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FBI Keeps Seized Computers up to Five Years
Zorro turned us on to an NYT article that says law enforcement agencies routinely seize hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of computers and hard drives as evidence, but have so few computer experts that confiscated equipment can gather dust for months or years until someone decides whether or not they contain criminal information. The story also says that, even if you're innocent, once the cops grab your computer they can keep it until the statute of limitations on the alleged crime runs out, which is typically five years. (Free NYT reg. required to read.)
media and the general idea of a dumb G'man so prevelant in society
What better way to achieve power than to infiltrate an intact power structure full of incompetents?
We are watching you.
50 bucks for a 386? Yikes, that's high! I got a 486 with 16 megs of ram for 30 bucks at the MIT Flea Market. If you're in the Boston area, it's a great place to pick up obsolete computers and parts. The Miter's Page about the MIT Flea Market
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Yep I agree that its out of control the other day I got pulled over by some jackass cop who proceeded to search my car for 15 minutes and make me late for work. He told me that i probably had drugs hidden in my car because of my dark shade of windows tint. After I heard this I laughed in his face and he replied with the ever popular "don't get smart with me kid"
coyote-san, thanks for answering calmly this post, which reads either like flamebait or from NAMBLA (or flamebait from NAMBLA).
... there is a grey area, and youngish people do have / can have sex. That's *not* to say "children," especially not "young children."
I also won't jump down the slippery slope about Traci Lords etc
mwalker did the right thing (and I say that as someone who generally distrusts the police at whatever level -- see the Steve Jackson references throughout this thread) and I am impressed that he doesn't sound angrier than he does.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Only in a police state does the policeman have it easy.
If it takes years to examine your computer equipment for signs of incriminating data, then you need to write some letters to your legislature and the FBI saying, "use more of my tax dollars to streamline and make efficient this process," not, "use more of my tax dollars for reimbursing the innocent."
So what you are saying is that the FBI should continue to conduct "investigations" which are just excuses to sieze and hold computer equipment because there will be no follow-up. You say this is due to a lack of funds. I call it mismanagement. If the FBI were doing its job correctly, it would re-allocate funds from the agents doing the seizing to analysts for evaluating the evidence until they could process everything they grabbed in a reasonable amount of time, say 60 days.
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Whew, I thought I was gonna have to hire a secretary.
Yah, but the PC devalues. Therefore, a good lawyer could make the case that the feds owe the difference in the value. I think the fourth ammendment, if they seize your property, they have to pay you the full value, something like that.
Opinionated Law Student Strikes Again!
I could replace my current computer out of pocket. However, when they take the computer, they seize all the oxide in sight: tapes, disks, everything. There goes your email. There go your backups. There go your web page sources. There goes everything!
The only way to survive this is to have an offsite backup. How many people who aren't expecting this sort of attention routinely make offsite backups for the machine in their bedrooms?
So I was talking to a co-worker of mine. Her brother and his friends were out in the desert, about ten miles outside Las Vegas. They were hunting lizards for a college biology project. One of them picked up a rock, which is how you find lizards. He found something else. He found a gleaming metal bead. It was attached to something.
It turned out to be attached to the rest of a car radio antenna. They dug down far enough to discover a car. This being the Las Vegas neighborhood they expected the car to contain a body so they called the LVPD. LVPD showed up with machinery and dug up a pristine Corvette convertible, which started right up. They took it away.
Next day the boys went down to the police station to claim the car. Finders keepers, right?
Right. What car? There was no record of it anywhere.
The crying injustice of the American legal systems and that hardly anybody seems care about it was very perplexing to me when I moved to the US from Germany a couple of years ago. Examples include: an insane incrassation rate, excessive prison sentences for often minor crimes, permanent seizure of properties like cars and houses in drug possession case if you forgot do to do proper book keeping even if you are never convicted of any crime, obscene king ping laws, you have to fully pay your layers bills when you are acquitted in criminal court even in the most outrages cases, the police can shoot you with impunity if they think (talking about an oxymoron) you posse a threat with a deadly weapon like a broom, screw driver, or even a purely imaginary weapon (and people don't start wining about police safety - they are paid "to put their lives on the line" and its far more dangerous being a construction worker or a baker then being a police man anyway). Then there are those little idiosyncrasies of type: Being a black male makes you an inherently bad person in the eyes of the law (your chances of going to prison in your live time is one in four). You will be sent to prison for using drugs but it is trivial to obtain them inside prison walls. The same holds true for rape (the loss of sexual self determination is a wide spread and fully accepted form of punishment). Compared to this keeping your hard drive until it becomes utterly useless seems almost benign. In my opinion this is ultimately caused by the character of the US political system where the voters are asked to cast their ballots for prosecutors, judges, sheriffs and many low level political offices. These officials faithfully implemented the popular political mandate of being tuff on crime and the average Joe frankly does not care about judicial abuse (as long it is not him or his friends of course). If you are a bleeding hard liberal (by American standard) like myself you might enjoy reading Scott Christianson's book "With Liberty for some, 500 years of imprisonment in America".
>>Is it ethical to assist in the prevention of certain 'crimes' if you don't believe they are crimes?
>Probably not, I would have a hard time doing that.
I dunno... to "assist in the prevention of certain 'crimes'" seems (to me) an ethical toss-up. A grey area. Something as innocuous as a warning - "you could get in serious trouble doing things like that" - might assist in the prevention of a 'crime'. Is that so wrong?
Certainly assisting in the rounding up for punishment of certain 'criminals' - and confiscation of their equipment - would be an ethical no-no if one didn't consider what they did to be criminal.
