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WikiLeaks Claims Employee's Google Mail, Metadata Seized By US Government
An anonymous reader writes On Christmas Eve, as the National Security Agency was releasing a report on NSA employees' abuses of surveillance technology, Google was telling WikiLeaks about another sort of surveillance. According to a statement by WikiLeaks on Twitter, Google informed the organization on December 24 that the Gmail mailboxes and account metadata of a WikiLeaks employee had been turned over to law enforcement under a U.S. federal warrant.
As time goes by, larger and larger portion of the government of the United States of America being infected and absorbed by the faction which favors fascism than liberty. Their aim is to turn the USA into a police state, under which each and every citizen must obey their instruction or else ...
Under this circumstance, even if it is a REAL WARRANT it doesn't even matter anymore, for a judge can turned rogue and can be as rogue as those who dare to lie to the congress, who violate almost all the rules in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, who willingly throw away the very spirits that makes America great and turn it into a petty Ceausescu-like police regime
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Yeah, it was 'just' a warrant that was served three days after Wikileaks' CIA dump. Because the government should be able to sieze journalists' email whenever they don't like a story if they can find some judge somewhere to sign. Jesus, people.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Are you fucking kidding me? They got served a lawful warrant and spent 2.5yr to fight it and had to eventually comply. Look, you may prefer an anarchy where people can just get away with crimes, but I prefer the Bill of Rights:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
If that was followed - and it seems like it was - then what's the problem? Just because there's abuse going on doesn't mean that everything - or even a preponderance - is abuse.
- Warrants are an important and useful tool for law enforcement to keep peace and order in a society, and need to be possible to execute when given lawfully.
- Law enforcement (specifically the TLAs) has been abusing various methods of extracting information from individuals, companies, and networks.
Both of these things can be true at the same time. That's what makes this, and most other matters of public policy, complicated. It is adolescent stupidity (or libertarianism, but I repeat myself) to think that we could just do away with the government's ability to execute a lawful warrant without severe repercussions. We can and should fight against their improper use, just as we can and should fight the improper use of the rest of our laws, but just like (most of) the rest of our laws they are there for a reason.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
Nice rhetorical argument with yourself -- however, the issue from my point of view is Wikileaks is being targeted for being one of the last few "journalist' organizations. Corporate Media investigates it's holding companies and advertisers in the USA and they never find anything wrong. However, on sweeps week you will find out from Action News that there is a repairman who charges you for a new muffler but puts in an old one, and there are some government workers they caught napping.
The real issue from my point of view is that Wikileaks is not being investigated for wrong-doing -- they are being investigated to find out who their sources are. It's supposed to be a Democratic Representative government here and that's impossible without an informed electorate -- so any group; CIA, NSA or Al Qaeda that wants to keep you from the truth and put out false information is against what America is supposed to be about.
Wikileaks is not untouchable and above criticism, but they are one of the most important and precious things to America and the world right now, and the NSA and CIA look like the fascist dirt bags we were warned about. At every turn they prove why they should be mothballed. Keeping us safe from worse bad guys? Right. And next year the bad guys will get worse because they can't fight back against a drone. They attack what they can attack where it gets the most attention because we live in a world of asymmetrical warfare. Going head to head doesn't work. Protesting murders for marketshare doesn't work.
We have Wikileaks because our news media dropped the ball, and we have terrorism because we don't listen to people who suffer.
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
they're in bed with the very government
Yeah, nothing says "in bed" like a 2.5 year court battle, followed by immediately notifying the target.
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