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Appeals Court Rolls Back Computer Privacy Guidelines
Last year we discussed news of a court ruling that established a set of guidelines for how investigators can enact search warrants involving electronically stored data. Essentially, it required authorities to specify the data for which they were searching, and to take precautions to avoid the collection of unrelated data, whether it was incriminating or not. Now, a federal appeals court has thrown out those guidelines despite agreeing with the conclusion that investigators must only collect data specified in a warrant. Instead, the ruling (PDF) leaves us with a plea for "greater vigilance on the part of judicial officers in striking the right balance between the government’s interest in law enforcement and the right of individuals to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures."
yes, let's leave it to law enforcement to strike a proper balance. that sounds like it will work. uh huh.
WHAT. THE. FUCK?
I know a lot of officers in various branches (police, *BI, sheriff, etc.) and count several as close friends.. but I wouldn't trust a single one of them to not go beyond the mandate of the warrant without something official binding them. The egos of most officers I have met have all been "I _am_ the law" style of bullshit that leads to people being hanged before their guilt has been proven and then "Whoops, we made a mistake. Oh well. I'm sure s/he was guilty of something." Meanwhile, the innocent person has been vilified in the news and can't do business where they live anymore.
We either need strict rules that our police officers have to follow, or we need psych evaluations to weed out the overzealous people who go too far, too fast, without consideration that someone is innocent until PROVEN guilty.
Probably the 'movies' you were talking about.
Nice to know our latest appointee to the Supreme Court is looking out for our privacy rights.
From TFA:
Yeah, then somehow your computer contains CP or something. Digital evidence with technologically illiterate lawmakers and judges is a bad thing because it can be manipulated very, very easily.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
I think the idea behind the rules was that this couldn't happen:
"Yes sir, we have reason to believe you have terrorist training manuals on your hard-disk"
*search*
"Nope, none found, but we did find some music which the RIAA might be interested in, some videos the MPAA might be interested in, a particular movie Voltage might be interested in, also you said a rude joke in a chatroom which was not properly filtered and marked for adults only"
*lawsuits to death*
But now it can :)
I don't have anything on my computer but music, email and movies. I don't break the law. I am a average citizen in this respect, and I have nothing to hide. Let them look at my computer if they like.
I don't have any weapons or drugs in my house, I still don't want a police officer to come in unasked and search the place, or look through my windows to what I have inside, or what I am doing. My computer, and the data on it, are just as much in my house as the stuff in my drawers and closets.
And anyway, I wouldn't be so sure that you don't break the law. The fact that you don't know that you break the law does not mean you don't actually break it.
It's time to go data fishing! Get those John Doe IP probable cause subpoenas ready, because they're gonna find "evidence" on any computer they want if they dig deep enough!
Do you really know the laws? There are thousands on the books, and thousands created each year.
Do you really know what's on your computer? If you're the average citizen, then there's a high probability that your computer has been or will be compromised at some point. "Hello Mr. Smith, we have some bad news for you. After forensic examination of your hard drive, we found evidence of money laundering, child pornography, and several thousand instances of copyright violation. But don't worry. We're going to make you an offer you can't refuse.
And you would not be able to rely on the common sense of law enforcement and the criminal justice system. You see, this is an adversarial process. It's not "Innocent to proven guilty". Law enforcement is tasked with making convictions, among other things. Numbers count. There's also this other little problem, the one of "low hanging fruit", ever heard of it? It's a reference to the fact that people tend to do as little as possible, and when that expresses itself in agents of the state, e.g. law enforcement, what you end up with is the majority of their efforts are expended on two bit criminals, and unlucky stupid people that are of no real threat to any one.
Here in the U.S., if I'm not mistaken, we're at the top of the list for the number of people imprisoned as a percentage of population. This leads me to believe that we incarcerate people for a lot of petty bullshit, especially the poor.
Here we go: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate
IANAL, but I would think part of the problem with incriminating data for a completely unrelated crime being found might have something to do with the proper steps required for the discovery of evidence.
Do any real lawyers or law professors want to weigh in on this?
Which is why you talk to your legal representative before trial and give them some questions to ask, like "What sanitisation procedures did the evidence collection follow? Where's the audit trail? How was read-only access guaranteed, from extraction from the defendants equipment through to exhibit in court? Audit trail? I'll be providing an independent expert to verify all this."
And then you'll wake up, realise you're still in jail, and your cellmate Jim-Bob has that glint in his eye again...
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
The law of evidence is there for a good reason.
People have a right not to be harassed by flimsy tissue thin accusations without substance.
The reasoning for departing from same is not stated
Sure, let them say we are looking for a-z + anything else that might be incriminating - it will be overturned accordingly, remembering a-z searches has precedent saying exactly that is intolerable.
Which is why you have to write it down beforehand, and not make it up AFTER the search. Normally people who have completed primary school level education have the ability to say what they want.
If Fed's or the Police are dumber and more confused than an 11 year old - we have problems.
Overturning these laws is a dilution of natural justice and equity.
Those criminals or suspects with well heeled lawyers and deep pockets will now get off on a technicality. No matter how it is twisted 'fishing' is not allowed, and if they were not specific before the warrant was issued, then admissibility can be challenged later.
The opinion of one will be overturned on appeal , and those old pesky guidelines - well they were put in to stop automatic appeals, so I guess the court system is asking to be bogged down further.
