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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.'"

6 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 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
  2. 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!”
  3. 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.

  4. 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.