Okay, forfeiture I don't like, but I could see. The SCOTUS "hint" (not a ruling, just a hint) was that the theory underlying forfeiture was contraband, in the form of an instrument supporting a crime.
I don't see how this applies. The theory with cash is straightforward enough: untraceable (nearly so) it can be used for illicit transactions, transactions out of the recorded view, and grudgingly, is therefore likely to be an instrument supporting a crime.
But every prepaid debit card I'm aware of these days has to be registered to its owner, because: terrorism. Transactions involving those cards are traceable. Therefore the "used for illicit transactions" fails on the face, because these supposed illicit transactions would be overt, reviewable.
So it seems to me that taking money from a prepaid debit card owned by a person--that is holding it--would have to constitute theft, not forfeiture, since it appears to me that the justification for forfeiture fails.
FBI replies: "Hey! After all the encryption and system breaking; man in the middle attacks; and legal battles we had to go through to get that data: You have the nerve to expect us to take more effort to actually encrypt it?"
I do wonder if this kind of bullshit works for other people, in intimidating them to remove stuff from the internet because of the spaghetti/wall aspect of it all.
At $1000/hour or thereabouts for legal representation? Damn straight it intimidates people into removing stuff from the web. It's going to cost you around three grand just for your lawyer to have a good laugh after he reads that email.
This is odd because the FBI is not entitled to all of this information when using NSLs,...
Of course, we are assured, neither the FBI nor any other intelligence agency would willfully exceed the limits of the law. They would be prosecuted....oh, wait...
So, the FBI is asking for far more than it's allowed to get with an NSL. It's apparently hoping some NSL recipients won't know they're not required to turn over all of this information.
This is not true: the FBI doesn't care whether recipients know it or not. It is the whole reason the FBI so savagely pursued cases against people who even talked to their attorneys, much less asked a court to rule on the need for a given NSL; or the right to publish an NSL. What was that demand again? Oh, right, $250,000 per day, doubled weekly until Yahoo succumbed. That's dictatorship, not judicial remedy--not negotiation.
(Possibly, Yahoo is a little miffed and that's why they're doing a document dump?)
Electronic Communications Privacy Act
They really should call it the Electronic Communications Piracy Act.
For those unfamiliar with the statute, Section 222 prohibits a provider of a “telecommunications service” from either disclosing information collected from a customer without a customer’s consent, [...]
It prohibits nothing. The key word is "consent", which every broadband provider grants itself in a paragraph buried in the user agreement.
It's a perfect example of an economically abusive relationship. It is the publisher that is abusing the author; but like every co-dependent, the author begs for more abuse.
When an author does actually wake up and try to break the relationship, then the friendly fatherly mask comes off, and the author gets shoved out into the sub-zero cold to starve.
This author is getting nothing.The publisher has managed to maneuver the case into a corner where the author will find he has an unenforceable contract with a dead company. The publisher will owe nothing, not even continued publishing of the books. But you can bet that this "non-existent" company transferred the copyrights: the author is getting no other deal, those rights are exclusive. So the result: no money, no sales, can't walk away, can't take the books to another publisher, can't self-publish.
Screwed out of the fruits of his labor, past, present and future, where does the author go from here?
Then the publisher has the unmitigated gall to say it is the "pirates" that screw the author. And the co-dependent authors nod sagely and lay themselves over the old hot fender for ever more rape.
It's the old "misplaced" strategy. Supermarkets use it when they don't want to stock an item anymore: they'll put, say, an unwanted brand of pickles on the cereal isle; when no one buys (who would think to look on the cereal isle?) discontinuance is "justified."
Apple obviously can't find a ground to ban the game. But by insisting it be located in the "news" section, where no one will think to look or be able to find it among all the Palestine stories, they have effectively banned it. Without giving the author grounds to challenge a real ban.
