“A Justice Department proposal that could make it easier to locate and hack into computers that are part of criminal investigations is raising constitutional concerns from privacy groups and Google, who fear the plan could have broad implications,” Eric Tucker reports for The Associated Press. “Federal prosecutors say their search warrant proposal is needed at a time when computer users are committing crimes in online anonymity while concealing their locations. But civil libertarians fear the rule change, under consideration by a federal advisory committee, would grant the government expansive new powers to reach into computers across the country.”
“The Justice Department wants the rules changed so that judges in a district where ‘activities related to a crime’ have occurred could approve warrants to search computers outside their districts,” Tucker reports. “The government says that flexibility is needed for cases in which the government can’t figure out the location of a computer and needs a warrant to access it remotely, and for investigations involving botnets — networks of computers infected with a virus that spill across judicial districts.”
“The proposal has generated fierce pushback from privacy organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union, which contend the rule change could violate a constitutional requirement that search warrant applications be specific about the property to be searched. They also argue the proposal is unclear about exactly what type of information could be accessed by the government and fails to guarantee the privacy of those not under investigation who might have had access to the same computer as the target, or of innocent people who may themselves be victims of a botnet,” Tucker reports. “Another critic, Google, says the proposal ‘raises a number of monumental and highly complex constitutional, legal and geopolitical concerns that should be left for Congress to decide.'”
“The Justice Department says such concerns are unfounded. It says the proposal simply ensures that investigators have a judge to go to for a warrant in cases where they can’t find a computer, and that the proposal wouldn’t provide the government with new technological authorities that it doesn’t already have,” Tucker reports. “The proposal is before a criminal procedure advisory committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States. If approved, it will then be forwarded to the Supreme Court and ultimately to Congress, which does not have to approve it but can block it. It would take effect in December 2016.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Adhere to the U.S. Constitution.
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. – Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759
Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free. – Ronald Reagan, March 30, 1961
Visit the Apple-backed reformgovernmentsurveillance.com today.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Lynn Weiler” for the heads up.]
The Justice Department would not suffer such a strong resistance to such activities if people could be sure that the existing powers were not being abused.
The same principle also applies to many other governments around the world.
Fell off my chair when Google was mentioned as akin to privacy groups.
Google has a revolving door with the state department to ensure that privacy can be hacked at will. Google is literally in bed with the state department as Eric Scmidt girlfriend works for the state department..
It seems logical that the government, an entity put in place by the people, should have as much or more access to information as a corporation, such as Google. It seems bizarre to me that so many people seem OK with companies such as Google having broad freedom to track their activities, communications, and associations and compile this info in a profile that they then sell. It is even more bizarre that these same people would be opposed to the same action by a law enforcement agency against suspected criminals that have exhibited sufficient probable cause to pass the judicial requirements necessary to obtain a search warrant.
In no way do I think that the government should be allowed to require any “back doors” into our devices, data, or systems. That said, I do think that to the extent those “back doors” are known to exist already that through a legal search warrant they should be able to gain at least as much access as the likes of Google, who seems to have access to our personal information with little or no oversight.
The article really needs a bit of a fix up, clarification and details to give it a full perspective.
– “A Justice Department proposal that could make it easier [for criminals] to locate and hack into computers…”
– “There is a substantial public interest in catching and prosecuting criminals who use anonymizing technologies, but locating them can be impossible for law enforcement absent the ability to conduct a remote search of the criminal’s computer,”
This really doesn’t make sense, I mean Snowden’s revealed a major network of criminals, we know who they are, we know where they are located, the head of the gang had admitted that they “tortured some folks”, the Justice Department actually has legal jurisdicktion where the gang hangs out and yet they do nothing, nada, zip to bring these criminals to trial for crimes, some crimes against humanity, which frankly ranks right down there with the others mentioned in the article.
This is pure and blatant intrusion, thank goodness it’s not happening to a civilized nation that is part of the free world.
So because my computer is infected with a virus that is making it part of a botnet, the government wants to be able to freely hack into my computer? No thanks.
Find out if you are on a botnet or similar stealthy data gathering program.
Use Little Snitch. Yes, it takes some reading and understanding of what to allow and what to block (I block anything I don’t know about.)
I use Little Snitch. But I can also point out that the ‘reverse firewall’ in Intego’s NetBarrier (which I also own) is just as useful, if not as simple to use as LittleSnitch. If you’ve got one or the other, climb the learning curve and put it to use!
Love Little Snitch.
The thing about NetBarrier or Little Snitch is just how depressing the amount of chatting you find your computer is doing without your knowledge.
