This link to a Smoking Gun article about a teacher’s e-mail being hacked is bizarre enough because of the Secret Service involvment.
But the complaint says that the SS, when executing their search warrant took an I-Pod into custody, err…evidence.
WTF? If they’re looking for evidence of internet use/hacking, what is an I-Pod going to tell them?
Or was maybe the search warrant so broad that it just let them scoop up any electronic devices they found there?
I’m not really sure I understand why the Secret Service is involved. But as to why someone would take an I-Pod if they’re looking for evidence of a computer crime, I-Pods can store more than just sound files in my experience, there could be data that the perpetrator has loaded on to the device off of his main computer.
Waverly
January 19, 2006, 10:18pm
3
An Ipod can function as an external hard drive. It could hold the same information as the computer itself.
Got it. And I knew that but wasn’t thinking of it. Because I am a :wally
Not many people know that the Secret Service is actually part of the Treasury department. Their mandate for fighting computer crime is an extension of their powers to investigate counterfeiting and wire fraud. Here’s a complete explanation ifrom Bruce Sterling’s 1994 book “The Hacker Crackdown”, which I can quote here extensively because it happens to be literary freeware.
Special Agents of the Secret Service don’t wear uniforms, but the Secret Service also has two uniformed police agencies. There’s the former White House Police (now known as the Secret Service Uniformed Division, since they currently guard foreign embassies in Washington, as well as the White House itself). And there’s the uniformed Treasury Police Force.
The Secret Service has been charged by Congress with a number of little-known duties. They guard the precious metals in Treasury vaults. They guard the most valuable historical documents of the United States: originals of the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, an American-owned copy of the Magna Carta, and so forth. Once they were assigned to guard the Mona Lisa, on her American tour in the 1960s.
The entire Secret Service is a division of the Treasury Department. Secret Service Special Agents (there are about 1,900 of them) are bodyguards for the President et al, but they all work for the Treasury. And the Treasury (through its divisions of the U.S. Mint and the Bureau of Engraving and Printing) prints the nation's money.
As Treasury police, the Secret Service guards the nation's currency; it is the only federal law enforcement agency with direct jurisdiction over counterfeiting and forgery. It analyzes documents for authenticity, and its fight against fake cash is still quite lively (especially since the skilled counterfeiters of Medellin, Columbia have gotten into the act). Government checks, bonds, and other obligations, which exist in untold millions and are worth untold billions, are common targets for forgery, which the Secret Service also battles. It even handles forgery of postage stamps.
But cash is fading in importance today as money has become electronic. As necessity beckoned, the Secret Service moved from fighting the counterfeiting of paper currency and the forging of checks, to the protection of funds transferred by wire.
From wire-fraud, it was a simple skip-and-jump to what is formally known as "access device fraud." Congress granted the Secret Service the authority to investigate "access device fraud" under Title 18 of the United States Code (U.S.C. Section 1029).
The term "access device" seems intuitively simple. It's some kind of high-tech gizmo you use to get money with. It makes good sense to put this sort of thing in the charge of counterfeiting and wire-fraud experts.
However, in Section 1029, the term "access device" is very generously defined. An access device is: "any card, plate, code, account number, or other means of account access that can be used, alone or in conjunction with another access device, to obtain money, goods, services, or any other thing of value, or that can be used to initiate a transfer of funds."
Not many people know that the Secret Service is actually part of the Treasury department. Their mandate for fighting computer crime is an extension of their powers to investigate counterfeiting and wire fraud. Here’s a complete explanation ifrom Bruce Sterling’s 1994 book “The Hacker Crackdown”, which I can quote here extensively because it happens to be literary freeware.
Are they still part of the Treasury? I thought they got moved into DHS.
After further research, it looks like parts of the USSS may have been moved into DHS. Exactly how much was moved isn’t clear to me, although it seems a logical conclusion that it was the computer crimes unit.
Here’s what has happened to the USSS since 9/11, from the US treasury website
2001: The Patriot Act (Public Law 107-56) increases the Secret Service’s role in investigating fraud and related activity in connections with computers. In addition it authorizes the Director of the Secret Service to establish nationwide electronic crimes taskforces to assist the law enforcement, private sector and academia in detecting and suppressing computer-based crime; increases the statutory penalties for the manufacturing, possession, dealing and passing of counterfeit U.S. or foreign obligations; and allows enforcement action to be taken to protect our financial payment systems while combating transnational financial crimes directed by terrorists or other criminals.2002: The Department of Homeland Security is established with the passage of (Public Law 107-296) which in part, transfers the United States Secret Service from the Department of the Treasury, to the new department effective March 1, 2003.
My guess is that somebody recognized that it makes a lot more sense to have a crack counter-hacking organization under homeland security than under the department of the treasury, and transferred the appropriate pars.