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We really need to come to the internalized understanding that our government is increasingly becoming a threat to its people and a danger from within; a saboteu

by wahsd 13y ago

We really need to come to the internalized understanding that our government is increasingly becoming a threat to its people and a danger from within; a saboteur, a spy, a traitor to it's own people. As Peter Swire has pointed out in a PBS Frontline interview: "General warrants was part of the reason for the American Revolution. It was that the king's agent could go in and search a house everywhere, search a whole neighborhood with one warrant. And the Boston people said: 'We don't like that. [...] We'll fight you.' We said no." (redaction to avoid erroneous similarity)

pekk 13y ago
You are ready to start a revolutionary war on account of the speculation that tor is being sabotaged by USG?
chakalakasp 13y ago
Is this really that bad? They used a clever exploit to reveal the identity of people attempting to be anonymous on a server that hosted a boatload of illegal content.
- reflectiv 13y ago
  They used a clever exploit to blatantly infect and gain unauthorized access to a blanket set of machines...which may or may not have been doing something illegal. The FBI hacked PC's technically, and with no inkling of due process...they should be held liable for it.
  - AsymetricCom 13y ago
    Pretty sure this action runs afoul of DMCA..
Jach 13y ago
That summary is not quite in line with what the warrants were used for and ignores the context... Britain was at war with the West Indies and created new import taxes to help finance it as well as economically damage their enemy, but traders at ports such as Boston continuously traded illegally (smuggled) with the enemy, thus avoiding the needed foreign-import taxes and sustaining the enemy's well-being. Writs of assistance were authorized by the Massachusetts governor to allow customs officers to generally search ships or buildings that they suspected contained smuggled goods (and demand the assistance of local authorities), and this was pretty effective at stopping the smugglers. Naturally, the Boston merchants didn't like being deprived of their tax-free profits on the black market, so they sued: http://revolutionaryboston.wikia.com/wiki/Petition_of_Lechmere http://revolutionaryboston.wikia.com/wiki/Petition_of_Lechme... And lost, as generalized warrants, though falling out of favor, were not without precedent. (There's actually a whole book on this: http://books.google.com/books?id=pBBBwSTwdrEC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=pBBBwSTwdrEC&printsec=front...)

by wahsd 13y ago

pekk 13y ago

You are ready to start a revolutionary war on account of the speculation that tor is being sabotaged by USG?

chakalakasp 13y ago

Is this really that bad? They used a clever exploit to reveal the identity of people attempting to be anonymous on a server that hosted a boatload of illegal content.

reflectiv 13y ago
They used a clever exploit to blatantly infect and gain unauthorized access to a blanket set of machines...which may or may not have been doing something illegal. The FBI hacked PC's technically, and with no inkling of due process...they should be held liable for it.
- AsymetricCom 13y ago
  Pretty sure this action runs afoul of DMCA..

Jach 13y ago

That summary is not quite in line with what the warrants were used for and ignores the context... Britain was at war with the West Indies and created new import taxes to help finance it as well as economically damage their enemy, but traders at ports such as Boston continuously traded illegally (smuggled) with the enemy, thus avoiding the needed foreign-import taxes and sustaining the enemy's well-being. Writs of assistance were authorized by the Massachusetts governor to allow customs officers to generally search ships or buildings that they suspected contained smuggled goods (and demand the assistance of local authorities), and this was pretty effective at stopping the smugglers. Naturally, the Boston merchants didn't like being deprived of their tax-free profits on the black market, so they sued: http://revolutionaryboston.wikia.com/wiki/Petition_of_Lechmere http://revolutionaryboston.wikia.com/wiki/Petition_of_Lechme... And lost, as generalized warrants, though falling out of favor, were not without precedent. (There's actually a whole book on this: http://books.google.com/books?id=pBBBwSTwdrEC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=pBBBwSTwdrEC&printsec=front...)