Re: Re: Re: Re: The "Good Faith" exception should go away
Good faith was originally created to overcome the overly stringent rules the courts were imposing on LEOs. An example taken from a story I read:
Cops got a warrant to search an apartment. While searching it, they passed through a door that, unknown to them, lead into the adjacent apartment. Evidence found in the adjacent apartment was thrown out by the court, even though the error was inadvertent.
That's what it was for originally, inadvertent error. But it's been steadily expanded, first to not-so-inadvertent errors, then to presumptions that the law permitted an action later found by the court to be not allowed and so on.
The latter is the case here: the DOJ presumed that they could bend rule 41 to permit a warrant to be issued covering an unknown jurisdiction. Nope, can't. But, gee, they were really trying it in good faith, weren't they?
This case is very gray: to me, it's hard to discern the good faith, but hey, free to disagree, right? And it probably doesn't really matter in this case because SCOTUS is changing rule 41, to allow for situations like this, in what appears to me to be a reasonable change.
But if rule 41 wasn't changed, FBI/DOJ would continue doing the same thing under good faith, in more cases: they'd change some jot or tittle in the warrant process each time, then bring it before the same judge...and he'd grant the exemption again.
Now go back to the apartment story again: suppose the connecting door has a big sign on it saying, "Apartment 109". The cops would just say, "We thought it was a joke," and *bang* exemption.
Basically, good faith has been watered down where it prevents neither repeated nor deliberate rights violations.
Wow. Only 1-in-178, huh? Here I thought the communist countries were big into propaganda. But we're totally disgracing them. I mean, what are we up to, now, about 1-in-15? And, very cool, some of it is even done by the government.
On the post: Oklahoma Cops Debut Tool That Allows Them To Drain Pre-Paid Cards During Traffic Stops
Theft not forfeiture
I don't see how this applies. The theory with cash is straightforward enough: untraceable (nearly so) it can be used for illicit transactions, transactions out of the recorded view, and grudgingly, is therefore likely to be an instrument supporting a crime.
But every prepaid debit card I'm aware of these days has to be registered to its owner, because: terrorism. Transactions involving those cards are traceable. Therefore the "used for illicit transactions" fails on the face, because these supposed illicit transactions would be overt, reviewable.
So it seems to me that taking money from a prepaid debit card owned by a person--that is holding it--would have to constitute theft, not forfeiture, since it appears to me that the justification for forfeiture fails.
On the post: Oklahoma Cops Debut Tool That Allows Them To Drain Pre-Paid Cards During Traffic Stops
Re:
On the post: FBI Sends Computer Information Collected By Its Hacking Tools In Unencrypted Form Over The Open Internet
FBI replies
On the post: Web Sheriff Accuses Us Of Breaking Basically Every Possible Law For Pointing Out That It's Abusing DMCA Takedowns
If you need to ask...
At $1000/hour or thereabouts for legal representation? Damn straight it intimidates people into removing stuff from the web. It's going to cost you around three grand just for your lawyer to have a good laugh after he reads that email.
On the post: FBI Pushing For Legislation That Will Legalize Its National Security Letter Abuses
Electronic Communications Piracy Act
Of course, we are assured, neither the FBI nor any other intelligence agency would willfully exceed the limits of the law. They would be prosecuted....oh, wait...
So, the FBI is asking for far more than it's allowed to get with an NSL. It's apparently hoping some NSL recipients won't know they're not required to turn over all of this information.
This is not true: the FBI doesn't care whether recipients know it or not. It is the whole reason the FBI so savagely pursued cases against people who even talked to their attorneys, much less asked a court to rule on the need for a given NSL; or the right to publish an NSL. What was that demand again? Oh, right, $250,000 per day, doubled weekly until Yahoo succumbed. That's dictatorship, not judicial remedy--not negotiation.
(Possibly, Yahoo is a little miffed and that's why they're doing a document dump?)
Electronic Communications Privacy Act
They really should call it the Electronic Communications Piracy Act.
