In a First, Judge Throws Out Evidence Obtained from FBI Malware (vice.com) 158
An anonymous reader cites an article on Motherboard: For the first time, a judge has thrown out evidence obtained via a piece of FBI malware. The move comes from a cased affected by the FBI's seizure of a dark web child pornography site in February 2015, and the subsequent deployment of a network investigative technique (NIT) -- the agency's term for a hacking tool -- in order to identify the site's visitors. "Based on the foregoing analysis, the Court concludes that the NIT warrant was issued without jurisdiction and thus was void ab initio," Judge William G. Young of the District of Massachusetts writes in an order. "It follows that the resulting search was conducted as though there were no warrant at all. Since warrantless searches are presumptively unreasonable, and the good-faith exception is inapplicable, the evidence must be excluded," it continues. Young's order came in response to a motion to suppress from the lawyers of Alex Levin, who was arrested as part of the investigation into the child pornography site Playpen. After seizing the site, the FBI ran Playpen from a government facility from February 20 to March 4, 2015, and used a NIT to obtain over a thousand IP addresses for US-based users of the site, and at least 3000 for users abroad, according to Motherboard's investigations.
Mixed Feelings (Score:5, Insightful)
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Trafficking CP is a made up thing.
It doesn't harm children any more than death pics harm dead people.
The kid doesn't know who is fapping to it.
The only people actually harming anyone are the sick fucks actually making and selling this shit, and that's who they should be going after.
Re:Mixed Feelings (Score:4, Insightful)
The theory is that fapping to child porn makes you more likely to molest children. There's no evidence to support that theory - none at all - and what little research has been done suggests the opposite might be the case, but it's an internally consistent belief.
If one is willing to punish people for what they might do in the future.
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But the three year old being raped isn't a concern while you're fapping away, right?
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So a three-year-old being raped while n (n>0) people fap to video of it is worse than n+1 people each raping a three-year-old of their own?
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Maybe it should be a concern but the extremely low number of times that happens is absolutely not a good enough reason to give up any rights. Nor is his watching going to affect it's production. He didn't rape anyone. He didn't create anything. This content is going to be produced even if no one ever views it and it's naive to think otherwise. Focusing attention on stopping consumption is just diverting resources from where it might actually matter.
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If you have evidence that is happening because of child porn, you should forward it to the authorities. Or, better yet, submit a paper to a peer reviewed journal. You'll be famous, and hailed as a hero for saving so many children.
If they don't accept it, maybe it's not evidence at all, and maybe you invoking child rape is nothing but an attempt to generate hysteria for the purpose of confusing the issue.
Re:Mixed Feelings (Score:5, Insightful)
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The real problem with this case is by hacking that network, you have straight off the bat proven that in can be hacked and hence hugely weakened you evidence. Evidence obtained in this matter should only be used to further extend legal search warrants to obtain more untarnished evidence involving a direct connection between the persons being prosecuted and the evidence of their activity. This with a strong focus on those producing it, distributing it and of course funding it (not just purchasers of it but
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Prince died as well.... :(
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I just heard some sad news on talk radio - horror/fiction writer Stephen King was found dead in his Maine home this morning. There weren't any more details yet. I'm sure we'll all miss him, even if you weren't a fan of his work there's no denying his contribution to popular culture. Truly an American icon.
Where did you get this info? Nothing mentioned anywhere else. The wrestler Chyna and Prince are the only folks I am aware of that passed away today.
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Good lord, man ... and judging by your UID you're not even that new here!
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Wow, almost old enough to drive!
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The theory is that fapping to child porn makes you more likely to molest children. There's no evidence to support that theory - none at all - and what little research has been done suggests the opposite might be the case, but it's an internally consistent belief.
If you mean "no scientific, statistical evidence" that the availability of child porn leads to a net increase in future child abuse by people not involved in the original production, you are probably right. More study is probably needed.
However, there is probably ample anecdotal evidence to support one-off cases where access to child porn led a particular individual down a path where he abused a child where it's pretty obvious that he wouldn't have even considered doing so otherwise ("I never even consider
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Anecdotal evidence isn't evidence. It's stories.
And people who have been caught committing a serious crime do have a tendency to blame pretty much anything but themselves.
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I think it's been fairly comprehensively shown that weight loss and footlongs are what lead to child abuse.
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The theory is that fapping to child porn makes you more likely to molest children.
