SCIF intrusion by members of Congress Having some tangential experience with Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities (SCIF) and how seriously they are taken, I was shocked to hear that one was stormed in Congress by people carrying cell-phones. Wikipedia defines a SCIF thusly: A Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF; pronounced "skiff"), in British and United States military, national security/national defense and intelligence parlance, is an enclosed area within a building that is used to process Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) types of classified information. As noted in this article "... bringing phones into the secure area was a potential felony." Is it correct that is it a felony to bring cell phones into such a secure area in the normal case? I have found this document which describes standards around SCIF construction and management: TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS FOR CONSTRUCTION AND MANAGEMENT OF SENSITIVE COMPARTMENTED INFORMATION FACILITIES I've not, as of yet, been able to find anything that explains what laws apply to these facilities and what ramifications there are for violators. According this article: ...while there are criminal statutes that would otherwise come into play here, it is not useful to discuss them here because, under the Speech or Debate Clause of the U.S. Constitution, a member of Congress cannot be criminally prosecuted for an action he or she takes as part of the individual’s legislative work. There is no reference to which criminal statutes would apply, however. Is this assessment correct that such actions could not be criminally prosecuted were they illegal? The above image is purported to be from the incident. Alex Mooney made a recording inside the SCIF that he then published on Twitter here.
It is unlikely that it is a felony to enter a SCIF with a cell phone (or thumb drive, Apple Watch, fitbit etc). The felony clout comes from the non-disclosure agreement which references Sections 793, 794, 798, 952 of Title 18 and Section 783(b) Title of Title 50 -- gathering and disclosing information is a felony. A non-exhaustive reading of the relevant chapters of the US Code does not provide any evidence of a felony charge relatable to phones and SCIFs. There is a federal law against knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority to do so. This includes knowingly, and with the intent to impede or disrupt the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions, obstructs or impedes ingress or egress to or from any restricted building or grounds which protects against intrusion of a building or grounds so restricted in conjunction with an event designated as a special event of national significance The courts would almost certainly hold the recent event to be a non-justiciable political matter.
Intentional sabotage of a TSA computer system is almost certainly a serious crime and would also almost surely give rise to civil liability, although you might avoid both if you warned the TSA that the phone was set up to intentionally break their system, in which case it might be confiscated as contraband. If the product had a "feature" unknown to you and that you had no reasonable reason to know of that caused the harm, you would ultimately have no criminal or civil liability, although the manufacturer might be strictly liable to the TSA under a product liability theory, and you would probably be detained as a witness to figure out what happened. If the product had a "feature" that broke the TSA computer that could be de-activated and that you meant to de-active but carelessly failed to, you would have negligence liability to the government and might or might not have criminal liability (I'm not enough of an expert in the relevant statutes to know). You might be liable for a strict liability Federal Communications Commission offense for having a device that is in violation of their regulations.
If an employee takes home information that his or her employer considers confidential, that would be a matter of company policy. The employer could discipline or fire the employee if it learned of the incident, and chose to act. If the information is considered to be a trade secret, or part of one, disclosing it or mishandling it so as to risk disclosure could be a crime under US law. However, only in unusual cases is criminal action taken on such matters, normally it is left to civil lawsuits or internal company action. I do not know if Canada has a similar law.
Such a law would be constitutional The US Congress could decide to require VPN providers to register the IPs that they provide to VPN customers. The use of such techniques would almost surely be considered &quot;interstate or foreign commerce&quot; and so Congress would have power under the Commerce Clause of the constitution to legislate concerning it. There would clearly be a rational basis for such a law -- the question outlines such a basis. This is not an area subject to strict scrutiny. None of the previously established limits on the commerce power (and there are few) would seem to apply. State laws on this topic would probably be preempted by the dormant commerce clause if Congress does not act, and clearly preempted if Congress does act, unless Congress explicitly permits concurrent legislation. Whether Congress should act on this matter is a policy question not on topic on Law.se. Whether Congress will act is speculation. I can only say that I am not aware of any widespread demand for such action, or any proposed bills, on the topic. However, there is US caselaw to the effect that anonymous speech (or other communication) is protected by the First Amendment , and that laws effectively banning anonymous speech are not acceptable. But there are other ways of anonymizing online speech, so that would not seem to provide sufficient grounds to overturn such a law.
The law is really bad at protecting whistleblowers From my understanding of US law, this is not unauthorised access to a computer: the reporter made a legitimate request to a remote computer, that computer provided data,the reporter accessed the supplied data on their own computer. However, pointing out the failures of people in power is fraught even if it is not illegal. It is certainly within the Governor’s power to authorise an investigation of the reporter. On the face of the law, it seems reasonable to suspect that what was done might be a violation so there is nothing legally wrong with initiating an investigation. I suspect that such a broad interpretation of the law would fall foul of the First Amendment which may partly explain why it wasn’t prosecuted: the government doesn’t want to find out. Similarly they can issue press releases, which, due to the First Amendment, don’t have to be true, just not defamatory. Saying it’s a possible violation is true and not defamatory. Saying the reporter was an evil person who is only doing this for political purposes is a statement of opinion and not defamatory. It’s a fact of the world that people with power can use that power in ways that are malicious, unethical, and unfair but not necessarily illegal.
