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I read a really good dissent today by Chief Judge Kozinski of the Ninth Circuit concerning privacy. The Ninth, has essentially said that Law Enforcement are free to bug and track citizenry via GPS. In summary he says,

I don’t think that most people in the United States would agree with the panel that someone who leaves his car parked in his driveway outside the door of his home invites people to crawl under it and attach a device that will track the vehicle’s every movement and transmit that information to total strangers. There is something creepy and un-American about such clandestine and underhanded behavior. To those of us who have lived under a totalitarian regime, there is an eerie feeling of déjà vu. This case, if any, deserves the comprehensive, mature and diverse consideration that an en banc panel can provide. We are taking a giant leap into the unknown, and the consequences for ourselves and our children may be dire and irreversible. Some day, soon, we may wake up and find we’re living in Oceania.

This is really a great read from beginning to end and makes staying informed painless (apart from agony at the loss of freedom). When it comes to civil liberties I believe that a constant vigilance on the part of an informed citizenry is the only way to maintain what we have. You can read about this on the Ninth Circuit Blog or view the dissent (in PDF format) here [PDF].

A very important decision has come out for those involved in computer forensic’s, law enforcement and computer privacy. The Ninth Circuit has ruled that search warrants for electronic files must be specific and segregation and redaction must be done by specialized personnel or a third party. Those people conducting the search are not allowed to confiscate files not specified in the warrant and the investigating authorities are not allowed to conduct the search themselves, being only privy to files relating to their case.

For example, in the past if the Government suspected someone of using your email server for illegal activities they could image the whole server and every file on that image would fall under the plain sight rule, meaning if it’s there then it’s there in plain sight. They would be allowed to look at your email, even though it is unrelated to their investigation because it is “in plain sight”. With this new ruling however they would only be allowed to confiscate and examine email that is the subject of their investigation and would be required to leave any other email untouched on the server. This protection of privacy is the object of this extraordinary opinion by Chief Judge Kozinski

The advent of fast, cheap networking has made it possible to store information at remote third-party locations, where it is intermingled with that of other users. For example, many people no longer keep their email primarily on their personal computer, and instead use a web-based email provider, which stores their messages along with billions of messages from and to millions of other people. Similar services exist for photographs, slide shows, computer code, and many other types of data. As a result, people now have personal data that are stored with that of innumerable strangers. Seizure of, for example, Google’s email servers to look for a few incriminating messages could jeopardize the privacy of millions.

You can read the full opinion in pdf format here (pdf).