FBI Accidentally Received Unauthorized E-Mail Access

AmishElvis writes "The New York Times reports that 'glitch' gave the F.B.I. access to the e-mail messages from an entire computer network. A hundred or more accounts may have been accessed, rather than 'the lone e-mail address' that was approved by a secret intelligence court as part of a national security investigation. The episode was disclosed as part of a new batch of internal documents that the F.B.I. turned over to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit the group has brought."

Comments

Unauthorized in today's world?

[russlar]

Can any kind government access be considered unauthorized anymore? There have been so many executive orders, bending of laws, etc. that just about every form of government access to information is authorized by something.

What I want to know

[causality]

A hundred or more accounts may have been accessed, rather than 'the lone e-mail address' that was approved by a secret intelligence court as part of a national security investigation.

When I read this, I wasn't wondering how that happened, or what the nature of the "glitch" was, or how many accounts were accessed. What I was wondering is WHY THE FUCK DOES THE UNITED STATES HAVE A SECRET COURT OF ANY KIND?!?!. Yeah yeah, to protect the children, save the whales, stop the terrorists, keep you safe, "our intentions are pure and we're really a bunch of big-hearted individuals who care about your well-being" etc... I still don't know what is wrong with the assholes who actually believe this shit.

And hell, I want to believe we have a good, honest government. The fact is, we don't. I don't understand what being in this level of denial is supposed to do to remedy the situation. There is a very good reason why the founding fathers intended for most of our interaction with government to come from the local and state level. The only thing the federal government can do that the state & local governments cannot do is resolve disputes between states, conduct foreign policy, regulate interstate trade, oh and it can slowly become a dictatorship too. Speaking of remedies, I'm betting that nothing will happen either to the FBI as an organization or to the individuals who made this "mistake", that at most they will receive a slap-on-the-wrist.

Re:What I want to know

[nguy]

What I was wondering is WHY THE FUCK DOES THE UNITED STATES HAVE A SECRET COURT OF ANY KIND?!?!.

This is not a "secret court" in the sense of a court that sends people to prison (the US has those, too, but they are still limited to the military and Guantanamo). Rather, it's a court that acts as an additional control for police and secret service actions.

Such a "secret court" is a good thing, because it provides judicial review for actions that would otherwise not be subject to judicial review at all.

What we DON'T know

[Baraka]

• which ISP was involved
  
• how many individuals' accounts had their privacy compromised
  
• how many messages were captured by the FBI's data vacuum cleaner
  
• whether the messages were really destroyed or not (what does unspecified means mean?)
  
• whether the FBI is even telling the truth or not
  
• how many other times this kind of overproduction has occurred since 9/11
  

The writer of this article, Eric Lichtblau, won a shared Pulitzer Prize for his work in exposing the illegal warrantless wiretapping program, authorized by the government and championed by the White House after 9/11. In fact, it was in existence even before 9/11, but that's another story entirely.

This program supposedly expired just yesterday when congress let the clock run out on its dependent legislation. The problem here, clearly, is that it doesn't matter if this program is never renewed; overproduction of data under FISA will still happen all the time. That's the entire point of this article. There are no checks and balances. There is no accountability. There is NOTHING. Total secrecy and legal immunity are all but guaranteed for the perpetrators. Period.