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FBI Kept Demanding Email Records Despite DOJ Saying It Needed a Warrant (theintercept.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The secret government requests for customer information Yahoo made public Wednesday reveal that the FBI is still demanding email records from companies without a warrant, despite being told by Justice Department lawyers in 2008 that it doesn't have the lawful authority to do so.
That comes as a particular surprise given that FBI Director James Comey has said that one of his top legislative priorities this year is to get the right to acquire precisely such records with those warrantless secret requests, called national security letters, or NSLs. 'We need it very much,' Comey told Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., during a congressional hearing in February.
That comes as a particular surprise given that FBI Director James Comey has said that one of his top legislative priorities this year is to get the right to acquire precisely such records with those warrantless secret requests, called national security letters, or NSLs. 'We need it very much,' Comey told Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., during a congressional hearing in February.
OIG can issue reports and opinions, but the office cannot make rules, only the OLC (Office of Legal Council) can do that.
Of course they are ignoring the court.... they feel that they are above the courts.
And john doe is beneath their boot heels.... whatever they want to do, they will...
until someone stops them.
Someone with Moral fiber, Integrity and Honesty.
Probably not any of the Congress/Senate politicians, probably not the Executive Branch, or the Supreme Court.
Maybe a Super Hero?
Maybe.... Ant Man?
Maybe just Pinky and the Brain....
But then, it's always been this way.
Only just recently has the media been actually looking, and not even that much....
Pretty certain his interference with the Iran deal makes him a traitor.
The FBI is the ENEMY of the American people...
And hope some idiot somewhere will cave.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
Or were these fishing expeditions whose point was to gin up some extra parallel discovery?
Here's the thing. What I mind about this situation is the opaqueness. The article is very light on details of what the FBI thought it was trying to find or why it was going about it without the warrants. Did the agents involve not get the memo? Did their supervisors not know what the agents were up to? Were the agents told to not do it this was and actively ignoring those orders? That is where my problem with this starts. We don't know those details and as a voter and citizen in order to make a good decision about this, I need to know.
Instead we'll get another "thin blue line" stall while the "appropriate authorities" investigate. It makes it hard to have faith in the FBI's work when something like this happens. To the rest of us, it looks like it's another CYA situation. Another where no real punishments are handed down and agents are shuffled around like priests to outlying and small churches in order to avoid any further embarrassment. I, for one, don't want "optics" to change my mind, I want to see the evidence. I want to see those in charge engage and manage. And most of all, I want to see heads roll IF AND ONLY IF that is appropriate in the situation.
But like I said before, I don't know the situation and no one is talking. That is a big problem.
They might not be able to force companies to give them email records, but they can ask for anything they want. It's up to the companies to say no unless there's a warrant.
A search occurs when an expectation of privacy that society is prepared to consider reasonable is infringed.
--United States v. Jacobsen
It is pretty stinking obvious that US Constitutional law does not allow the FBI to acquire these records without a warrant. I'm frequently the sort of government apologist y'all hate, but if a judge would say no, they definitely shouldn't get to do the search.
He is going for rectroactive legality, to make his illegal NSLs legal. This is just like what happened for the NSA, with the fiber taps, making them rectroactively legal. In the mean time, his FBI will keep submitting illegal NSLs to ISPs that were unaware of the DOJ's opinion (I wasn't aware), and they will respond because they think it's "legal".
Weren't we all raised that it was the polite thing to do to ask before you take something? The FBI isn't demanding the emails. They were merely asking if they would be voluntarily be handed over. It's not the FBI's fault that the companies read more into the polite requests than was explicitly stated. /s
I assume that even at a minimum the FBI has the evidence to back up that these are actual "National security" issues? I have a sneaking suspicion that a majority of these requests have NOTHING to do with national security, at least as long as you use anything approaching the English language, being composed primarily of going after low/mid level drug dealers, money launders & other common criminals.
The government doesn't need a warrant to ask them to turn over the information. It only needs the warrant to COMPEL them to do it. Nothing in the NSLs constitutes such a demand, nor does anything in the NSL threaten legal action for failure to comply.
All the FBI is doing is asking not-so-nicely for yahoo to turn over the records. Furthermore, it is clear from the published letter that they are asking specifically and only for information that is not protected by the 4th Amendment - the headers and other routing information and not the content. They even go out of their way to tell yahoo to be sure not to include content.
So the FBI is asking for voluntary compliance to furnish information which the individual under investigation has no expectation of privacy and has no right of such.
There is nothing to see here, so please, move along.
Snowden's revelations demonstrated that FBI has access to most of the electronic data without even asking anybody (Prism, Stellar wind, Fussion centes and many others - does that ring a bell?).
To justify they are "asking" for a warrant. One conclusion appears to be evident: they are drowning in illegally collected data. The right hand does not know what the left hand collected, they don't know if it is legal or not: they do not care. They know that they can always find one justification or another, yet maintaining straight and serious poker face, while stating that liberties and privacy of the citizens are respected.
