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The EFF Reflects On ICE Seizing a Tor Exit Node
An anonymous reader writes "Marcia Hofmann, senior staff attorney at the EFF, gives more information on the first known seizure of equipment in the U.S. due to a warrant executed against a private individual running a Tor exit node. 'This spring, agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) executed a search warrant at the home of Nolan King and seized six computer hard drives in connection with a criminal investigation. The warrant was issued on the basis of an Internet Protocol (IP) address that traced back to an account connected to Mr. King's home, where he was operating a Tor exit relay.' The EFF was able to get Mr King's equipment returned, and Marcia points out that 'While we think it's important to let the public know about this unfortunate event, it doesn't change our belief that running a Tor exit relay is legal.' She also links to the EFF's Tor Legal FAQ. This brings up an interesting dichotomy in my mind, concerning protecting yourself from the Big digital Brother: Running an open Wi-Fi hotspot, or Tor exit node, would make you both more likely to be investigated, and less likely to be convicted, of any cyber crimes."
Right, that's why ISPs constantly have their routers and DNS servers seized, because so many people are using those computers for criminal activity.
Oh, wait -- ISPs are corporations, so we treat them differently. When it is some guy running a service out of his home, then the other set of rules applies, where the service operator is harassed by ICE and threatened when his equipment is returned.
Palm trees and 8
'Mere' investigation can be made rather unpleasant, depending on the crime in question, the enthusiasm of the cops running after it, and your access to legal representation...
There are the practical difficulties: Having everything vaguely resembling a computer siezed and held for who-knows-how-long, potentially quite signifcant legal costs, etc.
And there are the ones arising from the common, but troublesome, opinion that investigation is a sort of lesser degree of guilt. The taint by mere association is worst with kiddie-porn related matters; but the touchier types seem to consider "Police Record: Checked, found absolutely nothing." to simply be a subspecies of "Police Record" and act accordingly. Fan-tastic.
No, ICE (which was renamed during the reorganization of INS that took place under the Bush II administration, you partisan hack) stands for Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.
Sovereign states have the right to control what passes over their borders. It's part of the definition of statehood. Immigration is about who, Customs is about what.
Back on topic, EFF's "Tor is Legal" sounds an awful lot like the arguments made to justify Freenet back in the day. Ultimately, they all rely on notions like "in any sane legal system", or "in any free country". Problem is, by those sorts of definitions of "free" or "sane", the country hasn't been free since Patriot I, and its legal system has never been sane.
With the end of the Cold War and the demise of the USSR, we lost any motivation for claiming the moral high ground. From printers that identify their owners (like the Romanian archives of individual keystrokes from every manual typewriter), to widespread and omnipresent surveillance (decades before it became a meme, "In Soviet Russia, television watches YOU" was a joke about how much more free we were than the Russians), we ended up becoming what we fought against.
Between letting a criminal get away and harming an innocent, I'd rather let the criminal get away, to be honest.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!