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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.
see you in October
Encrypt all the files!!!
No exceptions.
Full Scale Assault on personal liberties.
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." - Franklin
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Bringing frivilous lawsuits will get you slapped down hard.
What we need is something to be applied to judges who make blatantly subversive rulings like this. They're literally ruining our government and our country.
Anyone else want to see these judges spend twenty years in federal prison?
and therefore, it needs super extra protection. Its forbidden to open someone's skull to look for info as well, as should be the analogon for computers.
The invasion of privacy and constant violations of basic and human rights in the US, and around the rest of the Western world for that matter, are starting to have a lot in common with what George Orwell wrote in Animal Farm. The irony is of course that what he described in his book was Stalin-era Soviet Union.
-SR
Another slashdotter argued that I was being paranoia over the idea that Windows 10 grants Microsoft carte blanche access your computer without needing your permission or knowledge.
Well well well, look at that other shoe that just dropped! Now all the gov't needs to do is give the word and Microsoft can/will hoover everything and anything they want off your machine. This brings dragnet spying to a whole new level.
Stop calling it a PC. George Orwell should get credit for naming this surveillance tool.
If this was upheld by SCOTUS then about all you could do anymore is keep anything important or sensitive on an external drive that is only connected when you need to access it. For those of you who are super-paranoid, I guess it would be time to have no internal HDD in your computer, and boot from a DVD, so your system is 100% read-only.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
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).
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
"The right of the people do be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated...." My computer is one of my "effects" in the meaning of the Amendment, and it's usually in my house, which falls under the category "houses" in the Amendment. This is really bad Constitutional law, and is going to be overthrown on appeal, which I'd like to happen ASAP.
In the meantime, strong full-disk encryption is your friend.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
The part of the decision regarding a warrant not being necessary relates to the defendent's IP address, not searching his computer. The Court found that "one has no reasonable expectation of privacy in an IP address when using the Internet," therefore a warrant was not needed to obtain the defendent's IP address. The deploying of software on the defendent's computer was done with a warrant.
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
Wiretaps require a warrant. Why would a computer be any different? I'm sure this has been settled in dozens of other cases, and will die quickly in appeal.
(If at first you don't succeed, do it different next time!)
As vehemently as I will condemn modern language abuses (calling an expressway "the" Interstate Highway 10, or callling a streetcar "a light rail"), let me xerox you a memo about how Americans do verb nouns.
Because if there is no expectation of privacy, than all those people who have gone to prison on computer crimes related to accessing information without permission have probably committed no crime.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Okay, legally, you OWN your computer. Legally if something you own is in your home, it's YOURS. Now,even the argument that you use the Internet (can be argued that is the government's property), it's a stretch because you are still going into private property. that is technically breaking and entering to obtain information without a warrant. Basically the judges seems to be "yes" men the FBI and CIA. Perhaps that is what was meant when an FBI agent (source snowden) said off hand that "The constitution is irrelevant". If we don't enforce the constitution what is it worth. What is law when the enforcers ignore it? What is a constitution/charter/bill those entrusted will not uphold it? when are we all going to swamp our government offices with letters, emails, and our own persons if need be and say "no, we are not Russia, Eastern German or China". While it may be this person is guilty, if we say the end justifies the means, well, we know where that leads, and it's never pretty, just, lawful or right.
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein
.... as long as I have the right to implement my own defenses on my network against such hacking attempts, and am not legally barred from securing my own computers as I see fit.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
There was a warrant, the fight was whether or not the warrant was legit,and the ruling was 'Yes'. From the PDF on EFFs site: The Court held hearings to address these Motions on May 19, 2016, May 26, 2016, and June 14, 2016. The Court FINDS, for the reasons stated herein, that probable cause supported the warrant's issuance, that the warrant was sufficiently specific, that the triggering event occurred, that Defendant is not entitled to a Franks hearing, and that the magistrate judge did not exceed her jurisdiction or authority in issuing the warrant
(If at first you don't succeed, do it different next time!)
Why bother having a 4th Amendment at all if it doesn't apply to the things you own and store information on?
Soon they'll decide that the 1st Amendment is a pain in the ass and make it conditional.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
so this is legit.
(If at first you don't succeed, do it different next time!)