I see stories like this every day, and nothing bad has happened to ME yet!
I guess it's no big threat. I guess I really don't need to defend myself or my family! Everything is bad, but it's not THAT bad!
This is seriously what you are supposed to think because of this bombardment of little stories skirting around the real issue:
The government is the agent of a total surveillance program that is a threat to the very lives of almost every man woman and child on the planet.
So what? Who's gonna stop them? The crooked politicians you keep reelecting?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Vexatious litigation is legal action which is brought, regardless of its merits, solely to harass or subdue an adversary. It may take the form of a primary frivolous lawsuit or may be the repetitive, burdensome, and unwarranted filing of meritless motions in a matter which is otherwise a meritorious cause of action. Filing vexatious litigation is considered an abuse of the judicial process and may result in sanctions against the offender.
Italicized emphasis mine.
repetitive? check
burdensome? I'd have to ask Yahoo whether the FBI was going to foot the bill for the time spent gathering the information.
unwarranted? as suggested by the literal lack of warrant, check
All that's left is the FBI to try to apply the all writs act and now we've got the litigation portion covered.
Now you'd have Yahoo required and the FBI expressly forbidden from completing the actions by law. I think this needs to see trial.
Inheritance is the sincerest form of nepotism.
I dare you.
Take this sig and smoke it.
Treason is "giving aid and comfort to the enemy".
Senator Cotton tried to PREVENT Obama from giving aid and comfort to the Iran.
I don't assume that either Cotton or Obama was motivated by anything other than greed, but Obama's actions better fit defintion of treason. You seem to be under the impression that treason is defined as "disagreeing with the president/community organizer"in chief"?
First of all, FBI aren't "spooks" — you are confusing them with the CIA and other no-such-agencies. FBI are federal police, not spies.
More importantly, what crimes? It is not illegal for them to ask for the data... Moreover, the courts — you know, the ultimate deciders on what's legal — generally agree, that any information thus obtained is legitimate evidence and not against the Fourth Amendment.
It is called "The Third Party Doctrine" — once you allow a third party (such as your cell-phone carrier or Internet-provider) to know something, you do not have expectation of privacy... Sad, but true...
The government can bully them for it. Whether a particular company succumbs to the bullying or not may decide, whether you'll want to be (or become) their customer, but none of it is a "crime".
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
FBI is in contempt of court and in violation of law. Prosecutions should follow.
JJ
Look, right now, many of these systems run Windows such as Bing. As such, Russia and China have FULL ACCESS to those e-mails. The idea of the US requiring a warrant to see an un-encrypted email, makes little sense. Basically, it puts us back.
OTOH, if we require a warrant to get the encrypted email, as well as require it of the owner, then it will encourage emailers to encrypt everything. This is the smart thing to do.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
No, we are not going to hack them off, that's the CIA. We are just going to laugh at you and confiscate your billfold.
Treason is "giving aid and comfort to the enemy".
Senator Cotton tried to PREVENT Obama from giving aid and comfort to the Iran.
One, Iran is not "the enemy." They might not be our BFF, but we aren't at war and we have open diplomatic relations with them.
Two, Senator Cotton demonstrated allegiance and fealty to a foreign leader (Netanyahu) before America. If Tom Cotton likes Israel so much, maybe he ought to move there.
"BSD: Free as in speech. Linux: Free as in beer. Windows 10: Free as in herpes." --Man On Pink Corner in #52607549.
Do you mean he was LYING ?? TO CONGRESS ?! AGAIN !!!?
How many times does he get to do this before he wins a prize?
That's like saying we weren't at war with China during the Vietnam war.
http://i.cubeupload.com/T6cyLu.png
"Pass a law that legitimizes what we're doing so we can stop breaking the law!"
Can we prosecute a few of these scumbags? Just an idea.
Who did what now?
We were not. Technically we were not with anyone.
The rule of law matters but we don't follow it for even simple things like declaring war And peace.
I would say that something like this makes it easier for them to go on fishing trips instead of coming up some little bit of proof for the FISA court. Of course anyone with ill intent is probably not using plaintext email anymore, so why even bother? Or it's not the people with ill intent they are after?
That's like saying we weren't at war with China during the Vietnam war.
We have always been at war with east asia...
> One, Iran is not "the enemy." They might not be our BFF, but we aren't at war and we have open diplomatic relations with them.
The US ceased diplomatic relations with Iran on April 7th, 1980, after the 1979 Iranian revolution. That's when Iran was taken over by a party whose official stance is that America must be destroyed because it is "the Great Satan". We've been enforcing a trade embargo since then, with various exclusions at different times.
The US Congress stopped declaring war after WWII, Iran declares their intention to destroy the United States at every opportunity.
With the FBI presently at 17% moles...