A tip usually isn't enough for a search warrant. There's a spectrum of how much proof is required. A search requires less than an arrest, but there's still a significant threshold to pass.

...and that might be enough for a new search warrant to look for drug paraphernalia.

...which would require an arrest warrant, with an even higher burden of proof, and a prosecutor that thinks they can make a case on more than just a few pictures of you not even taken in your house.

That's not very Scottish, either.

Often, yes. You see, I actually understand the design of the US government. It's built to continually revise and improve, and it's been doing so for over 200 years. On the other hand, your opinions have been forming for less than a century, and since you're only a single person, you've undergone far fewer revision cycles, all of which have been from a very limited perspective.

For example:

Is that just, though? It may appeal to your sense of privacy, but would it appeal to your sense of justice to know that any criminal could effectively conceal evidence by simply putting it in a large enough box? How would your neighbors feel about it, knowing that you could be seen kidnapping their children, and the police could do nothing because they wouldn't know what room they're being held in?

Sure, the examples are hypothetical, but the underlying issue of deciding what is right predates your consideration by quite a long while. The best we have so far is a system where certain activities are absolutely permitted, and certain activities are absolutely forbidden, and deciding which category a given situation fits into falls to a judge whose primary interest is to bring the legal precedent closer to a state that everyone considers to be fair. It's not perfect, and likely will never be perfect, but it's closer than having Random Internet Guy simply decide that privacy trumps justice, because he says so.

The investigation is for money laundering. It's not hard to imagine setting up a laundering channel months or years in advance, by conspiring with someone to accept a transfer of money and forward it on to some other conspirator.

Specific place to search: the email account (or the house, in my example). Specific items to be searched for: evidence of money laundering (or a murder weapon).

Could be. If several witnesses see an assailant bludgeon someone on the sidewalk with an obscured object, then run into a house, the police may not be able to ascertain exactly what the weapon is, but they'd certainly have enough evidence for a search, and they could keep a record of any potential weapons seen in the house in case forensics can later get them a better description of the weapon used. As in this case, they'd have to get as narrow a warrant as possible, specifying that they're searching for the weapon and not, say, evidence of tax fraud. Of course, if they found readily-visible evidence of such fraud during the course of the authorized search, they are not required to ignore it.

The police are that neutral third party. Clearly they are not you, and they are also not the people who accuse you (or the prosecutor representing the people).

A large part of our justice system is focused on keeping them neutral. The fact that the investigators did not erase their copy, but rather retained it, is why the appeals court in that case reversed the judgement.

No. The point of the fourth amendment is to prevent investigators from harassing people looking for reasons to prosecute and persecute.

What seems to be happening here is that there is already evidence enough to justify a search, but the details are not specific enough to be able to ask someone else to execute it. As a physical analogue, there's enough evidence to search a house for a murder weapon, but the investigators don't know it's taped to the bottom of the third dresser drawer. In the case of email, I'd expect the investigators don't know all aliases that might have been used, or in what timeframe the relevant emails might have been sent.

According to a more informative article, this won't be nearly as bad, then.

Ah, yes, I remember those days well. Those were the days when DoubleClick had tracking cookies on most of the major media sites, and the major sites that hadn't partnered with DoubleClick usually had their own advertising departments, so often their banners were placeholders advertising their advertising ability.

Of course, with decentralized management, all of those major players thought it was a new and innovative idea when X10 started their pop-under ad campaign using the new-fangled Flash thing, so it could be animated, too! Surely that would catch the eye, and they could finally make some steady income from those ads, right?

Then Google came along with its ad program. Simple text ads, tailored to the viewer, and all managed by an upstart company who seemed to be pretty good at managing such things. They didn't do pop-ups (or -unders), and they didn't do sound or video. They did volume. Sure, there are now ads everywhere, but they're not as bad as what we had before. I call it a net improvement.

Ah, yes, there was the content of the adolescent World Wide Web, hosted in large part by ad-supported GeoCities (and the like) and grant-supported universities, and consisting of low-bandwidth servers run as an afterthought to a business whose primary business wasn't dependent on having five-nines availability through DDoS attacks and peering disputes. I guess most of those "service unavailable" messages counted as some form of content.

...Like Slashdot, which offers a subscription that you don't appear to have?

Not quite. Ignorant people like me know that different companies are free to pick whatever business model they like, and I am free to use their service if and only if I agree with it. I find that Hulu Plus still offers me more value than they charge (including my time watching ads), so I'm inclined to subscribe to their service.