No, they didn't. The court ruled that there was a warrant, but even if there hadn't been, there was no need for one, since there was no expectation of privacy on an Internet-connected computer. See the section starting at the bottom of page 47.
Sure hacking my computer might sound Orwellian. However, in this case it was a Child Porn Tor site that had been busted. The site was left up, but with malware on the site. This is the equivalent of the cops allowing an illegal drug shop to stay open and just put GPS devices in all the Weed they sell. Doesn't sound like the Cops are allowed to hack you just because you have a PC once your read a bit of the story past the summery.
Good argument, Certainly won't change the verdict in this case, but yea that wording is BS.
(If at first you don't succeed, do it different next time!)
Good fucking grief. Passive voice, "there are concerns". If there's a backdoor in systemd, that would be massively huge news. I get that you don't like it, and I agree that it is spooky that it is getting pushed into pretty much every place, but that doesn't justify a massive claim like this at all.
Rhel 7 uses systemd. Industry and military use the living shit out of Rhel 7. If systemd had a backdoor, tons of industry and government computers would be compromisable instantly. Keep in mind, this is for a theoretical backdoor, somehow hidden in plain site, and used on serious and sensitive machines all throughout US infrastructure.
That seems unlikely, right?
You can be sure that when they invent the scanner that can read your memories/thoughts, it will be legal to use.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
You seem to have missed a couple of sections in the opinion.
A key sentence is on page 3:
"Furthermore, the Court FINDS suppression unwarranted because the Government did not need a warrant in this case. Thus, any potential defects in the issuance of the warrant or in the warrant itself could not result in constitutional violations".
There's the court's ruling that the government does "not need a warrant" to hack your computer.
Then on page 47 see the section headed "Defendant Has No Reasonable Expectation of Privacy in His Computer", which STARTS with a bit about IP address, but then goes on to cover other information retrieved from the computer. The reasoning (excuse) given is that because your computer could be hacked, you have no reasonable expectation that it won't be. Per well-established precedent, no "reasonable expectation of privacy" means no fourth amendment protection.
On the other hand, the court ALSO pointed out that the hack did not occur until the defendant tried to download child porn. They didn't hack the machine as soon as it connected to the front page of the CP site; rather it was a trojan in the child porn download. The court says that when you download child porn from foreign countries, you should expect that you might get malware and your information might be exposed.
If you're running linux it's unlikely that they could backdoor their way into your system even with your ISPs help right?
I loves me some linux as much as the next guy, but... think again.
Ever seen the Underhanded C Code Contest? Subtle, security-breaking bugs can escape detection even in tiny programs where the reviewer KNOWS there is malicious code to look for.
Now imagine something of 100K lines, 1M lines... do you really think the NSA does not have the resources to get things into Linux code bases? Backdoors that look just fine to most observers? Do you really not think they would, given the importance of Linux to the internet infrastructure?
Sadly, no. Linux is no barrier against malicious state-level actors.
To be sure, "the appropriate [Fourth Amendment] inquiry [is] whether the individual had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the area searched, not merely in the items found." Thus, the Court will address whether Defendant possessed a reasonable expectation ofprivacy not only inhis IP address but also in his computer, the "place to be searched." The Court FINDS that Defendant did not possess a reasonable expectation of privacy in his computer.
Examining the search of computers in the Fourth Amendment context, in 2007, the Ninth Circuit held that a defendant had both a subjective expectation of privacy and an objectively reasonable expectation of privacy in his personal computer, even though the defendant had connected that computer to a network.
In Trulock v. Freeh, the Fourth Circuit held that "password-protected files [on a computer] are analogous to [a] locked footlocker inside the bedroom;" thus, the defendant "had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the password protected computer files."
In other words, plenty good precedent but fuck that because:
For example, hacking is much more prevalent now than it was even nine years ago, and the rise of computer hacking viathe Internet has changed the public's reasonable expectations of privacy. (...) Now, it seems unreasonable to think that a computer connected to the Web is immune from invasion. Indeed, the opposite holds true: in today's digital world, it appears to be a virtual certainty that computers accessing the Internet can - and eventually will - be hacked.
Cases identifying a reasonable expectation of privacy in personal computer files protected with only a password, can be distinguished, because in 2016 it now appears unreasonable to expect that simply utilizing a password provides any practical protection.
