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'Full-Pipe' FBI Internet Monitoring Questionably Legal
CNet is running a piece looking at what they refer to as a 'questionably legal' internet surveillance technique being employed by the FBI. In situations where isolating a specific IP address for a suspect is not possible, the FBI has taken to 'full-pipe' surveillance: all activity for a bank of IPs is recorded, and then data mining is used to attempt to isolate their target. The questionable legality of this situation results from a requirement that, under federal law, the FBI is required to use 'minimization'. The article describes it this way: "Federal law says that agents must 'minimize the interception of communications not otherwise subject to interception' and keep the supervising judge informed of what's happening. Minimization is designed to provide at least a modicum of privacy by limiting police eavesdropping on innocuous conversations." Full-pipe surveillance would seem to abandon that principle in favor of getting to the target faster.
If you're doing something wrong, and they happen to catch you because they were looking for someone else -- then you shouldn't have been doing whatever it was you were doing.
That's fair.
What this means is that there are circumstances when ISPs cannot isolate IP addys or individuals, then it's ok to sniff the whole pipe. Why not? Why should the cops have to pussyfoot around BS red tape just to do their jobs?
Now if they do this when they had the opportunity to perform IP isolation calls properly -- then we have to apply a sober and proportionate response to that kind of human rights abuse. And that means we the people will have to have the particulars behind such cases when this method is employed, in full detail. Do you think we'll get it?
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
If they only keep evidence found on the target (providing of course that they have a warrant of course) it might not be so bad. But somehow I doubt that will be the case though...say you and your neighbor both use municipal wireless, and your neighbor is into kiddie porn. The FBI collects all the traffic from your access point, and busts your neighbor for the kiddie porn - but also nails you for copyright infringment for downloading music or movies.
I was about to say the same thing.
If they are UNABLE to isolate the IP addy, but they have a good idea which ISP it's coming from , then doing a "full pipe" exam would be the logical next step, and the smallest step they could take. This would fit into the "minimalize" concept. I don't see what the big deal is here.
Now, if they were doing "Full Pipe" exams without CAUSE (IE: just out fishing to see what they can catch) then I would have a problem with that. But with cause, this is perfectly legit and appropriate.
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
If you're doing something wrong, and they happen to catch you because they were looking for someone else -- then you shouldn't have been doing whatever it was you were doing.
That's fair.
No, it isn't fair, it's unconstitutional. Any evidence gained in this way should not be admissible in court or be allowed to be used to gain further evidence. Saying "if you were doing something wrong, you deserved it" is the same as saying "if you aren't doing anything wrong, you have nothing to hide." Both of these arguments are just dead wrong.
If the FBI has a tap on your neighbor's phone, they can't tap your phone and listen to your conversations too just because they happen to be in the neighborhood.
I cannot in vision any scenario in which an ISP is incapable of isolating a single customers traffic.
At the most basic level the physical connection could be intercepted.
Thus they are not making a reasonable effort to minimize the scope of the tapping and are breaking the law.
I am trying to think of a technical limitation where they could not be able to isolate an IP, or more specificaly, a MAC address. Can someone point out some? Maybe between two border routers or something?
While I'm not inherently subject to these laws/conditions, living in the UK, I can't see that they're in any way fair or balanced. If it's not possible to isolate the IP traffic of one particular individual I can't see that it's fair to violate the privacy of everyone else that happens to be in that pipe. I seem to recall reading that law/criminal justice is based on the presumption of innocence (naive, perhaps, but it seems to be the predicate...I could be wrong, of course, given current developments).
Whether I'm doing anything illegal or otherwise I don't expect to be subject to surveillance simply because someone else in the pipe I share is suspected of doing something. If it's not possible to isolate the suspect from the crowd then surely the surveillance is too broad.
Plus, as an aside, until I'm able to see the means by which such monitoring is over-seen then I don't necessarily trust those with the relevant authority to act on my behalf to protect my privacy.
