Yahoo Caught Working With Secret Govt Court in Plot to Overthrow 4th Amendment
Jack Burns
TheFreeThoughtProject.com
December 23, 2016
Americans interested in their privacy rights and rights to unreasonable searches and seizures, afforded to them under the U.S. Constitution’s 4th Amendment, may want to invest heavily in effective data encryption software, because if the government has its way, those rights, especially as it pertains to data, will be infringed upon. And Yahoo is facilitating it.
To simplify the matter for understanding, Robert Litt, general counsel of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), told Reuters, “Computerized scanning of communications in the same way that your email service provider scans looking for viruses – that should not be considered a search requiring a warrant for Fourth Amendment purposes.”
In other words, the feds want to search through everyone’s email and they admittedly don’t believe their request to do so is unreasonable, nor do they believe it is an infringement upon your 4th Amendment rights because a computer is doing it, not a live body.
They’re using a secret government court to get the necessary permission to do so, called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), but don’t let the name fool you. The court also has the power to order a deep scan of Americans’ emails as well, all in a supposed attempt to find and thwart terrorist attacks.
As The New York Times reported in October, “A system intended to scan emails for child pornography and spam helped Yahoo satisfy a secret court order (FISC) requiring it to search for messages containing a computer “signature” tied to the communications of a state-sponsored terrorist organization…Two government officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the Justice Department obtained an individualized order from a judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court last year…To comply, Yahoo customized an existing scanning system for all incoming email traffic, which also looks for malware…With some modifications, the system stored and made available to the Federal Bureau of Investigation a copy of any messages it found that contained the digital signature.”
The Rest…HERE
