Terrorisim & Warrents

[Larrison]

Originally Posted by esskreemr

Let's say that three guys decide that they can make alot of money by gathering credit card numbers from a local business.

They dress up in the stereotypical FBI gear complete with real looking badges and id. They go out of state to a business they know fulfills internet orders from a storefront and warehouse. The business only has 1 employee in the main office. The men enter and inform Molly, the store manager, that they are confiscating financial transactions under the Patriot Act's sneak and peek regs. Subsequentally, they are implementing a gag order and she cannot notify anyone, including her customers or other law enforcement agents that the information has been gathered. She will recieve the notification once the proper 'delayed' warrant has been issued, which could be a period of several months due to an ongoing investigation.

Would she be breaking the law by not informing her customers and/or law enforcement agents? Should she be held responsible for the damages by the fake cops?

Would this make a good movie plot if it involved terrorists.

Well,
1) the "agents" should have a signed warrant, signed by someone. Without it, if she hands over information she or her employer may be liable. (The employer if she was not trained or informed on how to handle such requests.)

2) If they claim they do not have a warrant, but it is delayed, they must provide a verifiable and unimpeachable (meaning high quality) contact to which she can verify this action by the agents is legitimate. If my memory serves, it means you'd have to be able to call the Director of the FBI (or his deputy) or the US Attorney General (or his deputy) and talk to them personally.

3) the Gag order does not include her (or her company's) attorney or financial advisor. She (or they) have the right to legal counsel, even with a gag order (The gag order only restricts releasing the informtion publically, and does not restrict it within the bounds of attorney-client relationships).

So.. would she be breaking the law? Yeah, she could be liable for falling for the scam, or her company could be.

Having said that, the people perpetrating the scam would be doing an interstate felony which now brings them under federal prosecution, and the FBI does not like folks dressing up like themselves and doing crimes.

It doesn't matter what the specific law is... "social engineering" is the basis of many scams and crimes. For example, there's a "jury duty" scam going on around here now. Folks call up numbers and claim they are checking on why you had not gotten (or had gotten) a notice for jury duty. They then ask for verifying personal information, which leads to asking for social security numbers, drivers license numbers, and eventually bank or credit account numbers... Folks feel since they are responding to someone claiming to be in a position of authority they can give them the information since they sound offical. But in the end it's a scam to get credit card and identity theft information.

[Inquartata]

Originally Posted by epeemike81

But if they found the computer, surely they could just hit Ctrl-Alt-Del and disarm the bomb, right?

-m

Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "Blue Screen of Death".

[Amadeus]

Originally Posted by Slim

What if it wasnt a prank and people were killed?.

Then it would be the fault of the FBI for not obtaining a warrent.

Originally Posted by Slim

Ah, so YOU are more qualified than both the librarian and the law enforcement official to evalute the situation and the potential clues someone may have left behind.

the law enforcement officials utterly failed in determining whether or not they needed a warrent (the correct answer being "yes"), and any other issue is really secondary.


Have you ever heard anything about communism? The red scare? Read a book about the 1950s! See what happens when a nation is scared into abandoning its rights and values out of fear.

[epeemike81]

Originally Posted by Amadeus

Then it would be the fault of the FBI for not obtaining a warrent.

this is a little excessive...

I think even a filthy liberal () like me would say it's the fault of the criminals who planted the bomb, not the law enforcement officers who (despite their best and tireless efforts) failed to find the bomb.

but, as others have already pointed out, there are already exemptions for emergency situations, and if there was a reasonable expectation that this computer would lead to disarming a bomb, they would have ignored the protestations and taken it warrantless and then defended their conduct in court later.

this kills both Slim's argument that they should blindly cooperate and your argument that law enforcement would be responsible due to the delay of not obtaining a warrant initially.

clearly, this is a case where they just couldn't be bothered to get a warrant.

the law enforcement officials utterly failed in determining whether or not they needed a warrent (the correct answer being "yes"), and any other issue is really secondary.


Have you ever heard anything about communism? The red scare? Read a book about the 1950s! See what happens when a nation is scared into abandoning its rights and values out of fear.

All of this I agree with.

-m

[Krazyhades]

I believe that the library was in the right to not permit the police access without a warrant. The police should have gotten one, although I don't know anything about the amount of time it takes to get one and how that could affect a time-sensative matter. But I have discussed this a lot, because I live in Newton, and practically live at that library in my free time.

[Amadeus]

Originally Posted by epeemike81

I think even a filthy liberal () like me would say it's the fault of the criminals who planted the bomb, not the law enforcement officers who (despite their best and tireless efforts) failed to find the bomb.

yes, of course. i meant that it would be more appropriate to say "the bomb was not stopped because the fbi agents did not obtain a warrent" rather than "the bomb was not stopped because the librarians didn't allow the agents in without a warrent." The terrorists, of course, are mainly at fault.

[gojujay]

Originally Posted by esskreemr

Let's say that three guys decide that they can make alot of money by gathering credit card numbers from a local business.

They dress up in the stereotypical FBI gear complete with real looking badges and id. They go out of state to a business they know fulfills internet orders from a storefront and warehouse. The business only has 1 employee in the main office. The men enter and inform Molly, the store manager, that they are confiscating financial transactions under the Patriot Act's sneak and peek regs. Subsequentally, they are implementing a gag order and she cannot notify anyone, including her customers or other law enforcement agents that the information has been gathered. She will recieve the notification once the proper 'delayed' warrant has been issued, which could be a period of several months due to an ongoing investigation.

Would she be breaking the law by not informing her customers and/or law enforcement agents? Should she be held responsible for the damages by the fake cops?

Would this make a good movie plot if it involved terrorists.

Nice straw-man.

[gojujay]

Originally Posted by Amadeus

Have you ever heard anything about communism? The red scare? Read a book about the 1950s! See what happens when a nation is scared into abandoning its rights and values out of fear.

What's really scary is that even though McCarthy was an opportunist, data being slowly released from the former Soviet Union verifies many, too many, of his accusations.

[gojujay]

Without knowing the information that law-enforcement had, I can't say one way or another if exigent circumstances existed or not. The fact that L.E. did not seize the computers does not mean those circumstances did not exist. It shows the strength in L.E.'s deference to somebody's claim of Fourth Amendment violations. It seems that people are making their judgments without knowing the particulars of the situation.

[Philistine]

Originally Posted by gojujay

Without knowing the information that law-enforcement had, I can't say one way or another if exigent circumstances existed or not. The fact that L.E. did not seize the computers does not mean those circumstances did not exist. It shows the strength in L.E.'s deference to somebody's claim of Fourth Amendment violations. It seems that people are making their judgments without knowing the particulars of the situation.

"Earlier, an FBI spokesman said agents decided not to invoke their right to promptly seize the material in order to "be cooperative and not inconvenience the library" after determining that obtaining the computers was not urgent."

Article(My emphasis)

"Mayor David Cohen said Monday if the case had involved "immediate public safety," the library would have given over the information."

--Philistine

[gojujay]

Originally Posted by Philistine

"Earlier, an FBI spokesman said agents decided not to invoke their right to promptly seize the material in order to "be cooperative and not inconvenience the library" after determining that obtaining the computers was not urgent."

Article(My emphasis)

"Mayor David Cohen said Monday if the case had involved "immediate public safety," the library would have given over the information."

--Philistine

Tanks for the clarification!