It's easy to find people who have unsecured wireless. Those cheap routers don't keep detailed log information about who is connecting to them. It's a law enforcement nightmare and I'm surprised that the FBI hasn't gotten very gungho about punishing people for not securing wireless connections. We're reaching a point where it can be all but impossible to determine whether or not the person is guilty of a crime until the humiliating arrest and prosecution. In some cases it's trojans, others it could be open wireless. Law enforcement still hasn't grasped the delicacy of the situation. You can tell from their tactics. If they did, they'd understand how easy it is today for computers to be hijacked such that there is no way to plausibly determine prima facie who really is doing it, even if they have the IP address it seems to be coming from.
If you're doing something wrong, and they happen to catch you because they were looking for someone else -- then you shouldn't have been doing whatever it was you were doing.
That's fair. I agree that the summary is misleading, sensationalized even, but I don't agree that it is fair. I think a fair, if fictional, analogy in this case would be if police had a warrant to search a house in my neighbourhood looking for evidence of a crime, but since they only knew what block the house was on, they were permitted to search all the houses on my block. In that case, only evidence which actually applied to the crime being investigated should be usable. Suppose that I am a criminal, unrelated to the criminal activity that the police are investigating. They search my house and find some evidence that they weren't looking for. It doesn't seem fair for that evidence to be admissible in court, and I think they should require a new warrant to search for that evidence in a separate investigation. In that case, the investigators actually lose because I would have a chance to destroy the evidence before the second warrant is produced. In the Internet case, people don't even know when their traffic is being watched.
The rules don't change just because someone in your neighbourhood or netblock may have committed a crime that is being investigated by the FBI, and that is the danger here. Just because I'm not a criminal doesn't mean that I want authorities snooping through my garbage. I know we're already far down the slippery slope, but we need to hold on to whatever freedoms we have left.
www.timcoleman.com is a total waste of your time. Never go there.
People, we really need to go back to teaching Government and Civics in high school. There are some people here who have been left behind.
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
Well, since sniffing the whole pipe on it's face violates:
"Particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized".
I would say, that once again, the FBI is overstepping it's lawfully delegated powers.
In other news, the sky is blue...
Technology -- No Place For Wimps! Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia Chatroom -- http://www.wemissjerry.org
Cops suspect illegal activity, say drug ring, but they do not know which apartment it is. Do the police have the right to search every apartment in the complex to find illegal activity? And what if they come to my apartment and find that I have a computer. Can they seize that to see if I am doing anything illegal in their search for the drug ring? No. Laws and the Constitution are two separate entities. Congress and states cannot make laws that abridge the freedoms set forth in the Constitution.
One of the problems with searching an Internet pipe is that the conventional methods and doctrines for search warrants don't apply easily or at all (i.e.: plain view doctrine). Search warrants have to be specific as to what the officers are looking for.
Example: if the search warrant is for a TV, and the officers look in a desk drawer and find kiddy porn, they can't take it. Now, what will probably happen is some of the officers will stay there (or close by) while another tries to get another warrant (with probable cause) for the material. It will all depend on whether the judge believes they had a right to be opening the desk in the first place; even if the search warrant is issued, it will definately be challenged by the defense in court. Subsequent grants for search warrants will also be scrutenized by previous requests for search warrants by the officer as well (i.e.: if Officer Joe has a history of leaving out details, writing poorly, or making frivilous requests in search warrants, they will likely be denied by the judge until the officer can get it right).
Just because the officers find evidence of some other crime while executing a search warrant, it doesn't necessiarly mean that that will be able to keep the evidence of the other crime (it depends on probable cause, whether the officer has a right to the evidence, and other court-established doctrines).
I don't reply to Anonymous posts; if you have something to say to me, identify yourself or I won't reply.
Gah!
You're right. 4th Amendment to the Constitution. I need to re-read my copy again.
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
We all need to have a look at it from time to time.
