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Google Asks Federal Judge To Challenge National Security Letters

Posted by Soulskill on from the don't-come-'round-here-no-more dept.

mk1004 writes "From Bloomberg and the Washington Post come reports that Google is petitioning a federal court to resist compliance with a national security letter from the FBI. This comes two weeks after the U.S. District Judge in San Francisco ruled that NSLs are unconstitutional because they 'violate the First Amendment and separation of powers principles.' Google filed a petition to 'set aside the legal process,' citing a provision that allows judges to modify or deny NSLs that are 'unreasonable, oppressive, or otherwise unlawful.' EFF attorney Matt Zimmerman was quoted as saying, 'the people who are in the best position to challenge the practice are people like Google. So far no one has really stood up for their users.'"

19 of 57 comments (clear)

  1. Don't be evil by Niterios · · Score: 5, Funny

    Google living up to its motto?

    1. Re:Don't be evil by ColdWetDog · · Score: 4, Funny

      Hurumph. I guess we have to divert our angst and hate to Apple and Microsoft this week.

      Things are just so complicated these days.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    2. Re:Don't be evil by olsmeister · · Score: 2

      Good for them. It's more like don't be evil ... and challenge evil when you see it. Now, if we can just get them to not support CISPA....

    3. Re:Don't be evil by jxander · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Seems like google wants to be Big Brother in all aspects of the term. Snoop, spy and record every facet of you life, while simultaneously protecting you from bullies.

      --
      This signature is false.
    4. Re:Don't be evil by crutchy · · Score: 2

      don't be silly... we ALWAYS reserve some of our hate for microsoft, and while i personally have nothing much against apple as a company (except they suck) i love poking sticks at the apple fanbois; they're a funny crowd.

    5. Re:Don't be evil by briancox2 · · Score: 3, Funny

      They are buying evil emission offsets.

      --
      We should learn what we need to know about issues, before we decide what we need to feel about them.
    6. Re:Don't be evil by FatdogHaiku · · Score: 4, Insightful

      don't be silly... we ALWAYS reserve some of our hate for microsoft, and while i personally have nothing much against apple as a company (except they suck) i love poking sticks at the apple fanbois; they're a funny crowd.

      And there is nothing we could do to Microsoft that is as bad as what they did to themselves... Windows 8.
      Who would have thought they could top the suck factor of Vista..

      --
      You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
    7. Re:Don't be evil by Dishevel · · Score: 2

      Vista was not as bad as Millenium Edition.

      --
      Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
    8. Re:Don't be evil by abirdman · · Score: 2

      Vista was not as bad as Millenium Edition.

      And both of those were better than Bob.

      --
      Everything I've ever learned the hard way was based on a statistically invalid sample.
    9. Re:Don't be evil by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I wouldn't mind that, actually.

      The problem with the government is that they want to snoop, spy and record every facet of your life while simultaneously BEING one of the bullies and not really protecting you from the other ones.

      If Google does what you say, well, that's like government but done right. I'm not sure that'd be a bad thing.

    10. Re:Don't be evil by ImprovOmega · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Vista was not bad compared to pretty much any OS. The only people who think it was are people who have never even used it and just swallowed the negative hype of the media and other people who had never used it.

      I used it. I had it on an OEM machine and that wasn't bad. I tested it at my workplace on a few machines and it burned us. Drivers had issues, upgrades were spotty at best, the addition of IPv6 on by default was an unpleasant surprise that our network didn't much care for, user account control was a constant nuisance for admin machines (less so, but still a relevant problem for users)... Essentially Vista was a warning label for all the things you had to do in order to prep for Windows 7. We did our prep work and Windows 7 wasn't so bad. But the burn on Vista meant that we didn't start our Windows 7 migration until our backs were against the wall on XP end of life.

      Windows 8 is the best version of Windows to come out. Aside from the start menu (which is debatable), it's much improved over Vista/7.

      Windows 8 is the best under the hood. Unfortunately Microsoft shit all over the interface in an attempt to leverage their market dominance on PC's to take over the phone/tablet market with a "unified interface". So yeah, it's basically a Ferrari with a Pinto chassis. It looks like we'll be running Windows 7 until it goes end of life now, and hope that Windows 9 doesn't look like such an abomination. And if we have to retrain 1000+ users on how to get to their programs so they can do actual work then maybe it'll be time at that point to examine replatforming options.

  2. Nobody could have possibly... by Synerg1y · · Score: 2

    Predicted that this would happen: http://news.cnet.com/Report-FBIs-snooping-did-not-follow-rules/2100-1028_3-6166015.html absolutely nobody.

    1. Re:Nobody could have possibly... by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Well, not exactly nobody...

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      (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
  3. Well, if Google speaks by fustakrakich · · Score: 5, Funny

    Maybe somebody will listen, because, certainly nobody is listening to any of us poor slobs.

    --
    “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    1. Re:Well, if Google speaks by tolkienfan · · Score: 3, Funny

      Not funny. Insightful, interesting, yes. Funny - no.

  4. Good for Google by Maow · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Google gets a lot of hate and are often put into the same category as other big corporations, but they do a lot of work on keeping the web free and "open", and this:

    EFF attorney Matt Zimmerman was quoted as saying, 'the people who are in the best position to challenge the practice are people like Google. So far no one has really stood up for their users.'

    puts them in a league apart from the others, even though they aren't perfect.

    I do dread the day they become "evil" like everyone else though; I expect it's just a matter of time.

    But so far, despite their mis-steps and their massive collection of users' data, they remain sui generis.

    1. Re:Good for Google by fa2k · · Score: 2

      It's not *just* out of generosity. It is in Google's interest to have users submit as much data as possible to them, and the users are more likely to do so if the government doesn't have easy access. It's a great thing nonetheless, but it just happens that there is a positive correlation between the interst of Google and that of the users.

  5. Support the EFF! by Jay9999 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    After reading over and over again in stories here about the EFF, and their work as one of the few organizations that really stands up for the common internet user, I finally decided they are really worth my support and I became an EFF member recently. It's eff.org/donate/ if you are interested in supporting them, too.

  6. Re: National Security Letter by Mabhatter · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's like a search warrant.

    But it only requires a "government official" that is "investigating" national security.
    And they don't need a judge to sign...
    And the recipient can't announce they GOT ONE or any details...
    And it can't be challenged in court (cause you can't talk about it)...
    Although they are "reviewed" once a year per agency by some secret list of judges, somewhere... But no checks and balances are included in the law if the judges didn't like the results.