Thus, in today's world, the locked footlocker referenced in Trulock. 275 F.3d at 403, would be more akin to a bag carried on an airplane as the owner travels the world with his private information on display.
First of all the logic is appalling, because there are burglars you shouldn't have privacy in your own home? And from "locked footlocker" to "travelling the world with the naughty bits hanging out", even if you bought the argument that the lock is weaker than before it's certainly on the inside of the bag, not the outside so "secure in your papers" is out the window too. This judge is ready to fuck over the constitution, screw the fourth amendment to catch the bad guys. Or in his own words:
The Government's efforts to contain child pomographers, terrorists and the like cannot remain frozen in time; the Government must be allowed to utilize its own advanced technology to keep pace with our world's ever-advancing technology and novel criminal methods.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
No, because TLAs believe only the good guys (TM) can leverage backdoors.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
When the personal computing revolution began in the 20th century, popular opinion was that your personal computer would be an extension of your own mind as a convenient place to store and organize your thoughts and ideas. Coincidentally the Fourth Amendment was drafted to protect papers and effects, which served the very same purpose to people of the 18th century. Now in the 21st century you have no right to store your thoughts and ideas anymore.
This ruling, if upheld, would hurt Microsoft and every other company more than it helps them. There is no conspiracy here, just a federal judge who made the wrong call. It is less common than you would think because Federal Judges tend to be great and thoughtful people. But it happens.
Microsoft has no obligation to follow the Fourth Amendment, which protects individuals against intrusion by the state. An exception arises if Microsoft is acting as an agent for the state. Some other laws may occasionally protect your privacy against companies; the Fourth Amendment does not.
However, the fourth amendment does protect companies against unreasonable warrantless search and seizure, just like it protects individuals.
So this ruling would diminish the freedoms and liberties of every person and corporation in America if it were upheld on appeal.
Real lawyers write in C++
The court argues that since "computer hacking is more prevalent than it was even nine years ago" the defendant has no expectation of privacy to the contents of his own machine.
This is like arguing the content of a person's wallet is not private because of the existence of pick-pockets.
This is insanity.
--
BMO
Keep in mind, this is for a theoretical backdoor, somehow hidden in plain site, and used on serious and sensitive machines all throughout US infrastructure.
Just like the Heartbleed bug in OpenSSL, except for the "theoretical" part.
That seems unlikely, right?
Yes, it is unlikely, but similar things have happened before.
No, because TLAs believe only the good guys (TM) can leverage backdoors.
It may be what they tell the public, and the PR tools that stand in front of congress etc might even beleive it but I'm skeptical anyone actually in charge of securing the same TLA's shit from attacks has remotely the same opinion.
If I worked for the CIA or NSA or FBI or DHS securing their networks from attack, I certainly wouldn't be in favor of a backdoor, *especially* one that was in the hands of one of the other (lesser!) TLAs... that I would naturally have professional contempt for. :)
If our government, which is supposed to be by the people and for the people, continues to systematically erode any semblance of our American culture, they will destroy it. When people are afraid of things like hackers, a far too aggressive and repressive government (even local, county & state) or not willing to let someone else's judgement decide what perhaps my motivations were on January 1, 1990, people will stop. The country will stop. Economies will fall. It's not pretty folks. This is America and we all have a responsibility to insure our way of life and expectations. Lemmings, please leave the building.
No.
Large chunks of new code typically have lots of interactions that most people don't suspect. Some easter-eggs have remained hidden for over a decade. There's nothing unlikely about something unexpected hiding in systemd. What would be surprising was if there weren't. Now assuming that it was put there intentionally is a bit of a stretch, but not a huge stretch, because that, also, has happened before.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Just bend over now. Ahhhhh. Isn't that better?
Sounds like dicta. Not as big a deal as it could be then, since dicta are not binding.
From the link I gave: "[dicta] therefore are individual views of the author of the opinion and not binding in subsequent cases as legal precedent."
"The court finds that Defendant possessed no reasonable expectation of privacy in his computer's IP address, so the Government's acquisition of the IP address did not represent a prohibited Forth Amendment search."
