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Appeals Court: FBI's Safe-Deposit Box Seizures Violated Fourth Amendment
- bobthepanda 3y agoSide note: are there still places that have safety deposit boxes? Nearly all the banks in my area no longer offer them.
- sampli 3y agoYes, tons of banks still have them
- evancox100 3y agoNot for long, likely.
- EasyMark 3y agowhy is that?
- ambarp2 3y agoChase in San Francisco told me that one factor is a handful of deposit box users who come into their branch multiple times/day to access their box. That’s a huge burden on their staff’s time.
- j-bos 3y agoIt's funny how cost cutting turns once normal services and responsibilities into a "burden".
- dannyw 3y agoSafety deposit boxes are not meant as active drop boxes. It's like someone using YouTube as a general purpose data storage service.
- sarchertech 3y agoIt’s very easy to fix that. Charge per use for accessing it more than once per day.
- bobthepanda 3y agoIn fact, that already exists. Nearly every bank, Chase included, operates a savings account with maximum six transactions a month.
- krisoft 3y agoShould not be that hard to put a cost on that. Charge X per access. Make X big enough to be worth the bother. If you worry that it will alienate the users who only need access rarely make the first Y accesses per month or year free.
- ajross 3y ago[flagged]
- nickff 3y agoWhat do you mean by: >"they decided to go to the mattresses" Reason is covering the case because it's significant for Fourth Amendment precedent, they are not actually involved in the case as far as I can tell.
- colechristensen 3y ago"go to the mattresses" is a reference to The Godfather book and film, means "go to war" or something like that. The fighters would sleep together in poorly appointed safehouses that would just have a bunch of mattresses on the floor.
- schlauerfox 3y agoto go to the mat is way older than the godfather.
- AnimalMuppet 3y agoBut "go to the mat" I believe comes from wrestling, not from safe houses.
- avarun 3y agoIt doesn’t take a lot of deliberation to realize the obvious reason, which is that this is a very clear 4th amendment violation which can then serve as suitable precedent for (or even have a chilling effect on) future instances where law enforcement may decide to abuse their powers. It’s quite obvious that not all cases on the same topic are equally easy to argue.
- AnthonyMouse 3y agoThere's another obvious reason, which is that rich people have resources. When cops steal from ordinary people, they rarely have the resources to fight it even if they hadn't just been robbed. So then the case never makes it to an appeals court for the media to cover it. Or it does make it to court, because they're not actually poor, they're actually drug dealers with money to hire lawyers, but the courts are vaguely aware of this and then side with the police even if what the police did was entirely scandalous and unjust, because the victims are drug dealers. Which is how we get many terrible precedents. So it's a rare opportunity when the police target some Beverly Hills high society chaps because it makes the people who would rather burn the constitution than let a drug dealer keep their money turn around and ask what stops this from being used against someone like themselves. And when they realize the answer is nothing, that's when you can often get a good precedent set.
- pclmulqdq 3y agoYour lawyer's bank vault is still okay. Beyond that, you're pretty much screwed.
- DaiPlusPlus 3y agoBy "bank" do you mean one of those "customer experience centers" which offers the usual teller services and on-site card replacements, and has maybe 1 or 2 people working as tellers but none of them are loan-officers, and instead of a vault they have a convenience-store-style safe? "Real bank" branches do still exist - but they aren't as commonplace as they used to be. My nearest one for my credit-union is a good 45 minute drive away, ugh.
- grubbs 3y agoWells Fargo still offers them. FWIW.
- pardoned_turkey 3y agoThey had looong waiting lists in most places in the Bay Area, though.
- AlbertCory 3y agoMy local Wells Fargo does.
- edm0nd 3y agoyour local credit union does and they are awesome and cheap.
- macintux 3y agoMy local credit union is getting rid of them. I was kicked out last year, and they told me the branches that still have them probably won't for long.
- bagels 3y agoMy local BofA offers it, and then somehow needed to close the branch for a few years during the pandemic. Was really inconvenient to access the box in a locked, unstaffed branch.
- sidewndr46 3y agoIf you look into those, they aren't really safety deposit boxes. The bank isn't obliged to actually protect the contents or to reimburse you if something happens.
- hiatus 3y agoWas that ever the case? Even if you rent a storage unit for instance you need to insure it.
- whamlastxmas 3y agoIt's in a bomb-proof vault with tremendous amounts of on-call security and police. The second a bank alarm goes off it's swarmed with cops, well before anyone could ever open the vault. There is zero practical way to rob a closed bank vault unless there was also, like, a zombie apocalypse happening and the cops were all otherwise occupied
- mastry 3y agoAlmost three years to come to this conclusion?
- AnimalMuppet 3y agoAlmost three years for an appeals court to come to this conclusion. That's (at least) two trials. (I mean, yes, it should be a no-brainer, but even people who are no-brainer wrong get their full chance in court.)
