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FBI's Hacks Don't Comply With Legal Safeguards

Posted by Soulskill on from the like-the-wild-west,-but-with-XSS-instead-of-guns dept.

An anonymous reader writes: The FBI hacks computers. Specifics are scarce, and only a trickle of news has emerged from court filings and FOIA responses. But we know it happens. In a new law review article, a Stanford Ph.D. candidate and privacy expert pulls together what's been disclosed, and then matches it against established law. The results sure aren't pretty. FBI agents deceive judges, ignore time limits, don't tell computer owners after they've been hacked, and don't get 'super-warrants' for webcam snooping. Whatever you think of law enforcement hacking, it probably shouldn't be this lawless.

3 of 64 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Child porn by Cafe+Alpha · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I have news for you, people who intend to be criminals, pedophiles included, flock to join law enforcement agencies.

    I remember someone relating a story about having a friend in the CIA who also happened to be a pedophile ...

  2. Re:So they are behaving like criminals by gweihir · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Well, yes. Voters are no really working insurance against such catastrophes. While Hitler had a minority government, he was voted into office as Chancellor. Without that he would have it found far harder (or impossible) to take over the state. If the mood among the voters is right, something like that could happen in the US as well. And if at that time, checks and balances have been eroded enough, and law enforcement has gotten used to not being held accountable for what they do, the catastrophe is there.

    Remember that it was not raging SS hordes that sent most Jews to the KZs, it was mostly ordinary police following orders. These things always happen over a while and today they are happening slower than ever, but the US has already tried out how to torture people, how to hold them forever without due process and police accountability is at an all-time low. I am also sure the NSA has nice little lists on who to arrest and who to shoot (while "attempting" to arrest them of course).

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  3. Parallel Construction = Perjury by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Giving it a fancy name like 'parallel construction' is to conceal its nature. That is perjury, that is falsification of evidence, an officer goes into court and lies about the evidence trail, in front of a judge and denies the defense the chance to cross examine the TRUE evidence trail.

    Quit calling it "parallel construction" can call it what it is and that's typically falsification of evidence (a police officer lies about "bad driving" or whatever reason he invented to justify a stop), followed by perjury to back that lie.

    And it gives the spooks leverage over the police too, they know the police officer lied, they know the crime that was committed, so don't expect the police force to police the military spooks. General Alexander lied to Congress and they practically wiped his ass they were so afraid of him.

    Thanks god for Snowden, because Alexander was doing a tour like he was planning a Presidential bid. Snowdens revelations squashed all that. We'd have a Putin figure running for president with access to a file on his opponents. Snowden put a stop to that.