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Federal Court: The Fourth Amendment Does Not Protect Your Home Computer (eff.org)
An anonymous reader writes: The EFF reports that a federal court in Virginia today ruled that a criminal defendant has no "reasonable expectation of privacy" in his personal computer (PDF), located inside his home. The court says the federal government does not need a warrant to hack into an individual's computer. EFF reports: "The implications for the decision, if upheld, are staggering: law enforcement would be free to remotely search and seize information from your computer, without a warrant, without probable cause, or without any suspicion at all. To say the least, the decision is bad news for privacy. But it's also incorrect as a matter of law, and we expect there is little chance it would hold up on appeal. (It also was not the central component of the judge's decision, which also diminishes the likelihood that it will become reliable precedent.) But the decision underscores a broader trend in these cases: courts across the country, faced with unfamiliar technology and unsympathetic defendants, are issuing decisions that threaten everyone's rights.
This was an open-and-shut search with a warrant, arising out of the FBI running a kiddie porn site after taking control of it. The warrant authorized the deployment of malware disguised to look like kiddie porn that, when opened, would cause the target's machine to identify its IP address, operating system, etc. This was then followed by a search warrant for the residence, during which the computers were confiscated and their contents searched. That search was covered under the residential search warrant, so no additional warrant was needed to search the contents of the machine that was confiscated.
The defendant has no prayer unless he can show reasonable cause for the jury to believe that someone else was using or controlling the computer in question at the time, or unless he can convince the judge to throw out the warrant based on the investigative technique itself being illegal in some way (fruit of the poisonous tree).
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Encrypt all the files!!!
No exceptions.
They'll just lock you away until you tell them the passwords.
USA! USA! USA!
It should be pretty simple: Would it be illegal for an ordinary citizen to do something? If the answer is yes, you need a warrant.
So, if an investigation involves going to somebody's webpage, that doesn't require a warrant. If the investigation involves compromising a computer - brute force password crack, sneaking in and installing a keylogger, utilizing a zero day exploit - you need a warrant.
I don't read AC A human right
Not hyperbole.
It's just one more step in the wrong direction. The country will not fall overnight. It's going to be a long, drawn-out process, but the closer we get to the end, the faster events will happen. We already have a central government that is way too strong and is drunk on its power. Soon it will be impossible to stop the move to totalitarianism. We may already have passed the point of no return.
I'm 63 years old. I remember what the country was just a few decades ago, and I've studied enough history to understand where we're headed. It's not going to be pretty and I guarantee that nobody will like it.
Vote in November. It won't make any difference which way you vote.