Supreme Court Gives FBI More Hacking Power (theintercept.com)

An anonymous reader cites an article on The Intercept (edited and condensed): The Supreme Court on Thursday approved changes that would make it easier for the FBI to hack into computers, many of them belonging to victims of cybercrime. The changes, which will take immediate effect in December unless Congress adopts competing legislation, would allow the FBI go hunting for anyone browsing the Internet anonymously in the U.S. with a single warrant. Previously, under the federal rules on criminal procedures, a magistrate judge couldn't approve a warrant request to search a computer remotely if the investigator didn't know where the computer was -- because it might be outside his or her jurisdiction. The rule change would allow a magistrate judge to issue a warrant to search or seize an electronic device if the target is using anonymity software like Tor."Unbelievable," said Edward Snowden. "FBI sneaks radical expansion of power through courts, avoiding public debate." Ahmed Ghappour, a visiting professor at University of California Hastings Law School, has described it as "possibly the broadest expansion of extraterritorial surveillance power since the FBI's inception."

Comments

Terrible summary

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's be clear what the rule change actually does. It allows a judge to issue a search warrant affecting computers outside his or her jurisdiction.

The rule only allows an expansion in the geographic scope of warrants. It is NOT an order permitting the hacking of anyone using anonymity. That's a very misleading statement.

I'm actually not sure this is a bad thing, either. Instead of seeking warrants in each jurisdiction, it allows law enforcement to seek a single warrant that covers all jurisdictions. One of the biggest issues with government surveillance is that the courts just don't have the resources to properly scrutinize all the requests for warrants they get. For example, the FISA court can't properly review all the requests they get, so in some ways they rely on the NSA to police themselves. If there are fewer requests for warrants it allows, at least in principle, more thorough scrutiny of each request.

Re:I hate invasions of privacy, but...

[Plus1Entropy]

I think remotely breaking into machines (if a warrant was issued) was already allowed before this. This only changed how the warrants are issued, not the power granted by the warrants themselves.