NYC Lawyers Subpoena Code

RonMcMahon writes "Lawyers for the city of New York have subpoenaed the text message records of thousands of people involved in demonstrations at the 2004 Republican National Convention. Tad Hirsch, creator of the TXTmob code that enabled convention demonstrators to transmit messages to thousands of telephones, has been instructed to release the content of messages exchanged on the service and to identify people who sent and received messages. Hirsch argues that release of such information would be a violation of users' First Amendment and privacy rights. 'I think I have a moral responsibility to the people who use my service to protect their privacy,' said Hirsch."

Comments

Subpoena?

[bckspc]

It's GPLed! Just download the code at http://sourceforge.net/projects/txtmob/

Glad it's not Sony or Microsoft or some other corp

[electrictroy]

If this was a corporation (which has no soul or moral code), the content of the messages would already be in NYC's lawyers' hands.

Fortunately in this case, it's a man who believes in human rights.

Anonymous political speech

[dreamchaser]

Anonymous political speech has a long tradition in the US. Many of our founding fathers hid behind pseudonyms while writing many of what are termed 'The Federalist Papers' which laid much of the groundwork for the US Constitution.

If the messages were inciting people to break the law I could possibly understand, but on the face of what few facts I have on the subject right now my knee wants to jerk right into the Government's jaw a few times.

Re:Anonymous political speech

[squiggleslash]

Well, the whole point of breaking the law to overturn a bad law is that you're challenging it by standing up and saying "I'm prepared to be punished for this, because I don't believe it's just that others should be." So if your purpose in telling people to break the law is to encourage civil disobedience, but you yourself have no plans to be punished, then you're not doing it right.

A more important principle is that people shouldn't be denied their rights to participate in the democratic process because they've broken the law. That those convicted of crimes are permanently barred from voting in the majority of states is essentially a gateway to legalized vote-rigging (look at the lifestyles of your opponents and criminalize it), and a barrier to overturning unjust laws that affect large numbers of people.

Re:Anonymous political speech

[Anonymous Coward]

How about a little less knee-jerk reactionism. These were not private text messages, they were broadcast through SMS (an unprotected medium) to thousands of people (basically standing on a digital soapbox). Why was there any expectation of privacy in the first place?

Re:Anonymous political speech

[Omestes]

I think there is an expectation of privacy because people view SMS in the same light as they view a person-to-person telephone conversation. I don't think they're wrong in this, either, since this is more akin to an internal organizational memo than a soap box. When I CC an email to 10 of my friends about something going on, I have the same expectation of privacy as sending it to any single one of them. It is that group's business, not anyone else's.

In my analogy the only legitimate circumvention would be to actually ask a recipient.

That said, this is absurd, even if there is no reasonable expectation of privacy. These emails were organizing a protest, something that is constitutionally protected, and good for society as a whole. This was not, from the sounds of it, a "terrorist" event, or a plot to blow up Madison Square Gardens, but just a regular act of civil disobedience and protest. This could, and might be geared towards, have a chilling effect on the organization of demonstrations, and those who provide the tools to do so. Thus even if there is no reasonable expectation of privacy, I still don't think that it is the governments business.

T'was ever thus

[hyades1]

Every time you surrender your rights to the state in return for assurances that a) people who might be breaking some minor law like jaywalking have nothing to worry about and b) the new powers will be used only against the really, really bad people, should sit up and take notice. This is exactly the kind of thing you can expect.

How many people who want to exercise their legal right to protest will sit home next time because their career ambitions include jobs where even being on the same street as a protest could knock them off the hiring list?

It's always best to assume governments and police forces are led by lying, treacherous fascists. You will occasionally be pleasantly surprised to find that it's not the case. More often, you'll find out that power-tripping assholes are attracted to those jobs the same way child molesters are attracted to schoolgrounds and bank robbers are attracted to banks.

Re:T'was ever thus

[hyades1]

I disagree with your opinion on public protest. It has been and remains an effective tool to change public policy. Why do you think governments are so anxious to suppress it?

And while you may be right about air travel, I think you have to acknowledge that other alternatives remain, though they may impose a burden on the traveler. I would expect that sooner, rather than later, American professionals who need to fly frequently will be forced to submit to thorough vetting in return for some kind of enhanced internal passport. Or perhaps the American people will finally decide they've had enough and kick the troublemakers out of office.

The bottom line is that freedom isn't free, and if you want to preserve the things that made the United States worth living in, you're occasionally going to get cheap-shotted by terrorists. My personal view is that it might be wise to quietly let the governments of those nasty little terror factories in the Middle East know that any nuclear detonation in the United States would be closely followed by a much larger one over Mecca.

Re:T'was ever thus

[Omestes]

I think the parent is correct about much of modern protest, but not all. But even if it is abused, or done for no real reason, it still is a handy tool that we may need someday (or, arguably now).

I remember in college I had a bunch of friends telling me about the "die in" (basically laying down, acting dead-ish in the student union) they were holding. This was fine an noble, but they were completely unable to actually tell anyone what it was over, but they still got around 70-100 people to participate. I think, in the end, it was over the food supplier for the university or something, but I'm not sure since the organizers still won't tell me.

