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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.
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.
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
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...
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.