No, it's not. It's called the plain view exception and has been found to be completely constitutional. I refer you to this page from the Justice Department (ok, no snickers) which references Horton v. California, 496 U.S. 128 (1990).
The relevant part is as follows:
How this exception would apply in the current situation will be up for debate but the exception of an officer finding evidence of another crime, while executing a search warrant for a different crime, is fully constitutional. For a further reading of just this subject, see Danny Weitzner's comments with a much more detailed discussion of the plain view exception.
What, you expect the cops to ignore the dead body missing its arms lying in the back room because they were only looking for the stash of cocaine in the house?
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
See, the problem is that you could easily interpert that (with out stretchign it much) to fit full pipe:
particularly describing the place to be searched
They have done that. They know the problem is with in this range of IPs, however they can not narow it down because the ISP can not help them with it.
and the persons or things to be seized
This is where it is sorta tricky. This part has been interpereted to say that anytihng found durign a reasonable execution (aka, no searchign in pill bottles for stollen TVs) of a warrent is admissable.
So if they only need to be checking web pages visited, and they start sniffing P2P traffic, that should be inadmissable, however if they fidn something durring a reasonable execution of the warrent, then it would be.
Note, I am not sayign I am for or against this as I honestly don't have enoguh information on it. I lean away from it as it DOES look like it is way to much of an invassion of privacy, but I can't say 100%.
The big deal for me is how the heck could an ISP NOT be able to tell you what IP you need to look at?
If you have the name/house/whatever the ISP should easily be able to pull up what IP(s) that person/place currently has assigned to them.
If you are working back from an IP you found doing something illegal, then the ISP should know who that IP was assigned to at the given time, and give you the current IP (assuming non-static).
I don't really like the ISPs trackign what we are doing and when, but I know they are, so why would this 'full pipe' warrent ever show up?
Do Or Do Not, There Is No Spoon, There Is Only Zuul. Everything in the above post is probably opinion.
Here's how I think about that... about 230 years ago, folks living in a British colony that didn't have that sort of legal protection were willing to fight and die for the right to have it (it was the fourth thing on their list, actually). I'm guessing that there's probably something pretty upsetting about random, unwarranted searches and seizures that propelled them to feel so strongly about it. Of course, the way things are going, I won't have to guess much longer - it will be readily apparent to all of us pretty soon what it feels like to live in a world where the cops can kick in your door on a whim and take whatever they feel like taking.
Proud neuron in the Slashdot hivemind since 2002.
The value behind the words is pretty clear, or at least it is when you look at the words in terms of 18th century technology. In the big room, things are public. You can't assert privacy in the town square. But separate from that, are our personal domains that no one else should be able to enter without our permission; a man is king of his castle. If you're there without permission, you're trespassing. And the 4th Amendment says that government is a special case, that it can enter your space without your consent without it being trespassing, but this requires court oversight. Without that check in place, it is trespassing.
In 1789, it was really easy to tell the difference between public and private, only requiring basic common sense.
You don't even have to be an intelligent human to understand this. Even some really dumb animals know how to enforce ownership of their turf. It's that basic and easy.
When phone networks came, it got kind of blurry. I guess Congress and the Courts have made up their mind about that, generally taking our side (i.e. requiring warrants for wiretapping) but the reality isn't all that clear. No matter how you look at it, those phone wires are not just in your house and the house of the person you're talking to. The wires are in public. When we demand privacy on wires that pass through public, radio signals that go everywhere, etc, we're doing something very artificial. That doesn't mean it's wrong or an unreasonable demand; really, it's ok to assert our will over nature. But going beyond Natural Law isn't as easy as it looks, and the issues can explode with complexity.
When you get to the Internet, it's even harder. Anyone who knows anything about the Internet, knows that you really don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy. We desire privacy? Well, of course! But having an "expectation" is foolishly unrealistic. There are too many people who have access to your plaintext. You don't even know who they are! How can you expect respect and accountability from someone you can't even identify, doesn't have any sort of business relationship with you, etc? It's naive.
Contrast that to the situation of someone looking at papers on your desk at home. Nobody gets into your home without your knowledge or permission, so if someone even has the ability to violate the security of your effects and papers, it's because either you granted permission for them to be there, or because they're trespassing. Well, when you send a packet of plaintext out onto the Internet with blind faith that the routing protocols will somehow get the packet to its destination, you're granting permission for someone (you don't even know who) to at least have enough access to the packet to be able to get the job done. You might say you didn't grant permission for them to read your love letter, but you sure as hell did grant them just about everything short of that -- you very explicitly give them the opportunity. This is very unlike the situation with a love letter sitting on your desk at home.
Everyone knows this, and they've known this for a very long time (thus anyone who uses the words "Bush Administration" in this discussion shouldn't be taken seriously). Tech-heads made up their minds decades ago: you can't expect privacy, unless you take matters into your own hands, by encrypting. If you don't listen to tech-heads on this, you're a fool.
We don't have a reaso
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Here's why: the FBI probably uses this technique, in some cases, to track down child porn. True, most cases these days are probably copyright infringement cases demanded by the industry, but given today's power-hungry government and legislators who think their primary mandate is to keep their office, all the FBI has to do is say that they use it to combat child porn and no one but the district court or higher will touch it - and that takes months or years.
You may ask why I say this. Wikipedia COPA, COPPA, CIPA, Communications Decency Act (the parts that the courts struck down). Claim you're protecting children and you can get away with anything. Now, I'm not saying these laws are a bad thing - they're well-intentioned, but badly thought out and the difficulties of doing what they demand on the Internet were not considered.
There's an old saying that says pretty much whatever you want it to.
Sometimes, living in a free society makes it harder on law enforcement. There are certain prices we pay for liberty and this is one of them. Taxes are another price we pay for a civilization based on personal freedom. The "hassle" of following the Constitution and not just summarily executing bad guys that we KNOW are bad guys is another.
I'm sure it's a drag for police to have to get a warrant when they know someone is doing something illegal in their house. I'm sure the FBI gets very frustrated when they have to provide a judge with affidavits of Probable Cause when they KNOW that the bad guys are using phones to do bad things, just so they can put up a wire tap.
And it's a hell of a lot more than just a little hassle when our own freedoms allow really really bad guys to plan and execute a terrorist attack where thousands are killed. But it may turn out that too, is the price of living in a free society, God help us.
I know that as I sit in my neighborhood coffee shop, someone with a bomb strapped to their body could walk in and blow me to bits. I watched as fellow Americans (and a lot of innocent non-Americans) lost their lives on September 11, more than 5 years ago.
But I refuse to live my life in fear. And I absolutely refuse to give up one single bit of my liberty to make it easier for law enforcement to do their jobs, or to make it more convenient for our government to govern, or even to ensure that I can walk down the street without the fear of something bad happening to me. That's how important liberty is to me - more important than my security.
I see fear making a lot of people willing to live less like Americans and more like the residents of a gated community or the inmates of a prison. I mean, it's not really that bad if officials have to ask us to show papers on the street - not if it makes us safer. And it's not really that bad if someone in the Federal Government has to read my mail without my permission. And it's not really all that bad if the FBI has to sniff my packets because someone, somewhere else on the internet is doing something wrong. After all if you're not doing anything wrong, you don't have to worry.
There a lot of people who have been convinced - we see them around here - that all those little freedoms just aren't worth having to be afraid. These people have wandered very far from the principles that made the US unique in the world and a beacon of freedom to those who live in safe places where they don't fear terrorists, or pornographers, or child molestors. Those people only have to fear their own government.
I'm not willing to trade, and I'm not willing to give up my freedom. I would really, honestly rather die a free man than live under tyranny. I don't blame those of you who have become so scared that you've convinced yourselves it's OK to be watched, because you're not doing anything wrong. But I absolutely pity you. It must be hell to be so afraid.