Here in Australia it is no different. We had our flat raided. The Australian Federal Police had a warrent searching for data relating to a computer crime (some punk kid in Adelaide who was calling Sydney with a hacked PABX and using cc'd ozemail accounts who had talked to me on IRC). They took everything.. my computer, my flatmate's computer(s), our 3 commodore 64's, all the c64 disks.. the really strange thing.. they went around hunting through the house for all the mice.. yer.. they were real adament about it "gotta get all the mice". Everything they picked up I said "erm.. there's no data in that" and they say stuff like "gotta take evidence of a communication".. and I was like "wanna take the phone?".. anyways.. I let it go for about 3 months.. then I called up the AFP and asked where my computers were.. they said they were a bit backlogged and would get back to me.. I asked what they were doing with them.. they said the computers were sitting on a shelf in the holding area waiting to be inspected.. I was like "what are you going to do with em?" and they said they were gunna copy the harddrives and then give em back to me.. so I asked if I could have the modem/mouse/monitor/etc back and they said no.
So I called them every day.. at first they were pretty co-operative.. then they became annoyed.. then they stopped taking my calls "oh.. he's just walked away from his desk".. One day I called and they said "oh.. there's been a bit of trouble here and he's gone to investigate that.. he'll be back soon".. I rang back 10 minutes later.. they had put the answering machine on.. 20 minutes early.. so I looked up the federal agent's name in the telephone book and called the first number that matched.. "Is this ***** ****'s house?" "Yes.. I'm his wife, can I help you?" "Yer.. is this federal agent ***** ****'s house?" "Yes it is." Cool, I got it first time.. "Oh.. well this is ***** ********** can you get ***** to call me back on ********".. half an hour later.. *ring* "Hello *****, how did you get my home number?" "telephone book".. So I called there every day.. started getting the answering machine.. so I went down to the Forensic Computer Examination Unit and asked to speak to the dude who was sitting on his arse eating twinkies and not copying my harddrive.. For some strange reason they let me in and it turned out that he wasn't even there.. he hadn't been there for months.. no-one in that section had.. I left a post-it note on his door damanding my computers back.. it didn't help.. I got them back 14 months after they took em.. I never got any reply to any of the stern letters that I sent to the police. There is nothing you can do.. I have done it all.. I even applied for a job with the police so that I could get assigned to the FCEU and copy the damn harddrive myself.
When we got the computer's back they had these cool 'FCEU' stickers on em.. Now my mom has that computer (a P100) and I forbid her from removing the stickers.
How we know is more important than what we know.
As a group, we have more money than the average person. In our society that should mean we have more influence, right?
... Even just 500,000 of us is $10,000,000 ... do that once a year, it will help, right? Or does it need to be a factor of ten more? How much does it take to manipulate this system to our own ends?
If we all donated $20 to the EFF and then to the ACLU and other such groups
After 3? More like after 18 months.
Actually, they take everything the computer is attached to.. (which includes your stereo if you have your computer attached to that). There actually is a reason for this.. If you ever have your equipment seized, you'll notice that they label all the cables and jacks with tags, so that they can put everything back together exactly like it was in your house. They need the printer cable, because they have no idea if you're just an average schmoe, or if you're clever and you have a specially wired printer cable that you sense with some clever software as some kind of hardware lock or booby-trap device.
(of course, the first thing they do to a seized machine is yank the power cord out of the back of the system, so if you have one of those nifty internal UPSes, you can set up some kind of tamper sensitive kill switch with your internal and external UPSes. if the internal one says "hey, power is out!" and the external one hasn't already told the computer that power is out and it should shut down, then destroy all your sensitive material. )
(of course, that's purely academic, and if you did that in real life it would be yet another criminal action if they can prove it. don't be a criminal and you wont have to worry about it. yet.)
You are being paranoid. Of course, it's not fun and adventurist to think that you're just being paranoid, and there's a whole community of people here on Slashdot who want an adventure where there is none to be had. So by all means assume your life is actually interesting to agents all over the place. If it keeps you happy.
Nearly the same situation here: my brother is an alleged hacker and they took everything including printer cables, scanners, etc. But, and this is the kicker, they took all of *my* computer stuff including two video cards that were sitting in my closet in anti-static bags, the cradle for my PalmPilot (but not the PalmPilot itself!), and even my mouse pads! This happened in the beginning of April and I still haven't received any of it back (now nearly five months later!).
It's sad that you're filled with such hatred and paranoia. My advice would be for you to talk to more people. Don't go seek professional help, because you're very untrustful of anybody you see as an "authority figure." Just get out more. Go to the park and meet regular people at random. They're not all out to get you. The majority of people in the world are nice ordinary people. They're not brainwashed sheep who just aren't as aware as you are. Think about it, get out more, and have a happy life. Paranoia will destroy you.
You don't belong here. There are nice cozy cabins in Montana. Go live in one now.
I wonder if this means the FBI might be in the market for some 'puter Savvy folks like us? And would accepting a job like that be selling out? Is it ethical to assist in the prevention of certain 'crimes' if you don't believe they are crimes?
Given the current situation, even if you disagree with the laws it might not be a bad idea to join the FBI in enforcing them. Right now, people get stuck in limbo for years waiting to get their hardware back. If the computer forensics team at the FBI were increased, then the innocent people would get their stuff back a lot sooner, and the guilty (who would be convicted anyway) would be pretty much unaffected (they might go to prison a little sooner, but at least they'd know what was happening).
Of course, if you do in fact disagree with the laws, then it might likewise be a good idea to do something like this, in order to "speak from experience" that people in X situation are unlikely to (cause|have caused) Y problem.
Not that I'm trying to convince anyone to go work for the FBI or anything, but I wanted to point up ways in which doing so shouldn't be considered "selling out"---almost the reverse, in fact.
``This, too, shall pass.'' ---Eastern proverb
How would you accomplish that by writing things?
:)
Sorry, I think you mean Steganography
This is just like television, only you can see much further.
When I was in college, I hoped to become an FBI agent. It's been a few years, but here are some of the basic requirements I remember:
BS/BA Degree (I believe military service will qualify in place of a degree).
Two or more years of full-time employment with a single employer.
Exceptions are granted to the 2 year rule for people with degrees in law or accounting.
Clean criminal history, good character, and good physical condition (special agent training can be fairly rigorous).
Also, the FBI seems to place a lot of weight on academic credentials. I suspect they prefer to get Comp. Sci. grads with advanced degrees for their "computer expert" positions.
