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FCC Reserves the Right To Search Your Home, Any Time
Posted by
timothy
on Friday May 22, @08:14AM
from the who-are-you-to-disagree dept.
from the who-are-you-to-disagree dept.
mikesd81 writes "Wired.com reports that you may not know it, but if you have a wireless router, a cordless phone, remote car-door opener, baby monitor or cellphone in your house, the FCC claims the right to enter your home without a warrant at any time of the day or night in order to inspect it. FCC spokesman David Fiske says 'Anything using RF energy — we have the right to inspect it to make sure it is not causing interference.' The FCC claims it derives its warrantless search power from the Communications Act of 1934, though the constitutionality of the claim has gone untested in the courts. 'It is a major stretch beyond case law to assert that authority with respect to a private home, which is at the heart of the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable search and seizure,' says Electronic Frontier Foundation lawyer Lee Tien. 'When it is a private home and when you are talking about an over-powered Wi-Fi antenna — the idea they could just go in is honestly quite bizarre.'"
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And I reserve the right... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:And I reserve the right... (Score:5, Interesting)
"The person in charge of a property has a legal duty to protect all its users from foreseeable harm, even if they are on the property illegally. If an intruder is hurt by a security measure - such as glass or barbed wire - that the householder knew to be dangerous then they could be sued for damages under the Occupier's Liability Act 1984."
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Re:And that's an important law (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, they shouldn't do it but nailing sharp nails so that the unsuspecting children would hurt themselves is just evil.
I'm pretty sure the blind children aren't hopping the fence to take a shortcut through your yard.
When a society makes other people responsible for your safety when you're doing something you're not supposed to do, it has failed... by which standard most of our societies are on the way out. Without personal responsibility you end up being a nation of useless bitches. (There are always exceptions. But most people are lame.)
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Re:And I reserve the right... (Score:5, Funny)
That seems as though it would make livestock fences a legal nightmare.
Somehow I doubt thats why the sheep out there are so nervous.
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Re:And I reserve the right... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:And I reserve the right... (Score:5, Funny)
Granted, as long as you post a warning sign in advance.
Or display a EULA after they've been trapped.
Both are valid.
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I'd like to see em try it (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:I'd like to see em try it (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:I'd like to see em try it (Score:5, Funny)
The original intent of the FCC legislation was to protect the reception of TV/radio broadcasts and to prevent the safe functioning of electrical equipment.
Boy, was that a bad idea!
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As any ham can attest to... (Score:5, Informative)
They've had this power for decades. This is nothing new. Fire up a transmitter and start broadcasting overtop an FM radio station, and just see how fast the FCC sends out their goons.
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Re:As any ham can attest to... (Score:5, Informative)
What the FCC is saying is completely different than someone operating an illegal radio station (such as the one mentioned in the article). The FCC is claiming that if you have a keyless entry device for your car, they can enter your house without a warrant.
Sorry, no way Jose. If you're trying to "stick it to the man" by having an illegal radio station, are deliberately jamming a radio signal, or anything else of similar nature, then yes, the FCC does have the authority to get on your case.
But to claim that just having an electronic device to remotely open my car that that somehow gives them the authority to search my place, not a chance.
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Re:As any ham can attest to... (Score:5, Funny)
Guess it's time to change the frequency on my 5 watt FM transmitter to something other than the local Christian station.
But I just KNOW they like listening to 24/7 Slayer. I just KNOW it.
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Only after they speak with my lawyers... (Score:5, Funny)
Only after they speak with my lawyers Smith & Wesson.
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Completely misleading article (Score:5, Informative)
Note that AT NO TIME, does the FCC guy interviewed actually say they can search your home without a warrant.
He says the FCC has total authority to inspect RF devices. Which they do, the article even cites the specific law that gives the FCC that authority. They can ask to see your router at home but they still don't have the authority to just bust into your house without a warrant.
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Re:Completely misleading article (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Completely misleading article (Score:5, Interesting)
I posted this and got modded as troll. but its horribly TRUE, so mod me as you want but truth is truth.
firemen CAN enter you home at any time, with only 'fire safety inspection' as the legal reason.
I live in an apartment building and my landlord has been trying to do 'look sees' in tenants' places for years. its an unofficial snoop program, started back in the ashcroft days (see operation TIPS).
when I refused to let them into my place (I work at home and I believe I have the right to be left alone to do my work in peace, undisturbed for any so-called walk-thru just to check my place out) they threatened to escalate to the fire dept and force their way thru. when I called the local housing dept to check on this, they confirmed - its a known loophole that landlords can use to violate your privacy - all they have to do is say 'fire inspection' and that gives them legal right - MORE THAN POLICE - to enter and look around - all they want. legally.
people should know about this. I bet almost no one knew this legal loophole.
you can refuse a cop at your door unless there's a warrant. you cannot refuse a fireman, even if there is no sign of imminent danger.
