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The Detroit News reports
Federal documents unsealed Friday detail how VW engineers from the very beginning of the automaker's so-called "clean diesel" program intentionally developed and installed a "defeat device" on roughly 500,000 cars from 2009 through 2015 in the United States so that they could appear to pass U.S. emissions tests.
The details were made public as James Robert Liang, leader of diesel competence for VW from 2008 through June, appeared in U.S. District Court in Detroit. He entered a guilty plea to a grand jury indictment of conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government, to commit wire fraud and to violate the Clean Air Act. The maximum penalty is five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
It marks the first criminal charge in the year-long scandal at the German automaker and could indicate more charges against VW officials are coming in the Department of Justice investigation into the company.
[...] Liang was also indicted for violating the Clean Air Act, which includes a two-year prison term and $250,000 fine. But under a plea agreement with the Justice Department, he did not enter a plea to that charge.
[...] Liang is not a U.S. citizen, and his conviction on the charges could affect his eligibility to remain in the United States, U.S. District Judge Sean Cox said. Liang is scheduled to be sentenced at 2 p.m. Jan. 11 before Cox.
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(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Sunday September 11 2016, @06:13PM
I absolutely agree with you. But it's damned hard to do, and often these things creep up, one little step at a time.
In this specific case, this is the software that lets you control how the engine is operating. Finding settings that would reduce emissions is, of course, a good thing. Finding settings that optimize power is also a good thing. All very necessary. Even being able to detect when your car is on a test stand has legitimate uses, like turning on additional telemetry. So you've put all that work in, and it's all fine. Until the day that someone, somewhere, wants to add one little line of code: "if not test-stand then optimize power". Do you throw your career and your family under the bus? That's a hard, hard decision.
Anyway, as I said, I don't think they're just going after this guy. I think they're going to try to use him as a stepping stone to catch a whole boatload of other people. If I believed they would actually get only the guilty, I'd be all for it. Unfortunately, this is a case that makes careers, and those careers are going to be more important than being careful not to squash a lot of innocents along the way.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.