<story><title>If You Used TorMail, the FBI Has Your Inbox</title><url>http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2014/01/tormail/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>eurleif</author><text>&amp;gt;The main concern is that something you did today may become a crime tomorrow&lt;p&gt;Ex post facto laws are unconstitutional in the US.</text></item><item><author>wavefunction</author><text>People are upset because of this new standard of &amp;quot;grab everything, put it in a &amp;#x27;secure&amp;#x27; location and mine it in the future for past crimes.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;The main concern is that something you did today may become a crime tomorrow, so now entire populations are apparently in the situation of Schrodinger&amp;#x27;s cat: we are both criminals and not criminals, and only the indistinct future will determine where we end up.&lt;p&gt;If you want a society where an individual is free to pursue their interests as long as they don&amp;#x27;t hurt anyone, it makes a lot of sense to have a transparent set of rules that are applied equitably to every citizen, regardless of their demographics or background.&lt;p&gt;If you want a society where the individual is completely at the whims of mysterious and unknown forces that can destroy their life utterly for no apparent reason at all, well then carve out special exceptions for some while reserving harsh punishments for others.  Introduce secret courts, evidence and trials...  Institute a &amp;quot;permanent record&amp;quot; of someone&amp;#x27;s behavior that can be used to manipulate them as desired.  Break the well-thought out control systems that help avoid abuses all to make &amp;quot;LEO easier.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m assuming every experience you&amp;#x27;ve ever had with law enforcement is positive?</text></item><item><author>skwirl</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t really see what there is to be upset about in this particular case.  This is how investigations are supposed to be done, by the book.&lt;p&gt;The FBI has copies of the servers TorMail ran on that they legitimately seized in an unrelated investigation (the servers were also hosting child pornography websites).&lt;p&gt;In the course of another investigation, the FBI found that orders for forged credit cards were being sent to a TorMail account.&lt;p&gt;The FBI obtained a search warrant for that specific account and then accessed it from their own copy.&lt;p&gt;This is not trolling the seized database for anything and everything that might be illegal.  This is finding probable cause from another source and obtaining a specific search warrant.  This is how it is supposed to be done.  Why would you expect anything less from competent law enforcement?&lt;p&gt;The FBI is not the NSA.  FBI cases have to hold up in the light of open court.&lt;p&gt;If you are upset about the fact that TorMail was not in fact secure, well, that&amp;#x27;s on the TorMail operators and on the users for trusting the entity that controlled TorMail while knowing absolutely nothing about them.  Remember, TorMail has nothing to do with the Tor protocol, and is just the name someone gave their supposedly secure and anonymous e-mail service that they hosted on the deep web.  For all anyone knew, the FBI could have been running TorMail all along.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>middleclick</author><text>&amp;gt; Ex post facto laws are unconstitutional in the US.&lt;p&gt;The Fourth Amendment protects US citizens from unreasonable search and seizure. Clearly that is being violated as the recent ruling on NSA data collection has pointed out.</text></comment>
<story><title>If You Used TorMail, the FBI Has Your Inbox</title><url>http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2014/01/tormail/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>eurleif</author><text>&amp;gt;The main concern is that something you did today may become a crime tomorrow&lt;p&gt;Ex post facto laws are unconstitutional in the US.</text></item><item><author>wavefunction</author><text>People are upset because of this new standard of &amp;quot;grab everything, put it in a &amp;#x27;secure&amp;#x27; location and mine it in the future for past crimes.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;The main concern is that something you did today may become a crime tomorrow, so now entire populations are apparently in the situation of Schrodinger&amp;#x27;s cat: we are both criminals and not criminals, and only the indistinct future will determine where we end up.&lt;p&gt;If you want a society where an individual is free to pursue their interests as long as they don&amp;#x27;t hurt anyone, it makes a lot of sense to have a transparent set of rules that are applied equitably to every citizen, regardless of their demographics or background.&lt;p&gt;If you want a society where the individual is completely at the whims of mysterious and unknown forces that can destroy their life utterly for no apparent reason at all, well then carve out special exceptions for some while reserving harsh punishments for others.  Introduce secret courts, evidence and trials...  Institute a &amp;quot;permanent record&amp;quot; of someone&amp;#x27;s behavior that can be used to manipulate them as desired.  Break the well-thought out control systems that help avoid abuses all to make &amp;quot;LEO easier.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m assuming every experience you&amp;#x27;ve ever had with law enforcement is positive?</text></item><item><author>skwirl</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t really see what there is to be upset about in this particular case.  This is how investigations are supposed to be done, by the book.&lt;p&gt;The FBI has copies of the servers TorMail ran on that they legitimately seized in an unrelated investigation (the servers were also hosting child pornography websites).&lt;p&gt;In the course of another investigation, the FBI found that orders for forged credit cards were being sent to a TorMail account.&lt;p&gt;The FBI obtained a search warrant for that specific account and then accessed it from their own copy.&lt;p&gt;This is not trolling the seized database for anything and everything that might be illegal.  This is finding probable cause from another source and obtaining a specific search warrant.  This is how it is supposed to be done.  Why would you expect anything less from competent law enforcement?&lt;p&gt;The FBI is not the NSA.  FBI cases have to hold up in the light of open court.&lt;p&gt;If you are upset about the fact that TorMail was not in fact secure, well, that&amp;#x27;s on the TorMail operators and on the users for trusting the entity that controlled TorMail while knowing absolutely nothing about them.  Remember, TorMail has nothing to do with the Tor protocol, and is just the name someone gave their supposedly secure and anonymous e-mail service that they hosted on the deep web.  For all anyone knew, the FBI could have been running TorMail all along.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>valarauca1</author><text>A lot of unconstitutional practices are law in the US&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.scn.org/ccapa/pa-vs-const.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.scn.org&amp;#x2F;ccapa&amp;#x2F;pa-vs-const.html&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>