A federal judge has authorized the non-profit Internet Systems Consortium, working in conjunction with the FBI, to go beyond taking down the command-and-control servers: the ISC has installed its own command-and-control servers.

DoJ, FBI set up command-and-control servers, take down botnet

The risks associated with iodine-131 contamination in Europe are no longer "negligible," according to CRIIRAD, a French research body on radioactivity. The NGO is advising pregnant women and infants against "risky behaviour," such as consuming fresh milk or vegetables with large leaves.

French group warns citizens about Fukushima fallout

Lee Bradley Brown, 39, was on holiday in the Arab state when he was arrested and put behind bars in the notorious Bur Dubai police station, reportedly following an argument with a hotel maid who entered his room unannounced.

Dubai Death: Lee Brown From Essex Dies In Police Custody In Bur Dubai Police Station | UK News | Sky News

Junichi Matsumoto, acting head of Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Nuclear Power & Plant Siting Division, acknowledged the seriousness of the Fukushima accident at a press conference Tuesday. "Although the details of the [Chernobyl and Fukushima] accidents are different, from the standpoint of how much radiation has been released, [Fukushima] is equal to or more serious than Chernobyl."

"Though these substances don't pose a hazard to human health in the short term, if radioactive material keeps being discharged, the likelihood of it entering people's bodies through the food chain will increase," Kasai said.

Huge radiation release led to severity hike : National : DAILY YOMIURI ONLINE (The Daily Yomiuri)

Captain James Cook and his assistant Michael Lane, who mapped Newfoundland in the 1760s, often displayed a sense of humour in the place names they chose, and were not above selecting names that might offend overly sensitive readers. Regardless of the origin, the name has brought the town of Dildo a measure of notoriety that is not welcomed on all fronts. In the 20th century there were several campaigns to change the name, though all failed.

Dildo, Newfoundland

Many high ranking government officials are afraid to keep a diary because of the possibility that it will be subpoenaed. This will undoubtedly be a great loss to future historians.

It is also exactly the sort of self censorship that the 4th amendment was intended to prevent.

SSRN-Creating A Subpoena-Proof Diary: A Technological Solution to A Legal Problem by James Miller, Lixin Gao

In Fourth Amendment law there is a concept called the third party doctrine - the basic idea is that if you hand something over to a third party, the Constitution does not require the police to get a warrant to get access to it. This is as opposed to a situation where you kept that something in the privacy of your home, where the police would need a warrant and a full showing of probable cause in order to perform a search.

What does this mean for email that you've stored on your ISP's mail servers? Like many things with the law, there are differing views. There is a law called the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), passed in 1986, which requires the police to get a warrant for email stored less than 180 days. However, email stored longer than 180 days (such as in your long term gmail archive) might be available to the police with a subpoena, which is an administrative request that does not require court oversight or a showing of suspicion.

A coalition of tech companies called the Digital Due Process Coalition is asking Congress to change the ECPA to require a warrant to access email stored longer than 180 days. The DOJ, not surprisingly, is opposed to this change. In their response they made an argument that I found rather shocking:

"Current law allows for the acquisition of certain stored communications using a subpoena where the account holder receives prior notice. This procedure is similar to that for paper records. If a person stores documents in her home, the government may use a subpoena to compel production of those documents. Congress should consider carefully whether it is appropriate to afford a higher evidentiary standard for compelled production of electronically- stored records than paper records."

What the DOJ seems to be saying here is that they can read any paper document stored in your home, without a warrant, merely by asking you for it! If they subpoena it you have to provide it and if you destroy it you can be changed with obstruction of justice. Could this be true? If so, it would mean that the entire contents of your computer are available to the police for inspection without a warrant. How does that square with the 4th Amendment's protection of "papers."

It turns out that this is another case where strong protections provided early in the history of the United States have been slowly eroded by the courts over two hundred years. In the early 1900s it was decided that the 4th Amendment doesn't apply to subpoenas, but you could rely on the 5th amendment to refuse to provide documents that you didn't want to provide, as long as they were your documents. Then in the 1970's it was decided that you couldn't rely on the 5th amendment either. I... [ Read More (0.6k in body) ]

Decius wrote:

If a person stores documents in her home, the government may use a subpoena to compel production of those documents.

After a lot of digging and a couple of email exchanges with law profs my understanding is that the 5th Amendment would afford you some protection against subpoenas of this kind, provided that the government did not know exactly what was looking for, which you would not be afforded in the context of a third party email provider. Here is the full quote in context:

Current law allows for the acquisition of certain stored communications using a subpoena where the account holder receives prior notice. This procedure is similar to that for paper records. If a person stores documents in her home, the government may use a subpoena to compel production of those documents. Congress should consider carefully whether it is appropriate to afford a higher evidentiary standard for compelled production of electronically- stored records than paper records.

The problem with this position is that it ignores the fact that under current law the 5th amendment would come into play in this "documents in her home" scenario but not in the third party email provider scenario contemplated by the ECPA. The absence of that protection in the third party context is one of the reasons that additional regulation, such as the ECPA, is needed. IE - the higher evidentiary standard is needed to offset the lower particularity standard.

RE: DOJ argues that warrants have never been required for paper documents

Its comforting that there is, occasionally, a court decision that upholds individual rights.

Because the government has failed to show with reasonable particularity that it knew of the existence and location of most of the subpoenaed documents, we hold that Ponds' act of production was sufficiently testimonial to implicate his right against self-incrimination under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.

454 F3d 313 United States v. Ponds | OpenJurist

There is a particularity standard with a developed body of law in the search warrant area that now appears to be imported into the test for assertion of the act of production Fifth Amendment objection to compulsory testimony. Bottom line, that test will guard against unfocused fishing expeditions.

This is interesting but its about as clear as mud. If the police can subpoena a whole diary they know you have what is to say they cannot subpoena a whole hard drive they know you have? What is "reasonably particular?"

Also, say for instance, that through an administrative subpoena the police obtain noncontent information about emails - the dates, to, and from information. They can then subpoena the contents, without a warrant, if they think you've got those contents on your hard drive. The specific emails ought to be "reasonbly particular" enough.

Federal Tax Crimes: Act of Production Doctrine and Particularity