Do the math and figure out how many people meet all of the above criteria. Now subtract the number who are willing to accept roughly half of the salary they could be making in the private sector with the same credentials. Do you see a shortage?
Yes, there are intangible benefits to being an agent. Honestly, if a recruiter approached me today, I would still be interested. My experience with FBI recruiters, though, was that they were aloof and arrogant. This attitude is hard to take when private companies are falling all over themselves to hire you.
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
...2 years.
.000 with this American citizen now immigrating to another country with more solid foundation in civil rights. Given my experiences with Federal investigators, I am beginning to believe that they either have WAY too much time on their hands (even more so than local-yokal law enforcement departments) or the FBI Training Academy's standards have fallen though the floor in the past 10 years.
And, boy, once your name goes into their tickler files, you are presumed guilty until proven innocent. They've batted a solid
Some of the Federal investigative agencies practices just aren't right (or legal, in my opininon). The majority of the population doesn't get to experience nice little things like property seizure and confiscate laws (which fund and add fuel to the fire), criminal record maintance (without conviction), post investigation cateloging of personal letters and papers obtained from computer equipment seizures and abuse of polygraph results in the absence of any real evidence. Once you fall out of that majority, (guilty or not) it's a long, hard fall to reality
The Second American Revolutions won't happen in time to mitigate technology's control of citizens, their thoughts and desires. Let's get one thing straight... Technology doesn't give a flying fsck about things like "Freedom" or "Liberty" or "The Pursuit of Happyness".
My recomendation:
Opt-in, becomming a part of the Federal investigative or enforcement power
or
Get out. Find somewhere else, on this rather large earth, safer and freeer to live.
Everyone else? They're just meat for the butcher's grinder.
The only way this is going to be solved is through legislation. Make it happen.
The lack of detail in my original post was intentional, as the less details I provided, the safer it was for everyone involved.
Some clarifications:
-The guy was not "tortured" by the police. It's probably trollbait, but I'll clarify that just so it's ironed out.
-He wasn't using my box for NAT or anything, everyone in the apartment had their own jack. Because I had TWO computers, I used a spare jack that happened to be on his side of the four person apartment. Too cheap to buy a hub I guess. I was in no way going to be held legally responsible for his actions.
So why did I turn someone in for child pornography distribution if it was no skin off my nose? Why not live and let live? I don't feel that the comparison to drug law enforcement is accurate, since the U.S.'s drug laws are retarded and everyone knows it. If'd he'd instead been growing a metric ton of weed in his closet I'd have given him a medal.
So here is what pushed me over the edge, and made me call the police rather than talk to the guy:
-Define young? ages appx 8-12 years old. Not traci lords. Pippi longstocking. Sesame street.
6 gigs. Carefully sorted. Documented. Separated into hundreds of subdirectories by race and gender combination. description files. Creation dates over a span of four years.
-Was he hurting anyone? He spent a lot of time in chat rooms in AOL. He spent a lot of time trying to meet people.
-Why not just ask him to stop? That would have, in my opinion, created an opportunity for him to destroy evidence. That introduced the possiblity of him remaining in my apartment. Or he could have stopped, moved, and started again. I felt that I had a responsibility to the public to do something. I felt that reducing the menace this person posed was not within my ability to create change. I considered the prospect of him luring someone into my apartment... and freaked out.
I stand by my decision, and that's all I have to say about that.
On the topic of allowing cash reimbursement for seized computing equipment - it's a nice idea, but it's far from being a solution. What if you reimburse a computer criminal who turns out to be guilty? If the state computer facility has a backlog of two years worth of computers, and that demand is constant, then increase capacity. If computer expertise costs too much money, spend more money. Computers aren't going to go away, and as much as corporate america would like to make computer programmers a cheap commodity by importing what they consider the "smart" races on indentured servant visas, the IT labor shortage isn't going to end anytime soon. Bite the bullet, modernize, make computer inspection turnaround time two weeks. Competent government is achievable, though you wouldn't believe it from the current state of affairs.
/RANT
-mwalker.
--
What happens when you outlaw guns
I wonder if this means the FBI might be in the market for some 'puter Savvy folks like us? And would accepting a job like that be selling out? Is it ethical to assist in the prevention of certain 'crimes' if you don't believe they are crimes? What kind of penalties would there be if you claimed you were unable to crack a system because you believed the information it held should be legal? How much do you think the FBI would be willing to pay? I wonder if they would outsource to a consulting company...
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
Considering the fact that a typical compurer becomes almost useless after three years, having yours seized for five years means that you will probably not be very interested in getting it back, except maybe for selling the metal.
Fortunately, Linux does not suffer from the same bloat factors as other operating systems, which means that you can run an up-to-date version of Linux on a computer that is more than five years old. But still...
-Raphaël
Any responsible accounting for confiscated equipment would show that returning a modern computer five years later would represent a loss of the majority of value. Is there a constitutional loophole for this or is it simply another violation of the takings clause of the fifth admendment?
At least in the cases where charges are dropped or the defendant is acquitted, shouldn't compensation for taken property be required?
Geeky modern art T-shirts
I thought this was common knowledge. Well, in some circles it is.
They also have kept computers after dropping charges, or after the case is otherwised resolved (plea bargain, conviction, even acquital!).They feel that keeping the equipment serves as a good punishment.
Fortunately, when you get your computer back after five years, it'll still be powerful enough to run Linux.
What computer guy would really want to work for the FBI? After the plastering they've taken in the media and the general idea of a dumb G'man so prevelant in society, I can't really say that I'm surprised. This is happening all over the country. The area's that really need geeks can't get them. Of course, the FBI has never had a stock offering and made anyone rich overnight.
Personally, if they are hiring for geek type jobs, where do I sign up? Could be kind of neat to know that you had a part in busting some big international operation and those perps are now seeing the harsh light of justice. I've been watching way to much Dragnet.
Well, the folks committing crimes with their computers must feel more secure after reading this article. If the cops can't even find someone to look at the hard drive, a reasonably implemented encryption scheme will probably stand up against the feds.
No wonder the feds are so desperately worried about people having encryption! If they're ineffective now, with widespread encryption they'd be completely useless.