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"Reserve the right" (Score:5, Informative)
In the US, our government has no rights. It only has powers delegated to it by We the People. It has no rights, not prerogative to reserve them.
There are some special constructs like "sovereign immunity" but those are not right, they are juris prudence constructs. The FCC can't just say "we're reserving the right to rape your children". Congress has to vote to give them that power. And with congress voting, due process is upheld.
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Re:Why even say this? (Score:5, Insightful)
A bad law is a bad law, whether it's used or not.
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Re:And under... (Score:5, Interesting)
Why is everyone equating equating the right to inspect with no-knock raids? The FCC isn't going to kick in your door while you're trying to flush your transmitter. They're going to knock, ask to see the transmitter, and then go back to their office and issue you a fine by mail if you say no. The FCC has no interest in putting their agent's lives at risk in order to get someone to switch off their CB. All of this ranting about government goons and guns is just melodramatic bullshit. If the government wants to infringe on your rights, they'll do it through the legal system, not by kicking in doors. It's much more effective and much lower risk.
Whether or not this is infringement on your 4th Amendment rights actually depends greatly on how the law is applied. If the FCC is asserting the right to enter any house because there is a phone or a wireless device inside, it's obviously infringement. The FCC has lawyers, and knows this, so there's little chance they would adopt such a tactic. All of the cases mentioned in the article related to fairly powerful transmitters that were being used in a way such that the violation of FCC regs could be detected by someone miles from the source. That means that 1) by the time the FCC directionalizes the signal and shows up at your door, they already have probably cause and could get a warrant if they needed it, and 2) the FCC could reasonably assert in court that the device is not something that most people have in their house, and is a sophisticated enough device that the fairly uncontroversial right of administrative inspection to have a look at that particular piece of equipment.
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Re:They better bring along the police... (Score:5, Interesting)
... and you would recognise a valid vs. counterfeit warrant how, exactly?
This is the right attitude to have though. NEVER talk to cops, NEVER permit them into your home without a warrant. You have nothing to gain and everything to lose.
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Re:They better bring along the police... (Score:5, Informative)
... and you would recognise a valid vs. counterfeit warrant how, exactly?
Verify the number on the warrant, then call it. I've heard that cops will wait for you to do this if it's not one of those "get down on the floor" type of warrants.
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Re:Knowing Government "Intelligence"... (Score:5, Interesting)
Which is simply another way of saying: "You live in a lawless society".
You see, the whole idea of "law" was supposed to be for a code to bind a society together by making every member capable of some action affecting others to follow a simple set of clear rules, which, again by definition, were to be simple enough to be memorized in entirety by everyone. That is why Hammurabi had the thing carved in stone and placed at public squares, so that "ignorance of the law" was not an excuse for breaking it.
The moment however when the "law" becomes so complicated and ambiguous that it requires someone to "interpret it" (i.e. twist it to whatever whim of the moment is fanciful) the whole concept breaks. In short a society which needs lawyers, is by definition lawless, as "law" has morphed from the universal code of conduct to a byzantine, convoluted, religious scripture which requires a career priesthood to worship, massage, "interpret" and twist to the needs of whatever power caste is running the place at the time. The average denizen then simply becomes hapless prey for this caste of parasites with no recourse but to prostate himself/herself before the high-priests of "law" who hold the strings of the citizen's life or death in their hands.
Ultimately, in a country of lawyers, by lawyers and for lawyers, the laws become such a sick caricature of the original idea that no one knows the "law" to its full extent, including all of its priests. One can test this simple supposition by simply asking any one of them to recite the "law" of the land from memory. In the USA, not only no lawyer, judge or politician could do it (even though the "law" is supposedly binding everyone and its ignorance is "no excuse") but they would not be able to tell you what the current definitive law is at all, even when given the ability to use books and databases to do it, as the code has become so byzantine that its successive layers upon layers of modifications and arcane religious language are so completely unmanageable that pretty much any "legal" decision needs an arbitrary "interpretation" by a cabal of priests.
And this is why the majority of people instinctively hates lawyers, as even if most people cannot vocalize it, an average person's intrinsic moral compass is able to detect that something is profoundly wrong with the very idea of a lawyer.
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Re:Knowing Government "Intelligence"... (Score:5, Funny)
". . . and I am that fool!"
- Gomez Addams
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Re:Knowing Government "Intelligence"... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Knowing Government "Intelligence"... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, if I had mod points I would have tagged it the same way. You probably got tagged for the backhand comment towards the mods which, again IMO, were perfectly correct in labeling the post as flamebait.
Even more interesting is the fact that Lincoln did not originate this quote. A quick google finds this same adage in print going back to the very early 1800's so while Lincoln may have said it at some time, it was not originally his quote, unless he made it from the cradle.
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