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Judge Who Authorized Police Search of Privacy Activists Wasn't Told About Tor

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Re: Judge Who Authorized Police Search of Privacy Activists Wasn't Told About Tor

#51

Post by mulmen »

sickbeard wrote: post #43
mulmen wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He could do his job effectively by asking for more information about what Tor is. This understanding may impact his decision to issue the warrant. Law enforcement lied by omission, do you think they would take that risk if they thought the outcome would stay the same?

They provided enough evidence to the judge to convince him that there was child pron at this location. I'm not sure how knowing there is a TOR node would have made much of a difference.

The difference is that the decision would be in the hands of the judge instead of law enforcement. The balance of power would be in check.

Re: Judge Who Authorized Police Search of Privacy Activists Wasn't Told About Tor

#52

Post by geggam »

ethbro wrote: post #35
mistermann wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tech community would undoubtedly volunteer resources in the interests of a better world, the problem is it seems the government has very little interest in the justice system actually dispensing justice, it seems to increasingly be one of many tools used to control the populace. It's not only "a" tool, it is almost a magical "wild card" where you can put any opponent away forever if you so choose, and it is compl…

Would it / they / we? From what I've seen, the tech community (on the whole, averaged) isn't great at synthesizing and communicating information to non-technical people.

the same non technical people whose eyes glaze over and change the subject first chance they get ?

Re: Judge Who Authorized Police Search of Privacy Activists Wasn't Told About Tor

#53

Post by Overtonwindow »

merpnderp wrote: post #36
dsp1234 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is there a legal requirement for them to be forthcoming and truthful to Judges in warrants? This is called Perjury[0]. There is no law enforcement exception to it. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perjury

There is no legal exception to it, but there is in fact a de facto exception to it, since a DA must decide to press charges. How else can all those videos contradicting sworn testimony go nowhere?

Good point.

Re: Judge Who Authorized Police Search of Privacy Activists Wasn't Told About Tor

#54

Post by Arzh »

bcook wrote: post #23

PSA: "Tor", not "TOR". https://www.torproject.org/docs/faq.html.en#WhyCalledTor "Note: even though it originally came from an acronym, Tor is not spelled “TOR”. Only the first letter is capitalized. In fact, we can usually spot people who haven't read any of our website (and have instead learned everything they know about Tor from news articles) by the fact that they spell it wrong."

People still do that crap with Go (Golang) for no damn reason, it'll never stop because even if they have read that they don't care.

Re: Judge Who Authorized Police Search of Privacy Activists Wasn't Told About Tor

#55

Post by usrusr »

I never understood the value of a judge authorization requirements for surveillance. Has there ever been a recorded case where the request was denied, except maybe for even more shady reasons? I just don't see any incentive the judge could have to actually make an informed decision instead of just issuing rubber-stamp approval. Even in the unlikely worst case scenario of a scandal of rampant spouse-spying, a simple "but i trusted these guys!" would grant complete forgiveness. The only advantage, in terms of civil right is a weak paper trail and a slight slowdown of operations.

What if, instead of the judge approval requirement there would be a simple, "mechanical" lockdown of surveillance capabilities that would just ensure a paper trail and enforce an artificial quota of operations per time?

"Want to spy on that guy because you don't like his face? Your call, but don't come running when you have run out of quota, you really don't want to be that guy who could not stop an actual terrorist because he wasted all his surveillance wildcards on a personal vendetta".

This sure would not yield perfect results, but i really believe that the existing judge authorization requirements are even worse.

Re: Judge Who Authorized Police Search of Privacy Activists Wasn't Told About Tor

#56

Post by sickbeard »

Zigurd wrote: post #27
jobu wrote: post #11

Money quote in the last paragraph: "When we get into things like this," [Judge William Downing] said, "anonymizing stuff, that’s well over my head technologically, then it becomes very murky and hazy." That sounds to me like the judge likely wouldn't have known what a TOR node was if the police had told him these guys were running one. Technology isn't slowing down, so how can we make sure the law keeps up?

The judge is allowed not to be an expert. The police are not allowed to lie by omission when getting a warrant.

A lie is a false statement, hence you cannot "lie by omission". This is an absurd assertion.

Re: Judge Who Authorized Police Search of Privacy Activists Wasn't Told About Tor

#57

Post by [deleted] »

geggam wrote: post #52
ethbro wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would it / they / we? From what I've seen, the tech community (on the whole, averaged) isn't great at synthesizing and communicating information to non-technical people.

the same non technical people whose eyes glaze over and change the subject first chance they get ?

[deleted]

Re: Judge Who Authorized Police Search of Privacy Activists Wasn't Told About Tor

#58

Post by blowski »

usrusr wrote: post #55

I never understood the value of a judge authorization requirements for surveillance. Has there ever been a recorded case where the request was denied, except maybe for even more shady reasons? I just don't see any incentive the judge could have to actually make an informed decision instead of just issuing rubber-stamp approval. Even in the unlikely worst case scenario of a scandal of rampant spouse-spying, a simple "…

What would you set the quota at? Surely 'zero' is the best quota and each case deserves thorough oversight and consideration.

If you do put in a quota you're implicitly saying 'police should be searching this number of times but no more' and there is simply no way of knowing what that number should be in advance.

Re: Judge Who Authorized Police Search of Privacy Activists Wasn't Told About Tor

#59

Post by tremon »

sickbeard wrote: post #56
Zigurd wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The judge is allowed not to be an expert. The police are not allowed to lie by omission when getting a warrant.

A lie is a false statement, hence you cannot "lie by omission". This is an absurd assertion.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Lying_by_omission

Re: Judge Who Authorized Police Search of Privacy Activists Wasn't Told About Tor

#60

Post by blowski »

Arzh wrote: post #54
bcook wrote: post #23

PSA: "Tor", not "TOR". https://www.torproject.org/docs/faq.html.en#WhyCalledTor "Note: even though it originally came from an acronym, Tor is not spelled “TOR”. Only the first letter is capitalized. In fact, we can usually spot people who haven't read any of our website (and have instead learned everything they know about Tor from news articles) by the fact that they spell it wrong."

People still do that crap with Go (Golang) for no damn reason, it'll never stop because even if they have read that they don't care.

Precisely. I say 'Go' because people think Golang is something else. There is only one thing worse than people talking about your product with the wrong name, and that's nobody talking about your product.
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