Bullshit. One theory is that demand for child porn drives creation of child porn. Another theory is that the child porn is created without (by definition) the legal consent of the child and is an abuse of the child's privacy. Another theory is that the production of the child porn is, in its self part of the abuse by the abuser and so you are complicit in the child abuse when you use the child porn. Not one of these is "the theory". The mostly seem to me to contain an element of truth, even the unlik
Re:Mixed Feelings (Score:4, Insightful)
Those are all good reasons to prosecute those who produce child porn, but they are not the theory behind making it illegal to possess child porn.
As evidence, I submit the repeated attempts to prosecute people for possession of virtual child porn - either photo quality cgi, or real porn using adults who are made to look like children - in which the prosecution acknowledges that no real children were involved,. Success attempts, in some cases.
Re:Mixed Feelings (Score:4, Insightful)
"The theory is that fapping to child porn makes you more likely to molest children. There's no evidence to support that theory - none at all "
I think the study got rejected by the ethics board.
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There are statistical approaches to such research, as well as research involving the perps after they are caught, that ethics boards are perfectly fine with. In fact, a few such studies have been done.
If you were trying to be funny, you failed. If you weren't, you are an idiot.
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With a sense of humor like that, you must be a statistician.
Re:Mixed Feelings (Score:4, Funny)
Well, probably.
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Re:Mixed Feelings (Score:5, Interesting)
I was of the understanding that the issue was that demand for child porn would mean more of it gets made, i.e. children being sexually abused. At least that was the defense for drawings of child porn being made legal. (I don't recall if that ever succeeded.)
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There is an argument there, but it's as weak as the bigger one. There have been prosecutions for virtual child porn, some successful, some not.
Re:Mixed Feelings (Score:4, Informative)
Not only that but, there was a great article about how the whole issue was a lot more black and white when the laws were made; back when cameras were so expensive few people owned really decent ones and could print copy to distribute.
Back then, pretty much ALL child porn was, indeed, exactly the evil stuff we think of... adults raping children for financial profit. Certainly, there is no denying that this still happens..... but it is no longer the whole story.
Now, we even have 15 year olds being threatened with child porn because their same age girlfiend shared some nude pix.
Hell, we don't even have to come all the way to modern day to see abuses. Who remembers child sex performer Tracy Lords, who lied about her age, hit 18, did one more movie, then revealed her age; causing all previous movies to be exposed as child porn and illegal to posess, making the new one the only legal one on the market. Yah.... that was exactly what the law was intended to "protect".
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I think the real problem is that a very large portion of people are completely incapable of rational thought when it comes to the safety of children, or women if we want to be truthful about things.
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Same idea gets used elsewhere. As in, just because the elephant is already dead doesn't mean you can sell the ivory.
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Re:Mixed Feelings (Score:5, Insightful)
The theory is that fapping to child porn makes you more likely to molest children.
The theory is that fapping to child porn is creating a market for child porn which facilitates and encourages the production of more child porn.
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As for liability, it hardly matters if the accused was never within a thousand miles of the child if they paid someone else to do it.
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Watching and trading CP improves the PC economy. The more kiddie porn being watched, the more lucrative it is to make it. Supply and Demand.
Source: I watch a lot of Law and Order: SVU.
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Re:Mixed Feelings (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're not beyond warrantless actions that you could apply for legitimate warrants for, or lying to courts, or ignoring court orders, who's to say you're beyond falsifying evidence?
It's honestly that simple. Play the rules, or don't. But if you don't, you can then point at others and say "They weren't playing by the rules either".
Unreliable witnesses before court should be dismissed out of hand. Whether FBI, Joe Bloggs, known mass-criminal or best-guy-in-the-world innocent.
It's no different to saying you won't reveal how you got your evidence, or how you analysed it to come to a certain conclusion, or where you got it from, or what standards of accuracy and preservation you used to bring it to court.
If your method of obtaining evidence was illegal, that evidence isn't evidence at all as it was not obtained or preserved to the necessary requirements of law. The FBI just gave a PROBABLE PAEDOPHILE a free pass, because they deliberately interfered with legal methods in gathering reliable evidence against him.
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Unreliable witnesses before court should be dismissed out of hand.
The reliability of witnesses if a question of fact, and the trier of fast is the jury, not the judge. And juries do often find witnesses too unreliable to believe. More and more, in recent years, they apply this to the cops, too.
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Yet we still rely on witnesses, not because of some magical ability to get it right when it counts, but rather because that's just about all we've had for thousands of years.
If you don't believe me, just do some research on it, and I'm not eve
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The cops violated the law.
It is their turn to be prosecuted, and they should have no leniency.
These are not cops who broke the law on accident, breaking the law is standard procedure for these people.
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Absolutely. Start with contempt of court, and go on from there.
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No, they shopped so hard for a judge they could snow, they ended up with one who didn't have the authority to sign.
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There's no "probable" about it.
Sure there is...
The FBI searched Alex Levin's home address in Norwood, Mass. and found child pornography on it.
That doesn't make him a pedophile... It makes him kinda weird and maybe a bit sick, looking at pictures of kids... but if he doesn't know the kids and didn't touch them, then he isn't a pedophile...
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The FBI searched Alex Levin's home address in Norwood, Mass. and found child pornography on it.
That doesn't make him a pedophile...
A pedophile has sexual interest in the underaged. If he/she acts on his interest, it makes him a pederast.
Re:Mixed Feelings (Score:4, Insightful)
And before the moron squad gets to slinging accusations, no, I am not one of them, and actually find the concept rather disturbing. Those people need psychiactric care, not being thrown in a cell with a gangbanger and ignored.
Re:Mixed Feelings (Score:5, Insightful)
Child molesters ARE terrorists.
No. Just, no. People need to stop calling every crime an act of terrorism. It's because of people like you that we have FoxNews calling protesters terrorists [mediamatters.org] and the Department of Defense calling protests "low-level terrorsim." [aclu.org]
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Re:Mixed Feelings (Score:5, Insightful)
And it doesn't bother you that the FBI ran a kiddie porn site, exploiting those children in the name of protecting them?
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And it doesn't bother you that the FBI ran a kiddie porn site, exploiting those children in the name of protecting them?
Of course it does. What part of "...seeing them told, 'Sorry. Try again,' when another questionable procedure is reviewed is welcome news..." did you not get?
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I just wish they had been more careful and thorough with the warrant.
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Then why don't we use kids as bait to catch some of those bastards that hijack and rape kids?
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Either way kids are being USED by the law as bait. I was hoping that this example would somehow make people realize that this is exactly what happens.
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By your logic it would be wrong to use the images as evidence at trial. An equally absurd proposition.
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No, pre-existing images were being used. Very different. The damage has already been done and the images already circulating in the wild.
By your logic it would be wrong to use the images as evidence at trial. An equally absurd proposition.
By your logic it would be fine to host/share/get off on child porn, as long as the images already exist -after all, the damage has already been done and the images are already circulating.
Good grief, NO! (Score:5, Insightful)
The definition of pedophile under the law is NOT restricted to people creating content. The definition of pedophile under the law is that you possess material which can be called child pornography. Law enforcement does not care how the material got into your possession, nor do they care if you were aware of the material. They care that the material exists so that they can prosecute you, and that is the extent of it.
If a guy on the bus slips pictures of naked children into your shopping bag and calls the police, you WILL be arrested. A prosecution may not stick, but your life will be ruined regardless of the outcome.
Look, we all have this vision which comes to mind when we hear the word. We all know what it should be, but that's not what it is. Just like many drug charges today it's a State weapon to attack people as often as it is a valid case of what we think of when we hear the word pedophile. We also know that depending on who you are, you will never face charges for it. (See The Franklin Cover-up).
Yes, I personally know and have known many Police officers who left Public Law because they did not want to be used as political hammers for shifty thugs holding office.
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What do you want to do about it? Strike down every law that might be misused? Decriminalize child pornography because someone might be erroneously accused? Legalize rape so nobody can have their reputation tarnished by false charges?
We're talking about a site that catered exclusively to pedophiles being turned into a honey
Re:Good grief, NO! (Score:4, Insightful)
The point is that you are using fallacious logic. You attempted to claim that the FBI was clean because they did not produce material. Production of material is not relevant to Law (currently), only Possession. You further implied that the FBI having the ability to bust this person would prevent further harm to children. Impossible to prove or claim, but also bad logic because this guy was not producing material.
Everything you claim justifies the FBI also justifies the suspect the FBI was forced to release.
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Well, then I guess the FBI, DEA, and most large municipal police departments are guilty of drug trafficking. The ATF is clearly guilty of gun running and bootlegging as well. After all, they possess contraband, they move it from place to place, and sometimes they even pretend to sell it. Who cares if they do so in perfectly legal undercover operations, or they are holding it as evidence for an upcoming trial? They have it, they must be guilty. Even if the law explicitly permits all such activity.
Good. (Score:4, Insightful)
On the one hand, I have little concern for those who traffic in anything that genuinely hurts children. On the other hand, the FBI abuses their position regularly, lying to the courts and ignoring the courts' orders when lying doesn't work, so seeing them told, "Sorry. Try again," when another questionable procedure is reviewed is welcome news.
The people who most defend our liberties are the scum of the earth, because they are the people against whom it is easiest to justify the departure from the rights and privileges we recognize in or grant to all human beings.
Because Courts have no other practical way to censure law enforcement for violation of rights, they exclude evidence produced in violation of the Constitution. There are other ways you could work the system in practice--you could fine law enforcement, fire police officers, and have good, responsible, and accountable culture in law enforcement. But that's not something the courts can do effectively or without unwavering support from the law enforcement community and the community's true acceptance of neutral judgment. So the courts let the guilty go free as the only way they have to protect the rights of the innocent. It makes law enforcement be much more careful about at least following a script that reminds them what someone's rights are.
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That is the status quo, but why? Only because no laws exist to directly punish law enforcement. With a simple law, congress or individual states could make it a like kind felony to lie in court or violate a suspects constitutional rights, covering everyone, including law enforcement. I believe they should also make it illegal for law enforcement to lie during interrogations, as this has led to many false confessions, often later proven false by DNA evidence. We have a far from perfect justice system in
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That is the status quo, but why? Only because no laws exist to directly punish law enforcement. With a simple law, congress or individual states could make it a like kind felony to lie in court or violate a suspects constitutional rights, covering everyone, including law enforcement. I believe they should also make it illegal for law enforcement to lie during interrogations, as this has led to many false confessions, often later proven false by DNA evidence. We have a far from perfect justice system in this country, but we are still by far the most fair system in the world. but as technology improves, we need to rely less on browbeating and "human" methods and more on forensics, surveillance etc. I am a firm believer that there should be surveillance on every public street, public park and other public areas, and all businesses should be required by law to monitor their internal and external spaces via looped surveillance. You should not have any expectation of privacy when you leave your property. The concern with incidental surveillance could be addressed by applying digital blackouts to any private property or private homes on fixed surveillance of roads etc. This type of camera network does nothing other than force multiplying the eyes of law enforcement, and provides a cold, objective eye to the behavior of everyone, private citizen and law enforcement. Drive by shootings would become a thing of the past overnight, as the shooters could be observed real time, tracked and intercepted by police, and it is damn hard to fight video in court.
Because the system isn't set up for it--prosecutors rely on police and as a practical matter generally can't take a position to department will hate. The department forms a blue wall of silence. And both police and prosecutors see criminality through the lens of law enforcement, which makes it impossible for them as a practical matter to take on the role of people who go after law enforcement for excess.
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>Because Courts have no other practical way to censure law enforcement for violation of rights, they exclude evidence produced in violation of the Constitution.
There was no constitutional question being decided here. The FBI ran afoul of a rule in a federal law that establishes magistrate court within the federal court system. Specifically it was a rule which limits the territorial jurisdiction of any warrants issued by a magistrate judge. It's probably going to be a rule that gets changed by Congress in the near future if the FBI doesn't win on appeal of this decision.
That is a constitutional question, because no legal warrant issued. You need a legal warrant. If the warrant was void, the search gets suppressed.
I suppose you could argue on appeal that the exclusionary rule should not apply because the warrant was based on PC, just issued by the wrong court. But I don't think you'd get very far, because the warrant was not issued according to Constitutional authority.
Re:Mixed Feelings (Score:4, Insightful)
On the one hand, I have little concern for those who traffic in anything that genuinely hurts children.
Neither do I...
On the other hand, the FBI abuses their position regularly, lying to the courts and ignoring the courts' orders when lying doesn't work, so seeing them told, "Sorry. Try again," when another questionable procedure is reviewed is welcome news.
Yep, without the rule of law, why even bother with the courts and trials, why not just go around and shoot the 1,000 Americans in the head they identified and move on?
Because if you don't respect the rules, then you might as well just go all in.
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Re:Mixed Feelings (Score:4, Insightful)
Mixed feelings? None here. The FBI FUCKED UP.
Their JOB is to collect evidence for the court. That is really the job, right there. Collect the evidence, find the people, present both to the court.
