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Feds Allegedly Demanding User Passwords From Services
An anonymous reader writes "Following the /. story on the Feds demanding SSL keys, now comes news that the feds are demanding user passwords, and in some cases, the encryption algorithm and salt used. From the article: 'A second person who has worked at a large Silicon Valley company confirmed that it received legal requests from the federal government for stored passwords. Companies "really heavily scrutinize" these requests, the person said. "There's a lot of 'over my dead body.'" ... Some of the government orders demand not only a user's password but also the encryption algorithm and the so-called salt, according to a person familiar with the requests. ... Other orders demand the secret question codes often associated with user accounts.' I'm next expecting to see the regulation or law demanding that all users use plain text for all web transactions, to catch terrorists and for the children."
While true, it leaves out the fun fact that this has been happening to many, many other organizations. See: http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2013/06/25/195599362/Democrats-Want-Answers-On-Progressives-Targeted-By-IRS
So no, the IRS wasn't targeting those groups because they don't agree with the administration. It targeted those groups because claiming 501c(4) status while advertising politically charged terms is a red flag. Finally, the link you're including has nothing to do with the IRS, with participating in public discourse or even with political discrimination. These speeches are PR events. As such, they are fairly tightly controlled. And quite frankly, I'm rolling my eyes at the comment that "we just wanted to watch the speech". I'd like to hear this story from some non-GOP-propaganda outlet before I even look further into it.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.