Simon_Jester wrote:Excuse me.
TheHammer, let me ask you a simple, blunt question.
Is there ANY limit on what the FBI can ask for in terms of escalation? Suppose all confidential information in America were stored on a single computer; could the FBI demand that this computer be turned over for the FBI to peruse all of it, at their leisure, under penalty of law, when the warrant-based mandate to do so comes solely from a search for one person's information? Could this be done without any unusual safeguards to hold the FBI responsible for the confidentiality of the information?
You're sliding down that slippery slope to Tinfoilhat-ville Simon... Your hypothetical is so far out of bounds for reality that I really can't even think of a way to respond to it. So I'm going to circle back to this particular real life example as to why this notion of "no limits" isn't grounded in reality...
Is there an analogous 'no limits' condition in physical space? Can the FBI search adjacent properties not owned by the person named in the warrant, on the grounds that he might have hidden things there? Can they search a whole apartment building because they can't be bothered to find the accused's address? Can they search a whole city, the property of 400000 people, for the personal effects of one man?
What is the limit to a search warrant?
I don't know what your technical background is, but I'll try to adapt your analogy to explain. The FBI is not asking for the right to search 400,000 people's property. The FBI has asked for, and has been granted the right to search one man's property. They know where he lives. However this man happens to live in an extremely secure "appartment building" with 400,000 other people. This apartment building has just one master key to get in to the building. The FBI can not get in to this building without that key, and the building management has refused all requests for cooperation. Thus they have asked a judge to order that key be given to them, with the explicit understanding that once inside the building they are only to search the appartment they are entitled to search. They will be on the lookout for anyone going to and from the one apartment they are watching, however the remaining 399,999 people will be allowed to come and go as they please without search or interruption.
I want to emphasize this one more time:
“We can assure the court that the way that this would operate, while the metadata stream would be captured by a device, the device does not download, does not store, no one looks at it,” Trump said. “It filters everything, and at the back end of the filter, we get what we’re required to get under the order.”
The word "capture" is a bit of a misnomer here. The data actually
passes through the device. Essentially, in our hypothetical apartment building scenario, the FBI has replaced Lavabits as the "doorman". While this doorman is on the lookout for and will intercept its target, for everyone else it merely opens the door and nothing else.
“So there’s no agents looking through the 400,000 other bits of information, customers, whatever,” Trump added. “No one looks at that, no one stores it, no one has access to it.”
“All right,” said Judge Hilton. “Well, I think that’s reasonable.”
The limit of the search warrant is that they can only view the information on the target. Without that assurance, I highly doubt the judge would have approved their request.
I'm not going to bother with any sort of drawn out reply to your moronic statement.