If only we were all as enlightened as you are, knowing that advertising is all Google's fault, and that all business must be conducted in the BitZtream-approved way.

Who? A court issuing a judgement, or the IRS seeking unpaid taxes? There is no Department of Government that simply decides anything. It's always the result of some bureaucracy, with a defined process for dispute resolution.

No explanations, or none that you understood? I've had the IRS come looking for money a few times, and each time it included an enumerated list of what parts of my paperwork they disagreed with. In typical government form, there was no colloquial interpretation, but to an accountant and tax preparer, though, all of the necessary information was there.

How did you get notice that you owed the money, then? Have you checked that the suitable department has your address correct?

That's a mistake. Keep records of every time you talk to someone about the matter, and take notes on what they say.

Which guy? Record names, ID numbers, or any other identifier. Those are important to track down exactly who has said what, and on what authority. I've had some matters resolved just by pointing different bureaucrats at each other, and letting them work out the disagreement internally.

"Froze" and "stole" are not the same things. Either way, get a good lawyer.

...as can any lawsuit.

...I said to get a good lawyer.

The bottom line is that either your story doesn't add up, or you're rather incompetent with governmental matters. Find a suitable advocate for this matter (either a different lawyer for a judgement, or a tax specialist for an IRS dispute, etc.) and give them absolutely every piece of information you have. Record absolutely everything that transpires. Yes, it will cost you a significant amount of money now, because you've sat on this for three years, but I'd be surprised if it totaled more than $37,000.

The most important thing is to make sure that someone fighting on your side is an expert in the relevant process. If you work within the established process, the various governmental entities are actually very forgiving and understanding. You must realize that the actual humans involved don't really care about taking your money, finding guilt, or screwing you over in any other way. They're interested in following the process and closing disputes, so if you show that you're interested in doing things the right way, they'll often be happy to explain exactly what that is. You don't need to waste their time professing your innocence, or telling them how horribly wrong the Big Bad Government is for attacking you. Just find out what you need to do to resolve the dispute, have an expert on hand to verify the information and ask questions, then do whatever's appropriate.

If the US were to change the dollar like that, most folks wouldn't care. The vast majority of American money is held in banks, which would make the change automatically on their electronic balance.

The only thing affected by such a change would be large stockpiles of cash. For legitimate businesses, replacing the cash in circulation would be an annoyance, but not impossible. For most individuals, who would have less than a few thousand dollars in cash on hand, the change would mean just a quick trip to the nearest bank.

The biggest disruption would be to those who have significant stockpiles of cash, larger than what banks would normally exchange. For that, the process could be pretty similar to what happens today if you need to make a large cash withdrawal or foreign-currency exchange: the bank can accommodate it with advance notice. You call the bank, give them a name and amount, and they'll make sure they have the cash on hand to serve your needs. The key detail, then, is that the bank knows your name and the amount you're exchanging, providing a paper trail indicating the presence of large amounts of cash. That paper trail is a problem for the criminal and the paranoid, but there aren't enough of those to make for a successful uprising.

...because you were driving on a riskier route, without a safe stopping distance in front of you. That seems reasonable to me.

Yes, as is every other Slashdotter, and our paranoid kind have been waiting for such things since Sputnik made us realize that surveillance didn't have to be up-close and personal. Each decade we pretend it's a new apocalypse, because this time it's different! Now it's the Internet of Things, and last year it was drones, and before that it was Big Data, GPS tracking, cell phones, and dental fillings.

No, it's just the doctor and the hospital trying to practice modern medicine. If they don't have every minute detail recorded, or if they don't order every test that might help, the predatory jackasses in this country will not hesitate to sue them for malpractice, claiming that they should instinctively know what tests will be meaningful for every single patient that enters their offices.

I sincerely hope you are never in charge of any secure system. Defense in depth is indeed a trivial concept, yet so vital to having any meaningful security.

Do you also leave your doors unlocked because a really persistent thief could have a set of lockpicks?

"Millions" isn't so much money that any cost becomes irrelevant. "Billions" is closer, but no amount of money will buy more time. Those 100 extra preparation hours could be the time when an informant reveals the plot to the CIA, or that could be the time another aspect of the plot to develop problems.

But there is a point at which you say "This plan is too risky, and has too many ways to fail. Let's try something else."