Privacy International Says FBI Warrant, Hacking in Playpen Child Porn Case Was Illegal
The FBI, which did a 2015 sting into the child porn website called Playpen, hacked thousands of devices, most of which were located outside the U.S., using a search warrant that illegally permitted extraterritorial searches and seizures, said UK-based Privacy…
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International (PI), which filed an amicus brief Friday with the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston. The privacy group said in U.S. v. Alex Levin that hacking computers outside the U.S. has "profound foreign relations implications" because the government didn't get the consent of other countries. PI Legal Officer Scarlet Kim said in a news release that the extraterritorial searches raise important questions: "How will other countries react to the FBI hacking in their jurisdictions without prior consent? Would the U.S. welcome hacking operations on a similar scale carried out on U.S. residents by other countries? Is the FBI violating the laws of foreign jurisdictions by hacking devices located in them?" In the amicus filing, PI said the FBI hacked more than 8,700 computers, over 83 percent outside the U.S., in 120 countries and territories. The group also said the law enforcement agency used "vague and imprecise language" to describe the "network investigative technique" (NIT) as a "tracking device" but which PI and many other privacy advocates maintain is a euphemism for malware. At the time, PI said Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure largely prohibited such extraterritorial searches and NIT uses. The rule has since been changed to allow a single magistrate judge to issue one warrant that permits searches outside the judge's jurisdiction, which critics say has vastly expanded the government's hacking authority (see 1612140051). The Levin case arises out of the hacking operation of the Playpen child porn site (see 1610250049). Levin, a Massachusetts resident, is one of the defendants in the case and challenged the FBI's use of the search warrant, which was granted by a magistrate judge in the Eastern District of Virginia. A district judge then granted Levin's motion to suppress evidence because he argued the NIT warrant was invalid since it was obtained outside of his state. The case was then appealed to the 1st Circuit. DOJ didn't comment.