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Open WAP = Probable Cause?
RockoTDF writes "A court in texas has ruled that an open WAP is not a sufficient defense against child pornography charges, a ruling which could carry over to p2p users. In addition, it appears that an open WAP could be seen as probable cause by law enforcement."
Just a reminder to ACCEPT jury duty if you get called. It is one of the best ways to directly affect how things work in the U.S.
Idiot.
This guy gave a conditional guilty plea even though "evidence" linked the yahoo account to his roommate. You don't accept a deal for 4 years in prison if you're not guilty. Clearly, someone is lying here.
Thats like saying because you wanted to get a hand gun, your going to be a school shooter. There are TONS of open WAPs because people don't know better. It gives me the desire to go from home to home and do child porn searchs and FBI searches from all the homes to force this decision to get overturned. I mean come on.
;))
I don't know whether or not the guy was innocent/guilty but I do think that this "probable cause" thing is complete crap. If I see cops going down the streets with laptops I'll chase em away and sue the city! Mental anguish or something. (luckily, I don't live in texas
If they make openWAP's probable cause, then what about a coffee place where you get free wifi. Will the owner be held responsible for this customers actions? Will you be *REQUIRED* to get a permit for an open WAP. This is complete crap.
Support the source, Open Source! An entire site developed with OSS
It looks like the argument was that since this guy (who was actually guilty but was trying to have evidence suppressed) had an open access point, the cops had no probable cause to search, since it could have been anybody using his connection.
The article, and the summary falsely conclude that having an open access point gives the authorities probable cause to search your premises and systems. In reality, what this means is that having an open access point doesn't mean the cops can't search, since "it remain[s] likely that the source of the transmissions [is] inside that residence".
The stack of Kiddie Porn DVDs convicted him, not the open access point. The whole thing revolves around the fact that they found an IM of somebody with an IP originating from his residence that contained a child porn picture. This got them a search warrant, and they found additional evidence including a stack of DVDs with child porn images on them (and think HOW MANY images are needed to fill more than one DVD).
The only point where the open access point comes in to it is that he claimed that because it was open, it means that ANYBODY could have used IPs from inside his house, and thus the search should have been thrown out, and the evidence gathered suppressed. But the judge didn't go for it.
In non-technical terms, it's like claiming that your house is always unlocked, thus any evidence they ever find there should never be admissible, since anybody could have put it there. And as I said above, the judge didn't go for it, and rightfully so IMO. So this isn't "police look for open access points, and go fishing wherever they find one" but rather "an open access point doesn't get you out of finding DVDs of illegal material in your house."
If you did what you suggest---go to a bunch of open WAPs and do child porn searches---then none of the people you target will ultimately get in trouble. They might get their homes searched, but the FBI wouldn't find any evidence of child porn, because you're long gone.
Furthermore your second paragraph isn't a fair characterization of what happened here. The cops aren't going around searching for open WAPs. It was the defense that brought this argument, not the cops. The allegedly illegal IM traffic came from the defendant's IP address, and he used the open WAP argument to suggest that since it could have been a drive-by or neighbor, that they didn't have enough evidence to search his house. Well, they may not have had enough evidence to convict, certainly---but you don't need nearly as much to get the search warrant. I frankly agree with that decision. The evidence stated that a crime was committed in the vicinity of that house.
And for all of the people claiming that this is terrible -- here's the way I see it.
Imagine a cop is walking down the street, and smells marijuana smoke in front of a house. This gives him probable cause to walk onto the property. As he gets nearer to the building, the smell gets stronger. This gives him probable cause to enter the building. He goes inside and finds a sack and a bong in someone's bedroom. The occupant of that room then says, "Hey man, you can't use that against me...that smell outside could have come from anywhere."
That argument isn't going to work.
He was attempting to have evidence obtained in the search excluded from the trial. The headline and summary and story are bizarre, as the open WAP was not the probable cause, the evidence of the traffic on that WAP was the probable cause. The ruling was that the possibility of the traffic coming from someone other than the owner of the access point was not enough to protect the owner from the search. That's pretty reasonable. If you tell police that gun registered to you and used in commission of a crime was stolen, they are still going to be able to get a search warrant, waving your hands in the air and saying it wasn't you isn't enough.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
"For the children! We've got to close down the Internet for the children!"
You can bet that the child pr0n horseman will cause all anonymous access to the Internet to be lost, no matter the cost to the public. At some point somebody is going to write a "render your own kiddie porn no real children involved" program, at which point the authorities are going to have to make or break the case that kiddie porn causes child abuse. What if it doesn't? Will they lie to protect their power over us? Will the Pope still be Catholic?
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Anyone else seeing reasonable doubt flying out the window with this crap decision?. The slope just got one HELL of bit more slippery!
If he had got off on the technicality then the law would have, once again, shown itself to be stupid.
I'd hardly call the Fourth Amendment a stupid technicality. In this particular instance, it was determined to be irrelevant, but it doesn't mean that its general application is stupid. It protects us from random raids by the police by ensuring that any evidence collected improperly is useless to them.
The biggest problem is the classification of some people as 'children'. The day someone turns 18 it doesn't magically make them a responsible adult. The line has been set as by age, but unfortunately that means very little. In fact, society would be much better off if there was a test that determined adulthood. It should cover: Common Sense, Ability to transport oneself, Ability to house, feed, and take care of oneself, Ability to do the same for others. Generally do things which are necessary in our society. Creating this test would eliminate the arbitrary line, one which says that you can suddenly make your own decisions, smoke, etc.
"The quickest way to end a war is to lose it" -Orwell
Perhaps this is a bit biased, considering there is no mention in the summary of the stack of CDs containing child pornography found in the person's room that is claiming this defence. I'm sure that had something to do with this ruling.