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EFF Weighs in on Computer Privacy Case
An anonymous reader writes "A case on appeal to the Washington State Court of Appeals, State v. Westbrook, recently drew the attention of the EFF. They argue that: "citizens have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents of their computers, and that their Fourth Amendment rights don't disappear when a computer is delivered to a technician for servicing." This ruling could threaten to 'turn your friendly neighborhood computer repair technician into a government informer' "
"EFF appears to be ashamed of this "detail" [child pornography found] because they left it out of the report on their website."
The title is very much misleading. The EFF is *not* defending child porn. FTFA, quote,
"Customers who drop off their computers for servicing reasonably expect that their private data won't be handed over to the police without a warrant."
The EFF is defending the right of the person to not have his hard disk go through an unauthorized search.
Indeed.
The Bill of Rights lists rights not granted by the government, but lists rights that are inherent and unalienable. Among these is the right to privacy.
I don't believe that a business owner, merely by "virtue" of being a business owner, gets a power to violate my civil rights. They get all kinds of benefits from living in a civil society, and in exchange, they have to do things like pay taxes, not put up signs that say "No niggers, kikes or faggots allowed," etc., etc.
It is deeply disturbing to me that people imagine that starting a business gives them arbitrary powers of surveillance and coercion in that sphere.
What part of "A well regulated militia" do you not understand?
Can you tell me in which article this "right to privacy" is? I seem to have missed it.
IN THE
Supreme Court of the United States
The Fourth Amendment protects "[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures." U.S. Const. amend. IV. The rights protected by the Fourth Amendment are "indispensable to the 'full enjoyment of personal security, personal liberty, and private property'; [and] they are to be regarded as of the very essence of constitutional liberty." Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10, 17 n.8 (1948). And these rights apply with particular force in the home, where the expectation of privacy is historically and legally entitled to the highest protection. A thermal imager scan of a private home at night without a warrant, which gathers information about activities and objects generating heat inside the home, violates those rights.
Further down in that document:
This constitutional right of privacy in the home does not depend on notions of trespass. See Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 353 (1967) (the existence of a violation "cannot turn upon the presence or absence of a physical intrusion into any given enclosure"); United States v. United States Dist. Ct., 407 U.S. 297, 313 (1972) (government interception of telephone conversations as violative of right of privacy as physical entry into the home). As this Court recognized over a hundred years ago: "It is not the breaking of his doors, and the rummaging of his drawers, that constitutes the essence of the offense; but it is the invasion of his indefeasible right of personal security, personal liberty, and private property. . . which underlies and constitutes the essence of"a Fourth Amendment violation. Boyd, 116 U.S. at 630.
The First Amendment Protects Privacy of Association
The "close nexus" between the First Amendment freedoms of speech and assembly assures a freedom to engage in association for the advancement of beliefs and ideas. See NAACP, 357 U.S. 449, 460 (1958). Effective advocacy of both public and private viewpoints--central to the First Amendment--is "undeniably enhanced by group association." Id. Freedom of association is a fundamental right protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Id., citing De Jonge v. Oregon, 299 U.S. 353, 364; Thomas v. Collins, 323 U.S. 516, 530 (1992). The freedom of association encompasses the right to privacy of that association, and therefore prevents compelled disclosure of membership in an organization. NAACP, 357 U.S. at 459. Such a right is necessary to the freedom of expression, which depends upon the unrestricted flow of ideas, because the "inviolability of privacy in group association may in many circumstances be indispensable to preservation of freedom of association, particularly where a group espouses dissident beliefs." Id. at 462.
The Court Only Seventeen Years Ago: Deeply Torn Over Anti-Gay Sex Criminal Laws
In 1986, the Supreme Court took up the famous -- indeed, notorious -- case of Bowers v. Hardwick. The case arose when Michael Hardwick was arrested for violating Georgia's criminal ban on sodomy after police entered his home and found him in bed with another man.
In defending himself against the criminal charge, Hardwick challenged the constitutionality of Georgia's ban on sodomy. Specifically, he argued that his constitutional right to privacy included a right to engage in homosexual sex and, thus, meant that Georgia's sodomy law should be struck down.
As a legal matter, Hardwick's case involved one of the most difficult areas of constitutional law. The Constitution doe
Should there be a Law?