What you have said above is correct, however it is not the "main" concern. There are numerous concerns. That is one key one. Since I have not seen others post other key concerns, I will also contribute an additional concern:
Sensitive data left lying around are/is very tempting to use for illegal economic and blackmail gains. The FBI in particular has a pattern of getting indicted for re-selling sensitive data, even before massive amounts of "seize now, convict later" was taking place.
Source?
Ex post facto laws are unconstitutional in the US.
The Fourth Amendment protects US citizens from unreasonable search and seizure. Clearly that is being violated as the recent ruling on NSA data collection has pointed out.
As are you and I. You can't be retroactively convicted of a crime if it was not against the law at the time.
>No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation
>In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.
>Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted
In other words, clearly, The Fourth Amendment does NOT protect anyone from NSA's violations.
There are not a "lot of unconstitutional practices" that are law in the U.S. There are a lot of people who read the words in the Bill of Rights extremely broadly and without historical or legal context, and then put up poorly-designed web pages about all the "unconstitutional" things they have discovered.
If anything, the last 15 years has shown me that 'anything' is possible.
So is warrant-less wiretapping, but that didn't stop NSA.
There are two main problems with the United States, the first is that too many of us are ready and willing to trade personal freedom for economic and physical safety. The second is that we allowed money to control politics.
The only thing that's natural are the laws of nature, otherwise known as physics, and there is no law of physics that prevents me from torturing someone.
Good thing I didn't imagine the idea of rights would physically prevent you from torturing someone. Basically, rights are an idea meant to help us in drawing boundaries between what's acceptable behaviour and what's not. But it's got nothing to do with the government, and everything to do with reason, logic, consistency and common sense. A government or a piece of paper can't grant any rights or take any away, and in fact, governments only violate our rights.
Imagine your the FBI IT guy. How long do you think it would take YOU to walk into an unknown datacenter, locate the specific computer / IP address referenced in the warrant, connect to that computer and copy just the minimum amount of data necessary to prosecute said bad guy (just his e-mail .mbox file? or is this a windows shop..grab the pst? What about backups? What about his contact list? All this just for e-mail!)
Often times he probably doesn't even know the specifics of the case. Maybe just let the local DataCenter guy copy the data off for you right? Well hopefully hes honest and not involved in the crime.
The fact of the matter is, it is 100x easier to walk in, grab the servers of interest and walk out. If the FBI IT guy is smart and prepared he just brings tools to remove the hard drives from the server, copy them and put them back. BUT, if theres child porn, contraband, etc. the FBI is NOT giving that computer back any time soon. Doesn't matter who owns it.
Reductio ad absurdum with your argument and we should just let the FBI run all internet infrastructure, because it is expedient for the FBI, it makes life easier on the FBI, and they can inspect your data to their heart's content. It is a much preferable situation to the one where an FBI agent has to do something complicated.
Nowhere do I see you advocating for the innocent whose rights are infringed upon.
Grabbing the servers is easy, but arguably because so much unrelated data could be on a shared server these days, it's unreasonable to just grab everything. Many other people are affected, and unrelated data is collected and evaluated later for purposes unrelated to the original collection purpose. This circumvents a reasonable expectation of privacy, and strongly shifts the balance of power from the regular citizens to the agency hording the data. Especially in light of the plea-bargaining justice system in the USA, where the data can be and is used to threaten and coerce, this is worrying.
EDIT: missing word
It sounds like your response is based on broad ideological convictions that have little to do with the commenter's argument. He or she is arguing that the NSA is not equivalent to the FBI because the FBI, in this case, did follow established procedures to obtain a conviction.
If you want a society where the individual is completely at the whims of mysterious and unknown forces that can destroy their life utterly for no apparent reason at all, well then carve out special exceptions for some while reserving harsh punishments for others.
In order for this comment to be relevant, you'll have to establish how it relates to the details of this case.
The main concern is that something you did today may become a crime tomorrow, so now entire populations are apparently in the situation of Schrodinger's cat: we are both criminals and not criminals, and only the indistinct future will determine where we end up.
If you want a society where an individual is free to pursue their interests as long as they don't hurt anyone, it makes a lot of sense to have a transparent set of rules that are applied equitably to every citizen, regardless of their demographics or background.
If you want a society where the individual is completely at the whims of mysterious and unknown forces that can destroy their life utterly for no apparent reason at all, well then carve out special exceptions for some while reserving harsh punishments for others. Introduce secret courts, evidence and trials... Institute a "permanent record" of someone's behavior that can be used to manipulate them as desired. Break the well-thought out control systems that help avoid abuses all to make "LEO easier."
I'm assuming every experience you've ever had with law enforcement is positive?