Unfortunately the government was wise to expand their power in a child porn case. It's very, very difficult to motivate to do anything in defense of such people. If only they'd gone after someone at least somewhat sympathetic!
> Unfortunately the government was wise to expand their power in a child porn case.
The state is following the age-old tactic for expanding their power and authority: go after people others won't speak up for in fear of being labeled one of them. It's exactly what the Martin Niemöller quote is about.
While I do not condone the behavior of these people or otherwise support their crime, kudos to EFF for being willing to stand up to the state on this. As we have learned, any liberty sacrificed to "law enforcement" agencies or sociopolitical elites will almost never be reverted. You'd think we would have learned that with the Patriot Act and "terrorism".
Weak groups need to step on the heads of even weaker groups to gain influence. If anti-FBI-overreach activists appear to be aligned with pedophiles, that'll weaken the cause of the activists. Instead they should appear align themselves with some group that's more respected than themselves, like believers in the constitution. That's perhaps the reason pro-transsexual activists don't widely support Chelsea Manning or why bullied schoolkids aren't helped by the majority of the students who are all struggling to maintain their own image.
Not that it's a very nice thing to do, it's just self-interest.
This is exactly what they were trying to do in the San Bernadino case with the iPhone. They were trying to set a precedent using an 'indefensible' case. He was a terrorist! We should stop terrorism! It was never about that specific iPhone. Same thing here. If they get to use this technology here what's to stop them doing it in other cases?
It's a shame defence attorneys get paid such low wages. They are the front line defence against this stuff and the state always has a strong advantage over them in every trial.
And, in fact, it's very difficult to motivate anyone to do anything in defense of anyone merely accused of viewing child porn who has not yet come to trial.
I'm not sure what you are trying to say. One of the reasons why the Constitution exists is that, thanks to its very existence, some things become unconstitutional.
If we were to conclude that there isn't a constitutional way to achieve legalised mass surveillance, then we would have to conclude that that mass surveillance is unconstitutional. I would be quite happy with that conclusion, if I may add.
What if the "target site" was Gmail? Would you still call it targeted surveillance? What's the limit under which we consider surveillance to be targeted? 100,000 users? One million? 10 millions?
Exactly. As the article explains, "the FBI received a tip from a foreign law enforcement agency that a Tor Hidden Service site called “Playpen” was hosting child pornography".
What if the FBI received a tip that Gmail users are hosting child pornography? Would they be allowed to infect Gmail users' computers?
The entire purpose of playpen was child pornography. The FBI knew that, I assume they could just go on the site and check. The tip was just telling them how to find the location of the site so they could do something about it.
If the entire purpose of gmail was to facilitate illegal sharing of cp, then yes.
(I gather that they also had discussion forums of some sort, but that the FBI only used the malware against people who visited the specific pages for child porn. So yes, it was targeted.)
> The entire purpose of playpen was child pornography.
I understand your point and I accept your observation that "mass surveillance" may not be the right definition of what happened in the Playpen case.
However, I invite you to consider the following: once (and if) there is a legal precedent where law enforcement agencies are allowed to hack the users of a given website, that legal precedent will be relevant in future cases, related to other websites that are not Playpen. Today it's Playpen, tomorrow it might be a community of activists. By then, I think you will agree with me, it will be much easier to consider that proper mass surveillance. And if you were one of those activists mentioned in my example above, good luck building your defence on the fact that "this provision can't be applied to me, because it was intended for child pornography websites".
This type of process has already happened in recent history, e.g. with "security" laws that were passed after 9/11. Those laws, in several ways, limit everyone's liberties, not just those of terrorists[1][2].
Of course those provisions seemed like a damn good idea soon after 9/11. Now, not so much. Erosion of freedom, just like natural erosion, has a way of progressing very slowly but steadily.
Oh hey, I think you arent aware of the part where the judge has thrown out all the evidence collected by the fbi in this child porn operation because of the constitution and evidence collecting standards of the judiciary
From the article: "Some courts have upheld the FBI’s actions in dangerous decisions that, if ultimately upheld, threaten to undermine individuals’ constitutional privacy protections in personal computers"
