{"id":723,"date":"2016-04-04T09:38:51","date_gmt":"2016-04-04T16:38:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kagan.mactane.org\/blog\/?p=723"},"modified":"2017-01-17T19:33:41","modified_gmt":"2017-01-18T03:33:41","slug":"things-that-are-immune-to-warrants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kagan.mactane.org\/blog\/2016\/04\/04\/things-that-are-immune-to-warrants\/","title":{"rendered":"Things That Are Immune to Warrants"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The US government, in the persons of the FBI and Department of Justice, has been claiming that new levels of iPhone encryption turn those phones into <a href=\"https:\/\/www.technologyreview.com\/s\/601044\/the-feds-are-wrong-to-warn-of-warrant-proof-phones\/\">&#8220;warrant-proof&#8221; zones<\/a>, and that shouldn&#8217;t be allowed. But in that case, we have to make sure <em>nothing else is a warrant-proof zone,<\/em> either. Which means all of these&nbsp;things:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The contents of a piece of paper that you ran through a shredder. The entire shredder industry is built around just one thing: putting printed documents forever beyond the reach of any&nbsp;warrant.<\/li>\n<li>The things you said to your friend in a room with a Nest or Echo device a couple of nights ago. All of these things need to record everything said near them for up to 6 months, in case the government needs to subpoena that information.<\/li>\n<li>The things you said to your friend in a room that <em>doesn&#8217;t<\/em> have any such device. We&#8217;ll need to install government listening devices in <strong>all<\/strong> rooms. Yes, including the bathroom&nbsp;&mdash; if the terrorists know bathrooms are exempt from warrant searches, they&#8217;ll just do all their planning&nbsp;there.<\/li>\n<li>The things you drew or wrote on a piece of paper in that room with the listening device. It can <em>listen<\/em>, but it can&#8217;t <em>watch<\/em>. So if you just write out your dastardly plans, then burn the paper afterward, the government can never get that information, even with a lawful&nbsp;warrant.<\/li>\n<li>Say, speaking of &#8220;burning the paper afterward&#8221;&#8230; hmmm, shredders aren&#8217;t the only thing that can destroy paper. Can we outlaw lighters? Barbecue&nbsp;grills?<\/li>\n<li><span id=\"back1\">Where<\/span> you drove in a car that doesn&#8217;t have OnStar or a LoJack device. By current intelligence community standards &#8220;where you drove&#8221; is practically metadata anyway (compared to things like what you did there or why you went there), so it shouldn&#8217;t even require a warrant to get to!<a href=\"#note1\">[1]<\/a> But if there&#8217;s no OnStar, LoJack, or GPS-transmitting device on your car, then that information is forever beyond law enforcement&#8217;s grasp. (Naturally, this will need to include rental cars, car-share services, and taxis, as well as rental trucks like U-Hauls and so&nbsp;on.)<\/li>\n<li>What you <em>said<\/em> in the car. When we were installing bugs in every room of every building, we forgot to include all the&nbsp;vehicles&#8230;<\/li>\n<li>Oh, Gods, pictures <em>again?!<\/em> Better make sure those in-car monitoring devices have video, of course. If the terrorists realize they can make secret plans by sitting in a car and making sketches, all our lives could be at&nbsp;risk!<\/li>\n<li>You know, back during the Cold War, spies knew one of the best ways to avoid monitoring was to meet on a bench in a park, out in the open, away from anyone who might listen in. If you selected a bench more-or-less at random, nobody would know to have placed a bug on it in advance. But now that we want there to be no place and nothing that&#8217;s &#8220;warrant proof&#8221;, the only solution is to plant a tiny listening device on <strong>every park bench, everywhere.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>You know what is immune to warrants? <strong>Most of reality.<\/strong> And law enforcement has gotten along just fine with that. The desire of law enforcement to be able to spy on absolutely everything is understandable&nbsp;&mdash; but it&#8217;s something we should push back against, with all our might as citizens of a free&nbsp;society.<\/p>\n<p>Because what the FBI and DOJ are asking for is an Orwellian police&nbsp;state.<\/p>\n<p>When you hear &#8220;oh noes, immune to warrants!&#8221; look at what the endgame is. And fight&nbsp;back.<\/p>\n<div class=\"divider\"><\/div>\n<p><span id=\"note1\">[1]<\/span> Note: I&#8217;m not saying I <em>agree<\/em> with this argument, just that it&#8217;s one I could easily see pro-surveillance types making. With a straight face. <a href=\"#back1\">&uarr;&uarr;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The US government, in the persons of the FBI and Department of Justice, has been claiming that new levels of iPhone encryption turn those phones into &#8220;warrant-proof&#8221; zones, and that shouldn&#8217;t be allowed. But in that case, we have to make sure nothing else is a warrant-proof zone, either. Which means all of these&nbsp;things: The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[94,63,168,147,20,148],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kagan.mactane.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/723"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kagan.mactane.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kagan.mactane.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kagan.mactane.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kagan.mactane.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=723"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/kagan.mactane.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/723\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":758,"href":"https:\/\/kagan.mactane.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/723\/revisions\/758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kagan.mactane.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kagan.mactane.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kagan.mactane.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}