But that's just the kind of hairpin I am.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Well, since sniffing the whole pipe on it's face violates:
"Particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized".
How does it violate it?
What to be searched is described: All of the class C that the suspect can get a DHCP address from.
The person is explicitly identified, even though often John-Doe'd because the identity isn't yet known.
The things to be siezed are explicitly listed: All packets from John Doe.
It fits the definition under the Constitution as you listed. What the issues are are irrelevant to that part. The FBI is required to not get more than they must. If there is a practical way to get just the person they are looking for's packets, then they are breaking the law. If there isn't a technically available solution, then they are within the law.
Of course, you can also debate whether John Doe warrants/subpoenas are legal, but that too seems to be a separate issue from what you brought up.
Learn to love Alaska
If they can get a warrent that says so, then yes.
:particularly describing the place to be searched. Of course precedent (and possibly even law, though I am not sure) says you can't do this.
It does not actualy violate the constitution. The constitution just says that a warrent must be
The thing being is that I finaly actualy reread tfa and it says NOTHING about warrents, jsut that they are doign this b/c they can, and THAT is unconstitutional.
Do Or Do Not, There Is No Spoon, There Is Only Zuul. Everything in the above post is probably opinion.
This reminds me of the new product I was thinking of releasing into the Washington DC market: ;)
Bill of Rights Toilet Paper with all 10 printed on each sheet. I bet I would....clean up
- Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
Your participation in our society has nullified your statements. Can you clarify what this means. Do you mean than anyone who lives in the US can't say anything about liberty?
---FourChannel---
Shouldn't that be full-tube?
Our "agreeing to be governed" (as you put it) is something that we renew on a continual basis. This is why we have elections. The compact that Americans have with their government comes from one direction: us to them. We give the government the right to govern, the government does not grant us rights.
And when I mentioned suicide bombers in American cafe's it's only because that's the rhetoric that's spewed nightly by the right-wing media. See, if we don't make war in Iraq, the terrorists are going to come here, right?
Well, I don't believe it either. But you can't support the notion when Michael Savage says it but then deny it when I use it to make my point. The reason I'm not afraid of being bombed while I'm drinking my coffee is because "it's almost certainly not going to happen", and in fact, on the ranking of risk in my life, terrorism is rather way down the list.
This is why I'm trying to exhort those Americans who have been seemingly scared witless by the current Administration (remember "Orange Alert"?) and the captive media who serve the Administration. "Don't be afraid" I am trying to tell them. The threat is not worth the loss of what has made America such a special place.
And regarding what you call my "attempts and honorable and emotional rhetoric", I will not apologize for my honor or my emotion.
And if you think the only type of tyranny is where you get "treated as a slave, whipped and beaten", I suggest you pick up a good history of the 20th century.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I'm not convinced of this. The shackles & chains have been in place a long awhile. It will take significant effort (beyond democratic) to alter the way we are governed. And regarding what you call my "attempts and honorable and emotional rhetoric", I will not apologize for my honor or my emotion.
Naturally. I would never be foolish enough to request or expect this. And if you think the only type of tyranny is where you get "treated as a slave, whipped and beaten", I suggest you pick up a good history of the 20th century.
These were simply the allusions I developed from your diatribe. You sound like a history book, the kind adults force upon children when it's dangerous to endorse children's critical thinking. The US has never been a shining "beacon of freedom." Using terms like this give me significant pause to think about your grip on reality. We were the natural evolution of western thinking society. We have at certain times had good sense, other times had good leaders, and quite frankly gathered our fair share of good fortune. I'm glad there are people with the beliefs you have as a balancing act, but I wish these beliefs were presented within the framework we have to live in. That is within the scope of a democratic government, containing uncertainties, and entailing all the competing beliefs about life, liberty, and happiness.
I'm not a centrist, but I do strive to be objective. I don't think I/we have anything to gain sensationalizing things to the effect of black & white. sic, the snide remarks