[goffley3]

How is this ruling possibly justified? By that same logic, breaking into someone's house is also legal because no security system is burglar proof. Also what I still don't understand is that the presence of any counter hacking measures (AV, proxy, VPN services) implies someone creating measures to protect their privacy. None of this makes sense,

[ikeboy]

See the excerpt quoted in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12016318

Note that they aren't saying it's legal for a regular person to hack, only that hacking doesn't produce 4th Amendment violations.

[pdkl95]

The only way that makes any sense is if there is a double standard where law enforcement doesn't have to follow the law (4th amendment) but the citizens do (CFAA).

Rejecting the Rule Of Law is dangerous. If the government doesn't respect the laws - including their spirit - then why should the people? You might have notice the recent rise populism. Many people are tired of an oligarchy that only vaguely follows the law that is supposed to be "of the people, for the people and by the people". Rulings like this and other events that don't even pretend to respect the Constitution are interpreted as proof that democracy has already failed.

Brexit, the drama in the recent primaries, and other forms of "trumpism"[1] are examples of the growing blowback. Do you really want to support the path towards more civil unrest and other types of instability?

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zzl4B3mrKQE

[ikeboy]

The CFAA has an explicit exemption for law enforcement. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12017068

[pdkl95]

You're making my point for me. The law is blatantly ignoring the plain reading of the highest law of the land, which creates the double standard.

I'm not talking about a technical reading of the law that takes into account modern legal theories and precedent. This is about the perception that a lot of people have that the social contract has failed. As Blyth said (see my previous [1]), "The Hamptons is not a defensible position".

[ikeboy]

Huh? The statue explicitly excludes law enforcement, this isn't a tortured reading.

What is being ignored?

[pdkl95]

I never claimed it didn't. Re-read my original post, and maybe watch that 4m video?

I only referenced the CFAA as a law that applies to the citizens. The double standard is that the citizens are supposed to respect the law while law enforcement and this judge are blatantly ignoring their half of the social contract when they skip the warrant requirement.

This isn't really that complicated. Again, legal theory doesn't matter to people that are angry and lashing out at anything they see as "establishment".

edit:

> They had a warrant.

From the article:

    The judge argued that the FBI did not even need the original warrant
    to use the NIT against visitors to PlayPen.