Precedent for Warrantless Net Monitoring Set

highcon writes "According to this editorial from SecurityFocus, a recent case of a drug dog which pushed the limits of "reasonable search" may have implications for Internet communications in the U.S. This Supreme Court case establishes a precendent whereby "intelligent" packet filters may be deployed which, while scanning the contents of network traffic indiscriminently, only "bark" at communication indicative of illegal activity."

Comments

What ever happened to the Constitution?

[raistphrk]

So law enforcement can just sit with a packet filter scanning for the word "drugs"? That's just absurd. If law enforcement has reason to believe that an individual is committing illegal acts, they can go and get a warrant. Thanks to FISA, that's not the most difficult task. However, this isn't like a drug deal on a street corner; this is more analagous to being able to tap everybody's cell phone, hoping to find one or two people selling drugs.

A real blow to the Constitution.

Re:What ever happened to the Constitution?

[ari_j]

The article is not even persuasive authority to a court. It's an amateur interpretation of a court decision that attempts to make an analogy. As you point out, the analogy is very weak. Since it is not even in a law review journal, nobody in the legal field is going to pay an iota of attention to it, and no court will care about it.

Now, if the courts did extend the analogy as the article makes it sound has already been done, it would be a real blow to the Constitution, notwithstanding the Anonymous Coward sibling to this comment. What that sibling fails to recognize is that deciding that Internet traffic is not among the "persons, houses, papers, and effects" made safe from "unreasonable searches and seizures" by the Fourth Amendment is itself a blow to the Constitution, because it's the equivalent of saying that the Constitution is of little to no effect in the 21st century.

Personally, I don't see the Supreme Court making the leap that the article thinks it already has. The Rehnquist Court has gone back to the text of the Constitution more than any Court since 1937, when FDR scared the Court into acceding to his wishes and giving Congress and the Presidency more power than the Constitution allows (and then giving the Presidency much of Congress's power for good measure). They have been working their way backwards and, as Justice Scalia put it, have to tear the house that was built apart, piece by piece.

Encryption Time

[Warskull]

When you can no longer rely on the law to protect your privacy the time comes to take things into your own hands. Should this get applied to the internet I see a rather good reason to push for the encryption of all transmitted data.

Re:Thy don't understand tech, they use metaphors

[dourk]

When the post office re-seals your envelope, they put a nice sticker on it saying that it was opened.

If my packet is sniffed, and barked at, and later determined to be innocent (sometimes the dogs are wrong), will there be some nice header in my transmission letting me know they took a peek?

That'll be a big hint that I need to start using encryption.

Re:Thy don't understand tech, they use metaphors

[Lucky_Norseman]

I assume that using encryption is one of the things that will trigger a packet as suspicious.

Re:Thy don't understand tech, they use metaphors

[X0563511]

Anything that the sniffer can't parse would trigger that then.

If you can't parse something, from the code's view, it can either be encrypted or innocent data. How exactly would it be able to tell the difference? It can't. It's either something it understands or something encrypted.

If the thing was coded to ignore things it couldn't parse, then what happens if you simply make up your own algorithm (just use ROT13 or something) on top of the PGP/RSA/whatever? It would be nearly pointless.