Tor security advisory: Old Tor Browser Bundles vulnerable

According the Wikipedia, a Federal investigation into Texas based Landslide Productions yielded a user database with 300,00 names of which 35,000 were U.S residents. Of the 35,000, a portion were selected to receive invitations to purchase illegal material by mail. The results of this subsequent sting yielded 144 search warrants and 100 arrests. Note that the DOJ did not seek warrants based on the mere presence of names in the subscriber database, but only after the subsequent sting operated by ICAC and USPIS.

It would seem that an IP and MAC address are slight evidence when compared with the credit card and business records found in the Landslide investigations.

I am a US lawyer (at least by education and historical avocation). First, forget the FBI if the server was outside the US. The NSA can (and does) intercept all international traffic. That's its legitimate job. Outside the US, you don't have any US constitutional protections; that's what international borders are about. We have a constitution in our country (the US), but outside the US different countries are organized under different rules. And, international communications are essentially subject to no rules.

It gets worse. Since the NSA can gather whatever it wants outside the US (German Enigma and Japanse JN-25 codes during WWII, Russian codes for traffic between the US and Moscow under project Venona, Russian codes generally under Project TICOM, etc.), it can do whatever it wants with the information, including giving it to the FBI. If they give information lawfully collected in an international communication to the FBI, the FBI can use it against you. Why would they need a warrant?

Earlier in this thread somebody mentioned WiFi. Are you nuts? Anything you put out using WiFi or other frequencies of the electomagnetic spectrum - including use of your cell phone and its geolocation - is fair game. While the FBI or NSA might go to the FISA court (you'll never know) for a warrant just to be sure, I can make a very strong argument that they don't have to, and shouldn't be required to.

The long-standing principle is that "the airwaves belong to the people" (codified in the Communications Act of 1934). And, you may remember a famous speech in US history about our government being "of the people, by the people, and for the people."

Thus, the government "of the people" should be able to listen to anything on the airwaves they own. [I oppose the legislation that prohibits ordinary citizens from listening to cell phone conversations on scanners. Sounds strange, huh?] If "the people" - which includes the government - cannot listen to WiFi (BTW: Every version of Fedora ships with an application that hacks it.) or the government is required to get a warrant (that is, conditional permission) to listen to your cell phone conversations, it is a very short step to general prohibitions on citizens listening to the BBC or programs the government determines might include information that is "dangerous" or potentially valuable to terrorists.

This is very different from breaking into the house of a suspect to install a surveillance device. That does require a warrant because the Fourth Amendment protects "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures" without a warrant. An off-shore server is not the "house, papers or effects" of a US citizen or a citizen then-subject to US law. (Try moving to Russia and setting up a server hosting comments critical of Vladimir Putin. See how far your protest for a US warrant gets you.)

Gnovalis