Justice Department Walks Back Demand For Information On Anti-Trump Website (theverge.com)

After issuing a warrant to DreamHost for "all files" related to an anti-trump website, the Justice Department says it's scaling back a demand for information from hosting service DreamHost. The Verge reports: In a legal filing today, the Justice Department argues that the warrant was proper, but also says DreamHost has since brought up information that was previously "unknown." In light of that, it has offered to carve out information demanded in the warrant, specifically pledging to not request information like HTTP logs tied to IP addresses. The department says it is only looking for information related to criminal activity on the site, and says that "the government is focused on the use of the Website to organize, to plan, and to effect a criminal act -- that is, a riot." Peaceful protestors, the government argues, are not the targets of the warrant. The filing asks the court to proceed with the new, less burdensome request, which, apart from the carved-out sections, still requests "all records or other information, pertaining to the Account, including all files, databases, and database records stored by DreamHost in relation to that Account." It's unclear if DreamHost will continue to fight the new demand.

Comments

This is fine

[PopeRatzo]

Privacy and free speech only apply to people who support the president.

Re: This is fine

[Anonymous Coward]

People who support the President would share everything with him anyway, their hearts, their minds, their wallets.

Truly they care the best of us.

Re: This is fine

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly not. Many who supported Trump are shut down from speaking out in public, disinvented to speak in public places paid for with tax dollars, violently attacked when gathering in a public place, had their private information released to the general public... in what way are Trump supporters getting special protection here?

I don't agree with them or their choice for president, but I'd have to say if this was happening to Clinton supporters there would be major outrage. I know I'd be rather pissed off if my civil rights were being violated.

We either have free speech and privacy, or we don't. if you're willing to violate them for political purposes, don't expect to have them when the pendulum swings the other way again.

Re: This is fine

[MightyMartian]

You have the right to free speech and privacy. But if you make your views known publicly, you can't assume you'll somehow magically be immune from the consequences. Want to be a Nazi in your basement, go right ahead. Want to be a Nazi out in the town square, then you have voluntarily surrendered your rights to privacy, and if your friends, family and employer no longer want to be associated with you because you believe the white race is superior and all the Jews and brown skinned people should be chased off, well, that's tough on you.

Re:This is fine

[PopeRatzo]

I guess "free speech" now means running people down and actually killing them, according to the Right

FTFY

Congratulations on becoming everything you claim to hate..

Re: This is fine

[MightyMartian]

Oh bullshit

You have the right to free speech and privacy. But if you make your views known publicly, you can't assume you'll somehow magically be immune from the consequences. Want to be a terrorist AntiFa in your basement, go right ahead. Want to be a terrorist AntiFa out in the town square, then you have voluntarily surrendered your rights to privacy, and if your friends, family and employer no longer want to be associated with you because you believe socialism is superior and all the Jews and white skinned people or whomever is the alinksy-ite determined people to hate du jour should be chased off, well, that's tough on you.

You're not going to like it when the tables are turned.

Except that being a Nazi in most parts of the Western world are viewed as far worse than being an antifa thug. Sorry, that's just the way it is. I'm sorry your white supremacist beliefs make you into among the most deplorable human beings around. Maybe you should reconsider your hatred of minorities and your misplaced, and frankly idiotic. View.of your superiity, because what you really are is a pathetic whining snowflake whose misfortune is your own goddamned fault and not some Jewish conspiracy to keep you down.

Grow up.

Re: This is fine

[Anonymous Coward]

You have the right to free speech and privacy. But if you make your views known publicly, you can't assume you'll somehow magically be immune from the consequences. Want to be a Nazi in your basement, go right ahead. Want to be a Nazi out in the town square, then you have voluntarily surrendered your rights to privacy, and if your friends, family and employer no longer want to be associated with you because you believe the white race is superior and all the Jews and brown skinned people should be chased off, well, that's tough on you.

This meme of "Freedom of speech != freedom from consequences" is one of the stupidest fucking things I've ever encountered on this site. It is absolutely rampant, too. Do you really have freedom of speech if you lose your job, your friends, you family over your political beliefs? I trust you would support swathes of people ostracizing somebody who happens to publicly be an atheist, or a commie, or gay, right? No! Of course you wouldn't. And you'd be right to oppose maltreatment of others with unpopular opinions.