...for good backups, kept offsite. As a rule of thumb you should always be able to recreate your system(s) as of yesterday given an OS install disk, a partition table, and backups. If you trust Travan, you can get drives for $400 and the media's pretty cheap too. Backups are a good idea anyways, for hardware and software failure reasons. Is anyone doing large scale backups using open source tools? Or is everyone using Veritas/Backup Exec?
I'm trying to decide what to go with. I'm tempted to wait until this fall and get one of these.
I dunno. It seems like the could pull the manpower out on these kind of Computer Forensic cases. But it looks like they'd just prefer to leave the "allegedly guilty" party's box doing paperweight duty while the accused decides when he's going to give up. Innocent or not. Government Sponsored Oubliette. Besides..3 techs! That's it for Uncle Sam!?! Sure ..I believe you.
you never lose in ure razorblade shoes......Beck-Hotwax
AC said: Nearly the same situation here: my brother is an alleged hacker and they took everything including printer cables, scanners, etc. But, and this is the kicker, they took all of *my* computer stuff including two video cards that were sitting in my closet in anti-static bags, the cradle for my PalmPilot (but not the PalmPilot itself!), and even my mouse pads! This happened in the beginning of April and I still haven't received any of it back (now nearly five months later!). ------- Can't you sue? Or, if it was the Feds who took your stuff, is there a clueful local or state prosecutor who might be willing to threaten the feds with grand theft charges? I'm dreaming, but it would be nice to see the state lock up several dozen FBI guys for doing something like this.
(Having said that, said combination of open fires, kerosene lamps, straw and high explosives is somewhat unstable anyway. IMHO, all the FBI would have had to have done is wait until someone in there sneezed, and the whole lot would have gone up in smoke anyway.)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Really, those bastards would work for any regime so long as they would have the power to throw their weight around. There is only 1 thing dictators are truly afraid of: an armed, educated and informed public.
Customs agents in airports can take your tickets and any cash you're carrying if they suspect you are going to use it to buy drugs. They don't have to charge you, question you, or explain anything to you, and they don't have to give it back. sounds like the Government is becoming as paranoid about computers as they are about drugs. .^
^.
( @ )
My computer was involved in a crime 2 years ago, at which the same point my $2000 (at the time) 266 MHz P-II computer was taken. I was told after the crime (for which I was convicted) that I would get it back after 2 months. (the time limit for me to appeal) Well, I still haven't gotten it back yet.. it's been one run around after another.. at first they told me my computer contained "highly illegal information" and must be destroyed. I admit I had a few hundred mp3's and hundreds of technical text files that can be used improperly, but I don't see what's wrong with just deleting the information, hell they can even keep my hard drives, I just want the computer back. But here recently they said I could have the computer back if I retained a) a receipt for the computer (but i built it myself) and b) a letter from my co-defendant saying this in fact is my computer.. well "b" isn't going to happen because him and I are really not friends anymore... he's the main reason I got into this mess..
I wonder if I should contact another attorney (my first sucked) because I was never presented with a search warrant in the first place.. who knows.. it's obvious they're throwing me one line after the next, and by the time I get it back (if ever) it will be barely worth a few hundred bucks and will serve next to no purpose to me.. Oh well, since then I bit the bullet and bought a new computer and am slowly changing my black hat to a lovely shade of white... I never wanted to grow up but I really learned my lesson with this one.... a warning to anyone else who has even tinkered with someone else's computer: the government is just looking to use you as an example.. even if what you didnt *wasnt that bad* or *easy to fix*.. once you cross the line, you are theirs to toy with.. and if you choose to step over that line again, you had better not get caught or you're in some serious poo poo.
Ah. Yes, then, I did hear about that. I think that Mr. Blassor (initiator of the thread) is a bit too critical of the FBI. I mean, aside from conspiracy theories galore, they seem to be doing a reasonable job. Without xealots, you don't get results. Without results: no FBI, no internal law enforcement agency.
Sirch
We Build Beautiful Websites
I instruct law enforcement on the proper methods to seize computer systems during the course of an investigation. I can tell you beyond the shadow of a doubt that the investigators that do these seizures normally _hate_ to take a machine because of the amount of work required to investigate everything on the drive.
In fact, it's not surprising in most investigations to have computers go untouched because, in the officer's mind, the work required to sort through the storage devices and removable media on-site exceeds the value of the evidence he or she may find. Most officers (trained ones, not the average street cop, but the high-tech crimes investigators) only take equipment that meets one or more of the following criteria:
1) There is a good chance the equipment was used in the commission of a crime,
2) The equipment is stolen or presumed stolen,
3) Other evidence points to the use of the equipment in the commission of the crime being investigated.
Once the equipment is seized, trained officers will always image the drive and any removable media and perform the investigation on the copy. The reason the original is kept is because the officer must maintain full certainty that the evidence is pristine -- that is, that it has not been modified while in the possession of the investigator. These are steps trained officers -- indeed, the ones that _I_ train -- will take. I can't speak for every officer, though.
The trouble with keeping mahines is, many investigations take a long time to complete -- the evidence _must_ be kept pristine until there is a trial. Sometimes, as we all know, the courts don't exactly speed cases through. The fact that so much effort is expended on the part of the officer to maintain the accuracy of the evidence doesn't just protect _him_ in a criminal trial, it may protect the accused as well. If the accused has access to change the evidence after the investigation has been initiated, it casts a lot of doubt on that person's own veracity.
Still, I know abuses do occur. I know that sometimes officers keep equipment well beyond the times they should, and they sometimes do so out of spite. Some equipment is not returned even though there is absolutely _not_ going to be a trial.
If anyone feels that way, they should protest it to other law enforcement personnel as highly-placed as possible. In additon, if an officer during an investigation comes to take the machine, ask them if they hold professional certification from any of the common high-tech crime investigation associations (HTCIA, IACIS).
But, please, do realize these officers have to abide by the rules. The same rule of evidence which applies to computer equipment seized in a crime investigation also applies to any other piece of physical evidence: it must be kept pristine until trial -- however long that takes.
