8 ms·

I don't really see what there is to be upset about in this particular case. This is how investigations are supposed to be done, by the book. The FBI has copie

by skwirl 13y ago

I don't really see what there is to be upset about in this particular case. This is how investigations are supposed to be done, by the book. The FBI has copies of the servers TorMail ran on that they legitimately seized in an unrelated investigation (the servers were also hosting child pornography websites). In the course of another investigation, the FBI found that orders for forged credit cards were being sent to a TorMail account. The FBI obtained a search warrant for that specific account and then accessed it from their own copy. This is not trolling the seized database for anything and everything that might be illegal. This is finding probable cause from another source and obtaining a specific search warrant. This is how it is supposed to be done. Why would you expect anything less from competent law enforcement? The FBI is not the NSA. FBI cases have to hold up in the light of open court. If you are upset about the fact that TorMail was not in fact secure, well, that's on the TorMail operators and on the users for trusting the entity that controlled TorMail while knowing absolutely nothing about them. Remember, TorMail has nothing to do with the Tor protocol, and is just the name someone gave their supposedly secure and anonymous e-mail service that they hosted on the deep web. For all anyone knew, the FBI could have been running TorMail all along.

Navarr 13y ago
I was ready to be super upset when I started reading, especially about indicting someone on an unrelated case from the data - but then I read that they got a warrant and did everything the right way and I was completely surprised that we have competent law enforcement that does things the right way. That shouldn't have been a surprise, that should have been expected.
- davidw 13y ago
  > I was completely surprised that we have competent law enforcement that does things the right way Probably because the stories that make sites like HN are all the 'outrage stories' where things have gone off the rails.
- dredmorbius 13y ago
  How is getting a warrant which includes all users of an email service, AND those who corresponded with them "limited"?
- LoganCale 13y ago
  They didn't get a warrant for all the users whose data they seized.
wavefunction 13y ago
People are upset because of this new standard of "grab everything, put it in a 'secure' location and mine it in the future for past crimes." The main concern is that something you did today may become a crime tomorrow, so now entire populations are apparently in the situation of Schrodinger's cat: we are both criminals and not criminals, and only the indistinct future will determine where we end up. If you want a society where an individual is free to pursue their interests as long as they don't hurt anyone, it makes a lot of sense to have a transparent set of rules that are applied equitably to every citizen, regardless of their demographics or background. If you want a society where the individual is completely at the whims of mysterious and unknown forces that can destroy their life utterly for no apparent reason at all, well then carve out special exceptions for some while reserving harsh punishments for others. Introduce secret courts, evidence and trials... Institute a "permanent record" of someone's behavior that can be used to manipulate them as desired. Break the well-thought out control systems that help avoid abuses all to make "LEO easier." I'm assuming every experience you've ever had with law enforcement is positive?
- eurleif 13y ago
  >The main concern is that something you did today may become a crime tomorrow Ex post facto laws are unconstitutional in the US.
  - valarauca1 13y ago
    A lot of unconstitutional practices are law in the US http://www.scn.org/ccapa/pa-vs-const.html http://www.scn.org/ccapa/pa-vs-const.html
    - rayiner 13y ago
      That page is about 95% bullshit. For example: the establishment clause prohibits the government from establishing an official religion or preventing the free exercise of religion. It doesn't prevent the government from simply monitoring religious and political groups that may be associated with illegal activity. That argument is ridiculous on its face: if the 1st amendment guarantees freedom of assembly, and gangs are assemblies of people, and monitoring is the same as restricting the freedom, does that mean the government can't monitor gangs? We know that's not what the 1st amendment means for the simple reason that the U.S.G. has performed internal counter-insurgency from the very beginning, and those practices were overseen by many of the same people that drafted the Constitution. There are not a "lot of unconstitutional practices" that are law in the U.S. There are a lot of people who read the words in the Bill of Rights extremely broadly and without historical or legal context, and then put up poorly-designed web pages about all the "unconstitutional" things they have discovered.
tommo123 13y ago
The issue I have with this is that there's no such thing as "by the book" Federal investigations anymore. Snowden showed us that US intelligence agencies are using illicit, warrantless means of obtaining information and then providing that information to law enforcement agencies. Those agencies then go to judges and request warrants, and they can prove that the warrant is justified because they already have the damning evidence that they're legally supposed to require the warrant to get. Which renders them meaningless on a federal level.
vezzy-fnord 13y ago
The FBI is not the NSA. FBI cases have to hold up in the light of open court. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO Not necessarily.
gloverkcn 13y ago
If they are using it with warrants only then I agree there is nothing wrong as long as they can't keep the data permanently. There needs to be a reasonable point at which the data is destroyed. My other expectation is that the data is not available through a network and is in an evidence room that requires two people to access. My primary concern is the now known strategy of parallel construction. The FBI could be trolling the emails for crimes then using that illegal evidence to find ways to get a warrant to allow the previously illegal evidence into the case. If this was Fed Ex distribution center that had been seized it would have been treated very differently. They would collected the mail pertinent to the case and rest would have gone away. If they were to confiscate the whole building holding all of the mail for a later time in case they needed it there would be a huge back lash. But because it was email and we haven't set ground rules most people don't bat an eye, even if it's their mail that's been taken. As a parent it's really difficult not to be supportive anywhere child porn is involved. It's an issue that is so emotional for me that my first instinct is that I would give up everyone's privacy in the hopes of putting a dent in the abuse of children. Even if it only saved one child, emotionally, it would be worth it to me. Logically I realize that once these systems are in place there is no stopping them, and they will be used for everyone else's emotional/political hot button. I only bring this up because having the reaction I do allows me to understand what other people are feeling when the issue is around terrorists/hackers/fraud/whatever.
- judk 13y ago
  The govt does scan copy massive amounts of paper mail, also.
  - Consultant32452 13y ago
    My understanding is that they collect scan copies of massive amounts of mail meta-data. Specifically the stuff on the envelope, but not the contents within. The contents within are highly protected and would require a warrant. The problem with e-mail is that it's really difficult to analyze the metadata without also capturing the e-mail content.
robryk 13y ago
How do we know that this is what has really happened? On the surface this seems to be possibly a case of parallel construction, in which FBI found the emails on TorMail first and then asked for a warrant for the GMail mailbox to get enough evidence to get a warrant for the TorMail one. Is there a reason why this is impossible or improbable?
egocodedinsol 13y ago
You don't have to be upset to think that this is interesting! Indeed, it's a very different face of "data changes law enforcement" than the NSA story. Whereas NSA has a specific mandate, FBI can use anything seized for a broad variety of uses. This may always have been true, but the scope of the seizures has increased now that they can include entire server copies, which host many different services. It's a dramatic increase in prosecutorial power (which may or may not be a good thing, I'm not making a case either way). It's also not clear to me (maybe it is to others) where the limit on seizures is. In the extreme case, AWS is used for all kinds of criminal activities. Can FBI seize copies of AWS, and then with warrant go back and get evidence for other investigations? I doubt they would try, but somewhere between this extreme and the child porn server extreme is some sort of inflection point, both practically and legally.
eyeareque 13y ago
Step 1: Plant illegal material on a shared server that also contains a site the FBI wants access to but doesn't have a warrant for. Step 2: Seize entire server.