"The court cautioned, however, that its decision was limited to the fact that the researchers 'obtained the defendant's IP address while he was using the Tor network and [the researchers were] operating nodes on that network, and not by any access to his computer.'"
The defendant was claiming the warrant was invalid, which it was deemed not to be, but finding the IP address of the person's computer was not something that required a warrant.
Case...dismissed?
in a most spectacular fashion upon appeal.
If everything else in your home requires a warrant prior to a search, you don't get to cherry pick specific items that will be exempt from it.
Seriously, it makes me wonder HOW a judge can even make a ruling like this and continue to sit at the bench. :|
The previous poster was discussing INTENTIONAL backdoors, you are talking about inadvertent backdoors caused by honest mistakes.
I don't think anybody has intentionally slipped some backdoor into systemd with the intention of breaking into systems later. Are there possible avenues someone could use to leverage a here to fore unknown systemd bug to do this same? It would not be surprising, but it would also be fixed as soon as it was found and if the feds where out breaking into scads of computers in some fishing exercise, somehow I think *somebody* would catch on and lock them out pretty quick.
Computer security is best served at multiple levels anyway, and some breach in systemd is likely the least of your concerns if you ask me. By the time systemd gets into the picture, you had better have stuff in place that can catch the attack as it enters your network, our you are dead meat anyway.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
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.
Can we then assume that law enforcement doesn't have an expectation of privacy for the computers in their precincts, or their cars?
Considering the number of hacks on government and industry, no, it doesn't seem that unlikely.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... is used by the courts already.
The warrant to use the nit was issued under probable cause. The ruling makes sense.
The nit warrant permitted use only in the case of a visitor to a page with illicit material. There is no way it was a random act of searching the computer. The user could hit that page only because they intended to and knew what he would find.
Just because they are allowed to search it, doesn't necessarily mean they have the capability.
Until the next Snowden reveals that in fact they have the capability and likely have for some time.
"For example, hacking is much more prevalent now than it was even nine years ago, and
the rise of computer hacking viathe Internet has changed the public's reasonable expectations of
privacy."
Perhaps the courts should rule that due to the prevalence of burglaries we no longer enjoy an expectation of privacy in our homes as well.
If the courts want to understand what people's expectations of privacy are they should merely ask. I r
Well they didn't exist when the Constitution was written. The founding fathers were only referring to things like parchment at the time.
Only one lawmaker has been given a death sentence recently: https://www.theguardian.com/uk... Now if there were more people willing to go that far to protect the notion that the government is there for the citizens of the country then you might be able to call this poor ruling a death sentence.
Summary of court's ruling: "You have no rights. Fuck you plebs, that's why."
If you've been charged with the crime of child pornography and the feds already have the server with the kiddie porn on it and you voluntarily logged into the server and downloaded child porn, then your computer is valid evidence to search without a warrant being necessary.
If RTFA is just impossible, the feds gathered information about these peds computers when they connected to a seized child pornography server. The argument was whether they could do that without a warrant.
Its not some subversion, power grab, neo fascist, dumb-a$$ old constitution writers, document doesn't reflect modern world or anything like that.
It's as if millions of porn collections cried out and were suddenly silenced...
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
There is no connection between this judicial failure and Trump.
Knock it the hell off.
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
Good fucking grief. Passive voice, "there are concerns". If there's a backdoor in systemd, that would be massively huge news. I get that you don't like it, and I agree that it is spooky that it is getting pushed into pretty much every place, but that doesn't justify a massive claim like this at all.
Rhel 7 uses systemd. Industry and military use the living shit out of Rhel 7. If systemd had a backdoor, tons of industry and government computers would be compromisable instantly. Keep in mind, this is for a theoretical backdoor, somehow hidden in plain site, and used on serious and sensitive machines all throughout US infrastructure.
That seems unlikely, right?
I fully agree however it is pointless talking to AC Trolls.
There ain't no such thing as proprietary standards only proprietary formats. Standards are by definition open.
This ruling, by extension, includes corporate computers too, of course. Not just Joe Pleb.
So if some government person wants to know what's going on at Lockheed, Boeing, Northrop, etc. they can just hack on in. No warrant required. No foul to be called.
This signature is false.
