[csoghoian]

This isn't just about the district where the judge is based. There is also the bigger question of whether or not judges should be authorizing bulk hacking operations.

The three Tor watering hole operations (Freedom Hosting, Torpedo and Playpen) are the only cases we know of where DOJ has obtained a warrant from a single judge which it then used to conduct searches on hundreds or thousands of computers. DOJ did not seek new powers to conduct bulk searches/hacks from Congress, they just went ahead and got an ex-parte warrant from a judge. In the case of Freedom Hosting, it looks like they also screwed up and then hacked the computers of innocent people visiting other, non contraband sites, hosted on the same server.

I think that reasonable people can disagree about whether or not it makes sense to allow a judge to sign a warrant to hack a single computer in an unknown location which is probably outside of his or her district. Bulk hacks are very, very different, and a very new thing for our legal system.

[tptacek]

I'm much less sanguine about bulk hacking than I am about targeted hacking, and so I'm sympathetic to this argument.

However, I'm compelled to point out that the courts routinely order searches on parties that turn out to be uninvolved with a case, or even to the wrong people already. The standard of accuracy here is much lower than you make it out to be.

[csoghoian]

I've researched this issue extensively, and I've not found a case before where a thousand people in the same place were searched pursuant to a single search warrant, let alone a thousand people or items located in different places around the country.

On the issue of courts authorizing the searching of wrong people, we don't know if the court in Freedom Hosting even knew that the government would deliver the malware to innocent people who were merely visiting other websites hosted from the same server as the contraband sites targeted by the warrant. We don't know this, because three years later, the freedom hosting search warrant is still sealed.

[the_ancient]

That fact should be alarming, and you should find that offensive...

If the courts are routinely signing search warrants on parties that are not involved in cases or criminal activity that highlights how much of a rubber stamp the warrant process as become, and how little "probable cause" means any more

Probable cause has become "Judge we want to search this place"

[rayiner]

Does the bulk hacking have anything to do with these Rule 41 changes? Sounds like a judge could issue a warrant for a thousand computers under the existing rules.

The real issue seems to be what evidence you need to have probable cause to search a thousand computers. I'm willing to believe the standard being applied is too low, but the Rule 41 changes don't change that standard one way or the other.