There are several applications I’ve encountered that phone your data home to Google Analytics or a similar marketing victim tracking service. I’m not talking about Internet applications, just basic apps running on your Mac. When I’ve written to the mean old companies performing this behavior, I’ve received a spectrum of responses.
• In one case, the company apologized and promptly stopped, removing the tracking in their next update. TY!
• Another company argued with me that what they were surveilling was simply data about how their application was used and pointed out that you could turn it off in the preferences. Hmm. At least users could turn it off. (Example: Ghostery).
• Then there are the sneaky companies that don’t give a rat’s and offer no OFF setting. So there.
Some of the app’s I’ve caught sending surveillance data to Google Analytics:
– Boinx TV
– iMazing
– LyricsFinder
– MacUpdate Desktop
– Opera
– Songbird
– Steam Helper
– YouTube to MP3
– Zinio Reader 4
I’m honestly curious. Most of you seem to hold the position that the effective search by a law enforcement officer of an encrypted computer or other electronic device pursuant to a warrant issued by a neutral magistrate after a showing of probable cause set out in a sworn affidavit violates an essential liberty. Since that exact procedure is set out in the US Constitution, have you some alternative procedure that you feel would not violate liberty, or are you suggesting that law enforcement should never search for evidence of crime?
The proposal here is simply that officers who are investigating a crime and determine that there is evidence on a particular computer at a known digital address but unknown physical location should be able to obtain a warrant from a judge in the district where the crime occurred, rather than being unable to obtain a warrant at all. Again, do you have an alternative, or are you simply proposing that all searches should be prohibited? And again, how do you suggest that we maintain tolerable levels of personal liberty if criminals are free to push us around to their heart’s desire?
A few things you should know:
1.Unfortunately the Judge acts as a rubber stamp, stamping anything the law enforcement “officer” asks for.
2.The law enforcement “officer” asks for everything. Even if he doesn’t need it
3.Why should any “officer” be allowed to see my documents when I have not done anything illegal. Simply saying my computer is a botnet is not enough.
4. Law enforcement “officers”lie” all the time. Look what’s been happening in Ferguson. Despicable police “officers” handing out punishment to blacks and none to whites, and the judges just support anything they want. Most police in America is like this.
Ferguson? Really? Officers lie? More than half the crimes committed in St. Louis and the Ferguson area are committed by blacks, yet we comprise less than 14% of the population. Committing crimes is one sure way of engaging the police. Not committing crimes is an easy way to avoid the police.
In my experience (30 years as a prosecutor), most judges do not act as rubber stamps. We had warrants rejected all the time. America has a system where judges are evaluated largely by how rarely they get reversed on appeal, in which convicted defendants have almost unlimited appeals, and in which an acquittal is generally unappealable. As a result, judges tend to decide close questions in favor of the defense, because that is less likely to come back to bite them.
The police in Ferguson are “just following orders”.
You might want to read the 4th Amendment again:
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects,[a] against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon PROBABLE CAUSE, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the PLACE to be searched, and the persons or THINGS to be seized.”
Also, read some case law and see how these words have previously been interpreted. The DOJ wants to go fishing, and they’ve already been successful at convincing some judges and some of the public that it’s for the good of society. I’m not buying it, given their operating philosophy that whatever they can get away with is legal. They shouldn’t get to search your all the private and personal data on your computer simply because you’ve acquired a virus. They need to track down the perpetrators using legal means. It CAN be done. It’s just not as easy as violating the 4th Amendment, which has always been the excuse when police try to justify illegal searches.
I abhor illegal searches and violations of the Fourth Amendment as much as you do, but the hostility on this website is largely directed at legal searches that follow precisely the procedure that the 4th prescribes. Yes, it is possible to arrest perpetrators using legal means, but legal searches are one of those means. What alternative do you suggest for tracing the perpetrators without following the trail back through the hijacked computers?
The same applies in other cases. In financial crimes, what alternative means exist for proving the transactions occurred without accessing the records on encrypted computers? How to prove possession of child pornography without finding the stuff on the defendant’s computer? How to prove any criminal conspiracy without seeing the conspirators’ communications?
It is all well and good to say that the police used to be able to solve these crimes without accessing people’s computers, but that was when people kept substantial evidence in hard copy that could be accessed with an ordinary search empowered by an ordinary warrant.
A person could hold that the value to personal privacy of preventing all government searches would outweigh the resulting dangers to public safety. That is a reasonable position, even if I do not agree. What is not a reasonable position is to claim that there will be NO harm to public safety if the police and prosecutors can no longer stop criminals.
A well posed series of questions and I’ll toss in my two cents, from an outsider’s point of view as I am not a citizen of the United States.
