[liberationtech] Muni network ownership and the Fourth

[Eugen Leitl]

----- Forwarded message from Jay Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> -----

From: Jay Ashworth <jra at baylink.com>
Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2013 10:59:31 -0500 (EST)
To: NANOG <nanog at nanog.org>
Subject: Muni network ownership and the Fourth
X-Mailer: Zimbra 6.0.9_GA_2686 (ZimbraWebClient - FF3.0 (Linux)/6.0.9_GA_2686)

----- Original Message -----
> From: "Rob McEwen" <rob at invaluement.com>

> (C) The fact that the Internet is a series of PRIVATE networks... NOT
> owned/operated by the Feds... is a large reason why the 4th amendment
> provides such protections... it becomes somewhat of a "firewall" of
> protection against Federal gov't trampling of civil liberties... but
> if they own the network, then that opens up many doors for them.

Regular readers know that I'm really big on municipally owned fiber networks
(at layer 1 or 2)... but I'm also a big constitutionalist (on the first, 
second, fourth, and fifth, particularly), and this is the first really good
counter-argument I've seen, and it honestly hadn't occurred to me.

Rob, anyone, does anyone know if any 4th amendment case law exists on muni-
owned networks?

Cheers,
-- jra
-- 
Jay R. Ashworth                  Baylink                       jra at baylink.com
Designer                     The Things I Think                       RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates     http://baylink.pitas.com         2000 Land Rover DII
St Petersburg FL USA               #natog                      +1 727 647 1274


----- End forwarded message -----
-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
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