Slashdot Mirror
Judge Orders Google To Comply With FBI's Warrantless NSL Requests
An anonymous reader writes "CNet reports that a U.S. District Court Judge has rejected Google's attempt to fight 19 National Security Letters, which are used by the FBI to gather information on users without a warrant. Quoting: 'The litigation taking place behind closed doors in Illston's courtroom — a closed-to-the-public hearing was held on May 10 — could set new ground rules curbing the FBI's warrantless access to information that Internet and other companies hold on behalf of their users. The FBI issued 192,499 of the demands from 2003 to 2006, and 97 percent of NSLs include a mandatory gag order. It wasn't a complete win for the Justice Department, however: Illston all but invited Google to try again, stressing that the company has only raised broad arguments, not ones "specific to the 19 NSLs at issue." She also reserved judgment on two of the 19 NSLs, saying she wanted the government to "provide further information" prior to making a decision.' This does not affect the Electronic Frontier Foundation's challenge to the constitutionality of the letters in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals."
I love the rsync.net "solution" to this problem, the Warrant Canary:
http://www.rsync.net/resources/notices/canary.txt
Wonderful idea. Sure, we can't tell you if one of these secret letters is given to us, but, until we get one, we can tell you it hasn't come...with signed, date verifiable messages.
Of course, only works for relatively small companies that are not getting requests as a matter of course.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
The fourth and fifth amendments are perfectly clear, and this so-called judge has just helped the government to pretend that they're not. The PATRIOT act is not a law at all, it is an act of usurpation.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Just learned this is called a Warrant Canary.