A couple decades ago when the government wanted to get civil forfeiture powers, they said it was only going to be for the worst organized crime bosses and drug lords.<p>Then within the last few years, a black kid who takes his life savings -- $10,000 cash -- and moves across the country to start a new life is (apparently entirely legally) relieved of it by two police officers and has no means to get it back, despite never being arrested nor charged with any crime.<p>History shows that it's impossible to trust the government's promise that they'll restrict any new capabilities to the worst bad guys.
"Terrorism/spy cases" is just the camel's nose under the tent.<p>It wasn't even 2 years after the 2001 PATRIOT act that the DOJ was using the provisions for drug cases.<p>A probably non-exhaustive list is here: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversial_invocations_of_the_Patriot_Act" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversial_invocations_of_t...</a>
You'd think terrorism/spy cases would be a small minority of overall cases. And not that hard to justify a warrant. Seems odd that they feel it is important to skip the warrant step for such cases.<p>Why not require a warrant? The more checks and balances the better.
Wow whoever came up with the whole 'in the name of terrorism' is a goddamn genius. Pretty much a free card to get access to anything and everything for the sake of 'security'.
Call to Firefox devs: restore the option to keep history for a specified number of days. Why was this option ever removed? It originated all the way back in Netscape.<p>Also: make a prominent "clear last hour" option for mobile; I hate following a link from someone and finding a ton of tracking cookies have just been added.
The title is inadvertently misleading - the records sought under the amendment are transaction records on the remote end (closer to access logs) rather than your actual browser history.
Hey that's fine, no need for a warrant. You just have to let the judge know that you think that person is a terrorist. And also what reasons led you to think they're a terrorist. Oh, and also what it is you're looking for, and why you think you'll find it.<p>So... basically a warrant.
Warrants are so easy to get, why do they need this?<p>Looking at browser history might not hurt most people, but getting a warrant isn't hard, and it's the proper way to do things.
Don't we already have laws to go after criminals? Calling them a terrorist doesn't make them more or less criminal. And do we have so many of these boogeymen?
I don't understand why the FBI isn't prepared to just act illegally in terrorism cases. If they're so damn sure that there's going to be an attack, just do the warrantless search and prevent the attack. And just be fine with the fact that they won't get to prosecute the bad guys -- the attack was thwarted, and that's good enough for me. And if they don't find anything? Well, Lucy's got some 'splainin to do!
Well it honestly depends what classifies a terrorism or spy case as such. I could see how this could be easily abused in many regards, but also how it could help someone do their job. Double edged sword really, but I do wish the people had more of a say in these matters instead of just hearing about more liberty being lost via the news :/
Well, they will further and further encroach until they meet some kind of resistance. Unfortunately, resistance will not easily materialize because people here would be the first ones to utterly condemn respect-instilling reprisals.<p>As far as I am concerned, they can do whatever they want with people who accept that. Concerning myself, I am always on the outlook for some kind of counter-veiling power, the most interesting of which is Islam. It really retaliates. So, I am positive about it.
I read that as "Director Comedy". Probably a more apt title, I imagine. <a href="http://i.imgur.com/ty7LY4E.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://i.imgur.com/ty7LY4E.jpg</a>