"Freedom of speech != freedom from consequences" is a fancy way of saying "the mob should decide what is right and wrong to say." Apply your rule equally to all parties involved, or keep quiet when public opinion shifts against your ideas.

Re:This is fine

[Known Nutter]

One major issue with the current political climate -- which you two have just perfectly demonstrated -- is the all or nothing approach, like the misguided loyalty to a football team that is so common in the US. Next to zero critical thinking or consideration of opposing views in current political discourse. Left vs Right -- that's all it is anymore. My side is always correct.

Seems to be an anti-evolutionary and stupid approach to matters of critical importance, in my opinion.

Re: This is fine

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that being a Nazi in most parts of the Western world are viewed as far worse than being an antifa thug. Sorry, that's just the way it is.

You can't justify bad behavior by saying the other side is worse. Neither are acceptable. Sorry, that's just the way it is.

Re:This is fine

[Known Nutter]

However, there are often issues where one side is demonstrably wrong and to deny that when it happens is equally unproductive

Sure, but are layers of straw man arguments really useful toward achieving a productive dialogue?

Re:This is fine

[PopeRatzo]

One major issue with the current political climate -- which you two have just perfectly demonstrated -- is the all or nothing approach, like the misguided loyalty to a football team that is so common in the US. Next to zero critical thinking or consideration of opposing views in current political discourse. Left vs Right -- that's all it is anymore. My side is always correct.

Seems to be an anti-evolutionary and stupid approach to matters of critical importance, in my opinion.

I agree , too.

However, BlueStrat is demonstrably wrong, has a history of being demonstrably wrong, and comes from a long line of people who are demonstrably wrong. Oh, and "stupid". I have extensive data and metrics to prove it.

Re:This is fine

[PopeRatzo]

Sure, but are layers of straw man arguments really useful toward achieving a productive dialogue?

You can't have a productive dialogue with people who are nazi apologists.

Re:This is fine

[iMadeGhostzilla]

Yesterday I saw an article about a yoga guy (or girl) urging students and teachers to embrace "gender justice". So either you are a gender justice warrior or your are a white supremacist, there is no middle ground.

In this madness we miss things like this DOJ request, which can and should be fought against. It's simply too unimportant compared to white supremacy. And gender justice.

Re: This is fine

[rtb61]

Let's be clear, that web site is a scammy public relations exercise to drive identity politics in order to exclude policy politics. Who paid for it and why is more important than who accessed it. Obviously part of a larger scheme to drive conflict and break up workers, to keep identity politics to the fore and drive policy back out of public purview, to keep the establishment powerful and the rest of us divided and weak. Fuck, your living conditions, the state of your genitals count for more whether natural or hacked to pieces. Fuck you access to justice, you colour identity counts more in the era of bleaches and dyes. Fuck your access to democracy, screaming about your religion and forcing it on others counts for more. Bullshit identity politics. People behind it should be investigated and prosecuted, especially those that paid for it with intent to generate violent outcomes (keep in mind a lot of the current shite is about a pack of criminals trying to stay out of prison, in and outside of government, with a bunch of idiots buying into the PR=B$).

Re: This is fine

[Anonymous Coward]

This meme of "Freedom of speech != freedom from consequences" is one of the stupidest fucking things I've ever encountered on this site. It is absolutely rampant, too.

It's everywhere now. It did not start here nor is the worst here.

For some reason many liberals are turning to be no longer liberal. They are playing social shaming games, ostracism, and mob rule to get their way. It's all so very abusive. They think they are in the right to do it too, especially with this eye-for-an-eye self-styled oppression olympics where they are not fighting against anyone or they are being the aggressors.

It's getting bad and I do not know how to prevent more people from following this path of malicious destruction where they turn away from liberal values to ensure "liberal" wins.

Re: This is fine

[Anonymous Coward]

go away, correct the record.

