Slashdot Mirror
ACLU Sues FBI Over ISP Records
An anonymous reader writes "One of the provisions of the infamous USA PATRIOT Act is the ability for the government to force companies that hold personal information, specifically in this case, ISPs, to turn over their records without a court order. MSNBC is reporting about a lawsuit filed by the ACLU in secret because of another provision in PATRIOT that prevents public disclosure of these matters. The gag order was dropped when the Justice Department agreed to not take any action against the ACLU."
I keep hoping it's temporary. Congress ran a bill through on fear and faux patriotism, and now we, the people, are paying for it. You have to expect that every now and then a huge, lumbering, monolothic entity like the U.S. government is going to fuck things up. That's why people challenge them.
It's not time to panic yet. When we can't challenege them anymore (and the gag was a BIG step in that direction) or court cases like this start being lost, then we panic.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
So would Slashdot turn over identifying information to the FBI et al if it was requested? What's the site's position on this?
going to limit the ability of the RIAA to get the names of people downloading misic. i mean if the gov't can't do it, then why should the riaa be able to?
Text of the Second Amendment and Related Contemporaneous Provisions
Second Amendment: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
English Bill of Rights: That the subjects which are protestants may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law (1689). 1
Connecticut: Every citizen has a right to bear arms in defense of himself and the state (1818). 2
Kentucky: [T]he right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State shall not be questioned (1792). 3
Massachusetts: The people have a right to keep and to bear arms for the common defence (1780). 4
North Carolina: [T]he people have a right to bear arms, for the defence of the State; and, as standing armies, in time of peace, are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up; and that the military should be kept under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power (1776). 5
Pennsylvania: That the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the state; and as standing armies in the time of peace are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up; And that the military should be kept under strict subordination, to, and governed by, the civil power (1776). 6
The right of the citizens to bear arms in defence of themselves and the State shall not be questioned (1790). 7
Rhode Island: The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed (1842). 8
Tennessee: [T]he freemen of this State have a right to keep and bear arms for their common defence (1796). 9
Vermont: [T]he people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the State -- and as standing armies in time of peace are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up; and that the military should be kept under strict subordination to and governed by the civil power (1777). 10
Virginia: That a well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power. 11
I think that this is a good move.
It is unfortunate that the P.A. even was passed.
I spent some time studying the US constitution this semester, and although I havn't looked at the P.A., I suspect that it breaches the writ of habeus corpus in the US constitution.(Its not even in an amendment- its in the original document)
Writ of Habeus Coprpus: A summons to a gaoler demanding that they present themselves and their prisoner to the judge, so that the gaoler can give an account of why the prisoner is being held.
/b
|f(x)dx = F(b) - F(a)
Troll moderation is right. The ACLU takes care of all the ammendments that the NRA doesn't take care of. It would be a waste of time any money for the ACLU to duplicate the efforts of the NRA.
The reality is that many right wingers have a serious problem with the ACLU, because the ACLU takes on cases that they consider to be "liberal". The ACLU isn't interested in the politics of the situation - they protect Republicans and Democrats alike. They even defend some people who are quite morally despicable, such as racists.
But, those racists have rights too, and they must be protected.
So, when you hear people like this DAldredge railing against the ACLU because they don't take 2nd ammendment cases, what you should understand is that these right wing buffoons really HATE when the ACLU takes on liberal cases, but they don't have a rational reason for opposing the ACLU. This bogus charge that they don't care about the 2nd ammendment is ALL THAT THEY HAVE.
And even the ACLU is being honest about their position. When it comes right down to it, the ACLU doesn't think that the 2nd ammendment was talking about individuals, but state militias. But, this opinion does NOT cause them to litigate along those lines. The ACLU stays out of that conflict to concentrate on areas where there is nobody else fighting for the preservation of rights.
DAldredge, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. You're a partisan mudslinger first, and an American second. I doubt that there's any room in there for much appreciation of the Bill of Rights, and the affirmative good that the ACLU has brought to its defense.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
What country is this?
