Slashdot Mirror
US Government Has 'No Right To Rummage' Through Anti-Trump Protest Website Logs, Says Judge (theregister.co.uk)
A Washington D.C. judge has told the U.S. Department of Justice it "does not have the right to rummage" through the files of an anti-Trump protest website -- and has ordered the dot-org site's hosting company to protect the identities of its users. The Register reports: Chief Judge Robert E. Morin issued the revised order [PDF] Tuesday following a high-profile back and forth between the site's hosting biz DreamHost and prosecutors over what details Uncle Sam was entitled to with respect to the disruptj20.org website. "As previously observed, courts around the country have acknowledged that, in searches for electronically stored information, evidence of criminal activity will likely be intermingled with communications and other records not within the scope of the search warrant," he noted in his ruling. "Because of the potential breadth of the government's review in this case, the warrant in its execution may implicate otherwise innocuous and constitutionally protected activity. As the Court has previously stated, while the government has the right to execute its Warrant, it does not have the right to rummage through the information contained on DreamHost's website and discover the identity of, or access communications by, individuals not participating in alleged criminal activity, particularly those persons who were engaging in protected First Amendment activities." The order then lists a series of protocols designed to protect netizens "to comply with First Amendment and Fourth Amendment considerations, and to prevent the government from obtaining any identifying information of innocent persons."
If the website actually cared about privacy, they wouldn't have logged everything.
Yessir. Lest we forget, the protections afforded citizens by the Bill of Rights are tested most severely when they protect the rights of the people you disagree with.
I see the President for what I believe he is, a charlatan with a magician's gift for distraction, but I would never condone the outing of his supporters' personal information in a warrant-less search.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Bullshit .. because for starters, Obama never asked for such draconian shit.
Look, if Tump the Idiot feels it is his presidential right to attack, intimidate, harass, and otherwise dig into the lives of people who disagree with him, then the reality is he's grossly unfit for the office.
Political dissent is a Constitutionally protected right, and in fact, it's part of the basis of the 1st amendment. Are you suggesting that anybody but a fascist asshole would do this or that there is any legal basis upon which said asshole would do it?
When you elect a thin-skinned egomaniac wannabe facist as your president, and if you support his actions, then please, do the world a favor and fuck off.
Trump is a narcissist, a crook and a thug, and he's using his presidential powers exactly as you'd expect such a douchebag to do.
If any Americans are supporting Trump to do idiotic and fascist things like this, then America is well and truly fucked.
Tell me, what do you think the response would be if someone had asked for logs for an NRA or an anti-abortion site? And now tell me what either of those two idiotic groups would have done if someone did it to them.
Idiot.
. . . if the same judge would so vociferously enforce the Constitution and "protect netizens" if the political parties were reversed, e.g., hypothetical President Hillary's DoJ demanding the weblogs of hypothetical-conservative-site.org.
Wait a Minute! POTUS Obama's Regime rummaged through Federal Government records (IRS/tax records according to the Main Stream Media) and barely caught a News story. POTUS Obama's Regime bugged people (stingray, etc.) and it only came to light during the "Russian" investigations. POTUS Obama & His Regime did a lot of illegal surveillance of USA Citizen & people. These actions by POTUS Obama, et al, are a lot worse than asking for the logs. Actions speak louder than words.
To be fair, they were evading taxes, and part of their platform was evading taxes.
Sort of bringing it upon yourself at that point, aren't you?
Russia is not covered by the 1st Amendment.
If you want to use it, you need to be a citizen of the United States or a person within its borders.
Nope. Freedom of speech is considered by the United States to be a natural right, and the first amendment does not create it, only recognize it. In general, the USA has extended the right of free speech to non-citizens. This is not the case worldwide; for example, it's still illegal for a noncitizen of the UK to engage in "seditious" speech while on their soil, while they basically eliminated that for their own citizens some while ago.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Well, with there now being undeniable video of CNN and NYT actually being the antithesis of real journalism (which NBC is doing as well), why should they allow them to continue to spread disinformation?
Are you suggesting that CNN is less accurate than our White House? If DJT tells me one thing and CNN tells me another, I know who I'm going with. Because that keeps happening and DJT is wrong every time. He's still spouting off about America being "the highest-taxed nation in the world" and poor Sanders is stuck trying to defend it.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
This is such an incredibly annoying post that I hope it is a troll. We need some decent trolls back on slashdot, not just meme-regurgitators.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it