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Comment Re: Hmmm (Score 1) 205

I will say this, though, to actually contribute to the conversation about minivans... I had no problem driving one, and felt no stigma about it.

For all the reasons you stated, I have no problem with a minivan.

As soon as I can get one that has some get-up-and-go (probably through a turbo), I'll buy it.

Comment Re:" and particularly describing" (Score 1) 150

from what I have read, they do not specify the person or things to be seized except "everything".

We don't know that, as nothing has reported what they can "seize", only what they can "search". They are permitted to search the entire account. My guess would be that prosecutors would then take everything they found which they believed was relevant and bring it before the judge, who would then give the yes/no for each piece, seeing as how that's how evidence works in every case.

Also, if the government has some sort of injunction to prevent the defendant from using the account (reasonable, since they could destroy or fabricate evidence), it has already been "seized", and would need to remain so until the trial was complete. Getting a snapshot of everything now could actually allow the defendant to resume using the account, so that the "seizure" period would be minimized.

Comment Re:Warrants are supposed to be narrow (Score 1) 150

Its not fair to just open up all of someones papers for their entire life for investigation.

OK, how about this physical example where you have a filing cabinet which contains papers that have written on them evidence of a crime. The police execute a warrant to search through the filing cabinet for those papers, and take only those papers concerning the crime.

But, but must read every paper to determine if that particular paper has the evidence they are looking for. So, your "entire life" has been exposed. Nothing except what concerns the exact crime on the warrant can ever be used against you in a criminal trial, but they might have learned any number of other things about you that you wanted to keep secret.

Comment Re:Warrants are supposed to be narrow (Score 1) 150

Also, any warrant asking to just search the entire house should be rejected, too.

I'm no police apologist, but what you're saying is downright silly.

If the police have enough evidence that shows you own a firearm of the same caliber as the murder weapon, and some other evidence indicates you might be guilty (e.g., motive), then they shouldn't need to know what room in your house you keep your gun in order to get a search warrant.

In this case, if the police have enough other evidence that you have evidence of your money laundering in your GMail account, I don't see it unreasonable that they can search all the e-mail. It really isn't any different from getting a warrant to search the entire contents of a specific filing cabinet in your home, and it really is an unreasonable burden to require the police to also know the color of the paper the evidence is printed on, as well as which file folder contains the paper.

Comment Re:Warrants are supposed to be narrow (Score 4, Insightful) 150

The general principle is that the search should be as narrowly focused on particular evidence as can practically be managed. Is that the case here? It doesn't seem to be, but I'm not the judge, I don't know the details.

I suspect the issue might be that a list of keywords (and synonyms) that would be reasonable in a money laundering case might be so large as to make a global retrieval seem reasonable. And, paring back the list of words might miss something important.

I see no harm whatsoever allowing a search through all the GMail of that one person for evidence concerning money laundering, with evidence of any unrelated crimes (e.g., admission to a murder of a spouse because they were sleeping with someone else) not being admissible.

Comment Re:Vendor Software (Score 1) 291

My boss complains all day and night about the bugs on his LG G2

I haven't found any "bug" on the G2. There's bloatware (Verizon and LG) which mostly can be disabled, but that's something every phone has these days.

My only real usability issue is that the on-screen keyboard isn't as easy as previous phones as far as entering symbols. I've never needed a special keyboard app before because I'm not that heavy a user, so I always use the built-in keyboard.

Comment Re:...The hell? (Score 4, Informative) 291

What's funny is his complaints are mostly about apps. On an Android. Where you can mostly replace the functionality without fanfare.

Unless, of course, you have one of the lower end phones (which is exactly the kind he is referring to) and it doesn't have enough internal storage for you to replace all the built-in apps (which can't be removed without root).

Comment Re:All hail Netboox! (Score 1) 87

The most annoying part about the Lending Library is that you can only swap out books once per month.

No, the most annoying part is that you have to have a Kindle device.

I have lots of devices that support the Kindle reading app, so why should I have to buy an actual Kindle to use the Lending Library? I know my Kindle apps support reading books loaned from other people, and those books disappear once the loan period is up, so there is no technical reason behind the limitation.

Comment Re: Maybe, maybe not. (Score 1) 749

"Overseas records must be disclosed domestically when a valid subpoena, order, or warrant compels their production" That was the claim literally word for word.

That, indeed, was the claim, and it is the hope of the administration that conflating them will cause their desired outcome. The problem is that those three terms do not refer to documents with the same legal scope, and Microsoft has lawyers who know this.

Subpoenas cannot be used to force production of data you do not own. The data in question is not owned by Microsoft, so a subpoena can't force them to disclose it. A warrant can force production of data you do not own, but must be issued by a court with jurisdiction over the physical location of the data. No US court has jurisdiction within Ireland, so a warrant issued by a US court cannot force anyone to produce data stored in Ireland. An "order" is just a generic term for anything a court issues that might compel someone to do something.

Comment Re: Maybe, maybe not. (Score 1) 749

If I walked into your office with a subpoena for Betsy in the next cube's car and you know she keeps her keys in her purse you are obligated to get the keys from her purse even though you don't own the car nor the purse. Ownership or "the right" to the data doesn't matter. What matters is do you have access.

This is completely bogus, as I no more have legal access to my office-mate's purse than I do to my neighbor's house. Likewise, your statement implies that you could hand me a subpoena when I am sitting in Starbucks and force me to take keys out of the purse of the stranger sitting next to me, just because I saw her put them in her purse.

Even more important, you might have a subpoena for house keys, and although I know that Betsy keeps keys in her purse, I do not know she keeps house keys there, and even if I did, I doubt I could pick them out.

Comment Re:Children (Score 1) 753

As an 18th birthday present, yes. Until then, the kid can't make a contract with a bank.

You must not be in the US. Many kids under 18 have bank accounts in their own names, with their own debit cards. It's been that way long before debit cards, too.

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