WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A last-ditch effort in the Senate to block or delay rule changes that would expand the U.S. government's hacking powers failed Wednesday, despite concerns the changes would jeopardize the privacy rights of innocent Americans and risk possible abuse by the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump.

Democratic Senator Ron Wyden attempted three times to delay the changes, which will take effect on Thursday and allow U.S. judges will be able to issue search warrants that give the FBI the authority to remotely access computers in any jurisdiction, potentially even overseas. His efforts were blocked by Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the Senate's second-ranking Republican.

complete article linked below

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I've read and reread this report several times, and here's where I could use some legitimate input from those more up to speed on the big picture of surveillance.

How is this different from the existing questions of privacy and protection from intrusive surveillance already in play by organizations ranging from the NSA to the big brother cookies every ad website relies upon and even to Amazon's Alexa or Google's new Home AI module?
 
Please, spare me the insults and partisan bullshit. I've got no stomach for it today.

It seems to me we crossed this line long ago, maybe even as far back as post 9/11 with the Patriot Act. What am I missing here?  


-- Modified on 11/30/2016 3:52:51 PM

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The bogeyman cometh..

the rumor that the mere use of a VPN is all that is now needed to justify a search by the FBI. In other words if you are using a VPN to hide your identity then that would be enough justification to issue a search warrant for the FBI to hack into your communications. Sounds ominous but I suspect it's a bit more complicated. The brunt of the change is to supposedly fix a jurisdictional issue regarding the issuance of search warrants. Past searches have been thrown out because the actual search and seizure did not take place in the geographic jurisdiction of the judge issuing the warrant. With a person's cloud physical location and communications traffic routing paths being rather nebulous things, the existing laws regarding the specificity requirements of search warrants appear to be outdated. I'm sure as typical for new laws, unintended consequences (or intended but purposefully hazy) are in play here.

Just like the rules governing civil forfeiture of property have gotten way out of control, so to potentially goes the rest of the 4th Amendment I fear.

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i like Orangeatuan better..

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