So, if warrantless searches of internet connected machines are allowed, does that include whatever might be gleaned by activating that computer's webcam and microphone? Is a laptop now a warantless wiretap device? If it is legal for the state to bait people into installing tracking malware, how far of a step is it for them to bait folks into installing monitoring software?
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Reposted from an earlier post on Slashdot on Fri April 15, 2016 09:50 PM:
"Writing in the New Republic in 2014, Jonathan Zittrain, professor of international law at Harvard University, pointed out that, given the massive amount of information it has collected about its users, Facebook could easily send such messages only to people who support one particular party or candidate, and that doing so could easily flip a close election – with no one knowing that this has occurred. And because advertisements, like search rankings, are ephemeral, manipulating an election in this way would leave no paper trail."
"Are there laws prohibiting Facebook from sending out ads selectively to certain users? Absolutely not; in fact, targeted advertising is how Facebook makes its money. Is Facebook currently manipulating elections in this way? No one knows..."
https://aeon.co/essays/how-the...
Now we know.
See, now we know.
Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
To the Democrats: While you were enthralled in supporting deprivation of the 2nd amendment without due process they removed the 4th amendment without due process.
At the end of the day, you won't even have harsh language with which to regain your liberty. You won't even have a whispered critique of disapproval.
To the Republicans: When the total gun ban comes, the bill you just supported will be used against you. They will have all of the data needed to know what you have and which friends are "evil gun owners".
www.facebook.com/DareDefendOurRights
www.fairtax.org
So the judge basically declared war, LEOs vs. the American people.
No wonder no one has any respect for cops or the government anymore.
Beyond ridiculous....
You don't have nothing to hide? Really?
I do. Mostly because I don't know what becomes illegal tomorrow. You like guns? Did you notice what comes around every time someone shoots someone, like, say, the bit in Orlando? Again, regulation was on the table. Do you have guns that could be outlawed? Or do you speak out for having such guns? As soon as something like this becomes law, you'll be in the focus. Whether you have those guns or not, you're one who wants them and that makes you suspect.
How about speaking your mind, hmm? Maybe you have noticed a certain, let's say, rise in political correctness, and that being enshrined in law that you have to be politically correct? Look up "hate speech" if you don't. So far it's just that you can't call a black man nigger and you shouldn't call a Mexican Spic, but are you sure it stays there? What if it becomes illegal, an actual crime, to call a homosexual fag, and you did just do that in public? And hurt the feelings of someone who could then sue you for more than your house and your car is worth. Still got nothing to hide?
Need I go on?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
This is nonsense. There was a warrant, but the guy wanted the court to find that it was too broad. The warrant was for anyone who was a registered user at Playpen (the kiddie porn website in question). They didn't know it was his computer before they hacked it, they just knew it was the terminal used to log in to Playpen. He thought this was too broad.
From the court finding: "NIT warrant described the places to be searched - activating computers of users or administrators that logged into Playpen - and the things to be seized - the seven pieces of information obtained from those activating computers - with particularity."
The court finding states that this super broad warrant did not violate the 4th. Can we please discuss that?
Your arguments about the dye bag in the stolen money and person going to a sting drug house are better than the arguments that the court put forth in the opinion. The site was clearly labeled as a child porn site. Defendant requested the file labeled "six year fucked with a carrot.zip" or whatever ot was called. That zip file contained a dye bag.
Your other post, supporting the argument "computers can be eaily hacked, therefore the government is allowed to hack people's computers without a warrant" is ridiculous. I've worked in computer security a long time; before that I worked as a locksmith. You know what's even easier than hacking a computer? Picking a Home Depot lock. I can open most residential locks in seconds. Therefore you should expect someone to pick your lock, you have no reasonable expection of privacy in your own home?
Also this: ... means that they didn't need a warrant.
> The fact that the FBI got a warrant
The fact that they got a warrant means they didn't need one? The Consitution says they need one.
Mary Lou Jepson of OLPC fame and many others are using FMRI+computers to read mental sounds and images, including text. She's now working for Facebook. Predicts as MRI resolution improves, minds can be read quite precisely. Her boss prolly wansta merge MRI+VR so that, on his terms, we can better connect. Question: Is control controlled by its need to control? Answer: Yes.
Federal Court: The Fourth Amendment Does Not Protect Your Home Computer
Federal Court: We Can't Read Good and Can't Do Other Stuff Good Too.