For your first paragraph, I don’t feel what you’ve described in the second sentence a violation of an essential liberty as long as it’s followed properly, as others are pointing out that is not the case, there is corruption in practice but the basic premise is sound.
I do wish to point out an alternative procedure that I feel enhances personal liberty and freedom Apple’s encryption process/tool that basically keeps everybody but you out. That’s personal empowerment, that’s a tool to be your best. Consider the current situation that so far, everything can be and is violated. Leaving aside the intent for a moment it is possible for personal information to be accessed in so many ways. Credit card usage, witnesses, public cameras, your garbage, phone recordings, finger prints, DNA the list goes on and on can all be used to learn private information.
So what does one have one the other hand that is private? One could say that what’s inside your mind, your own private thoughts, but even that is not really private anymore as there are those who are willing to legalize then unscrupulously attempt to extract information through methods of torture. That is why the Apple encryption is such a needed alternative, something that will indeed be kept private that cannot be violated, because let’s face it, there are groups that will violate any and everything, and I don’t need to name the names or point the finger. It’s pretty well blatant and obvious.
You also ask for a suggestion to “maintain tolerable levels of personal liberty if criminals are free to push us around to their heart’s desire?” and to this all I can say that it’s not an “if”, the criminals are pushing you around to their heart’s desire. It’s not hard to resolve, mobilize the population and put a stop to it, that’s why they have been given the right to bear arms. The population or “the people” as they are so referred to are also given free will, so it’s their business to take it the way the criminals have been dishing it out, one water boarding at a time.
Ok, so your answer is that everyone, including the criminals, should be able to maintain complete privacy concerning their business records and communications. You can see no middle ground between a government that snoops into everything and one that is allowed to investigate nothing. You are not worried about the consequences for public safety so long as individual citizens have the right to bear arms.
Again, I am curious about how you think that will work out in practice. If your bank cheats you and the police cannot do anything because the bank records are encrypted, can you use your firearms to take your money back? If the police can’t prove that someone took dirty pictures of your daughter because his cameraphone is encrypted, can you lynch him yourself? If a street gang threatens you by emails that the police aren’t allowed to trace, can you round up your friends into a Committee of Public Vigilance that is better armed than the (other) gang and put them in their place?
Thanks for your reply, I’ll address your points as best as I can.
“everyone, including the criminals, should be able to maintain complete privacy concerning their business records and communications.”
Within a person’s individual mind, yes I should have complete privacy. What I think in my mind should be mine and mine alone unless I decide to share it. Same with a personal diary (this is how I view a function of an electronic storage device). I have noted that there are other ways to obtain data on criminals when there is probable cause; public camera monitoring, DNA samples, witnesses, and a myriad of other clues that can be used to determine criminal activity. Crimes were being solved that way a long time before electronic devices such as computers and phones were around. You mention communications, and my thoughts communicated to me should be private. As soon as I communicate those thoughts, well that’s shared information and that’s fair game. I have the same view for an electronic device. Communication between me and such a device that is encrypted should be private. Communications with others, heck that is fair game. I have no issue with tapping into someone’s communications under the conditions you’ve mentioned (plausible cause and warrant etc.) but what I think in my mind should be mine but with torture it isn’t. People should have the idea that their communications are private but with the Snowden’s revelations they aren’t and this intrusion is done on a massive scale, without probable cause and without a warrant and to me that is criminal. Oh you can make it legal, sure so it’s not longer criminal in that region, just blatantly immoral.
Now insofar as your examples, I did mention that I was an outsider regarding this. By law, there is no right in my country to possess firearms. You can own guns here but they are licensed and it is not considered a right. I do not use force unless I am directly and physically threatened and I am always courteous enough to let those who have assaulted me to throw the first punch so to speak. Knock on wood, I’ve always walked away smiling. Nor would I go the lynch route, I am not a vigilante and I have confidence with the majority of the police officers of my country though I have met and interacted with some very corrupt ones. The same thing goes for the threats I have received, and believe me I’ve received my fair share of them. None have ever been able to deliver on their threats, criminals, most of them are not that bright and you can easily out fox them without the need for weapons or taking the law into your own hands. Of course I won’t reveal my trade secrets but I’m still here alive and kicking.
