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Federal judge vows to investigate Google for intentionally destroying chats
(www.theverge.com)
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
IANAL
Usually judges don't issue such extreme orders only because of the fact that they don't want to be hammered on appeal.
Now this one is different. I have 2 theories: either the judge thinks the mandatory negative inference is not needed because there's a good chance the jury will do that anyway, or the judge is gonna advise the government to make this a separate case.
It honestly doesn't sound to me like he's just saying one thing and doing the other. He sounds rightly agitated and usually agitated judges will give you a low blow sooner or later if you fuck around.