US Finally Kills The 2nd Ammendment

[Tim May]

On Jan 12, 2004, at 7:46 PM, Steve Furlong wrote:

> On Mon, 2004-01-12 at 15:48, Tim May wrote:
>
>> (Though of course this is only the _theory_. The fact that all of the
>> Bill of Rights, except perhaps the Third, have been violated by the
>> Evildoers in government is well-known.)
>
> A few years ago I wrote a short paper looking at government-installed
> snoopware in terms of the 3rd A. Given that the other BoR amendments
> have been broadly interpreted in light of new technology, it's
> reasonable to view software as "soldiers". In light of the Scarfo case
> (keyboard sniffer software installed in a black-bag operation, ca. 
> 1990)
> I'd argue that the Fedz have violated the 3rd A. (My paper was before
> Scarfo, so I claim some prescience. Alas.)
>

During the Carnivore debate, I argued that mandatory placement of 
computer agents in systems was equivalent to quartering troops:

< http://www.mail-archive.com/cypherpunks@algebra.com/msg03198.html>

"The Third Amendment, about
quartering troops, is seldom-applied.

"But if I own a computer and I rent out accounts to others and the FBI
comes to me and says "We are putting a Carnivore computer in your
place," how else can this be interpreted _except_ as a violation of
the Third?"

This was from July, 2000. I believe it also came up in earlier 
discussions, including in a panel I was on with Michael Froomkin at a 
CFP in 1995.

--Tim May