The legend of “eureka” is that a fellow who had a specific problem in mind noticed something specific to his problem. Discoveries like sticky notes are not the same thing.
Yes. The "eureka" legend refers to the ancient Greek scholar Archimedes. He was tasked with determining if a gold crown commissioned by the king was pure gold, or if the goldsmith had substituted some silver. While taking a bath, Archimedes noticed that the water level rose as he got in, and he suddenly realized that the volume of water displaced must be equal to the volume of the submerged object. This gave him the insight that by measuring the volume of water displaced by the crown, and comparing it to the volume displaced by an equal weight of pure gold, he could determine the purity of the crown. Excited by his discovery, Archimedes supposedly leapt out of the bath and ran naked through the streets of Syracuse shouting "Eureka!" which means "I have found it!" in Greek.
Nothing to do with that. They were under investigation and they could be destroying evidence.
"Companies and individuals have a legal responsibility to preserve documents when involved in government investigations or litigation in order to promote efficient and effective enforcement that protects the American public."
But there is no responsibility to create new potentially incriminating evidence against themselves. Just because you are under investigation does not mean all your communication henceforth needs to be recorded.
It does, however, mean that your new documents related to the litigation must be preserved. Just because a machine destroys it for you as a service doesn't mean you don't have a duty to preserve. They control the disappearing time.
Looking at FRCP rule 37, it uses language like "reasonable steps to preserve" electronic information, and "intent to deprive another party of the information’s use". I'm no expert, but it does sound like this might imply an obligation to change retention settings, switch to another chat app, or figure out some other way to preserve relevant information (if litigation is anticipated).
Jeff Bezos, when not operating in a business capacity, can do whatever. The federal government told Google, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, and others, they had to retain communication streams for a certain amount of time.
And then Amazon (and Google) instructed employees to delete lots of communications, and to communicate outside normal channels, e.g., via Signal.
I hope so, these protestors are accepting blood money every time a direct deposit from Google hits their bank account or their stocks vest! Surely they'd want to keep their moral integrity intact and quit if their demands are not met.
Wow ... literally until this instant I had never considered the possibility that it could have been my entire finger, or damage to my hand. (I was three years old. This was a long time ago.)
