« The Legislature That Does Not Remember The Present … | Main | South Carolina: Redefining Irony »

February 11, 2010

The Fourth Amendment: As Close As The Password To Your Wireless Router

(via) The prevailing legal view, apparently:

Who knew that password-protecting a wireless router also had constitutional significance? According to a recent court decision from Oregon, the failure to password-protect a wireless network can diminish the extent to which the Fourth Amendment protects computers and information on that network from government searches.

The case involved someone who got jacked up for collecting child porn via a Limewire connection into a shared iTunes folder on their home computer, which was connected up to a unpassworded wireless router that a neighbor was piggybacking on.

Naturally nobody is suggesting that someone collecting with child porn get away with it. The Law seems to be very good at finding kiddie porn creeps and jacking them up. But when we take the long view, we notice that "if you're doing nothing wrong, you've got nothing to fear" tends to lose effectiveness as a defense, because the definition of "nothing wrong" tends to shift a with a lot more alacrity than people seem to think it does.

Just something to think about.

Posted by The Chinuk at February 11, 2010 06:21 PM