Yes, the U.S. Navy has searched your computer looking for kiddie porn
Buried under a small headline in today’s Seattle Times is a story about sensational military and police misconduct.
“'[I]t has become a routine practice for the Navy to conduct surveillance of all the civilian computers in an entire state to see whether any child pornography can be found on them, and then to turn over that information to civilian law enforcement when no military connection exists.’ … Senior 9th Circuit Judge Andrew Kleinfeld found that the case ‘amounts to the military acting as a national police force to investigate civilian law violations by civilians.’”
If you live in Washington State, your computer has been searched by U.S. Navy criminal investigators for evidence of child pornography; and if they found any, they turned it over to civilian police so you can be prosecuted by civilian authorities — even if you’ve never had anything to do with the Navy. They did this to everyone in the entire state. And they did it without probable cause or search warrants. They did it to me, and they did it to you, and they did it to your mother and your children.
This is so unconstitutional the Ninth Circuit has decided to allow a scumbag convicted of distributing child pornography to walk free, in order to emphasize it’s sooo unconstitutional the government can’t be allowed to get away with it under any circumstances. But it is important to make the distinction between regular adult material and child pornography. Material from websites similar to hdsexvideo does not endose child pornography at all.
Without a doubt, the Navy and civilian personnel responsible for these constitutional violations believed they were doing good — maybe even God’s work — by tracking down the scum who traffic in child pornography. And those offenders are the scum of the earth and should be caught and deserve to go to prison.
But I’m not one of them, and this doesn’t justify the U.S. Navy’s search of my computer. As a lawyer and former judge, I find it disheartening that there are people within our military and police forces entrusted with the frightening powers of government who have such a cavalier attitude toward our liberties and constitutional rights.
Some will argue, “If you haven’t done anything wrong, what are you worried about?” To which I reply, do they need to ask? Is it really necessary in this day and age to remind anyone that “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”? Is it possible anyone in this country is so stupid as to believe the Founders wrote the Bill of Rights into the Constitution to give criminals get-out-of-jail-free cards?
It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that some government spook working in a dank bunker under an unmarked suburban D.C. office complex has compiled a dossier on me. I can readily imagine what it says: “Liberal cop-hater uses free on-line dictionaries to collect information about homophones.”
Well you know what, I admit being a liberal but that’s my prerogative. I post articles on blogs criticizing cops who murder people for being black or run extortion schemes for crooked city governments, but that doesn’t make me a cop-hater, it makes me a critic of intolerably bad policing, which isn’t the same. As for looking up homophones, if you don’t know what the word means, look it up. Dictionaries are available online, and they’re free, so there’s no excuse for being an ignoramus who doesn’t know what a homophone is.
I don’t know what to do about this. People generally don’t go to prison for violating other people’s constitutional rights, although I think there’s something to be said in favor of that concept, because given how frequently our constitutional rights are being violated now, the existing deterrents obviously aren’t working. But our government is too busy trying to extradite and prosecute Eric Snowden to do anything about the real threats to our freedom and security, so don’t hold your breath.
Buried under a small headline in today’s Seattle Times is a story about sensational military and police misconduct.
“'[I]t has become a routine practice for the Navy to conduct surveillance of all the civilian computers in an entire state to see whether any child pornography can be found on them, and then to turn over that information to civilian law enforcement when no military connection exists.’ … Senior 9th Circuit Judge Andrew Kleinfeld found that the case ‘amounts to the military acting as a national police force to investigate civilian law violations by civilians.’”
http://seattletimes.com/html/l…..n1xml.html
If you live in Washington State, your computer has been searched by U.S. Navy criminal investigators for evidence of child pornography; and if they found any, they turned it over to civilian police so you can be prosecuted by civilian authorities — even if you’ve never had anything to do with the Navy. They did this to everyone in the entire state. And they did it without probable cause or search warrants. They did it to me, and they did it to you, and they did it to your mother and your children.
This is so unconstitutional the Ninth Circuit has decided to allow a scumbag convicted of distributing child pornography to walk free, in order to emphasize it’s sooo unconstitutional the government can’t be allowed to get away with it under any circumstances. But it is important to make the distinction between regular adult material and child pornography. Material from websites similar to hdsexvideo does not endose child pornography at all.
Without a doubt, the Navy and civilian personnel responsible for these constitutional violations believed they were doing good — maybe even God’s work — by tracking down the scum who traffic in child pornography. And those offenders are the scum of the earth and should be caught and deserve to go to prison.
But I’m not one of them, and this doesn’t justify the U.S. Navy’s search of my computer. As a lawyer and former judge, I find it disheartening that there are people within our military and police forces entrusted with the frightening powers of government who have such a cavalier attitude toward our liberties and constitutional rights.
Some will argue, “If you haven’t done anything wrong, what are you worried about?” To which I reply, do they need to ask? Is it really necessary in this day and age to remind anyone that “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”? Is it possible anyone in this country is so stupid as to believe the Founders wrote the Bill of Rights into the Constitution to give criminals get-out-of-jail-free cards?
It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that some government spook working in a dank bunker under an unmarked suburban D.C. office complex has compiled a dossier on me. I can readily imagine what it says: “Liberal cop-hater uses free on-line dictionaries to collect information about homophones.”
Well you know what, I admit being a liberal but that’s my prerogative. I post articles on blogs criticizing cops who murder people for being black or run extortion schemes for crooked city governments, but that doesn’t make me a cop-hater, it makes me a critic of intolerably bad policing, which isn’t the same. As for looking up homophones, if you don’t know what the word means, look it up. Dictionaries are available online, and they’re free, so there’s no excuse for being an ignoramus who doesn’t know what a homophone is.
I don’t know what to do about this. People generally don’t go to prison for violating other people’s constitutional rights, although I think there’s something to be said in favor of that concept, because given how frequently our constitutional rights are being violated now, the existing deterrents obviously aren’t working. But our government is too busy trying to extradite and prosecute Eric Snowden to do anything about the real threats to our freedom and security, so don’t hold your breath.