by skwirl 13y ago

Navarr 13y ago

I was ready to be super upset when I started reading, especially about indicting someone on an unrelated case from the data - but then I read that they got a warrant and did everything the right way and I was completely surprised that we have competent law enforcement that does things the right way. That shouldn't have been a surprise, that should have been expected.

davidw 13y ago
> I was completely surprised that we have competent law enforcement that does things the right way Probably because the stories that make sites like HN are all the 'outrage stories' where things have gone off the rails.
dredmorbius 13y ago
How is getting a warrant which includes all users of an email service, AND those who corresponded with them "limited"?
LoganCale 13y ago
They didn't get a warrant for all the users whose data they seized.

wavefunction 13y ago

People are upset because of this new standard of "grab everything, put it in a 'secure' location and mine it in the future for past crimes." The main concern is that something you did today may become a crime tomorrow, so now entire populations are apparently in the situation of Schrodinger's cat: we are both criminals and not criminals, and only the indistinct future will determine where we end up. If you want a society where an individual is free to pursue their interests as long as they don't hurt anyone, it makes a lot of sense to have a transparent set of rules that are applied equitably to every citizen, regardless of their demographics or background. If you want a society where the individual is completely at the whims of mysterious and unknown forces that can destroy their life utterly for no apparent reason at all, well then carve out special exceptions for some while reserving harsh punishments for others. Introduce secret courts, evidence and trials... Institute a "permanent record" of someone's behavior that can be used to manipulate them as desired. Break the well-thought out control systems that help avoid abuses all to make "LEO easier." I'm assuming every experience you've ever had with law enforcement is positive?

