's not just declining to testify — he's claiming that the result of cooperating here would open him to a whole different criminal case.

In other words, nobody is saying that he has incriminated himself by pleading the fifth. But in Uber's civil case, he has created some very bad implications and greatly worsened their position, and it wouldn't be unreasonable for them to see him as a liability at this point. This is not a mere accusation by Waymo — his actions indicate that there's something going on here.

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Re:Uber finds one allegedly stolen Waymo file on an employee... by matt4077 on Wednesday April 05, 2017 @07:36PM (#14046682)

The problem is: they have enough. Like a logging system with documented external audits and the sworn testimony of the engineers that run it, and it shows him downloading those documents.

And the fifth amendment protects you from "adverse inference" in criminal proceedings. It doesn't protect you in a civil suit, nor does it bind me or others in this thread or the general public to conclude that yes, Levandowsky's trucking company is probably heading for a wall.

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Re:Uber finds one allegedly stolen Waymo file on an employee... by komali2 on Thursday April 06, 2017 @06:41PM (#14055369)

Nobody seemed to mind when Shkreli plead the fifth all the way through a congressional hearing, not sure how this is different. Other than the obvious fact that it's not a congressional hearing.

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