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"Under the government's legal theory, it can copy virtually all Internet communications and then search them from top to bottom for specific "identifiers"—all w

"Under the government's legal theory, it can copy virtually all Internet communications and then search them from top to bottom for specific "identifiers"—all without a warrant or individualized suspicion—as long as it does so quickly using only automated processes." Love it. I hadn't thought of it like that before. Just because your search is fast doesn't mean it's not a search.

higherpurpose 12y ago
Also, just because there isn't a "human" that does the search manually, doesn't mean the human doesn't benefit from the search (exactly as if he would if he did the search himself). And another thing: the 4th Amendment clearly talks about searches and seizures, so saying "we're only collecting it, but not searching it" shouldn't work as an excuse either. EFF should also make a case for how searching into your online Facebook accounts, Google accounts, chat accounts and so on, is the "searching through your home without a warrant and fishing for crimes of the 21st century" - or something along those lines. A third party may hold the data for you, but people think of those accounts as "theirs", and they have an expectation of privacy for them. If you keep something in a bank deposit box, does the bank own your deposit box and everything in it? Or is that "yours", and you expect nobody but you to access that? Right now, the government much prefers to go to these companies and just ask them for what you have in those accounts, because it's so much easier for them to do that, than ask you. But I feel they are skirting an important right humans should be having here. The "physical" protections seem to be so much better than the "digital" protections in the US law right now. It's time to change that, and make it clear that digital protections should be at least as strong as the kind of protections we benefit from in the real world. For example, it makes no sense for email to be considered under a much lower standard than real mail. They are both exactly the same type of communication. It's just the medium that's different, but that shouldn't matter at all.
- fluidcruft 12y ago
  > the 4th Amendment clearly talks about searches and seizures Not to nitpick, but how exactly is making a copy of something a seizure?
  - mikegioia 12y ago
    Wouldn't you need to take something first before copying it?
    - geekamongus 12y ago
      Not if I use a camera to take a picture of it, from which I can look at it to make a copy.
    - fluidcruft 12y ago
      If by "take" you mean deny or restrict access and use by the "owner" then, no, of course not. You don't need exclusive access to copy something (or record information about it). For example, taking a picture of the Washington Monument isn't remotely anything that comes to mind when I consider what "seizing the Washington Monument" would entail.
      - ethbro 12y ago
        Since the principles of photography post-dated the Constitution, I'd say it's a fair assumption that in its time the expectation was that exclusive access would be needed to (laboriously) copy something. But it's kind of pedantic to argue over a single word. The pertinent question is 'Do the views espoused by the Constitution as a whole (and subsequent case law) offer an opinion on the rightness of mass copying-without-exclusive access?' Which is pretty thorny indeed. IANAL, but from what I've read it seems as though the Supreme Court is steadily trending more towards supporting an inherent right to privacy as a buttress against decisions that would otherwise feel wrong.
        deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
      - refurb 12y ago
        This is actually a great point. For all those folks who say violating copyright is not "stealing", I guess you could use the same argument that the gov't copying private records is not "seizing".
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]

higherpurpose 12y ago

Also, just because there isn't a "human" that does the search manually, doesn't mean the human doesn't benefit from the search (exactly as if he would if he did the search himself). And another thing: the 4th Amendment clearly talks about searches and seizures, so saying "we're only collecting it, but not searching it" shouldn't work as an excuse either. EFF should also make a case for how searching into your online Facebook accounts, Google accounts, chat accounts and so on, is the "searching through your home without a warrant and fishing for crimes of the 21st century" - or something along those lines. A third party may hold the data for you, but people think of those accounts as "theirs", and they have an expectation of privacy for them. If you keep something in a bank deposit box, does the bank own your deposit box and everything in it? Or is that "yours", and you expect nobody but you to access that? Right now, the government much prefers to go to these companies and just ask them for what you have in those accounts, because it's so much easier for them to do that, than ask you. But I feel they are skirting an important right humans should be having here. The "physical" protections seem to be so much better than the "digital" protections in the US law right now. It's time to change that, and make it clear that digital protections should be at least as strong as the kind of protections we benefit from in the real world. For example, it makes no sense for email to be considered under a much lower standard than real mail. They are both exactly the same type of communication. It's just the medium that's different, but that shouldn't matter at all.

fluidcruft 12y ago
> the 4th Amendment clearly talks about searches and seizures Not to nitpick, but how exactly is making a copy of something a seizure?
- mikegioia 12y ago
  Wouldn't you need to take something first before copying it?
  - geekamongus 12y ago
    Not if I use a camera to take a picture of it, from which I can look at it to make a copy.
  - fluidcruft 12y ago
    If by "take" you mean deny or restrict access and use by the "owner" then, no, of course not. You don't need exclusive access to copy something (or record information about it). For example, taking a picture of the Washington Monument isn't remotely anything that comes to mind when I consider what "seizing the Washington Monument" would entail.
    - ethbro 12y ago
      Since the principles of photography post-dated the Constitution, I'd say it's a fair assumption that in its time the expectation was that exclusive access would be needed to (laboriously) copy something. But it's kind of pedantic to argue over a single word. The pertinent question is 'Do the views espoused by the Constitution as a whole (and subsequent case law) offer an opinion on the rightness of mass copying-without-exclusive access?' Which is pretty thorny indeed. IANAL, but from what I've read it seems as though the Supreme Court is steadily trending more towards supporting an inherent right to privacy as a buttress against decisions that would otherwise feel wrong.
      - deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
    - refurb 12y ago
      This is actually a great point. For all those folks who say violating copyright is not "stealing", I guess you could use the same argument that the gov't copying private records is not "seizing".
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]