- pardoned_turkey 3y agoIt's a bit more complicated than that (but no less reprehensible). The government obtained a warrant to seize the business and, as a part of that, to do a routine inventory of what's inside the boxes. After securing the warrant, the FBI said "sike, we're gonna rifle through customers' stuff to see if we can uncover new crimes... and we're gonna keep the contents via civil forfeiture too." Several folks sued, and then the government dragged their feet for a while, but eventually said "ok, we'll return your stuff, you have no legal standing anymore." The courts agreed. The only outstanding issue was whether the government should be ordered to destroy any records / copies of what they found in the deposit boxes they were not supposed to investigate in the first place. That's where the courts differed. The appeals court decision is a pretty scathing criticism of the whole fiasco, but strictly speaking, it only delivers a verdict on that last question (yes, the government has to destroy it).
- autoexec 3y ago> The only outstanding issue was whether the government should be ordered to destroy any records / copies of what they found We really need to reign in theft under the guise of civil forfeiture. If clear abuses like this don't get that issue raised in courts I wonder what it's going to take.
- dragonwriter 3y ago> Almost three years for an appeals court to come to this conclusion. That's (at least) two trials. No, it is one trial. Appeals courts do not (in general [0], and did not in this case) conduct trials. [0] There are cases where what is usually an appellate court, like the SCOTUS, has original jurisdiction over certain cases and conducts trials, but in those cases it is not an appellate court and there is no prior trial, and there are cases where specialized lower courts (small claims, traffic courts where they are separate and not a function of a court of general jurisdiction, etc.), can be appealed to a trial court of general jurisdiction, which will conduct a trial, either in the normal sense or on the record of the prior trial.
- theogravity 3y agoWhat are the chances the seized items are returned in its entirety to the owner?
- khazhoux 3y agoI can't find source now, but I'd read before that they didn't properly inventory the items, and so now some large amount of it can't be traced back to owners.
- hanniabu 3y agoOf course. Best way to rob a bank is to be an officer of the law.
- pwillia7 3y ago[flagged]
- cogman10 3y agoIt's more complicated than that. The reason for the raid in the first place was because the FBI suspected (correctly) that the owners of this lockbox company knowingly facilitated money laundering. The company was setup to maintain privacy. By it's nature, who owned what was ambiguous. There was none or no identifying information. What's at issue is if the FBI could use the contents of these boxes to further prosecute previously unknown crimes. The lower court said yes, the upper court no. The initial taking was legal, it's how the property was handled after the fact that ran afowl the law.
- pclmulqdq 3y agoThere's the whole civil asset forfeiture angle to this: they may have been ostensibly planning to have people defend their deposit box in court, only to get charged with a litany of crimes related to its contents. They didn't keep any of the articles separate, though, which makes me think this was just a legal robbery.
- blindriver 3y agoThis is so obvious it’s sickening. Everyone associated should be fired. What an affront against the constitution.
- hamhock666 3y agoWe need someone in the executive branch willing to enforce the constitution for anything to happen
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> so obvious it’s sickening It’s really not. The Third Party Doctrine has muddied the Fourth Amendment’s legal boundaries. The fact that a district judge originally ruled in the FBI’s favour should show that. > Everyone associated should be fired If they continue to think they did the right thing, sure. That’s incapacitation. But prioritising retribution isn’t helpful when restitution and deterrence are unfulfilled.
- bmulcahy 3y agoOne way of understanding the previous comment in light of what you've said is: the third-party doctrine is so obviously wrong it's sickening.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> the third-party doctrine is so obviously wrong it's sickening Perhaps I’m overindexing on the term “sickening,” but it seems unhelpful to bring an emotion like disgust into a technical legal discussion. Where one has (and doesn’t have) a reasonable expectation of privacy isn’t trivial. I think it’s obvious that a cop who recognizes a fugitive in public is acting reasonably while the same cop doing a facial-recognition search at a public school parking lot may not. Where does searching public Twitter photos lie? What if they’re only accessible with a login? If you can’t tell, I think the third-party doctrine as presently interpreted is wrong. But the history leading up to it is incredibly reasonable, recent and well documented.
- hanniabu 3y ago[flagged]
- hindsightbias 3y ago[flagged]
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- quantumensert 3y ago[dead]
- yieldcrv 3y ago[flagged]
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- jbverschoor 3y agoThe Bill of rights was created with a good reason and it shows. Many countries continue to abuse their power and are trying everything to change regulation in order to keep and increase their control and power over on their slaves, oh I mean citizens. Just a bunch of power hungry and usually corrupt people
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> increase their control and power over on their slaves, oh I mean citizens Muddying these lines does a disservice to your argument. We aren’t slaves nor serfs. We are mostly disinterested.
- whatshisface 3y agoHaving the government literally enforce slavery isn't in living memory but Americans learn about it in school.
- ssalka 3y agoIt actually is in living memory: the 13th amendment expressly grants the government the right to use slavery as punishment for a crime. https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-13/ https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-13/
- EMIRELADERO 3y agoWhile the point still stands, the 13th Amendment's exception for punishment doesn't ban prison labor as we know it today. When it was ratified, "involuntary servitude" was only applicable to private parties, not labor performed for the State. If the exception didn't exist, the 13th would have still allowed for prison labor. What the exception does is ban the now-extint practice of "convict leasing"[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convict_leasing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convict_leasing
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- fallingknife 3y agoAnd nobody at the FBI who authorized this illegal seizure will be charged with a crime or even be fired.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- NoZebra120vClip 3y agoI tried to maintain a safe deposit box recently, and it was a comedy of errors. Well, it would've been comedy if it hadn't been my valuables at stake in there. They couldn't get the paperwork right. From the first time I signed up and was issued a box, the paperwork was screwed up in some royal fashion, I would thoroughly read it and point out that they messed it up (always unfavorable to me) and they'd fix it up apologetically. This is a bank. Bankers do paperwork for a living and their livelihood depends on dotting "i"s and crossing "t"s, so to speak! The worst experience was the second visit when I discovered that my keys no longer worked. Well, I'd brought only one key of course, and when we discovered that it had stopped working, they demanded for me to go back and bring in the twin key to test that one too. Of course it was jammed. I was absolutely appalled. The "senior relationship manager" said the boxes are old and tend to seize up like that. I demanded a letter in writing with their proposal to drill the lock and rekey it, for free, under my supervision. So I came in on the Drill Day and, you know how they have that little private Viewing Room where you put the box, open it, and inspect its contents? Well, the drilling contractor had put all his tools and toolbox inside that room, so it was full of valuable property already. I was sort of flabbergasted at the clear security breaches they were committing, constantly. This is a bank!!! So eventually I caught wind that safe deposit boxes are completely deprecated. The last straw is when I asked the banker what would happen in a power outage - could I retrieve my belongings? He said nah, the last power outage they had, the cameras stopped working so they closed and wouldn't allow any customers in. Well, shit, one purpose of having offsite storage was to stash some cash and emergency supplies in case the shit hits the fan, and they're telling me it'll be off-limits in case of the slightest outage or civil unrest. So I decided that an SDB is useless for my (or anyone's) purposes and I closed it out and said bye-bye. They never screw up the paperwork on my checking or savings accounts.
- hammyhavoc 3y agoIf the shit hits the fan to the point that you need emergency supplies, I doubt cash money is going to do much for you.
- graphe 3y agoThe government doesn't have to fall for him to need both. A natural disaster or a bad breakup are two scenarios I can think of where cash money is useful.
- p1mrx 3y agoAs a thought experiment, I was wondering how to store something in a box/envelope, and know if someone else has looked at it. My conclusion was to search for "holographic tamper" on AliExpress, and carefully examine the photos to find models where each sticker has a number and a differently-aligned background pattern. Prices are around $5 for 250. Then you could use several stickers to seal whatever container, and take photos to record each sticker and its pattern. There are ways to exploit this system, but it probably helps against a non-sophisticated attacker.
- cfield 3y agoHow about glitter nail polish? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6986327 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6986327
- p1mrx 3y agoYeah, that may be a better idea. I see that some brands of nail polish use coarser flecks that would be easier to compare visually.
- jacquesm 3y agoThat's so funny, I once long ago worked on a project that suspended retro reflective beads in a solution to get unique patterns, this is a very simple variation on that theme and probably a more effective one.
- jamesrom 3y agoState of the art is a bag of beans: https://dys2p.com/en/2021-12-tamper-evident-protection.html https://dys2p.com/en/2021-12-tamper-evident-protection.html
- Cpoll 3y agoI wonder if there's no attack on these. I think I'm fantasizing, and I suspect this won't work, but: Inject the vacuum-sealed package with a thermal plastic/resin that keeps the beans in position. Then cut open the solid beans and extract what you need. Once you're done, re-assemble, re-vacuum and then heat while applying vacuum to remove the resin.
- mrinterweb 3y agoI feel this should set precedent for search of other protected property and information, including encrypted data.
- ashnz 3y ago[dead]
- glitcher 3y agoOff topic: I hadn't heard of reason.com before, and this article seemed like decent reporting so I looked around a bit for more. Then I found an article affecting my state on their front page, and oh boy it is chalk full of so much spin and loaded adjectives, it's such an obvious example of an opinion piece masquerading as journalism. Very disappointing.
- devilbunny 3y agoReason is, and always has been, a political and opinion publication. It's not exactly shy about its motivations, either.
- captainoats 3y agoReason is an American libertarian publication
- 0xBDB 3y agoI would have said it's more or less the American libertarian publication. Not a dig at the grandparent commenter who was obviously unfamiliar with it, but being upset at it for being a libertarian opinion mouthpiece is sort of like being upset with National Review for being conservative or the New Republic for being lefty.
- snakeyjake 3y agoA writer for Reason will stare you straight in the face and say it's up to the market and a rationally-acting rational actor of an eight-year-old to decide if said eight-year-old can be hired as a coal miner.
- maerF0x0 3y agoGiven the number of times the government has been shown to be corrupt or criminal in the past, does anyone ever consider if declassifications and FOIA requests might actually just be met with even more propaganda/lies? I'm curious how others approach this or might think about the problem?
- Bvlynicole 3y ago[dead]