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FCC Reserves the Right To Search Your Home, Any Time
mikesd81 writes "Wired.com reports that you may not know it, but if you have a wireless router, a cordless phone, remote car-door opener, baby monitor or cellphone in your house, the FCC claims the right to enter your home without a warrant at any time of the day or night in order to inspect it. FCC spokesman David Fiske says 'Anything using RF energy — we have the right to inspect it to make sure it is not causing interference.' The FCC claims it derives its warrantless search power from the Communications Act of 1934, though the constitutionality of the claim has gone untested in the courts. 'It is a major stretch beyond case law to assert that authority with respect to a private home, which is at the heart of the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable search and seizure,' says Electronic Frontier Foundation lawyer Lee Tien. 'When it is a private home and when you are talking about an over-powered Wi-Fi antenna — the idea they could just go in is honestly quite bizarre.'"
...to place bear traps around my router.
1 (short ton / firkin) = 89.1432354 slugs / keg
...because if someone not in a uniform bursts into my home unannounced they're going to be leaving with a few more bullet holes in their body than they walked in with.
And the resulting court case. I'm pretty sure the 4th amendment would triumph over the FCC's bullshit rule they presumably wrote themselves.
They've had this power for decades. This is nothing new. Fire up a transmitter and start broadcasting overtop an FM radio station, and just see how fast the FCC sends out their goons.
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Only after they speak with my lawyers Smith & Wesson.
I'll just leave this here.
http://www.fcc.gov/Reports/tcom1996.txt
Note that AT NO TIME, does the FCC guy interviewed actually say they can search your home without a warrant.
He says the FCC has total authority to inspect RF devices. Which they do, the article even cites the specific law that gives the FCC that authority. They can ask to see your router at home but they still don't have the authority to just bust into your house without a warrant.
In the US, our government has no rights. It only has powers delegated to it by We the People. It has no rights, not prerogative to reserve them.
There are some special constructs like "sovereign immunity" but those are not right, they are juris prudence constructs. The FCC can't just say "we're reserving the right to rape your children". Congress has to vote to give them that power. And with congress voting, due process is upheld.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
A bad law is a bad law, whether it's used or not.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Why is everyone equating equating the right to inspect with no-knock raids? The FCC isn't going to kick in your door while you're trying to flush your transmitter. They're going to knock, ask to see the transmitter, and then go back to their office and issue you a fine by mail if you say no. The FCC has no interest in putting their agent's lives at risk in order to get someone to switch off their CB. All of this ranting about government goons and guns is just melodramatic bullshit. If the government wants to infringe on your rights, they'll do it through the legal system, not by kicking in doors. It's much more effective and much lower risk.
Whether or not this is infringement on your 4th Amendment rights actually depends greatly on how the law is applied. If the FCC is asserting the right to enter any house because there is a phone or a wireless device inside, it's obviously infringement. The FCC has lawyers, and knows this, so there's little chance they would adopt such a tactic. All of the cases mentioned in the article related to fairly powerful transmitters that were being used in a way such that the violation of FCC regs could be detected by someone miles from the source. That means that 1) by the time the FCC directionalizes the signal and shows up at your door, they already have probably cause and could get a warrant if they needed it, and 2) the FCC could reasonably assert in court that the device is not something that most people have in their house, and is a sophisticated enough device that the fairly uncontroversial right of administrative inspection to have a look at that particular piece of equipment.
Nope. Every device that emits a radio signal is licensed. Your wireless router has an FCC ID, does it not? Then it is a licensed piece of equipment.
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Sure, they shouldn't do it but nailing sharp nails so that the unsuspecting children would hurt themselves is just evil.
I'm pretty sure the blind children aren't hopping the fence to take a shortcut through your yard.
When a society makes other people responsible for your safety when you're doing something you're not supposed to do, it has failed... by which standard most of our societies are on the way out. Without personal responsibility you end up being a nation of useless bitches. (There are always exceptions. But most people are lame.)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Yeah, cause Lincoln was part of the military-industrial complex in collusion with the Illuminati to guarantee lawyer revenues until the year 2012 when everything goes boom!
Virginia is for lovers. EVE is for griefers.
Which is simply another way of saying: "You live in a lawless society".
You see, the whole idea of "law" was supposed to be for a code to bind a society together by making every member capable of some action affecting others to follow a simple set of clear rules, which, again by definition, were to be simple enough to be memorized in entirety by everyone. That is why Hammurabi had the thing carved in stone and placed at public squares, so that "ignorance of the law" was not an excuse for breaking it.
The moment however when the "law" becomes so complicated and ambiguous that it requires someone to "interpret it" (i.e. twist it to whatever whim of the moment is fanciful) the whole concept breaks. In short a society which needs lawyers, is by definition lawless, as "law" has morphed from the universal code of conduct to a byzantine, convoluted, religious scripture which requires a career priesthood to worship, massage, "interpret" and twist to the needs of whatever power caste is running the place at the time. The average denizen then simply becomes hapless prey for this caste of parasites with no recourse but to prostate himself/herself before the high-priests of "law" who hold the strings of the citizen's life or death in their hands.
Ultimately, in a country of lawyers, by lawyers and for lawyers, the laws become such a sick caricature of the original idea that no one knows the "law" to its full extent, including all of its priests. One can test this simple supposition by simply asking any one of them to recite the "law" of the land from memory. In the USA, not only no lawyer, judge or politician could do it (even though the "law" is supposedly binding everyone and its ignorance is "no excuse") but they would not be able to tell you what the current definitive law is at all, even when given the ability to use books and databases to do it, as the code has become so byzantine that its successive layers upon layers of modifications and arcane religious language are so completely unmanageable that pretty much any "legal" decision needs an arbitrary "interpretation" by a cabal of priests.