:D
It's a country at war, at least that is the argument used for sucessfully keeping the national news at reporting certain issues these days. Good thing we have the web so this information can be found else where.
The first casuality of war is truth, you know.
Name the country that used the following law enforcement tactics
- Authorizes the use "Secret" Search Warrants that may be carried out without the recipients knowledge and prevent the recipient from discussing said warrant and search with anyone including legal council, which do not define the nature of the search in any means.
- Makes it a Federal Offence to discuss any "secret action" taken by law enforcement by any knowledgeable party.
- Where National Security reasons apply allows suspects to be secretely detained only on law enforcements "reasonable" suspicion and to be held indefinitely without any formal charge nor the ability to seek council or contact anyone to infomr them of their detainment.
- Allows for Court proceedings to be held in secret and all records thereof to be sealed from the public.
Select the answer from the Following List
A) Soviet Russia (USSR)
B) Nazi Germany
C) United States of America
D) All of the above
Check out the ACLU's page on the challenge. There's info on the (redacted) complaint itself, a press release, and related cases and efforts.
Here.
--Ryv
You know when I was in middle school they used to always talk about "checks and balances" in the United States government.
The PATRIOT Act is literally bypassing the need for judicial approval in order to get private information about (presumably) law abiding citizens.
So, essentially, its undermining our pretty little system of "checks and balances."
Their full position can be read here. You may not agree with it; but it is a perfectly valid position to take, and in no way inconsistent with their and praiseworthy longstanding defense of our civil liberties.
We need to consolidate surveillance and records retention into a new, single-purpose institution that is publicly accountable, culturally engineered to protect civil liberty and subjected to very strong oversight.
Surveillance is less of a risk than insecure records retention that is accepted as a secure evidentiary process. Private collection leads to the risk of diverted or subverted records. Public (government) collection would synchronize retention with collection.
Private retention is accountable to no one, yet will always be one security breach away from misuse. Public collection and retention will slowly but inexorably improve in accountability.
Surveillance of retained data (a.ka. audit controls) is the only path to accountable surveillance.
Troll? You people amaze me. Everyone gets their panties in a bunch over the cause du jour. I don't come to /. for political news I come here for tech news. If some goverment functionary wants to snoop through my ISPs records to see that I spend 80% of my time online surfing for porn let them have at it.
I am not going to worry about it because the courts will settle it. It's not worth my time. Why do you think the DOJ removed the gag order? Because there was nothing sensitive at risk. It's working the way it's supposed to.
People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them
Woah there, Tiger. You may believe that the Patriot Act is G.W's tyrrany and that Conservatives are "evil", but I assure you, there are very few people in Congress right now who are opposed to it, regardless of party affiliation.
I personally am opposed and I am very conservative. I also do not believe that Bush is the greatest President either, nor Reagan, etc, but that won't stop me from voting for him in November. Why? Because John Kerry firghtens the hell out of me on so many different levels, and I am convinced that if Congress re-ratified the Patriot Act, Kerry would _NOT_ veto it.
To Kerry is another Clinton who votes down the polls which is _NOT_ what a President should ever do, especially with the shit the country is going through today... not even during a re-election campaign (but they all do it!). I don't find Bush particularly intelligent, nor do I find him zealously religious like most people believe him to be, but over the last few years since 9/11, I have seen him toss out what the Public Polls feel is right or wrong, and take action on the things that will protect the Country from crazy people.
Taking on Saddam Hussein is not an easy thing to do. In fact, attacking Saddam has already knocked one President out of office and it may very well knock another out. The Bush Administration was fully aware of this when they made the decision to invade.
I digress. Associating a conservative with _ANY_ political issue is foolish and assuming that Republicans straight off the bat support Bush is plain ignorant.
Nobody likes the Patriot Act. Not a single person, but if Congress wants to re-ratify it, the only concept that puts me at ease is that they likely have their reasons for it.
I feel lucky today that 9/11 was an attack by planes and not a nuclear weapon. Until Islamic Societies mellow out, we _WILL_ have that risk. I personally am convinced that its not a matter of "if", but rather "when".
