New Bill Pushes For Warrants To Access Cloud Data 97
mask.of.sanity writes "A bill introduced by Sen. Patrick Leahy in the US Senate would require authorities to obtain a court-issued search warrant before retrieving a person's email and other content stored in cloud services. The law would update a 28 year old law, which Leahy also introduced, that does not require warrants for data access. The Bill will not prevent the FBI from accessing data without a warrant under terrorism and intellgence clauses."
Secure in Our Papers and Effects (Score:4, Insightful)
"Secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects" is the definition of privacy. We have a right to privacy. It doesn't matter that the Constitution signers "couldn't have imagined" cloud computing. They imagined that they couldn't imagine new things, so they signed a Constitution that recognizes our right to privacy in specific terms of that right.
If we can't require the government at least obtain a judge's authorization on probable cause specifying what's to be searched and seized, we have no boundary between what's private and what the public can force. The 4th Amendment's line protecting the private from invasion by the public except when it's reasonable and limited is the fundamental right to a limited government. Give it up as we already largely have and we're living in tyranny.
Re:Head in cloud storage and darker body parts (Score:4, Insightful)
Meanwhile, billions of people listen, everyone takes more dollars than ever before, and people (not corporations) pay more taxes than ever.
The message is that as tired as people are, they fear an alternative. And for good reason: the alternative is nearly certain to be worse - probably much, much worse.
Why don't you run for office and make it worth listening, buying into, paying taxes to? Even if just the school board. Stop whining with kindergarten doomsday talk and do something, however small, proportional to you own potential for making a difference.