And this is why the majority of people instinctively hates lawyers, as even if most people cannot vocalize it, an average person's intrinsic moral compass is able to detect that something is profoundly wrong with the very idea of a lawyer.
". . . and I am that fool!"
- Gomez Addams
www.wavefront-av.com
Merits? What merits? It was an ad hominem attack against Lincoln solely because he was a lawyer. It offered nothing to the discussion and was, IMO, deliberately phrased to elicit an emotional response from other readers. Did the poster offer any indication where he got this idea? Did he offer any evidence that Lincoln was biased when he made this statement? No, his sole reason for discounting and attacking the quote was because Lincoln was a lawyer himself. Period.
Sorry, if I had mod points I would have tagged it the same way. You probably got tagged for the backhand comment towards the mods which, again IMO, were perfectly correct in labeling the post as flamebait.
Even more interesting is the fact that Lincoln did not originate this quote. A quick google finds this same adage in print going back to the very early 1800's so while Lincoln may have said it at some time, it was not originally his quote, unless he made it from the cradle.
That is what con-men would like you to think, but its not the truth. The truth is that most of our actions can be distilled to a simple set of universal rules, irrespective of what alterations in cosmetic appearances the technological and societal changes have brought on. "Do not kill, unless when under armed assault" for example does not change if the method of killing involved a rock, a baseball bat, or an orbital laser gun. Statements like "The Reichstag fire has changed everything", "9/11 has changed everything", "Internet has changed everything" etc are the very hallmarks of such con-artistry designed to fool the populace into eye-glazed stupor.
The false notion that you have to create ever more byzantine laws to "keep up" is the very basis for the parasitic relationship the lawyers have with society. The correct method is the exact opposite: to refine and clarify laws by artfully phrasing them that they are at their most clear, concise while at the same time covering all possible cases. It is of course a very difficult task but which determines the difference between a just society and one merely pretending to be so.
Naturally it comes as no surprise that the greatest enemy of such clarification and distillation of laws are lawyers. Clarity, simplicity and conciseness are the three great mortal foes of lawyers as that priesthood requirs not4sathe muck of confusion and complexity to swim in, where they can bottom feed in safety from scrutiny by those whose lives they control.
Of course there is a solution. The problem has been in fact studied by mathematicians and algorithmic code theorists extensively, because the very same issues are present in issuing instructions to a computer. Instructions for building a society have great resemblance and operate on principally the same rules as computer software. And so not only whole sets of tools exist to achieve it, but there are whole volumes of scientific research already conducted to light the way.
The sense of helplessness that you were sold is not only based upon a lie, it is the result of one of the oldest con games in history: making you artificially dependant on a "service" that only the con-man can "provide". Do not wear these blinders willingly.
Thankfully you seem to have a new President that has intelligence and morals
Who is this guy and how did he get Obama to vacate the presidency?
"Do not kill, unless your life is in danger"
Fixed that for you. The laws surrounding self-defense generally don't say that you can only use deadly force when facing an armed assailant. They typically say that before you can use deadly force you must have a reasonable belief that your life is in mortal danger. A 90 pound 4'11" female facing a 300 pound 6'11" male attacker is under no obligation not to shoot him just because he isn't armed. If she reasonably believes that her life is in danger she is allowed to use deadly force to defend herself.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Getting a HAM license requires taking some tests, and knowing what the policies are before you put your radio gear up. You know, should know, and can know what you're responsible for. If you're transmitting against the rules, and the FCC calls you on it - you stop doing it and/or get fined.
You know it's going to happen.
Now if some $80 POS Linksys goes haywire and the FCC tells me about it, I'll shut it off and get a new one. But no way, no how, am I going to let those fucks in to 'inspect' - if they want to come in, then go swear out a warrant describing the particulars of what they're looking for and bring a cop with you. If the warrant's valid, I'll let you in FOR THAT and nothing else. If you don't want to swear out a warrant, then fuck off - I'm not letting you in. And if you shove your way in, you WILL be put down on the ground as a trespasser - I don't want to shoot you, but I will if I have to - so long as you sit there quitely and wait for the Police to show up to arrest you, the trespasser, you'll have no problems.
Now bring a warrant, and we're good. But unless and until you do that - you're a trespasser. US Sup Ct. rulings back that up. I've been involved in a few court cases in IL where that's been backed up - no warrant, no entry. No probable cause? No warrant, no entry.
The gas company tried this bullshit under the guise of complying with some half-assed regulation promulgated by the Federal DOT, and which the IL ICC adopted. They allegedly had to inspect meters INSIDE houses for atmospheric corrosion, etc every 5 years (when they first adopted the policy), then every 3 years (a year after they adopted the policy), who knows how often next year... I told them to fuck off after ignoring 15 of their notices. Finally had my lawyer call them up and threaten to sue them. That got them to move the meter outside for free - yeah, I had to let them in to do the work, but that was a one-off thing, and the entry/area they could go to was highly restricted... Now I'll never worry about it again...
I don't care if it's "Administrative" or "Criminal" - a search is a search, no matter who does it. No warrant, no entry. WE, THE PEOPLE, granted certain privileges to the Government, and WE reserve the rest - not the other way around. The price of Freedom and Liberty is eternal vigilance - it's worth fighting for, so do it and stop being pussies.
I don't think either of us said we don't need any lawyers. The main thing that I object to is the fact that lawyers are basically running this country. What percentage of Congress is made up of lawyers? What was our current President's background before he got into politics?
A more balanced system would see people from all occupations serving in Congress if for no other reason than to provide perspective.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.