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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.
The FBI is the ENEMY of the American people...
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.
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
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.
They're "requesting" it in the same way that Vinnie from the mob "requests" protection money. So the crimes would be some combination of intimidation, coercion, extortion, racketeering, RICO act violations, etc.
I hope you agree that even if the government "can" currently do that (given that it's unlikely to prosecute itself for its own crimes), it should cease doing so.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
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.
It is legal for them to ASK for data. It is NOT legal for them to DEMAND data under the cover of a National Security Letter.
They did the latter as documented by the now released NSL they gave to Yahoo.