Re:This is fine

[The Cynical Critic]

If this was just a regular peaceful protest then this would be pretty questionable, but seeing how they're trying to go after the people who showed up for Trump's inauguration with the explicit purpose of rioting and destroying both public and private property (including a limo taxi owned by a muslim immigrant). I dislike Trump as much as the next guy, but a moron and an asshole being elected president is hardly an excuse to start destroying public and private property as some form of protest. Also, it needs mentioning that the "anti"-fascists also rioted at Obama's inauguration, thou in (understandably) smaller numbers.

Re: This is fine

[Jesus H Rolle]

Oh bs - we shut down radical Islamic terrorists with bombs like every other week.

Bull shit.

Re: This is fine

[Anonymous Coward]

And this will be the reason why we will no longer allow groups like the ones you support to proliferate with their hateful rhetoric any longer. You have become what you hate so much.

BTW, thank you for your assistance in your single-handed destruction of the liberal progressive movement in the US.

Re: This is fine

[drinkypoo]

Grow up.

Someone who can't tell the difference between Nazis (want to kill all the jews, blacks, etc.) and Antifa (don't want to be killed any more) is not worth talking to.

Re: This is fine

[Gr8Apes]

This meme of "Freedom of speech != freedom from consequences" is one of the stupidest fucking things I've ever encountered on this site. It is absolutely rampant, too. Do you really have freedom of speech if you lose your job, your friends, you family over your political beliefs?

"Boss, I think you're an idiot" in the middle of a staff meeting. Freedom of speech? Sure. Freedom from consequences? Maybe in some other world.

Re: This is fine

[jbengt]

Once this is done the demands will move that any history books not espousing the party view need to be destroyed and only the "official party" view of history should be published.

History books are already being required to carry the view of the "official" party. <sarcasm>Thanks Texas </sarcasm>

Re: This is fine

[MightyMartian]

Tearing down all those statues of Lenin and Stalin doesn't make Soviet history go away. It's still there, in the history books.

The fact is that most of these monuments are not meant as memories to the tens of thousands of Confederate soldiers that died. They were put up explicitly to celebrate rebel leaders who championed slavery. Yes, there are some complicated cases. General Lee was ambivalent towards slavery, and believed it was doomed, but fought on the side of the South because he viewed it as his home, but monuments to men like Jefferson Davis were nothing more than celebrations of white supremacy, and played into the whole historical revisionism that went on after Reconstruction, that the Civil War was a righteous war of states rights, when all it really was was secession for the specific purpose of preserving slavery, once the US Senate became dominated by the Free States, and the strong likelihood that most, if not all, of the new states being partitioned out of the Western Territory would be Free States. The Slave States were losing the political war, and thus believed secession was the only way to preserve slavery.

And what happened after Reconstruction? The former slavemasters used every tool at their disposal to disenfranchise the former slaves, maintain them in an economically inferior position, and part of that was erecting monuments to those "heroes of the South" in every goddamned town square. And it was all done decades after the Civil War ended.

Re: This is fine

[MightyMartian]

I'm just going to post this link again to remind everyone that "far left extremists" are a sharp minority in the committing of extremist murders in the US:

https://www.adl.org/sites/defa...

The long and the short, in 2016, the majority of extremist crimes were committed by Islamic Extremists, in 2015 the majority were committed by White Supremacists.

Re: This is fine

[MightyMartian]

Attempted what? What genocide? Oh I get it, because anti-miscegenation laws were thrown in the trash, all of a sudden your precious bodily fluids are at risk.

Re: This is fine

[MightyMartian]

I don't see how protesting a pack of Nazis is "destroying the government". Even many government representatives have pointedly condemned White Nationalists, White Supremacists and Neo-Nazis.

Re: This is fine

[not flu]

Except that being a Nazi in most parts of the Western world are viewed as far worse than being an antifa thug.

I already doubt this is actually the case, and with antifa acting like it is, it most certainly will not be the case for very long. You might only hear pro-antifa opinions because of consensus hacking efforts by the social engineers in silicon valley and because people who don't want to get involved don't speak up.

I'm sorry your white supremacist beliefs make you into among the most deplorable human beings around.

"Deplorable" huh, do you remember how using that word turned out last time? Good luck winning over hearts and minds with that attitude.

