<story><title>EFF in Court to Argue NSA Collection from Internet Backbone Is Unconstitutional</title><url>https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-court-argue-nsa-data-collection-internet-backbone-unconstitutional</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>fluidcruft</author><text>&amp;gt; the 4th Amendment clearly talks about searches and &lt;i&gt;seizures&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Not to nitpick, but how exactly is making a copy of something a seizure?</text></item><item><author>higherpurpose</author><text>Also, just because there isn&amp;#x27;t a &amp;quot;human&amp;quot; that does the search manually, doesn&amp;#x27;t mean the human doesn&amp;#x27;t &lt;i&gt;benefit&lt;/i&gt; from the search (exactly as if he would if he did the search himself).&lt;p&gt;And another thing: the 4th Amendment clearly talks about searches and &lt;i&gt;seizures&lt;/i&gt;, so saying &amp;quot;we&amp;#x27;re only collecting it, but not searching it&amp;quot; shouldn&amp;#x27;t work as an excuse either.&lt;p&gt;EFF should also make a case for how searching into your online Facebook accounts, Google accounts, chat accounts and so on, is the &amp;quot;searching through your home without a warrant and fishing for crimes of the 21st century&amp;quot; - or something along those lines.&lt;p&gt;A third party may hold the data &lt;i&gt;for you&lt;/i&gt;, but people think of those accounts as &amp;quot;theirs&amp;quot;, and they have &lt;i&gt;an expectation of privacy&lt;/i&gt; for them. If you keep something in a bank deposit box, does the bank own your deposit box and everything in it? Or is that &amp;quot;yours&amp;quot;, and you expect nobody but you to access that? Right now, the government much prefers to go to these companies and just ask &lt;i&gt;them&lt;/i&gt; for what you have in those accounts, because it&amp;#x27;s so much easier for them to do that, than ask &lt;i&gt;you&lt;/i&gt;. But I feel they are skirting an important right humans should be having here.&lt;p&gt;The &amp;quot;physical&amp;quot; protections seem to be so much better than the &amp;quot;digital&amp;quot; protections in the US law right now. It&amp;#x27;s time to change that, and make it clear that digital protections should be &lt;i&gt;at least&lt;/i&gt; as strong as the kind of protections we benefit from in the real world.&lt;p&gt;For example, it makes no sense for email to be considered under a much lower standard than real mail. They are both &lt;i&gt;exactly the same type of communication&lt;/i&gt;. It&amp;#x27;s just the medium that&amp;#x27;s different, but that shouldn&amp;#x27;t matter &lt;i&gt;at all&lt;/i&gt;.</text></item><item><author>iandanforth</author><text>&amp;quot;Under the government&amp;#x27;s legal theory, it can copy virtually all Internet communications and then search them from top to bottom for specific &amp;quot;identifiers&amp;quot;—all without a warrant or individualized suspicion—as long as it does so quickly using only automated processes.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Love it. I hadn&amp;#x27;t thought of it like that before. Just because your search is fast doesn&amp;#x27;t mean it&amp;#x27;s not a search.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mhurron</author><text>The full text is:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;A plain English interpretation would seem to make the NSA slurping illegal, but a legal interpretation could be completely different.</text></comment>
<story><title>EFF in Court to Argue NSA Collection from Internet Backbone Is Unconstitutional</title><url>https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-court-argue-nsa-data-collection-internet-backbone-unconstitutional</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>fluidcruft</author><text>&amp;gt; the 4th Amendment clearly talks about searches and &lt;i&gt;seizures&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Not to nitpick, but how exactly is making a copy of something a seizure?</text></item><item><author>higherpurpose</author><text>Also, just because there isn&amp;#x27;t a &amp;quot;human&amp;quot; that does the search manually, doesn&amp;#x27;t mean the human doesn&amp;#x27;t &lt;i&gt;benefit&lt;/i&gt; from the search (exactly as if he would if he did the search himself).&lt;p&gt;And another thing: the 4th Amendment clearly talks about searches and &lt;i&gt;seizures&lt;/i&gt;, so saying &amp;quot;we&amp;#x27;re only collecting it, but not searching it&amp;quot; shouldn&amp;#x27;t work as an excuse either.&lt;p&gt;EFF should also make a case for how searching into your online Facebook accounts, Google accounts, chat accounts and so on, is the &amp;quot;searching through your home without a warrant and fishing for crimes of the 21st century&amp;quot; - or something along those lines.&lt;p&gt;A third party may hold the data &lt;i&gt;for you&lt;/i&gt;, but people think of those accounts as &amp;quot;theirs&amp;quot;, and they have &lt;i&gt;an expectation of privacy&lt;/i&gt; for them. If you keep something in a bank deposit box, does the bank own your deposit box and everything in it? Or is that &amp;quot;yours&amp;quot;, and you expect nobody but you to access that? Right now, the government much prefers to go to these companies and just ask &lt;i&gt;them&lt;/i&gt; for what you have in those accounts, because it&amp;#x27;s so much easier for them to do that, than ask &lt;i&gt;you&lt;/i&gt;. But I feel they are skirting an important right humans should be having here.&lt;p&gt;The &amp;quot;physical&amp;quot; protections seem to be so much better than the &amp;quot;digital&amp;quot; protections in the US law right now. It&amp;#x27;s time to change that, and make it clear that digital protections should be &lt;i&gt;at least&lt;/i&gt; as strong as the kind of protections we benefit from in the real world.&lt;p&gt;For example, it makes no sense for email to be considered under a much lower standard than real mail. They are both &lt;i&gt;exactly the same type of communication&lt;/i&gt;. It&amp;#x27;s just the medium that&amp;#x27;s different, but that shouldn&amp;#x27;t matter &lt;i&gt;at all&lt;/i&gt;.</text></item><item><author>iandanforth</author><text>&amp;quot;Under the government&amp;#x27;s legal theory, it can copy virtually all Internet communications and then search them from top to bottom for specific &amp;quot;identifiers&amp;quot;—all without a warrant or individualized suspicion—as long as it does so quickly using only automated processes.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Love it. I hadn&amp;#x27;t thought of it like that before. Just because your search is fast doesn&amp;#x27;t mean it&amp;#x27;s not a search.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Laremere</author><text>There is a level of interpretation required here.  The 4th amendment wasn&amp;#x27;t written in an age where it was conceivable that information could be copied for free or intercepted without taking something from a carrier.  What&amp;#x27;s important is the intent of the protections.  NSA has decided to interpret these wordings in a way which lets them intercept and copy communications, and it&amp;#x27;s the job of the courts to interpret the constitution and tell them that they aren&amp;#x27;t allowed to do that.</text></comment>