Nice way of shooting yourself in the foot.
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
To many (most?) of the police, everyone who has ever been charged with a crime is guilty. Even if found innocent in court, the cops STILL consider him/her as a criminal; they think it was just luck (or crooked lawyers) that the crook beat the rap.
/. posts, anyone critical of the government is called paranoid -- but the truly paranoid ones are IN the government.
To cops, everyone is a bad guy. In everyone but a cop, this is called paranoia. In many of the
I have been reading /. for a while and that is the most enlightened comment I have read yet.
See their account of the seizure of their computers at http://www.sjgames.com/SS
This is the only way that the innocent can be protected from maurauding seizure. If the cops grab your stuff and you haven't done anything, you just buy a new system with your VISA card, plug in the copy of the hard drive and wait for their check to pay off the card.
The really ironic thing about this is that, unlike houses and even cars, computers depreciate so fast they are effectively useless as asset-forfeiture fund-raising material. Yet the cops grab and hold them for ridiculous amounts of time anyway.
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
I'm sure in the near future an extremely high-profile case will finally end the capability of law enforcement to steal property from everybody. It's not evidence if it isn't being examined, used in court, returned as soon as possible, and pertinent, so yes, they are _stealing_ huge amounts of property. There will surely be a case where one of two things happens:
1) Law enforcement goes to jail
or
2) Law enforcement has to pay an obscene amount in a class action, and suddenly all of the different groups get targetted by all of their past victims
It will only take one good victory to end the illegal actions by our so-called public servants. The moment the enforcers of the law consider themselves immune to the law, it's time to overhaul / replace / destroy the system.
The entire legal system in the USA is out of control. It needs to be redone, from scratch.
Also, don't I have the right to see what laws affect me? Yea, I thought so too. Where can I go download a copy? Which section in my public library? What, the laws arn't avalible? I thought that as well.
The laws should be simple enough that they can be taught in school in their entirety, and once a working system gets set up (Aka, the current sytem isn't a "Working System") it should be nigh on impossible to tweak it and add on unnessisary stupidity!
Arghhh!!!! I'm going to wright up a thingie and submit it as a top level Slashdot article. This subject pisses me off!
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
Hey, if they just took the hard drive, you'd pop for $150 for a new drive, restore your data from offsite backup, and be back in business the next day! And they couldn't allow that; obviously, if they confiscated your equipment, you MUST be guilty! [sarcasm intended]
When they come to my house, though, I've got a nice suprise for them... several thousand old, unlabeled floppies. Seems like they're gonna hafta check each one of them, to make sure it doesn't contain hidden evidence, doesn't it? Never know which one might contain a picture of a naked teenager...
>the FBI. Now, their admitting they lied. Isn't >perjury before a Federal Grand Jury a serious >crime?
ya for us "people". for the FBI, this is just them showing off their true power. "ya we did lie. so what? what are you going to do. we own the just-us system anyway.
I thought that maybe a real-world testimonial from a slashdot'er might be of use here.
...they took the computer which was attached to a cable run 25 feet out of his room. A quiet computer with no monitor sitting in a closet.
I went to college at the University of College Park, MD. I lived on campus, which meant that everyone in my on-campus apartment had a 10baseT jack fed to a T3 line on the Internet backbone. Good deal.
I had two computers, a Pentium-60 running FreeBSD with no monitor (fixed-ip permanent uptime server) and a dual-boot redhat/windows box in my bedroom. My on campus-apartment housed four people.
One semester a new guy moved into our apartment. I don't want to make this post run on forever with details, so to make a long story short: we discovered that he was hosting approx. 6gig of pictures of very young children having sex on his computer through a password protected ftp server. We freaked. We called the police.
I think it was the right thing to do.
The police came. Lots of them. They had a search warrant. They took everything electronic in this kid's room. They took his alarm clock.
My computer.
When they were taking it I told the officers: "you'll need the passwords, it's running an IDEA encrypted filesystem" and wrote the root pwd and filesystem key on a 3m note. I didn't care, the crypto was for fun, my box was legal. I remember what the officer said:
"I'm pretty sure they can figure it out".
As if.
I got my computer back 32 months later. I kept in touch with the college park police department. They just said it was at the state computer crime facility awaiting testing.
I don't have to tell you what a P60 is worth today. I still use it as a server, but I lost upwards of two years of use on that box.
I don't mind law enforcement taking computers in some cases. I think my case was a good example of better-safe-than-sorry. But they DO have a responsibility to get their f**ing act together when it comes to data inspection and returning property to innocent people.
From first hand knowledge, I can say that this is a VERY real problem, and that it needs attention at a national level now. If the mere suspicion of misdeeds is enough to confiscate a computer until it is entirely worthless, then law enforcement has effectively bypassed our trial-by-jury system. The punishment comes swiftly and BEFORE guilt or innocence is determined, because the punishment consists of denying a civilian access to his property. It consititutes the same kind of loophole that RICO does.
(see Racketeering Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act - search altavista)
The problem with punishment before judgement is that sometimes you punish the innocent.
It happened to me.
It could happen to you.
-walker
--
What happens when you outlaw guns
>I'm just wondering when they are gonna throw Reno >etc....... your question is asking: "when will the evil people stop themselves and put themselves away?" they won't!. we have to put them away.
Amazing, a post that actually makes sense...and no replys! Sure big government does stupid things, but I've been to other countries and I can't say I'm all that inpressed with the way things are run there either. People fear that which they don't understand, and we all suffer for it...here's an example. I had a linux box stashed under my desk here at work to play with in my spare time. Our internal M$IS depertment noticed it and went off the handle wen they found out it had Linux on it. It was quite funny actually..They demanded all my passwords which I gladly gave them. Once they got to a root prompt they had no idea what to do, better yet, they were too proud to ask me what to do next...I still have seen or heard back on that computer. Which by the way only had a fresh install of RH 5.2. I do know they wasted several hours looking at the root prompt. The FBI just takes more time.
No, you can't sue the government. You can, however, throw them against a wall in front of a firing squad.
