Google Calls FBI Plan to Expand Hacking Power 'Monumental' Constitutional Threat | Hacker News Reader

Google Calls FBI Plan to Expand Hacking Power 'Monumental' Constitutional Threat

nationaljournal.com

5 pointsdeclan2 comments

One month ago, when I posted this story [1] based on concerns emanating from the FEE, ACLU, and EFF [2], among others, this is what you said: "the source of these recommendations is a judicial conference of federal judges, not the FBI" so that the title of my submission was changed [1]. And a variety of comments joined in mocking the issue. Now that Google says the same in no uncertain terms, have you changed opinion?

The title of my (then) submission was changed to the rather innocuous-sounding "U.S. judges propose updating warrants for Tor, remote searches". My submission title indicated it was a massive loophole that the US government wanted in order to undermine the current limits on their powers.

The ACLU and EFF have expressed deep concern about theses changes. "The ACLU’s comments are particularly compelling as they provide technical detail on how the rule change could play out and undermine substantive rights, including the Fourth Amendment. For those of you who are concerned about how using Tor, or other anonymizing proxies, could expose innocent bystanders, please invest some time in reading their comments (see e.g., pp. 14-15 of the ACLU’s comments). The discussion on ycombinator focuses on the text of the rules as opposed to the potential impact in application of the proposed change." [3]

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8918265

[2] http://www.uscourts.gov/uscourts/RulesAndPolicies/rules/2014...

[3] http://fee.org/freeman/detail/youll-never-guess-whos-trying-...

This is a fair question. In my two posts on the HN thread last month, I wasn't defending the proposal on the merits; instead, I made a narrow point that the headline was unsupported by the August 2014 source document and should be changed. That is still the case. Others, I recall, went further and can speak for themselves.

(Put another way, it's possible to have misleading headlines about even wildly unconstitutional proposals extruded by Washington officialdom! Best to be painstakingly accurate in our criticisms.)

I did note that "the more interesting section (to me) on page 340, which is the fact that warrants could authorize 'remote access to search electronic storage and seize or copy electronically stored information' via the Internet."

And it looks like, from the linked National Journal article, this is what Google is alarmed by. I've talked a few times with the Google lawyer quoted in the news article, and suspect he would not make bold claims without good reason.

But I haven't read Google's submission myself -- http://recent.io/ is keeping me too busy right now. That's why I submitted only the linked article. :)

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