Comment by csoghoian | Hacker News Reader

Comment by csoghoian | Hacker News Reader

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This isn't just about the district where the judge is based. There is also the bigger question of whether or not judges should be authorizing bulk hacking operations.

The three Tor watering hole operations (Freedom Hosting, Torpedo and Playpen) are the only cases we know of where DOJ has obtained a warrant from a single judge which it then used to conduct searches on hundreds or thousands of computers. DOJ did not seek new powers to conduct bulk searches/hacks from Congress, they just went ahead and got an ex-parte warrant from a judge. In the case of Freedom Hosting, it looks like they also screwed up and then hacked the computers of innocent people visiting other, non contraband sites, hosted on the same server.

I think that reasonable people can disagree about whether or not it makes sense to allow a judge to sign a warrant to hack a single computer in an unknown location which is probably outside of his or her district. Bulk hacks are very, very different, and a very new thing for our legal system.

I'm much less sanguine about bulk hacking than I am about targeted hacking, and so I'm sympathetic to this argument.

However, I'm compelled to point out that the courts routinely order searches on parties that turn out to be uninvolved with a case, or even to the wrong people already. The standard of accuracy here is much lower than you make it out to be.

I've researched this issue extensively, and I've not found a case before where a thousand people in the same place were searched pursuant to a single search warrant, let alone a thousand people or items located in different places around the country.

On the issue of courts authorizing the searching of wrong people, we don't know if the court in Freedom Hosting even knew that the government would deliver the malware to innocent people who were merely visiting other websites hosted from the same server as the contraband sites targeted by the warrant. We don't know this, because three years later, the freedom hosting search warrant is still sealed.

That fact should be alarming, and you should find that offensive...

If the courts are routinely signing search warrants on parties that are not involved in cases or criminal activity that highlights how much of a rubber stamp the warrant process as become, and how little "probable cause" means any more

Probable cause has become "Judge we want to search this place"

Why should I have a problem with "judge we want to search this place?"

The point of a search warrant isn't to establish guilt! It's merely to ensure that the search is connected to a legitimate investigation --- and legitimate dragnet investigations are common! --- and not as an instrument of harassment.

>>legitimate dragnet investigations are common

They should not be, that is my point

The purpose of the 4th amendment is to require the police to have a probable reason that a crime has been committed, AND to define what EXACTLY they are looking for, and where EXACTLY they are looking for it at

the fact that judges can sign warrants for all computers in the nation, or entire city blocks should be considered unconstitutional

That is a General Warrant something the Founders were very very very very much opposed to

> not as an instrument of harassment.

General Warrants, which is what is being talked about here, are infact a instrument of harassment

Rubber Stamping Warrants with out any actual probable cause is also a instrument of Harassment

If you believe having your door busted down by armed men at 3am because you tossed the loose leaf tea in the trash bin is not harassment than I shutter to thing what your definition would be

Does the bulk hacking have anything to do with these Rule 41 changes? Sounds like a judge could issue a warrant for a thousand computers under the existing rules.

The real issue seems to be what evidence you need to have probable cause to search a thousand computers. I'm willing to believe the standard being applied is too low, but the Rule 41 changes don't change that standard one way or the other.

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