> In an effort to address concerns, U.S. Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell wrote a blog post this week arguing that the > benefits given to authorities from the rule changes outweighed any potential for "unintended harm."

That old line again. We know there are some serious concerns about this, and we know you're right and can't begin to formulate an argument against, but we really want these powers, so trust us it's for the greater good.


It's a bit like how the UK Investigatory Powers Act contains many, many "safeguards". All of which are just promises not to misuse the data.

Politicians never seem to get the argument that even if they are trustworthy, there's nothing to say the next bloke isn't going to be a nutjob.

The post it refers to is here - https://www.justice.gov/opa/blog/additional-considerations-regarding-proposed-amendments-federal-rules-criminal-procedure - it places a lot of focus on various things they want to use it to stop, using the aged tactic of dropping some emotive crimes in there so that it's hard for people to disagree.

Looking at the text though - https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcrmp/rule_41

(6) a magistrate judge with authority in any district where activities related to a crime may have occurred has authority to issue a warrant to use remote access to search electronic storage media and to seize or copy electronically stored information located within or outside that district if:

(A) the district where the media or information is located has been concealed through technological means; or

(B) in an investigation of a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(5), the media are protected computers that have been damaged without authorization and are located in five or more districts.

There doesn't seem to be any restriction on what it can be used for, only that it fall under criminal law (and the things that fall under that tend to change over time). No reason they couldn't apply that to "criminal copyright infringement" for example.


I do wonder how the American exceptionalists are going to cope when other countries pass similar legislation and starting popping American systems in greater numbers ("Well, it's legal under our laws"). Mind you, not like they haven't been getting extra-territorial for quite some time anyway.

In both this and the UK IPA, it seems to be a case of legalising behaviour that's been going on for a long time anyway, rather than actually stepping back and looking at whether that behaviour is actually right (legal or not).

Bad times ahead me thinks.

On Sun, Dec 4, 2016 at 6:30 AM, Cecilia Tanaka <cecilia.tanaka@gmail.com> wrote:

FBI to gain expanded hacking powers as Senate effort to block fails

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-cyber-congress-idUSKBN13P2ER

"[...] allow U.S. judges will be able to issue search warrants that give the FBI the authority to remotely access computers in any jurisdiction, potentially even overseas."

"[...] in the hands of an administration of President-elect Trump, a Republican who has "openly said he wants the power to hack his political opponents the same way Russia does."

We are discussing the bad possibilities in some legal and technical studies groups in my country.  Our laws don't permiss this kind of violation.  Fu¢k FBI.




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