Yes In New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713 (1971) (aka the Pentagon Papers case) The court specifically permitted public disclosure in national newspapers of information that had been officially classified. This was, of course a request for an injunction, not a criminal proceeding, but it is hard rto imagine that a criminal proceeding could have succeeded after the decision, and in fact no prosecution was attempted. At the start of the unsigned opinion, the court wrote: We granted certiorari in these cases in which the United States seeks to enjoin the New York Times and the Washington Post from publishing the contents of a classified study entitled &quot;History of U.S. Decision-Making Process on Viet Nam Policy.&quot; (emphasis added) This makes it clear that the content of the &quot;papers&quot; wa officially classified. In concurrence, Justice Black (joined by Douglas) wrote: I adhere to the view that the Government's case against the Washington Post should have been dismissed, and that the injunction against the New York Times should have been vacated without oral argument when the cases were first presented to this Court. I believe that every moment's continuance of the injunctions against these newspapers amounts to a flagrant, indefensible, and continuing violation of the First Amendment. The question asks: I am wondering if everyone who leaks classified military documents are going to be charged criminally by the U.S. government Even when such charges are constitutionally permitted, the government has the authority not to proceed with them, if it so chooses, for whatever reason it sees fit. Specific laws 18 USC § 793 prohibits conveying various information about the national defense, military equipment, or preparations for war: with intent or reason to believe that the information is to be used to the injury of the United States, or to the advantage of any foreign nation § 793 does not refer to classification status at all, and it has no explicit excptions, but it would not apply where ther is no &quot;intent or reason to believe&quot; the information will harm the US or help another country. 18 USC § 794 has an intent requirement simialr to that of 793, but covers different kinds of information. Some of its provisions apply only in wartime, and then the required intent is that the information &quot;will be communicated to the enemy&quot;. Again classification is not mentioned. 18 USC § 795 Covers making images of &quot;vital military and naval installations or equipment&quot; protected by order of the President. Permission of the relevant military commander is required. No exceptions are listed. 18 USC § 796 is similar to § 795 but limited to images obtained by use of aircraft. No exceptions are listed. 18 USC § 797 prohibits publication of images taken in violation of § 795, unless approved by a censor. It is in form a prior restraint. No exceptions are listed. 18 USC § 798 Prohibits disclosure of information about cryptographic systems. No exceptions are listed, but I think there is caselaw limiting the coverage of this section. 18 USC § 799 prohibits violation of NASA security regulations.
Probably.* Congress has wide latitude to dictate the procedures of "inferior courts" -- the district courts and circuit courts of appeal. Those courts only exist because Congress created them, so Congress can generally set the terms on which they continue to exist. That power is limited in several important ways by the Constitution, including the terms and compensation of the judges, and standing to address cases, and then further limited by separation-of-powers principles. But the Rules of Civil Procedure and the Rules of Criminal Procedure are a good example of how Congress has already -- and largely unobjectionably -- imposed these types of demands on the judiciary. The rules are generally drafted by the judicial branch, but Congress approves them and gives them the force of law. In both sets of rules, you can already see some requirements on how decisions are worded: Criminal Rule 23 requires the court to "state its specific findings of fact" after a bench trial; Criminal Rule 32 requires the court to "set forth the plea, the jury verdict or the court's findings, the adjudication, and the sentence" in judgments of conviction; Civil Rule 52 requires the court to "find the facts specially and state its conclusions of law separately"; Civil Rule 58 requires that "every judgment and amended judgment ... be set out in a separate document"; Civil Rule 59 requires the court to "specify the reasons [for granting or denying a motion for a new trial] in its order"; and Civil Rule 72 requires magistrates to enter "a recommended disposition, including, if appropriate, proposed findings of fact." The rule you're proposing seems to go well beyond these requirements, but I don't see how it would run afoul of constitutional constraints. I could imagine an argument that this somehow encroaches on the courts' inherent authority, but I'm not really convinced that that authority protects against this. For more information, you can read the Congressional Research Service report on "Congressional Authority Over the Federal Courts." *This answer only applies to Article III courts, but even then does not apply to the Supreme Court, which is co-equal and generally has the authority to set its own rules. When it comes to Article I courts, though, Congress would probably have virtually unlimited discretion to impose the kinds of requirements that you're talking about, and even to say that the court has no jurisdiction to consider constitutionality at all. Congress might even get away with imposing these kinds of requirements on state courts through the Spending Clause
You do need to know the location of both parties. U.S. Federal law (18 USC 2511(2)(d)), which prohibits the interception of wire and electronic communication, states: It shall not be unlawful under this chapter for a person not acting under color of law to intercept a wire, oral, or electronic communication where such person is a party to the communication or where one of the parties to the communication has given prior consent to such interception unless such communication is intercepted for the purpose of committing any criminal or tortious act in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States or of any State. California Penal Code 632 requires the consent of all parties to a confidential communication in order for the conversation to be recorded. The statute defines a "confidential communication" as follows: The term “confidential communication” includes any communication carried on in circumstances as may reasonably indicate that any party to the communication desires it to be confined to the parties thereto, but excludes a communication made in a public gathering or in any legislative, judicial, executive or administrative proceeding open to the public, or in any other circumstance in which the parties to the communication may reasonably expect that the communication may be overheard or recorded. Once AT&amp;T, or anyone else for that matter, states that the communication is being recorded, it is no longer considered a confidential communication requiring the consent of all parties in order for any party to record it. Part of the California Civil Jury Instructions for this code requires that the plaintiff must prove, among other things, that the plaintiff had a "reasonable expectation that the conversation was not being overheard or recorded." You can see the full jury instructions here: https://www.justia.com/trials-litigation/docs/caci/1800/1809.html