Slashdot Mirror
Judge Tosses Wikimedia's Anti-NSA Lawsuit Because Wikipedia Isn't Big Enough (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader writes: A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by the Wikimedia Foundation, Amnesty International, and others against the NSA and other U.S. intelligence agencies for their surveillance of internet communications. The judge used some odd reasoning in his ruling to absolve the NSA of any constitutional violations. He said that since the plaintiffs couldn't prove that all upstream internet communications were monitored, they didn't have standing to challenge whatever communications were monitored. This is curious, given that tech companies are known to be under gag orders preventing them from discussing certain types of government data collection. The judge also made a strange argument about Wikipedia's size: "For one thing, plaintiffs insist that Wikipedia's over one trillion annual Internet communications is significant in volume. But plaintiffs provide no context for assessing the significance of this figure. One trillion is plainly a large number, but size is always relative. For example, one trillion dollars are of enormous value, whereas one trillion grains of sand are but a small patch of beach."
Seriously, forget the courts. They're completely in the pockets of the politicians and Big Money. Lois Lerner just got off Scot free, and I'm willing to bet money that Clinton will as well. If you want justice in this day and age and you aren't a 1%'er, you'd better dish it out yourself or organize with others, because that's the only way it's going to happen.
In the meantime, encrypt everything you possibly can. Destroy any data you no longer need. Don't keep logs on anything any longer than YOU need to. Make everything as difficult as possible for the establishment.
My guess is for whatever reason, the judge did not want to rule against the NSA. So just used whatever barely coherent reason seemed remotely plausible.
As a federal judge, you're not going to ever get in trouble for protecting the NSA regardless of the gaping holes in your ruling.
"one trillion grains of sand are but a small patch of beach."
The largest dump truck in the world would have to carry more than nine full loads to move a trillion grains of sand. A regular dump truck will have to make 150 trips. (first hit on Google "how much is one trillion grains of sand."
In money terms it's about $9 million, that's what NJ spent to replace the sand along one stretch of beach. 150 dump truck loads is a lot.
Now 1 trillion angels, that's really really tiny.....
Especially fun is that you usually don't get to disagree with the judges findings.
That is he can make a claim - and as long as it is arguably reasonably supported by the facts, and not so unreasonable that 'no reasonable person' would make the same decision (very, very far from 'was the decision reasonable), you can't challenge that at any appelate level.
...whereas the amount it takes to buy a judge is much smaller.
Really? Sounds like this judge had his/her verdict in mind before anyone stepped into the courtroom.
Nah, his verdict was probably given to him by the NSA shortly after realizing exactly how much internet monitoring they do.
In money terms it's about $9 million, that's what NJ spent to replace the sand along one stretch of beach. 150 dump truck loads is a lot.
If each grain of sand is 1 mm^3, then a trillion grains is 1000 m^3. So NJ paid $9000 per cubic meter. When I built my son's sandbox, I paid $50 for a cubic yard (slightly less than a cubic meter). Somewhere in NJ, there is a very rich dump truck driver. Probably Chris Christie's brother-in-law.
Really? Sounds like this judge had his/her verdict in mind before anyone stepped into the courtroom.
. . . so the judge gets delivered a National Security Letter. The first thing, that is very clearly stated in the letter, is that he is not allowed to talk about the National Security Letter. Then the letter instructs him how to rule on the case.
All, legal, no problem . . .
. . . or . . . ?
What if you received a National Security Letter instructing you to kill somebody . . . what would you do . . . ?
Does the US government issue issue letters like this? Who knows? There is no oversight from anyone on what these letters require you to do. Maybe Snowden knows . . .
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Wikipedia didn't meet the notability requirements.
What do you mean? The FBI and DHS should have copies of most of them. And Congress is ever so diligent in making sure they are following the law, because it's their job and they take it very seriously.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
One trillion connections per year is roughly the size of the traffic the Wikipedia gets. Wikipedia is one of the top ten sites on the internet.