Re: This is fine

[Shotgun]

Poser.

If you were a concealed carry holder, you would have had a class where they taught you to aim body center.

Realized it was in the NSA database

[WillAffleckUW]

Stored as "metadata".

Same thing.

Chicago 8

[Anonymous Coward]

This reminds me of the Chicago 8 who were tried for inciting a riot, even though not all of them had met before the trial.

In this case, however, it will be many times more than 8.

"We drew too much attention.."

[Rick Schumann]

Translation:

We drew too much attention from the media and the general public with our outlandish search warrant, so rather than take all the heat for what amounted to an overreach, we (quote-unquote) 'scaled back the request' so we don't look like the jackbooted thugs we actually are.

Pro-tip for you, guys: You still look like jackbooted thugs.

Re:"We drew too much attention.."

[Anonymous Coward]

That's fine, "looking like jackbooted thugs" is not something they're currently trying to avoid. So long as there's some degree of plausible deniability (which "walking back" the request creates), "intimidating the public" is exactly what they wanted to achieve.

This episode has had its impact - there's been a chilling effect, everyone in America is now ever so slightly more thoughtful about what websites they visit because of it.

Hope you enjoyed freedom of association while it lasted, because it's on its last legs now.

Re:"We drew too much attention.."

[Rick Schumann]

LOL, the so-called 'left' is going to be taking back quite a bit in the years to come because the so-called 'right' has been so completely 'wrong'. It'll probably take until I'm dead and made into ashes for all the damage that'll have been done can be repaired. Meanwhile we have to put up with all the 'jackbooted thugs' like them (and you), shooting your damn mouths off.

Unless you violate the SJW code

[Anonymous Coward]

Then you'll be doxxed out of your livelihood or outed by IPs and internet companies like Google and Dreamhost for your wrong think.

Gotta love the hypocrisy of the leftists here - "these Trump people are jackbooted thugs"

No. That would be the leftists and Antifa.

As you see here - if you deplatform Leftists you're evil - if you deplatform anybody with a conservative viewpoint you're a hero.

Be careful of what you're building - you're not going to like the result.

Re:Unless you violate the SJW code

[jbengt]

Gotta love the hypocrisy of the leftists here - "these Trump people are jackbooted thugs"
No. That would be the leftists and Antifa.

Based on what we know about past protests, the Antiffa activists pushing for the most violent tactics are likely working undercover for the government.

Re:Unless you violate the SJW code

[jbengt]

Yes, if you take it to the extreme.
But I was thinking more about the '60s and '70s anti-war protesters, like the weather underground offshoot of the SDS, which I'm more familiar with, since I was a teenager becoming politically aware then.

While that may be true

[rsilvergun]

the percentage of Americans identifying as and with Jackbooted thugs has been on the upswing.

Re:While that may be true

[AmiMoJo]

When you get people like that at the very top, it normalizes their behaviour and views. That's why Trump's opponents keep saying "this is not normal".

Re:While that may be true

[Rick Schumann]

Sad, isn't it? They want to drag us all back into the muck. It's like 'Crab Mentality' taken to the absolute extreme.

Is this Trump evil, or just Standard Issue evil?

[Michael Woodhams]

I have plenty of reasons to hold the Trump administration in low regard, but it isn't clear this is one of them.

Is this a politically directed Justice department dealing unto the opponents of the administration, or is this just overpowered law enforcement agents acting in the way they are accustomed?

On the plus side

[rsilvergun]

these people have legitimate complaints (lack of jobs, Healthcare, infrastructure, education opportunities) that aren't being address. I'm hoping we actually address them before it's too late and we go the same route Germany did in WWII. Though so far all I've seen is a lot of denouncing. We need that, don't get me wrong. What these people are doing is bad. But almost nobody is asking the tough questions about _why_ they're doing it.

Re:On the plus side

[AmiMoJo]

I agree. Legitimate concerns that must be addressed. The problem is that the honest answer is "it's complicated and the solutions take time to work, and you are going to have to change your lifestyle and outlook to get there". It's very easy for someone to come in and promise to fix everything with some simplistic ideas like "build a wall".