>> ...but if this article is a fair summary of the case...
Thanks for that. A good reminder that we need to think that every time we read anything like this. Just asking a simple question, "Did they get this right?" and even taking a minute to read through to the actual primary source.
"For example, hacking is much more prevalent now than it was even nine years ago, and
the rise of computer hacking viathe Internet has changed the public's reasonable expectations of
privacy. Cf Lee Raine, How Americans balance privacy concerns with sharing personal
information: 5 key findings, PewResearchCenter (January 14, 2016),
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/01/14/key-findings...
(reporting that members of a focus group "worried about hackers," though "some accept that
[privacy tradeoffs are] a part of modern life"). Now, it seems unreasonable to think that a
computer connected to the Web is immune from invasion. Indeed, the opposite holds true: in
today's digital world, it appears to be a virtual certainty that computers accessing the Internet can
- and eventually will - be hacked."
"Thus, hacking resembles the broken blinds in Carter. 525 U.S. at 85. Just as Justice
Breyer wrote in concurrence that a police officer who peers through broken blinds does not
violate anyone's Fourth Amendment rights, jd. at 103 (Breyer, J., concurring), FBI agents who
exploit a vulnerability in an online network do not violate the Fourth Amendment. Just as the
area into which the officer in Carter peered - an apartment - usually is afforded Fourth Amendment protection, a computer afforded Fourth Amendment protection in other
circumstances is not protected from Government actors who take advantage of an easily broken
system to peer into a user's computer. People who traverse the Internet ordinarily understand the
risk associated with doing so. Thus, the deployment of the NIT to capture identifying
information found on Defendant's computer does not represent a search under the Fourth
Amendment, and no warrant was needed."
The judge conveniently disregards the difference between passive observation and active intrusion. Breaking into someone's computer is no different than if the officer had broken the blinds themself, which clearly would not meet the test described by Justice Breyer.
Thanks for that. A good reminder that we need to think that every time we read anything like this. Just asking a simple question, "Did they get this right?" and even taking a minute to read through to the actual primary source.