There is no justification for them to use evidence gathering techniques of ANY KIND that results in evidence that courts cannot use. There is no justification AT ALL for them to EVER attempt to subvert or circumvent the pervue of the courts.
Ther ONE AND ONLY JOB IS TO PROVIDE EVIDENCE FOR THE COURT.
They failed. This is 100% on them that they took steps that resulted in this result.
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Why is it only "sorry, try again", when it was abundantly clear what they did was against the law and greatly exceeded the authority they had been granted?
The penalty is what, being paid to waste their time trying to get these convictions? Some bad PR for the agency?
Who does? (Score:2)
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Yeah! Because "on the internet" hasn't already been a phrase legally exploited and abused enough.
Where the offence occurs (Score:2)
Here is the actual Judicial Order (Score:1)
16-4-20-Order-Motion-to-Suppress.pdf [documentcloud.org] The order notes that a district judge may have the authority to issue the NIT warrant. "The jurisdiction of district courts is usually defined by subject matter and parties rather than strictly by geography." Magistrate judges (such as the one who actually issued the warrant) must follow additional rules which confine their authority essentially to within their own district.
IANAL, but this was not a slam dunk for privacy. If a sharp U.S. Attorney had reviewed the reques
Court of Public Opinion (Score:5, Insightful)
Doesn't really matter how guilty (or innocent) he is, being charged for kiddy porn is a good life killer.
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Look on the bright side. He was pulling a Salinger. Now you can look forward to hearing the last 20 years of work.
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Hold your nose (Score:2)
Mixed feelings 2 (Score:3)
As someone said already, it is with great regret that real offenders get away with doing something that is universally unethical at the highest order (if you take into account some religions are pretty unethical...). Yet the fact they have to resort to such "techniques" is the pinnacle of hypocrisy - they are, ultimately, helping these offenders TWO-FOLD. They are running the site creating conditions to prosecute for one, and now there's evidence exclusion... I don't fancy a state using easy-to-through-out-of-court measures that will pretty much question the next case against the individuals. They will play it safe afterwards - they know they're watched now - and that's bad for us all as they won't get caught so easily. They are pretty much making a case to DEFEND sexual offenders with these techniques and that really hits my nerves.
With that said, I will transpose this to something much less important, yet more broad: online piracy. There are currently tens, maybe hundreds of websites run by the MPAA, the RIAA, and their henchmen, who will eventually use collected data for the sake of their business. They are obviously supplying, tampering with but also gathering the torrenting habits of all unsuspecting users. Two actual examplea comes to mind: PopcornTime's original domain, which was part of a deal struck between the prosecuted operators and effectively found to be owned by the MPAA; and of course a lot of torrent trackers and usenet aggregators also "seized" with such types of deals. So the question is: will the same principle the judge used apply here? I mean, this won't probably even go to court, and that's an issue - harbored by the DMCA et al, the MPAA/RIAA/henchmen can just directly affect the offender by notifying him or his ISP, who has to comply. And they don't even need a court order to "run" the illegal service, as they can defend themselves the same way the original operators could, with the added fact they won't sue themselves over it!
I know it was a big rant, and ultimately pointless as I just state facts. But it does make one guy think of the nuances around the orthodox American habit of MAKING CONDITIONS TO PROSECUTE, as opposed to, you know, finding evidence of wrongdoing, and then prosecuting. John Woo's Minority Report also comes to mind...
Ooops! Data leak.. (Score:2)
Just release the child porn visitors information to pastebin or something, say it was a hacked data leak, and call it a fuckin day. Society will do the rest.
Of course if they've borrowed your IP address - (Score:3)
"HA-HA" (Score:1)
-Nelson Mandela Muntz
Justice department doesn't agree (Score:2)
This is from the article:
UPDATE: Peter Carr, a spokesperson for the Department of Justice, sent a statement.
“We are disappointed with the court’s decision and are reviewing our options. The decision highlights why the government supports the clarification of the rules of procedure currently pending before the Supreme Court to ensure that criminals using sophisticated anonymizing technologies to conceal their identities while they engage in crime over the Internet are able to be identified and apprehended.”
When I read this I understand that the criminals don't play by the rules so the rules need to change for enforcement. I'm happy to see this judge challenge the FBI but I'm worries it's become the popular thing to do. I tried to find the first name of this Judge Young but could not. I wanted to see if this guy is showing interest in going into politics. It wouldn't be the first time one uses his power to enhance one's public image (since it's the popular thing to do).