Mod me down... you cannot effect my Karma.
1933:
Reichstag burned
Attack blamed on communists.
Enabling Act is imposed giving special powers to Hitler.
2001:
Twin Towers destroyed
Attack blamed on terrorists.
Patriot Act is imposed giving special powers to Bush, et al.
The visibility of conservatives against Bush is pretty low.
It's comforting to hear dissent from the right every once in awhile. Takes no small amount of courage.
Sorry, still have a problem with it. Basically, what the parent's quote says is that
..." implies that they are OK with practical matters getting in the way of the rights of an individual - since overthrowing the government would be impossible with rifles, and handguns (opinion of the military experts in the ACLU?!), the amendment is irrelevant.
1) they are acting on their own interpretation
2) "in today's world
This is the exact opposite of their treatment of all of the other amendments, where the rights enumerated are:
1) the most liberal interpretation that they can get out of the wording, and
2) taken as absolute regardless of the practical consequences (the classic "murderer goes free on a technicality" bit)
So, you are correct in pointing out that the ACLU doesn't pretend the second amendment doesn't exist. However, by applying a different standard to it than any other amendment, and by deciding that it is not relevant, they can simply choose to ignore it with a clear conscience.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
As with most real conservatives, we disagree with the sitting president.
What a horrible choice is left to us come November.
Maybe it's not as bad as you think.
The parties have switched their platforms while retaining their names before. The Republicans were the ones who freed the slaves and gave them the right to vote. Civil rights issues like these are now Democratic policies.
Small government is part of the Republican platform, but no longer part of their actions.
Clinton decreased government and balanced the budget which are big conservative issues.
Maybe the parties have shifted enough that your values are more in line with those of the Democratic party?
Just a thought.
Ok George, we know it's you. Considering that you've made the country significantly more dangerous (who doesn't hate us is an easier question to answer than who does) and planes more easily hijacked (The TIA stuff makes it so that terrorist groups can find out who is on the list and who isn't just by flying a few times before doing something, thereby purging the hijacking ranks to those that will pass without notice. Before, there was a much greater chance of being randomly discovered), I don't see how you think that you can support this clause (the protecting the country from crazy people one, unless by crazy people you mean those that think this country is all about having rights that should be inalienable and not about banning gay marriage). I really hope that you don't strain the military far enough with another war that a draft will be instated. That would be really bad (for me at least, what with moving to another country and all to avoid it).
Clinton was a 100x (at least) better President than G Dubya. At least he didn't base a war on lies and bullshit regarding WMD, while hiring clueless morons (Condoleeza Rice, ok I admit she isn't a moron, but she sure is a big fucking liar and is bad for everyone), letting a theocratic idiot run the war operations (General Clarke), and putting an insufferable Puritan at the top of the food chain as Attorney General (Ashcroft, you know, the one that thinks everyone that purveys or consumes porn should be locked up). At least you're a super fan of big business (letting Microsoft off the hook anyone?) If you think Kerry is comparable to Clinton (I don't), he's definitely the one to vote for.
Besides, modding down, by definition, will affect your karma.
And the muscular cyborg German dudes dance with sexy French Canadians
I call bullshit.
In every other part of the "Bill of Rights" the ACLU interprets "the people" to mean just that. For some reason with the 2nd amendment "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." doesn't apply to "the people" in the ACLU's opinion.
The ACLU therefore believes that the Second Amendment does not confer an unlimited right upon individuals to own guns or other weapons
Second amendment rights advocates do not believe this either. The ACLU knows that. They're using verbal gymnastics here. Second amendments rights advocates believe that rights exist independantly of the constitution, the constitution serves to limit the governments ability to infringe upon rights that the people HAVE, not to grant non-existant rights.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Whoa, I used to live in Toledo (moved to Idaho in 2000). I had read about this back when the uncapping story hit Slashdot. It's interesting to hear from you. I just read your interview with BBR. That is just one example of the FBI abusing their powers, which I think the PATRIOT Act makes too easy.