I disagree with your conclusion. The constitution works just fine, even today, if you seek what the original framers intended and not what you want it to say. The legal, moral and ethical principles it is founded on are timeless, even if the language isn't. We don't need to rewrite it, we need to seek to understand what it said to the people of the day, especially those who wrote the document. The problem I'm pointing out is that many judges today DO NOT seek original meaning from the constitution or the laws they are charged with interpreting, they seek to mold it into what they want to see and inject personal bias driven by political, social and personal beliefs.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
For those who think this cannot happen, consider the people in the UK who have been jailed over "offensive" tweets.
And for those who think this cannot happen in the USA, I encourage you to read up on Woodrow Wilson.
Love sees no species.
The Washington State Constitution, however, guarantees personal privacy, which is why we can't be wiretapped, have GPS put on our cars, or monitored by the FBI without a valid warrant.
Nice try, Big Brother
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
And we'll be reading reports of jail suicides like "accused beat himself to death on the night sticks of a dozen sheriff's deputies.
Sounds like dicta. Not as big a deal as it could be then, since dicta are not binding.
And yet a big enough deal. Because this case did involve a series of properly executed warrants and involves an unsympathetic defendant, it will stand on appeal. That means that dicta is going to show up in LexisNexis searches of successful cases and some prosecutor somewhere is going to attempt to cite it in a different case that does not involve the correct set of warrants, in hopes that another judge won't inquire too closely, or notice exactly how unconstitutional the theory is, and lets it fly. Wash, rinse, and repeat a few times and lo and behold, a binding precedent appears.
This particular case is a campfire in the middle of a drought-stricken forest. If we are very fortunate, it stays contained in its little ring of stones. The unconstitutional sparks that fly off it get stamped out by another more vigilant judge and it becomes an academic curiosity. If we are unfortunate, some authoritarian asshole lets the sparks fly, and now we have a brush fire. There's some chance of putting it out, but now it requires a whole different level of effort, and some serious luck by well prepared firefighters. If they are insufficiently lucky or insufficiently prepared, we've got a forest fire on our hands.
This case isn't a big deal. Yet.
In my experience, if you want to reply to an Internet comment with suggested suggest corrections to grammar, usage, or mechanics, one polite way to go about it is to frame the correction as a throwaway bit. First compose a topical reply to a post, and then state the correction briefly at the start, as if indirectly asking for a confirmation that your interpretation was intended. For example:
So what you're saying is that you have nothing to fear unless you're an assault weapon owning, racist homophobe. I don't like the concept diiscussed, as I most certainly do have an expectation of privacy. As for not being allowed to use known derrogatory terms in a public space, well, you have every right to use whatever words you want, but get ready to bear the consequences. Your right to free speech only protects political speech form censorship from the gov't. It most certainly doesn't someone from being offended. Your right to swing your fist ends where it intersects my nose. Your use of juvenile and puerile language ends if I can hear it.
If you only support freedom of speech for people you like or who agree with you, you don't support freedom of speech. Free speech covers offensive speech too. It generally doesn't cover libel, slander, or threats, but just making a statement other people find offensive? That has to be allowed, partly because your suggestion that we should ban offensive speech offends me. No, my use of whatever (non-libelous, not explicitly a threat) words I want to use is unaffected by whether or not you can hear it. That's how rights work.
The problem with the people making your argument is that you assume you'll be the only ones to use this power. If Trump becomes the next US President, do you really want him being able to ban speech *he* finds offensive?
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
Homophobe, today, homo tomorrow. Who knows who's going to win the next election and what harebrained laws come into existence? Look at the agendas Trump rides on, think it's so impossible that the US gets some anti-discrimination laws rolled back, and further back actually?
The only way you probably have nothing to fear is if you have neither an opinion nor a life.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The judge, Henry Coke Morgan, was born in 1935, so he's either 80 or 81 depending on his month of birth. Maybe his error in judgement is a result of incipient dementia. Maybe it's a good time for him to retire.
'He who has to break a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of wisdom.' -- Gandalf to Saruman
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... is used by the courts already.
And with 32% accuracy.
That seems a reasonable factor on which to base a court decision. /sarc
Brilliant comment AC. Maybe you could elaborate on why?