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The real problem is that as soon as they get away with such underhanded techniques against CP, they will apply them to other things, and eventually to political dissenters and people they simply do not like. This is not about protecting children at all or they would invest all that effort into finding the people that actually made the material in question, instead of going for the easy targets. Law enforcement must be regularly and strongly reminded that the law applies to them as well and they must be limi
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The real problem is that as soon as they get away with such underhanded techniques against CP, they will apply them to other things, and eventually to political dissenters and people they simply do not like. This is not about protecting children at all or they would invest all that effort into finding the people that actually made the material in question, instead of going for the easy targets. Law enforcement must be regularly and strongly reminded that the law applies to them as well and they must be limited in what they can do.
Of course, an alternative here would be to allow the evidence and to send the FBI agents in question to prison for, say, 2-3 years each for the misuse of the warrant.
Jeezus, you don' know anything about this other what you read in the summary, do you?
Underhanded technique? Shortcut, maybe. But the FBI's violation came down to procedural rule limiting the territoriality of a magistrate's jurisdiction under the Federal Magistrates Act. And even the judge says there's an argument that could be made to leniently interpret that rule that would have validated the NIT, but he wasn't persuaded by it nor did he think the FBI acted in good faith in order to get the evidence in un
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When an extremely narrow interpretation of the law that is held by a small minority of judges can help the cops, they're all for the rule of law and the legal and judicial processes. When one of those damn criminals might get away with something through some technicality, the law is a liability and we can ignore it because we need to put all suspects in jail forever.
The lack of transparency with regards to authorities is the real problem, not leverage in court rooms. I'd be more than happy to see them work the court system in their favor if they have the best interest of the general population (hence the comment about transparency).
The authorities cannot do their work without the right amount of power in or out of court rooms. Miss handled power is the current state of authorities and that is why transparency is the equalizer we are all hoping for.
But but but... (Score:1)
...we're the FBI... ...and we've been tapping your phone for ten years and feel your appreciation for the canine species(*) would be appreciated by the world's media unless you reconsider.
(*) Replace eith tge actual non-conformist freakery.
Entrapment? (Score:2)
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That would be interesting in this case since the FBI knowingly distributed child pornography AND engaged in blackhat hacking.
But I have to say that nothing will do more to discourage the FBI from going in to the child porn business than getting their evidence tossed.
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In order for your plan to work, it would have to be a crime to violate the supreme law of the land. Right now, you don't even get so much as a moving violation.
I disagree with this outcome, but for an entirely different reason. The exploit that was used was analyzed and fixed, so it cannot be used again except on people who keep using old versions of the browser. The FBI's claims that they can't reveal it because then it would stop working as hollow as they did in the Apple case, this looks like just mor
Re:This is so stupid. (Score:4, Insightful)
>Evidence. Is. Evidence. No matter how it was obtained.
Cops beat you until you confess to crimes you didn't commit. Evidence?
Cops entrap you in a crime you would never otherwise commit. Evidence?
Cops enter your house without permission and ransack your belongings until they find a poem you wrote in college about how beautiful two-year-olds are, with which they frame you on child porn charges. Evidence?
You, sir, are an idiot who has obviously never read any history about what government and the law will do unless their actions are carefully restrained and confined.
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The entire exclusionary rule of evidence needs to change.
Right. Until you are some big business and some whistle-blower sneaks some damning internal memos out to the cops or regulators. Then it's 'Muh Constitutional rights!' So, no. Nothing will change. Because a couple of dead bodies in trunks and a bunch of children pimped out for perverts aren't worth nailing some manufacturer who skips QA testing.
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If the method of obtaining it was illegal, *let the facts stand as they are*--use them to prosecute the first crime, but *also* prosecute the 2nd crime that was committed!
You're using an everyday, dictionary-definition version of the word "illegal." If evidence was obtained through illegal means, no crime was committed. The only penalty is that the evidence is excluded from trial. You would need a whole new set of laws to be passed if you wanted to start prosecuting cops for failing to get a proper search warrant. Those laws would never be passed because they would grind law enforcement to a halt.
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If evidence was obtained through illegal means, no crime was committed.
The illegal means is the crime. What is illegal for us commoners is just as illegal for a police officer acting without a warrant. That is the entire point of a warrant: authorization to perform otherwise-illegal actions with impunity.
The accused in this case has every moral right to counter-sue the FBI under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, just as if any random person off the street had done the same.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It's certainly on the wrong track all right - when the people enforcing the laws can't even follow them, we know we're fucked.