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Google, Apple, Mozilla, and the EFF Support Microsoft's Fight Against Gag Orders (betanews.com)
An anonymous Slashdot reader quotes BetaNews about new legal documents filed Friday:
Microsoft is fighting the US Justice Department in an attempt to quash a law that prevents companies informing customers that the government is requesting their data. The technology giant has the backing of other tech companies as well as media outlets. Amazon, Apple, Google, Fox News, Electronic Frontier Foundation and Mozilla are among those offering their support to Microsoft. The lawsuit says that blocking companies from keeping their customers informed is unconstitutional, and it comes at a time when tech companies in particular are keen to be as open and transparent as possible about government requests for data....
As EFF Senior Staff Attorney Lee Tien puts it: "Whether the government has a warrant to rifle through our mail, safety deposit boxes, or emails stored in the cloud, it must notify people about the searches. When electronic searches are done in secret, we lose our right to challenge the legality of law enforcement invasions of privacy. The Fourth Amendment doesn't allow that, and it's time for the government to step up and respect the Constitution."
Mozilla argues transparency "is critical to our vision of an open, trusted, secure web that places users in control of their experience online," in a blog post announcing that they'd joined a brief filed by Apple, Twilio, and Lithium Technologies.
And a statement from an EFF staff attorney argues that notifying the targets of searches "provides a free society with a crucial means of government accountability."
As EFF Senior Staff Attorney Lee Tien puts it: "Whether the government has a warrant to rifle through our mail, safety deposit boxes, or emails stored in the cloud, it must notify people about the searches. When electronic searches are done in secret, we lose our right to challenge the legality of law enforcement invasions of privacy. The Fourth Amendment doesn't allow that, and it's time for the government to step up and respect the Constitution."
Mozilla argues transparency "is critical to our vision of an open, trusted, secure web that places users in control of their experience online," in a blog post announcing that they'd joined a brief filed by Apple, Twilio, and Lithium Technologies.
And a statement from an EFF staff attorney argues that notifying the targets of searches "provides a free society with a crucial means of government accountability."
That we have to rely on corporations to make this fight for us is a sign of how bad off we are.
From TFS:
Yes, these people are really late to the party. But at least they (finally) showed up.
The problem we have is that the congress, which takes an oath WRT making constitutionally compliant law, consistently ignores that oath. This is compounded by the fact that the courts, which are charged (by themselves, but that's a different problem of very long standing) with making sure that laws that are not compliant with the constitution are struck down, consistently do not do so.
It remains to be seen if this will be yet another instance of congress and the courts working together to do what they want, rather than what they are actually authorized to do. But I wouldn't get my hopes up.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I have a few libertarian bones in my body, and my view on a win here for transparency is that it brings the government back a bit towards being compliant with the constitution; as the constitution is the only thing that authorizes its existence, all in all, this is a good thing.
Who can take most advantage of this specific bit of transparency, should it actually come about, isn't my primary concern. Government compliance with the constitution is. If something in the constitution isn't working out, article five is right there so the country can change it in a constitutionally compliant fashion. Fiat law, which this is an example of, and which is also SOP for congress and the courts these days, is, as far as I'm concerned, illegal on first principles and should never have been squeezed out of the ass of congress.
In the oligarchy that runs the show today, the constitution is a mostly ignored footnote. I don't see any real serious fixes coming; but any step in the right direction is still welcome in my book.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I really don't understand your logic. Unlike the government, private corporations can't kick in my door in the middle of the night, shoot my dog, and throw me in a jail cell because they don't like something in my email. If the government fucks up and causes me injury because of gross negligence, I can't sue them or otherwise hold them liable. And if the government commits a blatant crime, they get to decide if they're guilty or not. Sure, plenty of corporations have done terrible things, and sometimes they get away with it, but no truly private corporation has ever come close to the level of abuse of human rights as the US government - just think how many millions of Americans have been imprisoned for non-violent crimes, think of the 500,000+ people murdered in the middle east in the past decade alone, think of the trillions of dollars that have been forcibly taken from us and squandered on useless crap to further line the pockets of the elite.
How can you possibly defend such a terrible organization? Because they throw you some table scraps?
I think of the government we have today as just a corporation with a monopoly on the use of force and violence. The worst part is their services are openly for sale to any other corporation that needs them.
No, I don't trust Google or Facebook anymore than I do the government, but at least I'm not forced at the end of a gun to buy their products and follow their rules.