Judgeless warrants?

Just heard on a Fox News Break that Bush wants to push for warrants that require no judge to sign off on.:fire:

I really hope I heard wrong or that the talking head misquoted some how.:cuss: :cuss:

Has anyone else heard this?

Yep.

A fine way to combat crime and terrorism... elsewhere, by other folks.

Dug around at http://www.foxnews.com and was unable to find anything on this. They did have his recent Homeland Security speech exerpts ( http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,96976,00.html ) but there was no mention of anything like this.

Judgeless warrants? O.o

Isn't that a general warrant?

The report I heard was judgeless supeanas (sp?). Not quite the same thing, and not as bad, but still kind of scary (slippery slope thing).

I heard about a so called "sealed warrant", IIRC from the raid that shut down Steve Jackson games. I don't recall all the details, but the FBI was running amok confiscating copies of the paper role playing game "cyberpunk", under the impression that it was a hacking manual.

The thing I heard was that when they raided the office, Jackson demanded to see the warrant, and he was shown it's cover, stating that the contents had been "sealed by the court".

For all he knew, the warrant contained crayon scribbling, rather than stating where was to be searched, and what was to be seized, and what crime was suspected.

I never heard any more about this, so I can't swear to the truth of it.

Grim thing, if true.

I heard about a so called "sealed warrant", IIRC from the raid that shut down Steve Jackson games. I don't recall all the details, but the FBI was running amok confiscating copies of the paper role playing game "cyberpunk", under the impression that it was a hacking manual.
It was actually the Secret Service.
http://www.sjgames.com/SS/
On March 1 1990, the offices of Steve Jackson Games, in Austin, Texas, were raided by the U.S. Secret Service as part of a nationwide investigation of data piracy. The initial news stories simply reported that the Secret Service had raided a suspected ring of hackers. Gradually, the true story emerged.
More than three years later, a federal court awarded damages and attorneys' fees to the game company, ruling that the raid had been careless, illegal, and completely unjustified. Electronic civil-liberties advocates hailed the case as a landmark. It was the first step toward establishing that online speech IS speech, and entitled to Constitutional protection . . . and, specifically, that law-enforcement agents can't seize and hold a BBS with impunity.
I especially liked this part:
In the course of that visit, it became clear that the investigating agents considered GURPS Cyberpunk to be "a handbook for computer crime." They seemed to make no distinction between a discussion of futuristic credit fraud, using equipment that doesn't exist(my emphasis), and modern real-life credit card abuse. A repeated comment by the agents was "This is real."
Note that they had confiscated a GAME MANUAL, and believed(or pretended to believe, they woudn't lie to cover a mistake, move along, serf) that it was some sort of real computer crime book. You have to be a kollidge gradooate to join the SS, this implies at least basic literacy. One would think that they would have bothered to read it. It also reminds me of all of those urban legends about kids who go nuts and think that the game is real, except that this time it's Federal LEOs. Don't worry, Citizen, we're here to help.

YOW!

No frigging way!

That IS the essence of a police state.


As I understand it subpoenas don't need a judicial signature in any event.

It carries the weight of the court in that it is issued by an officer of the court, e.g., an attorney associated with the case for which the subpoena is issued, or an investigatory agency of the government.

The subpoenas that I received while a newspaper reporter were not signed by a judge as far as I can remember.

IIRC I was subpoenaed three times, and all three times the newspaper's attorneys quashed them.

heh.

I've got a copy of GURPS Cyberpunk (the book in question) at home. Of course, it isn't EXACTLY the book SJG was working when the SS knocked but something based on people's memories. It's a nice book and captures the style well IMO. In need of a new edition though.

It's a good thing GURPS Biotech only came along later. I'd have liked to looked on during a battle over THAT.

As an interesting side note, the Electronic Frontier Foundation was set up as a result of this case.

Cheers,
ErikM :evil: