This past week the blogosphere brought a great deal of attention to the case Battelle Energy Alliance, LLC v. Southfork Security, Inc., 2013 WL 5637747 (D. Idaho Oct. 15, 2013), by claiming it held that if you call yourself a “hacker” you could lose your 4th Amendment rights. My friend Michael @theprez98 (a veteran, white-hat hacker, and student of the law) who wrote an excellent blog post setting one of them straight that on the fact that this was not a criminal case, but a civil case dealing with an injunction and there were no 4th Amendment implications. As Michael said, “this case has zero, zilch, squat, nothing, to do with the Fourth Amendment ….”
BUT!!!! There is a lot more to the case that needs to be addressed to appreciate the implications of how the defendants calling themselves “hackers” played in the case. I just did a Google Hangout with Beau Woods @beauwoods to explain my thoughts on this case and here is the YouTube video of the hangout — this was my first attempt at something like this so be gentle! Also, you will note that I reference images and pleadings in my discussion, which are available in this folder.
The video:
Related articles
- 4th Amendment Rights, Loose Them If You Call Yourself A Hacker (thesecuritypub.com)
- Court confiscates computer for owner’s claim of hacking (pcworld.com)
- Call yourself a ‘hacker’, watch your ex-boss seize your PC without warning (theregister.co.uk)
- Judge Orders Self-Described Hacker’s Computer Seized Without Warning (cio.com)
- A Hacker by Any Other Name Might Have Escaped Data Seizure (technewsworld.com)
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