Oh, but I'm just being overly dramatic again, of course. Of course.
Steve Jackson Games has some information available on the GURPS Cyberpunk raid at their web site. This Secret Service raid was the first case taken on by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Obviously, you've never heard of the concept of "sovereign immunity". Unfortunately, you can't sue the government. Even if their involved in a reckless high speed chase and one of their cruisers winds up in your living world. Sorry. Welcome to the real world, kid...
Which is probably why our "authority figures" get away with so much. People like you and the previous poster hold them above suspicion. If we believe they are behaving in a criminal manner, people like you tell us that we are paranoid and should get a life. I wonder who the real delusional person is...
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Well, I'm no expert on civil-liberty laws, but Canada, AFAIK, has a less paranoid and less authoritarian government than the US (that is, unless Mike Harris was to become PM of Canada... [shudder]).
Sure, we have higher taxes, but also a national Medicare system that works (for now), as well as good public education (for now).
(Sorry abouy my pessimism, but I live in Ontario, and IMHO, Mike Harris and his cronies are ruining this province.)
Actually, no, they don't. (Well, maybe they do written down on a yellowing scrap of paper somewhere, but in actual practice law enforcement at all levels has been getting into the habit of just stealing stuff.)
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
Let me explain.
You've just been arrested. You either are, or are not, guilty -- it doesn't matter. You're taken before a judge to a bail hearing (name varies by state, probably). The cops have made it clear to you that you have two choices: 1) you can waive your right to a speedy trial, and probably get bail at a rate you might be able to scrape up, or 2) you keep the right, you don't get bail, and the next 45 days are going to be spent "servicing" everyone on the cellblock as the guards laugh at you.
Does the light begin to dawn?
This is nothing new.
Mostly due to the War on Drugs, forfeiture laws have become unconstitutional. Law enforcement agencies in the U.S. have many incentives to keep property:
Until the laws are changed prohibiting the law enforcement agencies from keeping property they seize, it comes down to this: police target a "suspect" with "nice" assets and seize the property for themselves, sometimes liquidating it even before trial, and even if the suspect is proven innocent.
I suggest reading some of the excellent articles at fear.org, Forfeiture Endangers American Rights Foundation. There are many problems with the current system which must be reformed.
Yes, they can take your stuff, all they need is a warrant -- which can be very easy to get. And then the burden is on YOU -- how do YOU demonstrate that the property is innocent of a crime. But it gets worse than that. Sometimes they LOSE TRACK of your property (because law enforcement seizes a lot of property) and you are unable to get it back. Like I said before, a lot of this has to do with bad laws passed by politicians trying to "get tough on the War on Drugs":
I suggest everyone in the U.S. join the libertarian party in an effort to return to more constitutional principles.
Was he making the pictures? Can you even prove that there was harm caused to the kids in them? Even if there was, it passed. The pictures harm no one. No one has proven that looking at those things makes you make more or act that way. You digust me. If you thought your flatmate was doing something innapproiate you should have asked him to stop. Insted you subjected him to inhumane torture at the hands of the poliece.
According to my reading of the U.S. Constitution, everyone is guaranteed a "right to a speedy trial", which has been interpreted as meaning that unless I waive this right, they must begin the trial within 45 days, or throw the case out. So why don't people whose equipment have been confiscated hire a lawyer, issue a writ of habeas corpus, and insist on a quick trial? Seems to me they can't keep ANY evidence after you've been tried, can they? And if it takes them longer than 45 days to decrypt your data... well then, they can't use it in court, can they? Maybe THIS is what the Feds are afraid of, when they want to limit encryption...
Recently a law was passed by Congress saying that the government has to return property to you if they cannot prove you to be guilty of the charges. This law was passed by a coalition of the right and left wings of Congress, with the pinkboys voting against. It appears that they are going to have a lot harder time passing this sort of thing now that the hard Right is skeptical of the law enforcement community, too.
The FBI has reasonable rules concerning cars, and homes. Why not computers. I might be wrong about this. In any case it's unreasonable to keep a computer for vary long. It's a simple matter to copy the information off. We are, after all, in the digital age.
But then again, ever try reading the Constitution to a cop?
-- Prepared at the direction of, or to be sent to Legal Counsel, in anticipation of litigation. Attorney Client Pri
Don't you read the newspapers? You seem to want to put your head in the sand and pretend that government seizure abuses don't happen. What does meeting 'regular people' have at all to do with 'authority figure's?
A certain degree of paranoia is not bad, it is healthy. The thing you can't do is let yourself get so obsessed with it that it controls your life.
There is a middle ground between people who don't trust anyone, and people who trust everyone.
Currently we imprison a larger percentage of our population that any other country in the world (a little over one percent of our population, if I remember.)
According to this article in Scientific American, the U.S. prison population is 668 per 100,000 (~.7%). Only Russia has more, with 690 per 100,000. Check out the article, worth a read.
There's no bright line between the two -- some of the most outrageous abuses are committed by the tax collectors and environmental enforcers. Laws against polluting other people's air and water are one thing (supported by pretty much everybody, libertarians included); blocking multi-million dollar developments (in effect, confiscating the assets involved) to protect a population of eight flies (I swear I am not making this up) is quite another.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
I'm the original AC. My brother is a minor but I am an adult. His lawyer said that everything they took was legal as the search warrant was very thorough (basically said that any electronic device can be taken). Personally, I don't see how it can be legal to take everything despite its relevancy as evidence when suspects are, presumably, innocent until proven guilty. I can see that they might want to take everything as punishment, but that should be done after the case has been heard in court.
The reason the entire machine is seized is that the people who execute the search warrant are very rarely the people who handled the investigation, or who will investigate in the future. They recieve directions like "Seize all computer and computer related equipment", and just to be safe, they take everything.
The original AC never mentioned his age, so I'm going under the perhaps false assumption that, since he's living with his brother, they're both minors. If this is the case, neither of you own those computers. Your parents do. The search warrant was probably served against them, which means everything on the premises is fair game.
