

Obama Administration proposes adding civil forfeiture to CFAA - rosenjon
http://politicsjunkie.com/obama-administration-proposes-adding-civil-forfeiture-to-the-cfaa/

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zaroth
The wording here truly blows my mind;

    
    
      any person who intentionally manufactures, assembles, possesses, or sells
      any electronic, mechanical, or other device,
      knowing or having reason to know that
      the design of such device renders it primarily useful for the purpose of the
      surreptitious interception of wire, oral, or electronic communications,
      and that such device *or any component thereof*
      has been *or will be*
      sent through the mail or *transported in interstate or foreign commerce*
    

What does the phase "primarily useful" even mean in this context? Is the
iPhone 'Voice Memo' app primarily useful for these purposes? Or more
pointedly, what about mitmproxy or Wireshark?

Forget 3 felonies a day, how about 10^3. Shit, I have in my possession dozens
of 'electronic, mechanical, or other device(s) which are primarily useful for
[surreptitious] interception of wire, oral, and electronic communications'.
Last time I checked they ship with the OS.

I Googled 'primarily useful' they are almost all links to this law itself. On
page 2 there was link with the title 'Subwoofers primarily useful for action
movies?' which was a nice reprieve.

What differentiates a design, monitoring, or debugging tool designed for the
interception of wire / electronic communications from one _primarily useful
for surreptitious interception_? Maybe the later come with cool names like
FOXACID and DEEPMINDFUCK. Maybe they should have thought twice before renaming
Ethereal to WireShark!

~~~
zaroth
Even better, the very next section is an exclusion from this law for common
carriers and officers and agents of the United States.

~~~
rosenjon
Not that it matters. This guy broke the law and nothing happened. He didn't
even lose his job.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwiUVUJmGjs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwiUVUJmGjs)

~~~
zaroth
I mean, just look at the body language during that final answer. And then
Senator Wyden's breathless, almost resigned, "Alright" at the end.

Watching that never gets old. Apparently by Clapper's measure, the NSA is
quite the bunch of dimwits.

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hackerjam
Given the recent press of how civil forfeiture laws have been / are being
abused by police departments in this country [1], the idea that the Obama
Admninistration would try to float such an idea, much less try to get it
passed into legislation is mind boggling. Just shows just how out of touch
they really are.

1\. [http://www.cato.org/events/policing-profit-abuse-civil-
asset...](http://www.cato.org/events/policing-profit-abuse-civil-asset-
forfeiture)

~~~
rosenjon
The Obama Administration has already ramped up CFAA prosecutions. Adding Civil
Forfeiture laws would only further incentivize law enforcement to pursue these
cases.