eurleif 13y ago
>The main concern is that something you did today may become a crime tomorrow Ex post facto laws are unconstitutional in the US.
- valarauca1 13y ago
  A lot of unconstitutional practices are law in the US http://www.scn.org/ccapa/pa-vs-const.html http://www.scn.org/ccapa/pa-vs-const.html
  - rayiner 13y ago
    That page is about 95% bullshit. For example: the establishment clause prohibits the government from establishing an official religion or preventing the free exercise of religion. It doesn't prevent the government from simply monitoring religious and political groups that may be associated with illegal activity. That argument is ridiculous on its face: if the 1st amendment guarantees freedom of assembly, and gangs are assemblies of people, and monitoring is the same as restricting the freedom, does that mean the government can't monitor gangs? We know that's not what the 1st amendment means for the simple reason that the U.S.G. has performed internal counter-insurgency from the very beginning, and those practices were overseen by many of the same people that drafted the Constitution. There are not a "lot of unconstitutional practices" that are law in the U.S. There are a lot of people who read the words in the Bill of Rights extremely broadly and without historical or legal context, and then put up poorly-designed web pages about all the "unconstitutional" things they have discovered.

tommo123 13y ago

The issue I have with this is that there's no such thing as "by the book" Federal investigations anymore. Snowden showed us that US intelligence agencies are using illicit, warrantless means of obtaining information and then providing that information to law enforcement agencies. Those agencies then go to judges and request warrants, and they can prove that the warrant is justified because they already have the damning evidence that they're legally supposed to require the warrant to get. Which renders them meaningless on a federal level.

vezzy-fnord 13y ago

The FBI is not the NSA. FBI cases have to hold up in the light of open court. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO Not necessarily.

gloverkcn 13y ago

If they are using it with warrants only then I agree there is nothing wrong as long as they can't keep the data permanently. There needs to be a reasonable point at which the data is destroyed. My other expectation is that the data is not available through a network and is in an evidence room that requires two people to access. My primary concern is the now known strategy of parallel construction. The FBI could be trolling the emails for crimes then using that illegal evidence to find ways to get a warrant to allow the previously illegal evidence into the case. If this was Fed Ex distribution center that had been seized it would have been treated very differently. They would collected the mail pertinent to the case and rest would have gone away. If they were to confiscate the whole building holding all of the mail for a later time in case they needed it there would be a huge back lash. But because it was email and we haven't set ground rules most people don't bat an eye, even if it's their mail that's been taken. As a parent it's really difficult not to be supportive anywhere child porn is involved. It's an issue that is so emotional for me that my first instinct is that I would give up everyone's privacy in the hopes of putting a dent in the abuse of children. Even if it only saved one child, emotionally, it would be worth it to me. Logically I realize that once these systems are in place there is no stopping them, and they will be used for everyone else's emotional/political hot button. I only bring this up because having the reaction I do allows me to understand what other people are feeling when the issue is around terrorists/hackers/fraud/whatever.

judk 13y ago
The govt does scan copy massive amounts of paper mail, also.
- Consultant32452 13y ago
  My understanding is that they collect scan copies of massive amounts of mail meta-data. Specifically the stuff on the envelope, but not the contents within. The contents within are highly protected and would require a warrant. The problem with e-mail is that it's really difficult to analyze the metadata without also capturing the e-mail content.

robryk 13y ago

How do we know that this is what has really happened? On the surface this seems to be possibly a case of parallel construction, in which FBI found the emails on TorMail first and then asked for a warrant for the GMail mailbox to get enough evidence to get a warrant for the TorMail one. Is there a reason why this is impossible or improbable?

egocodedinsol 13y ago

You don't have to be upset to think that this is interesting! Indeed, it's a very different face of "data changes law enforcement" than the NSA story. Whereas NSA has a specific mandate, FBI can use anything seized for a broad variety of uses. This may always have been true, but the scope of the seizures has increased now that they can include entire server copies, which host many different services. It's a dramatic increase in prosecutorial power (which may or may not be a good thing, I'm not making a case either way). It's also not clear to me (maybe it is to others) where the limit on seizures is. In the extreme case, AWS is used for all kinds of criminal activities. Can FBI seize copies of AWS, and then with warrant go back and get evidence for other investigations? I doubt they would try, but somewhere between this extreme and the child porn server extreme is some sort of inflection point, both practically and legally.

eyeareque 13y ago

Step 1: Plant illegal material on a shared server that also contains a site the FBI wants access to but doesn't have a warrant for. Step 2: Seize entire server.