I'm really torn about this ACLU thing because I hate them and what they normally do. In this case, though, they seem to be doing the right thing. I did a paper about reverse discrimination my senior year in high school, and found lots of examples in my research of the ACLU suing companies out of existence for not hiring the right kinds of minorities, even when they are in an ethnic neighborhood, 100% of the workers are minorities, just not the right ones, according to some.
We may experience some slight turbulence and then...explode. -Capt. Mal Reynolds
The government only starts doing truly scary things when the same party controls the White House and both branches of Congress.
He decided to just watch the government, and kind of scale it down to size, and run his life that way. --Laurie Anderson
If there was no Patriot Act, you guys would bash the President for not having something in place.
Well, I can't speak for everyone on Slashdot, but I personally would not be complaining about the lack of PATRIOT.
I hope you understand that the Patriot Act passed with only 3 no votes. So even if he did veto it, it would still be enacted. So you all should be bashing your local congress/senate person for voting for it
I can't agree, for a number of reasons.
a) The Bush administration was the originator of the PATRIOT Act. Congress didn't get together and say "gee, it would be really great if judges were cut out of the law enforcement loop...let's make an act allowing this!" That's all Ashcroft.
b) Saying that "because element X also did something wrong, you should not complain about element Y" is not correct reasoning. Perhaps they should be recieving flak that they are currently not; that does not mean that Bush should not be complained at.
c) Just because they voted for it does *not* mean that they would override a veto of it -- that Bush vetoing the vote would not have stopped PATRIOT. There's a significant political difference between the two.
It is interesting seeing a Bush supporter on Slashdot, though.
May we never see th
I think Bush has managed to invent a whole new direction to move in. The man has pissed away an obscene surplus projection, put rocket boosters on the deficit, instituted a recovery plan that would make a first year economist trainee weep, started two wars, failed to justify one of them, shoved a law that puts Orwell's work to shame through a pants-pissing Congress, attempted to revitalize the career of the man who defined "creepy Big Brother" with a program that can only be described as "conceived from the bowels of hell", can't do anything without Ashcroft, Cheney, or Rice holding his dick to guide him...
All this and he managed to stonewall an investigation into one of the biggest intelligence disasters in history, roll back a dozen years of progress on diplomacy, environmental issues, and civil rights, AND he took more vacation time his first year in office than any healthy president in history.
Yes... I think Bush has redefined the political spectrum.... in a very bad way. I have never cared about politics before, but I am now a registered voter and I've looked deeper into the issues in the last few months than I had in all my previous years on this planet combined. Way to go Georgey....
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
As long as we are the freest nation in the world (with shit like the PA being passed that won't be too long) we will also be the most violent, the most dangerous, and the most open to attack by individual nuts.
Actually we AREN'T the most violent, most dangerous. Risk of death from violent crime among every major racial/ethnic group in the US is typically lower than it is for the same ethnic group in their country of origin. Lower for whites of English descent than in England, for blacks of African descent than in Africa, for people of Japanese descent than in Japan, and so on, for people of Spanish-Indian descent than in South and Central America, and so on.
We have a higher average violent crime rate than some other countries mainly because we have allowed and encouraged (and even sometimes forced B-( ) immigration of large numbers of members of violent cultures, but haven't forced them to completely abandon their cultures. Crime tends to be mainly within each group rather than between members of the groups. But crime goes down as the members of the groups assimilate and/or acquire means of self-defense. (Risk - of victimization or crime commission - for a black US citizen of African descent but middle-class or higher income and status is no different that that for a white of European descent.)
Add in the risk of death and injury from acts of war and there's just no comparison. Most of the rest of the world gets into major tribal warfare and rounds of genocide about once per generation (although this has been cooling out a bit since the invention of the Atom Bomb). The US hasn't had a major civil war since the mid 1800s, and most of its casualties come from bailing out the rest of the world.