You bring up the example of a bank cheating me, a good example, and in regards to what I have said the banks can encrypt all they want, however if I have paper copies of transactions, that’s evidence of wrong doing. Like I said most criminals leave lots of other evidence that can be obtained to determine their activities. I actually had situations like that. Once where I was double billed for a service. I’d receive a bill and paid for it, then found out that I was also paying the same bill through my employer, it was deducted every paycheck. The phone calls were not sorting it out, so I wrote them a nice very long letter with details of every phone exchange, and paper copies of my payments, with the dates, names of people I have talked to and the notes I had taken (something more people should do). In the letter I explained that they were totally forgiven that I would not undertake any legal action against them whatsoever. I did say that instead of all that bother I’d be simply be sending a copy of the letter to every news agency of the region as a public service. Needless to say they were outfoxed and I was reimbursed.
I’m in agreement with the whole idea of plausible cause and the gathering of evidence within reason. I am also in favor of proper checks and balances to ensure that such procedures are properly carried out. I think that is core to the ideas that others are bringing up in this thread. What I see happening in your country today however is not what it should be in practice. Torturing and coercing people, breaking into their minds to gather evidence is not within reason. The activities that Snowden has revealed about certain American organizations, and we are talking cyber espionage and cyber sabotage on a massive scale, is not within reason. Having the current president issue “yeah we tortured some folks” and following it up with “we must look forward” statements to avoid prosecution of criminals is putting people above the law in my opinion. When that comes into play it is an indication that the whole system in practice is corrupt, and essentially the talk does not follow the walk.
It’s not always that easy, and I appreciate you asking these tough questions. The last portion of my feedback will be directed as a question for you. Imagine a gang taking over an entire country and totally ignoring the rules of civility, begin to engage in torture, illegal invasions, and the activities that Snowden has revealed. Then imagine it was all found out, and instead of taking responsibility and bringing those responsible for such atrocities to justice it was swept under the rug with that “we must look forward” statement. Would you at this point condone vigilantism to bring these criminals to justice? What would you say if there were some people that broke into Guatanamo Bay and freed the prisoners who have been held and tortured for over a decade? No shots fired, no one injured, but some people freed. Another scenario, what if there were some people that kidnapped an ex president and brought him to the Hague to face charges for crimes against humanity. I see similarities with these imagined possibilities and what happened during your revolution to split from Britain.
Going back to your lovely comment of your first post I’ll sum up by rearranging it: “I do believe there is no violation of an essential liberty when an effective search by a law enforcement officer of evidence available pursuant to a warrant issued by a neutral magistrate after a showing of probable cause set out in a sworn affidavit.” I do believe that torturing someone to obtain evidence from their mind is a violation of personal liberty. I also believe that a device encrypted as Apple has proposed is a great idea as I am an advocacy for privacy. If there is the possibility of creating an electronic device that is a tamper proof as Apple has done, I say bring it on. Humankind has adapted to all sorts of technology, and all of them have the potential of good and evil. I’d rather see a small percentage of crime and a humane spirit than no crime and the eradication of privacy, and subsequently the humane spirit.
Thank you for your thought provoking questions. I hope I have at least addressed some of your points.
Sheeee it..the government own all your bases if you have a smartphone
IASSOTS.
I am entirely in sympathy with efforts to track down and legally destroy abusers of the Internet.
BUT
The American Civil Liberties Union NAILED it. What the idiotic, overreaching, abusive, treasonous DOJ is trying to pull veers severely into collision with the US Constitution. If only the DOJ wasn’t a gang of arrogant, radical dickheads with NO apparently comprehension of the ACTUAL LAW.
All of this can be done right and well! The DOJ doesn’t have to destroy the US Constitution to do its job. Why #MyStupidGovernment constantly and insistently breaks the laws it has sworn to protect and defend is beyond my comprehension.
DOJ: I’m no lawyer, but having studied and written about computer security for the last 9 years, I can tell you how to do it RIGHT. So call me. What a pity that you ‘professionals’ can’t get it right to save your lazy back orifices. 🙄 💩 😵
Like your blog Derek:
http://mac-security.blogspot.com
I wish I could match up my free time with the need for new articles. I’ll make time to get out a new one today.
It’s not about crime, it’s about power. Wherever we go, they will follow. As we move deeper into cyberspace, the government follows and they’re bringing all new laws with them. “You don’t get to go to cyberspace and do as you please, we will make sure you are safe by making sure you cannot maintain privacy from us.”
They will find all new ways to make us into criminals for what we say and do in cyberspaces. After all, that is their primary way of controlling us. When they want power, they pass laws and turn us into criminals. Then they can enforce the law.
They follow us also because we might exchange money in cyberspace. Money they’ve already taxed. If it moves they feel they should tax it again. Company pays you, tax it. You pay someone else for something, tax it, and so on and so on… Consequently being able to tax in cyberspace is important. Hence we ask for net neutrality, we get overreaching government regulation in response.
That constant sucking sound you hear… that’s the government sucking up your life, freedom, and economy.