If you two were adults, and just, say, roommates, the search warrant probably still covers the entire place. Since you both live there, the entire place can be considered his property (as well as yours), which again makes your computer equipment subject to the warrant just as much as anything else in the place.
1. All laws shall expire not more than ten years from passage. (They can be effectively renewed by re-passing them, going through the same procedure as for a new law.)
2. All bills shall be read on the floor in their entirety by the sponsor (or by a colleague designated by the sponsor, to be fair to the vocally challenged should any such be found in politics).
3. Only legislators who have remained present for the entire reading get to vote on that bill. If this is less than a quorum, the bill dies right there.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
To cops, everyone is a bad guy. In everyone but a cop, this is called paranoia. In many of the /. posts, anyone critical of the government is called paranoid -- but the truly paranoid ones are IN the government.
Very well said, I couldn't agree more.
Maybe you should stop cracking into systems.
Of the 135 instances of "Big Brother" abuses found in 1984, over 100 of them have been implemented by the US Gov. There's some WatchDog group that keeps this list, anyone know who and/or where this list can be found?
an encrypted hard drive might attract their attention and get them to look at it faster. then they get a subpoena for your key, and you end up sitting in jail until you're ready to cough it up, and then, even when they don't find anything, they charge you with destroying evidence because they found some deleted files they couldn't recover, and some judge has already issued an order barring you from ever being in the same room with a computer for the rest of your life. .^
^.
( @ )
What I don't get is why they would have to seize an entire computer. The only evidence would be on your hard drive... For example, in my brother's (Aaron Blosser, Alleged US West hacker or whatever they wanted to call him) case, they went so far as to seize his printer cable... like it contains evidence or something... I'd like to think that this violates some sort of unlawful seizure law somewhere. I mean, after 5 years, your computer is obsolete. So its basically like the government chooses to rip you off of a few thousand dollars worth of equipment... All of this in light of the possible recent FBI snafu involving some certain gas canisters and a flimsy wooden building... starts to make me wonder... Anyone else beginning to *fear* our government? Or am I just overly paranoid? ;)
Even though the reasons for them taking so long are rather obvious, law enforcement should be financially liable when the person turns out to be innocent. That computer they seized five years ago could easily have cost $2000, but is now probably worth $200 tops. IMHO, law enforcement should be forced to pony up the missing $1800. Doesn't the constitution mention something about no property being deprived without proper compensation? Hmmm.
Anyway, I've stalled long enough. I have to smack some sense into the NT boxen on the network. Seems the little buggers aren't running Web Site Pro and Cold Fusion properly . . . sigh.
They will happily confiscate the backup as well. Having a backup in another country may be a good idea.
;-)
It is not even a good idea it almost sounds like a good business to start in Australia, Northern Europe or somewhere else where the internet to the US is fast enough.
Off shore backups inc... 1 c per G per day
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
That really sucks.
Personally, I think this is one of those situations where what they SHOULD do, given that (as per another post on this thread) they need to keep the evidence "pristine," is give someone like you the cash to buy another computer.
Would that be an acceptable compromise?
"Somebody exploded a letter-bomb today
As usual, you Canucks are running a little behind your neighbors to the south... ;-) Give 'em a few more years, and Canada will be just a f***ed up an the US. Of course, that will give a real incentive for Quebec and BC to secede...
I suspect that these heavy-handed enforcement practices will continue until they begin seizing the equipment of individuals with "highly-placed" contacts.
That's why Colorado has sane credit bureau laws. Critics had been complaining for years about the problems with credit bureau reports, but the industry would send a lobbyist or two to "prove" that the only people complaining where people trying to hide legitimate, if unpleasant, information in their credit report.
Until a state legislator was denied credit due to false information in her report, and she discovered first-hand just how difficult it can be to correct errors.
She introduced rather interesting legislation when the legislature reconvened. Even I thought it went too far, although I understood that sometimes it takes a 2x4 to get the mule's attention. (IIRC, the original bill involved daily fines for carrying false information!) The industry lobbied hard against any legislation, but there's absolutely no lobbyist more effective than a respected legislator with a legitimate gripe. The bill was toned down, but I believe it was still the most pro-consumer credit bureau law in the nation at the time it was passed.
Unfortunately, when you're talking about the FBI you need to nail someone close to a member of Congress... and the FBI is so political it's a near certainty that they treat members of Congress differently than the rest of the population. (This isn't *entirely* unjustified, since the damage caused by a congressman claiming that the president is misusing the FBI to harrass enemies might outweigh the benefits of stopping a relatively minor crime.) And it's far harder for a politician to stand up for someone under investigation for drug trafficking or child pornography than for someone falsely accused of being a deadbeat.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
You've made a common mistake. There is a huge difference between "innocence" (which only God knows) and "presumed innocence" (which the courts use when determining whether the police are acting in a reasonable manner).
If you're innocent, the police shouldn't hold any of your property against your will. Unfortunately God hasn't been answering His pages, and history shows that people who claim to speak for God are not to be trusted.
If you're "presumed innocent," the police can't dispose of your property against your will, but they still have the right to prevent *you* from disposing of property they believe is evidence in a criminal act.
Once you're found "legally guilty," the state can do whatever it wants with your former property that was seized in connection with a criminal act. You have absolutely no rights to it. I think they'll generally try to avoid actually doing so until appeals are exhausted, but it's no longer unreasonable for them to sell some items and, if you win your appeal, simply give you the current cash equivalence. The fact you lost all of your files, well tough luck.
As to the general "we don't return tools to bad guys" sentiment, that's just ignorance speaking. As others have pointed out, the state has an obligation to keep evidence in a pristine state. For all anyone knows, that disk is one use away from sudden catastrophic failure and your "convenience" copy will prevent the evidence from being used at trial.
That said, the government has become *extremely* abusive of forfeiture laws, and once someone is acquited *or the state declines to prosecute within a reasonable period* ( the statue of limitations period, since the latter was never intended to be used as an extra-legal bludgeon to punish people without the trouble of actually going to trial), cash, computers, cars, and the like should be returned. The current crap about "the seizure order is against the property, which doesn't have constitutional rights, not the person, who does" is just that - crap. Last time I checked the BOR mentioned both unreasonable searches *and seizures*.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
You really gotta wonder about the mainstream media's claims that they're more reliable than Slashdot (see the recent Slashdot discussion of the topic) when it comes to getting the facts straight.
