ACLU & Google Oppose Further Govt Hacking

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/feb/18/google-warns-government-hacking-committee-hearing

http://therightscoop.com/silicon-valley-snubs-obama-four-top-tech-ceos-refuse-private-lunch-with-prez-he-blames-profits/

http://www.newsweek.com/aclu-plan-expand-fbi-search-powers-may-compromise-cybersecurity-307797

In a strongly worded submission to the Washington committee that is considering the proposed changes, Google says that increasing the FBI’s powers set out in search warrants would raise “monumental and highly complex constitutional, legal and geopolitical concerns that should be left to Congress to decide”.

The search giant warns that under updated proposals, FBI agents would be able to carry out covert raids on servers no matter where they were situated, giving the US government unfettered global access to vast amounts of private information.

In particular, Google sounds the alarm over the FBI’s desire to “remotely” search computers that have concealed their location – either through encryption or by obscuring their IP addresses using anonymity services such as Tor. Those government searches, Google says, “may take place anywhere in the world. This concern is not theoretical. ... [T]he nature of today’s technology is such that warrants issued under the proposed amendment will in many cases end up authorizing the government to conduct searches outside the United States.”

The ACLU’s principal technologist, Christopher Soghoian, said: “The government is seeking a troubling expansion of its power to surreptitiously hack into computers, including using malware. Although this proposal is cloaked in the garb of a minor procedural update, in reality it would be a major and substantive change that would be better addressed by Congress.”

The ACLU is also concerned about the types of warrants that would enable digital searches, such as scraping large amounts of data from computers or remotely turning on webcams. “Those are the kinds of searches that should be regulated like wiretaps,” Wessler says.

Under the federal wiretapping statute, for instance, law enforcement can only obtain a warrant for 30 days, can only listen to calls pertinent to the investigation and must delete irrelevant information that is captured.“Those are the kinds of robust privacy protections that these digital searches desperately require,” Wessler says. “And nothing in this proposal offers that kind of oversight.”

In practice, the ACLU says, the proposal risks violating the Constitution. As a matter of constitutional interpretation, Wessler says, federal criminal rules require the government to notify someone if they’ve been searched. While it’s difficult to do so when you don’t know where a computer is located or the identity of its owner, the proposal only requires that a reasonable effort be made to notify someone that the bureau has conducted a search.