On the post: 40 Years Ago, The CIA's Top Lawyer Said Bringing Espionage Charges Against Leakers Was Useless
On the post: India Seeks To Renegotiate 47 Investment Treaties Because Of Their Corporate Sovereignty Clauses
On the post: Appeals Court: As Long As The Government Has 'Good Faith,' It Can Root Around In Your Digital Files As Much As It Wants
On the post: Author Sues Publisher For Portraying eBook Licenses As 'Sales' To Pay Out Fewer Royalties
Re: Sale vs License
On the post: Cable Company Admits It Gives Poor Credit Score Customers -- Even Worse Customer Service
Useless statutes - Section 222
It prohibits nothing. The key word is "consent", which every broadband provider grants itself in a paragraph buried in the user agreement.
On the post: Apple, Arbiters Of Art, Say Game About Surviving The Gaza Strip Isn't A Game, Even Though It Is
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Misplaced
On the post: Apple, Arbiters Of Art, Say Game About Surviving The Gaza Strip Isn't A Game, Even Though It Is
Re: Re: Re: Misplaced
On the post: Author Sues Publisher For Portraying eBook Licenses As 'Sales' To Pay Out Fewer Royalties
Abusive relationship
When an author does actually wake up and try to break the relationship, then the friendly fatherly mask comes off, and the author gets shoved out into the sub-zero cold to starve.
This author is getting nothing.The publisher has managed to maneuver the case into a corner where the author will find he has an unenforceable contract with a dead company. The publisher will owe nothing, not even continued publishing of the books. But you can bet that this "non-existent" company transferred the copyrights: the author is getting no other deal, those rights are exclusive. So the result: no money, no sales, can't walk away, can't take the books to another publisher, can't self-publish.
Screwed out of the fruits of his labor, past, present and future, where does the author go from here?
Then the publisher has the unmitigated gall to say it is the "pirates" that screw the author. And the co-dependent authors nod sagely and lay themselves over the old hot fender for ever more rape.
On the post: Stupid Patent Of The Month... With Special Stupid Trademark Bonus Round
Does "remote" mean "home"?
On the post: Israeli Company Claims Its Software Can Look At Your Face And Determine If You're A Terrorist Or Murderer
Racial characteristics
On the post: If, As Eric Holder Now Admits, Snowden Did 'A Public Service,' Why Does He Still Want Him In Jail?
Perfect reasoning?
On the post: Apple, Arbiters Of Art, Say Game About Surviving The Gaza Strip Isn't A Game, Even Though It Is
Re: Misplaced
On the post: Apple, Arbiters Of Art, Say Game About Surviving The Gaza Strip Isn't A Game, Even Though It Is
Misplaced
Apple obviously can't find a ground to ban the game. But by insisting it be located in the "news" section, where no one will think to look or be able to find it among all the Palestine stories, they have effectively banned it. Without giving the author grounds to challenge a real ban.
On the post: Another Court Finds FBI's NIT Warrants To Be Invalid, But Credits Agents' 'Good Faith' To Deny Suppression
Re: Re: Re: Re: The "Good Faith" exception should go away
The latter is the case here: the DOJ presumed that they could bend rule 41 to permit a warrant to be issued covering an unknown jurisdiction. Nope, can't. But, gee, they were really trying it in good faith, weren't they?
This case is very gray: to me, it's hard to discern the good faith, but hey, free to disagree, right? And it probably doesn't really matter in this case because SCOTUS is changing rule 41, to allow for situations like this, in what appears to me to be a reasonable change.
But if rule 41 wasn't changed, FBI/DOJ would continue doing the same thing under good faith, in more cases: they'd change some jot or tittle in the warrant process each time, then bring it before the same judge...and he'd grant the exemption again.
Now go back to the apartment story again: suppose the connecting door has a big sign on it saying, "Apartment 109". The cops would just say, "We thought it was a joke," and *bang* exemption.
Basically, good faith has been watered down where it prevents neither repeated nor deliberate rights violations.
Which is ugly.
On the post: Study: One Out Of Every 178 Posts To Chinese Social Media Is Government Propaganda
Yay! We're winning!
Go USA!
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