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Editor of 'Reason' Discusses Federal Subpoena To Unmask Commenters
mi points out an article from Nick Gillespie, editor of libertarian website Reason, who was recently asked by the federal government to provide identifying information on anonymous commenters from one of the site's blog posts. Not only was Reason issued a subpoena for the commenters's identities, but they were also placed under a gag order, preventing them from even mentioning it to somebody who wasn't their lawyer. Gillespie says the comments in question were "hyperbolic, in questionable taste–and fully within the norms of Internet commentary." He continues:
To the extent that the feds actually thought these were serious plans to do real harm, why the hell would they respond with a slow-moving subpoena whose deadline was days away? By spending five minutes doing the laziest, George Jetson-style online "research" (read: Google and site searches), they would have found publicly available info on some of the commenters. I'm talking things like websites and Google+ pages. One of the commenters had literally posted thousands of comments at Reason.com, from which it is clear that he (assuming it is a he) is not exactly a threat to anyone other than common decency."
It's fairly clear that either the whole incident was specifically meant to cause a chilling effect or that the feds can't be trusted with permanent markers or grown-up scissors, much less the ability to obtain a gag order.
If the cops think you are planning something and also think they know about it more than 1 year in advance, they should arrest you in that year. If they can't prove anything after that 1 year, then most likely they never had anything real in the first place - or are so incompetent that having you find out about the subpoena wouldn't matter anyway.
Seriously can anyone think of ANY criminal action that the government finds out about, gets a subpoena, takes more than one year before they publicly move - and the criminal knowing about the subpoena would hurt in any way?
FIFA is a great example the corrupt people knew about the investigation and did nothing.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Kinda sucks, though, that it's come to this.
Your IP traffic has been recorded, comrade.
I'm not kidding.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
One reason for issuing a subpoena is to establish a provable and authenticated origin and chain of custody.
We can all have a good laugh at our lessers who don't know how to use computers, but some of them are in very powerful positions to do great harm to those they perceive as engaging in "criminal" activity.
*CSB*
A few years back a man with a badge came to my door and said that a threatening e-mail to the governor had been traced to my IP address. It took me a moment, but I recalled a sarcastic e-mail I had sent some months prior to the governor's office congratulating their efforts to take the state's education ranking from 49th to 50th with budget cuts. I used my university issued e-mail address, with my name and position clearly spelled out in the e-mail signature. I don't know if it was just the guy at my door who was ignorant of the facts of my particular case, or if that's what was really written down in their file. Basically some secretary dragged my unconstructive criticism to the "bad" folder and later I'm being questioned and accused of a crime (though not charged).
*/CSB*
People in law enforcement may not realize how dangerous their ignorance can be to the general public. One can only hope by the time you're facing a judge you'll have at last found someone in the system with the freedom to act reasonably in the face of such ignorance.
There isn't a great deal of difference to me between a government or a multitude of corporations making themselves privy to an increasing share of our personal lives, especially given the extent to which they're all in bed together.
There are two obvious differences. A government has far more power and a captive revenue stream. A corporation doesn't get to just take a significant fraction of your paycheck whether you like it or not.
Second, there are a multitude of corporations which is a tremendous dilution of power. Sure, if all those huge corporations were to act in concert to screw you over, then you're pretty fairly screwed though still not as badly as if a government were doing it. But why would they do that, unless some powerful agency, like a government, is coordinating the assault?
Or, for that matter, the chilling effect of a subpoena vs. the chilling effect of payment processors shunning activity they disagree with.
The former can force you to engage in certain behavior by people with guns, like talk about your subpoena.
I find this sort of argument silly because it pretty much equates the power to throw you in jail or to shoot you and leave you in a mass grave, with the power to toss a few extra monthly fees on your phone service or go through a few years of your grocery bills. There is a huge qualitative difference which is ignored.
Actually, the difference is vast: for a corporation to compel either you or another corporation to reveal any data, it has to win legal case — or, a least, convince a judge to issue a subpoena. The government has been gradually lowering this bar for itself over the years — recall the "National Security Letters" (and how easy they are for the government to obtain).
And that's when it bothers with the legal process at all — often it can simply just bust in and take your stuff (without warrant), seize any property on mere accusation of it being used in a crime, and confiscate bank accounts without even an accusation, only suspicion , or, as was the case with Reason.com, demand your "voluntary" cooperation or else...
But my point was not, that the government ought not to investigate legitimate threats against judges and public officials — even hard-core Libertarians would agree, that this is, actually, a proper role of the government. The point is, this particular investigation was patently illegitimate — the "threats" were bogus and hyperbolic and DoJ could not possible have hoped to ever win a conviction.
Their intention was to simply harass the dissenters by hitting them with subpoenas and giving them threatening "talking-tos". The prosecution, in other words, was malicious. That's the disgusting part.
But there is no difference! What's good for the goose, is good for the chicken as well:
Even more obvious examples abound. For example, the EPA considers any billabong in the US to be under its control and protection — so both private citizens and corporations alike now need a Federal Government's approval to build anything on their property, if it happens to have a lake, a stream, or a swamp, however small...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Don't call people comrade, citizen. Your use of satire has been recorded.
I'm not kidding.
Cloudiot: A person who does not see offsite storage as a way to lose control over access to his or her own data.
It wasn't about finding who or an investigation. it was about stifling speech they don't like.
But it does have it — and ought to retain it. It just must be made to wield that power less — much less. That is the Libertarian argument.
We wrote the Constitution — and, in particular, the Bill of Rights — to limit the government's power, but (and this was predicted) the Statists have been eroding the limits since then. Even the right explicitly declared in the Second Amendment as such is now considered a mere privilege, for example.
Strawman.
Yes. Because the Collectivism is the direct cause of Fascism and/or Communism. Once you subjugate the silly, selfish, cantankerous Individual to the Glorious Collective, any and all human rights abuses become immediately possible. From forcing you to pay for somebody else's education, to forcibly changing your opinion on what the word "marriage" means, to the outright killing fields. As long as it is done for The Greater Good (a.k.a. General Welfare, as the Statists like to intrerpret US Constitution), it all becomes justifiable.
I am dealing with it — by arguing for the reduction of this group's size and power. Both have grown alarmingly since the inception of our Republic. But I see, that you have picked your side already.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
The part of your argument that everyone else finds silly is that you think that the power to throw someone in jail or shoot them goes away if the government doesn't have it.
In practice, it does.
The power vacuum will be filled.
Only if there is a power vacuum. When there isn't, then nothing gets filled. The key piece missing here is that people can fill that vacuum themselves.
The fundamental conceit of libertarianism is treating individual rights as being more powerful and having greater primacy than the rights dictated by collective force.
That is not even wrong. Rights are precisely the constraints on collective force. There are no rights dictated by collective force by definition.