:-)
Since 10-12-1994, SJ Games has had The Top Ten Media Errors About the SJ Games Raid available, and yet the NY Times managed to make both errors #4 and #5.
And you saw the correction here first, on Slashdot
And what about when they have a search warrant for your -home- (ie, the "Residence of" box was checked on the search warrant, not the "On the person of" box) and they see you drive to into the area that you live, make you let them into your car which has your equipment (say, a laptop and other stuff) and they make you drive into your driveway so they can take your stuff out of the car... this happened to me and i'm really starting to wonder if i do have a good case against them, they took my stuff back in feb. and they still have it, i bet they're playing quake on it :/ i had a brand new system...
... tell me where you're going. I want to escape, too.
You are absolutely right. Today's admission by the FBI that they have lied for years about their actions in the Waco massacre of the Branch Davidians should serve as a wake-up call. The seizure and conversion of billions of dollars of citizens assets under the thinnest of rationales is feeding a monster that is not only out of control, but a "clear and present danger" to us all. Don't confuse Republicans with Libertarians. The Libertarian party is the party of principle and is committed to individual rights and freedoms (plug). Just check the home page http://www.lp.org/ to see the headline issues.
Vehicular seizure for mere suspicion of drug use has become a normal practice (one that, by the way, disproportionately targets blacks and latinos) - police in many states do not even need to arrest a suspect or charge them with anything, and they can simply take and sell their vehicle. It has become a very profitable enterprise for many departments.
The ACLU has a good resource page with links to information about some of the abuses - both illegal and currently legal - that law enforcement agencies are engaging in, but one of my favorite sites is this one, run by a former LA policeman who began documenting police abuses and racism after he was attacked by another cop while operating undercover - he now leads a non-profit group that 'stings' officers with hidden cameras and recorders in new vehicles being driven by black men, and the results are dismaying. It's a bit disappointing to me that many so-called libertarians seem a lot more concerned about getting rid of environmental and consumer protection regulations and lowering taxes, than actually protecting citizens from direct and overt abuses of power. The selectiveness of law enforcement is excrutiangly painful in light of the G.W. Bush debacle - the powers-that-be are more than happy to jail the rest of us for mistakes that they have the luxury to simply "outgrow."
Here's another story of police enforcement going out of control, and another.
If the Feds are building a Beowulf cluster...
... they're actually running SETI@Home ...
-- Arm yourself when the Frog God smiles.
Yarbrough said that it is not a valid use of limited government resources to spend time copying the hard drives of a suspect's computer just to be able to return it to them. "We don't give the gun back to a bad guy, and we don't give the computer back to a bad guy," he said.
This sentiment really irritates me, because this law-enforcement official seems to be forgetting something very important: the owner of the computer is INNOCENT of the crime he's accused of. At least, until proven guilty. Which means that the above quote is pretty much directly advocating theft (not to mention the technical differences between a gun and a computer...).
``This, too, shall pass.'' ---Eastern proverb
I remember when the laws concerning siezures were changed. I found them scary, but since i was a child I had no voice that would be listened to. I am appalled that we allow laws like that to stand. There should be no crime so heinous that it demands all citizens lose what is meant to be our constitutional rights. I found out a few years ago when i began to raise African violets that the grow lights I bought could be considered drug paraphenalia because they could be used to raise marajuana and could be siezed as such during a search.
Such heavy handed laws are justified to the public by saying that they help crack down on drugs and kiddie porn. We then also use programs like D.A.R.E. to make sure drugs remain as a big boogie so as the children of today grow up they will leave the seizure laws in place, and that anyone who opposes these laws will be considered by the public to support drug addiction and kiddie porn, so there is little motivation for politician to try to scale back or repeal these laws.
I think that the addiction survey the otherday that said if you use the internet over 4 hours a day is a sign of things to come. It seems to me that perhaps certain segments want computers viewed with the same unhealthy fear that D.A.R.E. teaches children to view alchohol. Read the numerous account of "Computers wrecked my marriage" in Ann Landers and Dear Abby. The sentiment is already out there waiting to be tapped.
Computers are becoming a big part of our culture. A battle is waging on how they will fit into our lives.
--- If you don't want to know the answer, don't ask the question.
The courts kee reinterpreting the word unreasonable. .^
^.
( @ )
I have only _once_ seen the aftermath of a police raid - on an apartment of a friend whose boyfriend alledgedly stole $50,000 from a bank with some other guys (turns out he did - but that isn't the point of the story).
In the kitchen, I had to replace all of the hinges on the cabinets, because the doors were ripped off! I can understand the police looking for the money or goods obtained with the money, but they don't have to destroy a house to do it.
In a raid dealing with computers and electronics, if you are smart, and are doing something that may be illegal, you better have the appropriate protections in place. I would personally booby trap the machine via an iButton, so that if they powered up without it, the drive could be wiped (and the iButton would be on me as a ring on my finger). Or maybe the iButton could store the key to unlock the file encryption I would be using. Or maybe it would keep the machine from exploding via a homemade pipebomb that would encase the hard drive (personally, I wouldn't use this last one, but I am sure someone out there would/could)...
Just some thoughts...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
I would certainly support some legislation that made police liable for excessive damage (assuming there isn't something along those lines already). Tearing cabinet doors from their mounts is something I would consider excessive. Scattering papers or dumping some things out of drawers probably isn't.
The legislation would need to protect the property of the searched from damage without hindering the abilities of the police to conduct a thorough search.
Write a letter to your state's congress.
Why can't I read this article with netscape! All I see is a black screen.
perhaps the law enforcement agencies should order toilet paper with the US-constitution printed on it. At least then they'll be honest about what their doing to the constitution.
That a policeman, after getting trounced in Quake, is going to care about the difference between a gun and a computer. In Quake, they're one and the same.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)