Yearly PRISM (the gay activist club) would organize demostations and protests for equal rights and gay marriage, one year it was then doing some stupid musical/play thing in the middle of campus. All it served was to make it impossible to study there, and to set them further apart from the rest of us (making it easier to single them out). Though the year previous they organized my favorite demonstration ever, "Gay people being gay", and it consisted of them sitting around the commons, studying, and socializing normally, while surrounded by yellow police tape, showing people that they were just people. I actually signed their petition that year.

Most protesters act outragious, and thus can pointed out at deviants and oddballs, which weakens to position that people are protesting. It makes it easier for someone to point at them and discredit them. By acting like morons they discredit their own cause. Ideally protesters should wear business attire, have professional signs, and offer and eloquent message, this way they have the image of at least treating their issue seriously, and don't come off as a bunch of mentally unstable ex-hippies wearing hemp pants who actually believe that the GOP eats babies.

Keeping records

[naich]

Why keep records at all? If I was organising something that could be used for civil disobedience then I'd make sure it was all anonymous with no records kept for precisely this reason.

Re:Glad it's not Sony or Microsoft or some other c

[will_die]

If he was interested in human rights we would release the text since knowing the information would help free the people being charged in the lawsuits or it would prove that something wrong was done and make sure those people had no chance of doing the same thing in the future.
Instead he stored the messages for some personnal or business reason.

Why does he have the data?

[Ed Avis]

The data cannot be subpoena'd if it does not exist. Why does his system keep records of who said what to whom? And if it needs the records, why doesn't it delete them after a short period? And if the system does keep an archive, why didn't he delete it manually before now, if people's privacy is so important?

Way to tell only half the story

[Anonymous Coward]

Lawyers representing the city in lawsuits filed by hundreds of people arrested during the convention asked Mr. Hirsch to hand over voluminous records revealing the content of messages exchanged on his service and identifying people who sent and received messages.

Want to bet at least part of NYC's defense is that at least some of those arrested actually set out to be arrested?

And that the text messages will prove that?

Re:Glad it's not Sony or Microsoft or some other c

[Lockejaw]

I think GP's point is that it's easier to be evil when you aren't signing your own name to the order.

Republicans you say?

[javakah]

Perhaps these anti-GOP demonstrators should in fact be embracing GOP leader. By that I mean if the GOP can 'accidentally' electronic records (and backups!) that they were specifically legally bound to keep, couldn't these demonstrators also 'accidentally' lose those records as well? (I'm not actually advocating that they do this, I'm just pointing out that it's kind of ridiculous that even anti-GOP demonstrators keep copies of data while the GOP all too conveniently lose their data that may well be even more incriminating).

Re:LEARN

[westlake]

They cannot subpoena logs that you don't keep.

but they can haul your ass before a judge and ask you to disclose everything you know about your users and your system.

to say you can't remember, to say you can't recall, is likely land you in jail until your memory improves.

in this situation you are not the anonymous coward.

you are the guy up front, naked and exposed, when something goes wrong.

"the eighteen minute gap," the camera pointed in the wrong direction. nothing on record is likely to be quite so bad - and, in the long run, quite so damaging as what people will imagine.

the chances are good that you will keep a log.

Re:EXACTLY!

[Firethorn]

Yes, I know that the threat isn't the same as actually taking legal action, that's why I called it a scare tactic.

And for many of the letters I've seen evidence for, if it took them 20 minutes I'd be surprised. Many look almost like the form letters of old with open spaces to type in the relevant information via typewriter.

As for the $50k defense fund, I'd hit the RNC up, personally. They'd probably be willing to throw that much at it just to keep anything embarrasing out of the public eye, even if it'd only be embarrasing if taken out of context.

Re:Glad it's not Sony or Microsoft or some other c

[electrictroy]

There's a difference:

- You said the corporation is fighting to protect its breathalyzer code. It wants to maintain its own property & future profits. Makes perfect sense.

- But what if the State sued the corporation to obtain the *emails* sent across the machines? Does the corporation have a vested interest to protect them? Nope. The corporation will not fight. It will just hand them over to the government, as if they were best friends.

In this particular case, we have a man who has no vested interest
But he does have a morals. He's fighting purely upon the principle of protecting others.

Re:LEARN

[Kefaa]

"You" only get dragged in front of a judge if you are a fool. Anyone who believes they can go into a court without a lawyer truly has a fool for a client.

Having said that, you may still end up in court, and if you have setup a deletion policy (even if it is a policy that no logs are kept), and you follow the policy in all cases, little can be done. There is sufficient precedent to support the deletion of logs, emails, etc. as perfectly legal and within the realm of business propriety. Where trouble starts is having a policy of one day, but only following it when you feel like it. Or leaving it to the end user - which is the same as not having a policy.

Set a policy - always follow the policy.

Re:Glad it's not Sony or Microsoft or some other c

[0111 1110]

*sigh*. information wants to be free is just a more pithy (and to some confusing) way of saying secrets are hard to keep or information is hard to control. Information tends to escape, to find a way out, and once it does you cannot put the genie back in the bottle, ever. It does not mean that there are no secrets that are worth keeping or at least trying to keep. There may also be something in there about the futility of even trying to control or hoard information. Something about it being a waste of time and so forth.