And there's plenty of evidence now that the solution to the remaining "problem" is more freedom - specifically more gun-toting. Not only is violent crime highest where guns are most restricted, lowest where they're most prevalent. But now we know that it's BECAUSE they're restricted that crime is high, rather than the other way around. CCW has been legalized in progressively more of the US over the last decade or so, and within a couple years of legalization in each area - about the time people actually the the paperwork done and you start having a significant number of gun-toters - crime in the area drops like a rock.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Usually the laws are worded so the site/ISP has to turn over your records AND it is illegal to notify you.
But suppose your ISP or other site offers a pro-active privacy notification. In other words, every day the ISP sends you an email certifying that they have not provided any of your records to law enforcement. The day that notification doesn't come, you have been notified. Then the ISP or site wouldn't have to violate the order by notifying you.
Gore would have known about the attacks months beforehand, as published in the PDB, and taken action, instead of allowing the attacks to occur to create a reason to invade Iraq.
--
I kinda skimmed thru the posts and didn't see mention of this ... I am in the process of buying a new home and one of the papers presented by my mortgage company was an acknowledgement that all information concerning this transaction was going to be entered into a federal database required by the Patriot Act. The wording on the 1 page paper was "You must sign this".
Will the next purchase of an automobile require this too?
How about the next time I go shopping at Walmart?
I'm a 'third party' swing voter (meaning I haven't found a party I can entirely agree with enough to become a card-carrying member - No, don't go posting a link to the Libertarians as if I've never heard of them. I have, and I don't agree with them enough to support them, although they do resonate with me on some issues and I have voted for their candidate on several occasions.)
Anyway, the point is that I often ignore the Republican vs Democrat issues, knowing full well that I'm voting for neither one, and that on the issues that matter most to me, they aren't that different from each other.
But I've been a major fan of Feingold ever since the Communications Decency Act (part 1). He voted that down (even though it was just a rider on a larger telecom bill), for a number of good reasons he cited in his statement about his vote. Most importantly he said it was wrong to enact laws that define stricter standards of free speech for new mediums as opposed to existing ones. Why is it that things a newspaper can get away with in print should be disallowed for an individual to say online? The fact that the new medium of the internet is quicker, more open, and turns everyone into a publisher, shouldn't be a reason to get stricter on it - just the opposite, really." Feingold was the ONLY SENATOR to oppose the bill. The ONLY ONE. The vote was 98 in favor, 1 abstain, and 1 against. Feingold was that single voice against it (and the supreme court ruling that declared it unconstitutional afterward vindicates his stance.)
That took courage. That took guts. I became a big fan of his on that day and started paying more attention to his voting record. I don't agree with every vote, but the ones that are really important, on issues where congress was trying to move the country to a more totalitarian format, Good Ole Russ was there as the (usually) lone dissenter - saying that no issue is more important than the freedoms of our citizens down the road, that selling away our future rights to take care of an temporary problem is not good policy, even when that temporary problem is something as big and momentous as a major terrorist act killing thousands.
He was also the lone dissenter in the Patriot Act. Again, a very brave thing to do given that opponents can use that to paint him as a traitor, and they probably will try that tactic.
I've sent him a letter (on dead trees, since that tends to get more notice), stating that as long as he keeps it up with this kind of stance against selling out freedom to gain temporary security, that he will continue to have my vote (Yes, I live in Wisconsin so I can do that). The letter also stated that I don't agree with him on lots of his other votes, and that I am not a Democrat, but that no issue is more important today than this one, and so the fact that he's the only one in office with the guts to stand up to these bills means he has won me as an ardent supporter. (And I closed with the famous Ben Franklin quote about giving up freedom for safety and deserving neither.)
I was pleasantly surprised to get a snail-mail reply to this letter, and some of the things in the text of the reply make it clear that it was not just a form letter, as it made explicit references to the fact that I said I am not a member of his party but support him anyway. It was not written by him, but by a staffer (and it was honest enough to say so explicitly), but the gist of it was that the senator had received a lot of similar letters in response to his patriot act vote, too many to answer them all in person, but that the senator's standard response to all such letters was to let people know that he does plan to continue this trend of voting, no matter the consequences.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.