Next up: Judge Bennet tosses out a case because plaintif neglected to provide context for the sky being blue or water being wet. I don't know what bugs me more, this obvious attempt to subvert justice or the lame-ass excuse used for doing so. It is insulting. It's like the judge is telling us the fix is so far in that he doesn't even have to bother to appear to make sense.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face -- forever.
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
Judge fails at understanding technology, rather.
And this won't change any time soon, at least until we get judges that actually have a faint idea of what this "inter...thing" is. And given that those geezers tend to cling to their seats until they fall off them rotting, I guess I won't live to see that happening.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I'd publish the letter. Duh.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
A NSL is a type of subpoena, a request for basic account info and activity logs. A NSL can't ask you to provide the content of someone's data, kill someone, or smear Crisco all over your body and dance around praising Lord Xenu. (Though if it did, you'd probably be grateful for the non-disclosure clause.)
reference
example
The original purpose of non-disclosure was to avoid tipping off suspects that their communications could be monitored, but now that the proverbial cat is out of the bag and any target who worries about NSLs has surely switched to more secure communications, the secrecy around NSLs does a lot more harm than good. Of course, any change to or publicity about NSLs would rekindle debate on the legality of the program (or lack thereof), and they wouldn't want that to happen... Thankfully, people like Nicholas Merrill are forcing the issue, and hopefully there will be change...eventually.
Hint: hyperbole doesn't help, it just distracts people from the real issue. NSLs are bad because they force people to reveal personal information without due process of law. That is all.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
You really have no choice but to publish it. If you really do believe in and support freedom of democracy, then that demand that onus is placed upon you to expose that letter. That letter demands you carry out the active actions of that demand else face punishment ie an order from a master to a slave and as such as a citizen of a supposedly (apparently) free and democratic country, you are required under all the principle of freedom and democracy to publicly challenge it, you are not a slave, your fellow citizens are not slaves and it is your duty to uphold that law, slavery is illegal in free and democratic countries. Buckle to orders issued from master to slave and you sell out all of us. A warning to them when they attempt to issue that letter is likely a safer bet, before reading because of course it defeats the point of them attempting to delivery the master to slave order in secrecy ie give it to me and I will publish it, thus defeating the point of giving it to me, so you might as well keep it (you must emphatically refuse to accept that letter under their conditions ie refuse to accept their contract).
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
If I were a judge with a gun to my head like that I'd issue a batshit-crazy ruling, like talking about the mystery of numbers and grains of sand on a beach, to at least signal something is very wrong.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
So this is what passes for the third box in defense of liberty these days?
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
I would tell everyone. Because any order from any government that forces me to a) cover up something illegal b) aid them with something illegal or c) do something illegal is null and void. Nations do not have the authority to grant themselves power to ignore or break laws, nor can they make secret laws giving themselves power. Not if they also claim to be lawful nations.
Of course they could throw me in jail or worse. It's up to each and every one of us to resist tyranny. When we don't then tyranny is what we get.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Not even the point. But getting an order to KILL SOMEONE, while not being in any shape or condition, not having any training or other qualification to execute such an order, can only mean one of two things: Either I am supposed to get killed in the process or they need a patsy.
My chances for survival are actually higher when I publish the letter.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Nah, his verdict was probably given to him by the NSA shortly after realizing exactly how much internet monitoring they do.
This, or perhaps the judge in question was just too much of a coward to rule against a government organization that could destroy his entire life.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
You obviously don't read many legal rulings if you think this is outside the norm.
I don't think the NSA can just hand a judge a NSL. I suspect they went with the monkey wrench approach or the black mail approach.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
You say that, but would you really? I mean, I say I'd take a bullet for a nun but I've yet to face that so I can only hope I'd not chicken out and piss myself if it happens. In fact, I was in a single firefight while enlisted and I was scared shitless (suppressive fire only). I was all gung-ho about it before hand. When the situation happened, I'd have run the fuck away had it not been for the fact that the job needed doing and my brethren's lives were at stake. (If you think the enlisted fight for you, you are mistaken. But, I digress.)
