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Judge Says Boston Student's Laptop Was Seized Illegally
You may remember a case we discussed this April in which a Boston College student's computers and other electronics were seized after he allegedly sent an email outing another student as gay. The search warrant made sure to note the student's ever-so-suspicious use of "two different operating systems," one of which was "a black screen with a white font which he uses prompt commands on." Now, the EFF reports that a Massachusetts judge has thrown out the search warrant and declared the search and seizure illegal. Quoting: "In her order Thursday, Justice Margot Botsford rejected the Commonwealth's theory that sending a hoax email might be unlawful under a Massachusetts computer crime statute barring the 'unauthorized access' to a computer, concluding that there could be no violation of what was only a 'hypothetical internet use policy.' Thursday's decision now stands as the highest state court opinion to reject the dangerous theory that terms of service violations constitute computer 'hacking' crimes. Justice Botsford further found that details offered by police as corroboration of other alleged offenses were insufficient and did not establish probable cause for the search." The court order (PDF) is available for viewing, and the EFF has broken down the significant arguments against the Commonwealth's claims.
And it's not only used by rebels wanting to dodge the law? Bah, I'm going back to Windows.
Now when does he get his equipment back? What happens when they hand him a box of busted parts and walk away? (Like Steve Jackson Games)
It is great that we have this victory for our rights. But how do we keep the police from doing it over and over again? The out of control police need oversight to make sure they don't do this again!
Slashdot is gay.
Or can the police kick down your door, seize whatever they want and when the court deems their actions as illegal they just say "Oops, our bad."?
12) Circumvention of a copy-protection mechanism (my user and root passwords).
Report those police officers to the RIAA. Hilarity ensues.
no law degree here, either, but I assume a civil suit would be laughed out of court. The police officers acted in good faith because a judge signed their warrant, and, presumably, the judge the signed the warrant in a good faith belief that a) the details provided by the police were truthful, and b) the details provided by the police were sufficient to justify a warrant
The fact that a higher court struck it down is proof of "the system works" and there is no case unless you can prove maliciousness on behalf of the judge (alone or in collusion with the police). Maliciousness *solely* on the part of the police would never fly since the judge signed off on the warrant.
When all of your wishes have been granted, many of your dreams will be destroyed - Marilyn Manson
There is so much stupidity going on in our state, including spending and tax increases in the midst of the worst recession since the great depression, knee-jerk reactions to viral advertising campaigns using lite-brites (which did NOT cause an overreaction in much larger, more vulnerable cities), and so forth. Therefore, I propose the following tags for stories involving stupidity here in Massachusetts (even in the event where a sudden outbreak of common sense occurs, because it was masshattery which got us there in the first place):
taxachusetts
massholes
masshattery
I hope you welcome and endorse this proposal. I, for one, am ashamed of what is going on here in my state and even as a business owner I am hoping that the sales tax and income tax and fuel tax increases in the midst of this recession break this state financially just to prove to the lawmakers that one cannot tax one's way back to prosperity.
What we need right now is deep spending and tax cuts, and that INCLUDES firing the moron police officers who resulted in this moronic case.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50