Navy illegally hacking all civilian computers in several states

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The Navy’s primary law enforcement agency has been conducting illegal surveillance operations against countless civilian computers for the past several years, a federal appeals court found last week.

Documents obtained by the Courthouse News Service reveal a 2010 case in which a Naval Criminal Investigative Service Agent in Georgia used an advanced surveillance software program known as “RoundUp” to scan every civilian computer in Washington state for child pornography.

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“So far as we can tell from the record, it has become a routine practice for the Navy to conduct surveillance of all the civilian computers in an entire state to see whether any child pornography can be found on them, and then to turn over the information to civilian law enforcement when no military connection exists,” the ruling states.

“We have here abundant evidence that the violation at issue has occurred repeatedly and frequently, and that the government believes that its conduct is permissible, despite prior cautions by our court and others that military personnel, including NCIS agents, may not enforce the civilian laws.”

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