So, would you? I know you think you would. I know you can claim you would. I know I say the same. But, would I? I'd like to think I would. Hell, I've got a few bucks - I can fight the case. But, would I? I dunno, really. I'd like to think so, but maybe not. I've also got a lot to lose and, to be honest, I don't really like you that much. (Not you personally, but you get the idea.)
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Beach sand isn't play sand. Play sand is from a river, and is collected as a byproduct of the more valuable gravel and rock. That is why it is cheap. If they were going out and collecting just straight play sand out of a river valley, above the amount already available, it would be much, much more expensive.
Beach sand has to be dredged off the ocean floor. And collected carefully, after environmental impact and other site analysis is done by professionals. And often the equipment isn't sitting around on standby for that sort of project, so you'll either be paying really high equipment rental on everything, or buying much of the heavy equipment before the project, and selling it afterwards. Not only to collect it, hold it for draining so it can be moved by truck, move by truck, and dump it, but delivery probably can't be done just by telling the trucks where to dump. The trucks are likely to sink into the beach if you try to drive right up and dump it in the surf. You're going to need a bunch of light tractors or some similar thing.
1000 m^3 is too much for a small project, and not enough for a large project. If they wanted to save money, they could purchase more, and have the rest delivered in the future; but governments are run in debt, with no cash reserves at all, and so the financing would eat the savings.
> "A NSL can't ask you to provide the content of someone's data"
That's false, they've done two expansive things:
In some cases. they've asked for a box on the network. In essence they've replaced "give us transactional records" for "trust us to only look at what we're legally allowed to look at for the subject we're legally allowed to search". I recall these boxes were run by the NSA who was keeping all the data, filtering it for the FBI, then handing the legal bit back to the FBI.
And with Lavabit they demanded the crypto keys which would have also permitted content analysis on a "trust us" basis:
http://www.wired.com/2013/10/lavabit_unsealed?ref=cm
The law sets limits, and they conspire to hide the data collecting mechanism in the NSA (out of reach of the courts due to national security), while keeping the legally limited portion within the FBI.
Which can still be a tiny amount on a decent sized beach beach.
Assume each truck is 10m x 10m x 10m, that's 1000m^3 per truck or 150000m^3 total.
Now you're looking at probably 50m+ of sand from the grass/concrete/stones to the furthest most people will be swimming (I've seen some much further when the tide is out).
The sand can easily be 1m+ deep.
So that'd only require a 3km long beach to use up the 150 dump trucks. And that's assuming huge trucks, I'd guess 5x5x5 would be closer, meaning a 375m long beach. Tiny.
But it is the judge's fault. He should know the value, and if not, one of his many unpaid interns would look it up for him. It's not like it's a secret. The judge knows the "value" of a trillion dollars, and a trillion grains of sand, so he should teach himself the value of the subject he's ruling on. That's the judge's failing, though it would have helped if the lawyer had given some manner of comparison, though he, like us, may have assumed the judge has heard of one of the top 10 sites on the planet. Because talking to a judge like he's an idiot usually does more to harm your case than help it.
Learn to love Alaska
Seems a bit of a contradiction to call someone a coward for not wanting their life ruined.
Someone should ask the judge if he'd be happy to have a trillion grains of sand dropped on him.
Assuming spherical sand grains 1mm across with a density of 2,2g/cm^2, I make that over 1,100 tonnes of sand.
I think the government should be guilty until proven innocent.
It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it. -- Upton Sinclair
Not a single person in this thread knows what he's talking about. Welcome to the new Slashdot, gents... you'll fit right in.
No one has written enough yet for us to discern. Only basic reactions are posted.
The one post we can state was written by someone insufficiently informed is yours.