Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!emory!rsiatl!jgd
From: jgd@Dixie.Com (John G. DeArmond)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: No-knock searches (Was Re: "Bad" backups)
Message-ID: <5201@rsiatl.Dixie.Com>
Date: 2 Dec 90 23:51:51 GMT
Organization: Rapid Deployment Systems (making go-fast things and things that-go fast)
Lines: 46

mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin) writes:


>You have exhibited the same conflation of two issues here that is 
>present in the writings by prosecutors on this subject. No one disputes
>that it is *possible* to boobytrap one's data. But that's not the issue.

>The issue is whether law-enforcement officers are actually *likely*
>to encounter such boobytraps--a likelihood that would necessitate a
>no-knock search.

The issue is even more basic than that.  The issue is "Should cops ever
need or be allowed to use violent entry techniques when non-violent 
crimes are alleged?"  I say NO.

To use the Operation Sundevil as an example:  There was no reason, other
than the residual desire to be a cowboy marshal, why immediate physical
possesion of the computer equipment was nessary.  Conventional
police techniques such as wire taps (data taps?), undercover ops and
surveillance techniques, techniques that have worked for years for
much more serious crimes, would have done just fine.  They could have
tapped the phone lines of the BBS systems and recorded all sessions.
They could have planted agents as "memebers" of the group and they
could have observed who did what when.  Instead they took their brains
out, replaced them with their dicks and demonstrated to the world how
many hormones they could summon.  After all, it takes BIG MEN to crash
the door of a hacker and grab his computer.

The proper technique would have been to have built a case using the 
techniques listed above and then ordered that the evidence be turned
over to the grand jury.  If the defendents destroyed evidence,
then they could be pursued for tampering, fraud and perjury - crimes
that would likely have gotten them more time than hacking.

(Don't interpret this as a defense of computer cracking.  I hope they
screw the guilty parties to the wall.  I am protesting the methods of
convenience and machismo being used today by our government, methods 
that are unconstitutional and just plain wrong.)

John

-- 
John De Armond, WD4OQC        | "Purveyors of speed to the Trade"  (tm)
Rapid Deployment System, Inc. |  Home of the Nidgets (tm)
Marietta, Ga                  | 
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