DC Judge Approves Government Warrant For Data From Anti-Trump Website (reuters.com)

According to Reuters, a D.C. Superior Court judge on Thursday approved a government warrant seeking data from an anti-Trump website related to Inauguration Day protests, but he added protections to safeguard "innocent users." From the report: Chief Judge Robert Morin said DreamHost, a Los Angeles-based web-hosting company, must turn over data about visitors to the website disruptj20.org, which is a home to political activists who organized protests at the time of Donald Trump's inauguration as U.S. president in January. Morin, who will oversee review of the data, said the government must explain what protocols it will use to make sure prosecutors do not seize the data of "innocent users." Morin said at a hearing on Thursday that he recognized the tension between free speech rights and law enforcement's need to search digital records for evidence. He said he added safeguards to his order granting the government's request for information in an effort to balance those two concerns. Besides reviewing the prosecutors' privacy protocols, Morin also shortened the time frame for records to those generated from October to Inauguration Day and instructed the prosecutors to explain why anything they want to seize is germane to the investigation.

Comments

Actual Link

[Wizy]

Here is the link to the real story:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-dreamhost-idUSKCN1B41ZC

If you are concerned about what you post...

[thedarb]

Either think twice about posting it, or learn how to protect your identity online. You can use throw away email addresses, fake names, a good vpn service that doesn't log, and a browser setup not to leak so much information about you.

Also, consider the privacy policy of the service(s) you are posting on. Do they keep logs? If so, for how long? Logged IP addresses don't need to be kept for much longer than 30 days. That's more than enough time to react to some form of abuse of the platform. If the logs of IP's aren't there, the government can't ask for them. While taking issue with a government for asking for this data makes sense, it also makes sense to apply pressure to these services to stop enabling government fishing expeditions by cleaning up their logs regularly. Keeping logs of IP's for long periods of time are never in the interest of the users... means the service either intends to sell or misuse the data, or they are just too lazy to care about their customer's privacy.

Learn to navigate the internet safely, or others will use it to harm you.

Re:If you are concerned about what you post...

[AmiMoJo]

This isn't any posting. This is about just visiting a site.

The link in the summary goes to the wrong article. Thanks to this precedent you could be caught up in a witch hunt just by clicking an innocent looking link.

Re:America no longer exist.

[LynnwoodRooster]

Judge Robert Morin was appointed to the court by President Clinton, and moved to the Chief Judge position by President Obama. I think it's safe to say he's not a "GOP lackey"...