And anyway, I wouldn't be so sure that you don't break the law. The fact that you don't know that you break the law does not mean you don't actually break it.
And this is perhaps the biggest problem facing America right now: we have so many laws, it is hard to know whether or not you are actually breaking one. What we need is a wave of repeals, but no politician is brave enough to initiate such an action.
Palm trees and 8
All the more reason to start using TrueCrypt now if you haven't already.
Until the cops in the US get the authority to legally compel you to divulge passwords, your computer will be safe from prying eyes.
I don't have anything on my computer but music, email and movies. I don't break the law.
If you're an American, the USC is about 16,500 pages long:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Code
The tax code is about 3,500 pages. And that's just the US federal stuff, you also have to worry about state laws (at least in a criminal capacity). You can also be fined at the county and municipal level.
I'm sure you're contravening something. Heck, there are people who have been convicted of owning a lobster:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8z7NC5sgik#t=6m30s
Dear Slashdot Community,
Please take 45 minutes minutes to watch this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc
From the video: ... 6:45 mark.
"Did you know it could be a federal offense for being in possession of a lobster?"
And why this court ruling is significant...
That was a great post, until I got to the point where you said "don't let liberal courts..." and you completely lost ALL credibility.... If you buy into the whole "Conservative" vs "liberal" propaganda, then you don't understand the system nearly as well as you think you do. Remove your childish labels, start looking at things as they truly are, and you'll see that both sides of the gov't are out for the same thing, personal financial gain and power, and it is not one side against the other, it's the people against the corporations.
You have *NO* Idea how badly I want to cross state lines with poultry on my head again.
Oh those were the days...
- Dan.
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
Do you really know the laws? There are thousands on the books, and thousands created each year.
It's hard to control a free man who is innocent of any wrongdoing. He'll just tell you to fuck off. But if you make that free man a criminal, even if he doesn't know it yet, you've got him by the balls.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Whole disk encryption needs to become mainstream. There are many approaches. Here are a few useful links.
If you want your OS to encrypt everything, Fedora makes it easy. So does Ubuntu.
If you want an add-on software package, PGP works well. In a slightly more involved way, so does Truecrypt.
If you prefer a hardware solution, you can adapt regular, off-the shelf drives with an encryptor such as the Deskcrypt. Fully-encrypted hard drives are available from most vendors, too, but the ones I've found most generally useful (as in, "compatible with every other sort of hardware") are the Eclypt models from Stonewood.
I have owned and used all the products above and like them very much. If you feel different, feel free to Google things like "Momentus FDE" or "WinMagic" or "Guardian Edge Hard Drive" for other vendors and approaches. Take whatever path seems most reasonable and logical to you.
But for God's sake, would everyone please start encrypting your drives? That's not everything you need to do. It's just a minimal first step toward personal security. But it's a start.
The whole point of civil rights is to make the legal system more reliable by protecting people from unjust and wrong prosecutions. They're a check and balance against human error, laziness, incompetence and career ambitions that would taint the results of the legal system. Judges screw with them at the peril of our legal system because once the public starts to question whether the legal system is reliable, the attitude "well hell, they're no better at enforcing the law than the next guy" becomes mainstream and suddenly vigilantism becomes a defensible alternative since the legal system's results are basically about as good as mob justice.
'nuff said
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
The feds were getting mad because they had to pass up all the pronz they were finding.
Why should your PC/hardrive/NAS/thumbdrive/laptop/iPhone be more or less protected than the metaphoric filing cabinet?
Invenio via vel creo
It's hard to control a free man who is innocent of any wrongdoing. He'll just tell you to fuck off. But if you make that free man a criminal, even if he doesn't know it yet, you've got him by the balls.
I think you just paraphrased Ayn Rand.
DATABASE WOW WOW
Here in the U.S., if I'm not mistaken, we're at the top of the list for the number of people imprisoned as a percentage of population. This leads me to believe that we incarcerate people for a lot of petty bullshit, especially the poor.
Big prison populations mean big money for companies like Corrections Corp. of America.
http://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NYSE:CXW
We should let law enforcement decide what the 'proper balance' should be. After all they are 100% objective and have no ulterior motives....RIGHT?
(n) liberal (a person who favors an economic theory of laissez-faire and self-regulating markets) http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=liberal Get your facts right. The term "liberal" has been horribly mutilated by modern day American politics.
The stated goal "striking the right balance between the government's interest in law enforcement and the [constitutional] right of individuals to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures" is invalid. There can be NO COMPROMISE between an "interest" and a constitutional right, at least not one that can be established by a court directly.
If the government wants to establish a compromise, they can try passing a law and if THAT is not unconstitutional then the courts can start "balancing it" within the existing framework.
t's hard to control a free man who is innocent of any wrongdoing. He'll just tell you to fuck off.
Bingo! There's plenty of 'free' countries where his doing that will make him a criminal.
FGD 135
It's hard to control a free man who is innocent of any wrongdoing. He'll just tell you to fuck off. But if you make that free man a criminal, even if he doesn't know it yet, you've got him by the balls.
I think you just paraphrased Ayn Rand.
Damn! I knew I heard that somewhere before.
Besides, if the current state of affairs in the United States is any indication, she was dead right.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.