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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."
Assuming the website is publically acecssible, of course it does.
If the website actually cared about privacy, they wouldn't have logged everything.
So... SJW find out the 1st Amendment has its uses... or is hate-speech against Trump OK, but not against themselves ?
Do it to Facebook and Twitter when its in line with the lefts "Agenda" though.... Pretty sure a lot of the info it scoured over when looking for Russian "Ads" was of an innocuous nature too. But THAT was ok. Because. Trump. Careful lefties, your extreme double standards are showing.
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
Tell the NSA to stop it, and quit worrying about the encryption I might use.
To a Trump jihadist, anyone who's not unconditionnaly for his God Trump is automatically against Trump, and therefore guilty.
Can't they just call their counterparts at NSA and get whatever they want? Why all the paperwork and redundant court-theater to get what they already have?
upholding the constitution against the nascent police state.
Probably be retiring soon then.
So when the CIA is tapping overseas conversations on vague charges of Russian collusion without proof and happens to record a Republican as part of the warrant, apparently y'all said it is ok to unmask, but since this is electronic logs of people coordinating an actual crime mixed with other visitors, it's not ok to grab the recordings because some of them were just browsing the criminal intent? Hypocracy much?
. . . 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.
The headline is quite misleading, the real details are in the order that, thankfully, the summary links to.
Basically, the judge granted a protective order that lets the feds search for evidence of criminality (e.g. more info on those plans to dump butyric acid into the ventilation shafts or to chain trains), without the ability to go fishing around for evidence of other crimes they may have committed.
In short, it's a reasonable protective order that lets the feds do their job while addressing the privacy concerns. From the headline, you'd assume they lost, but if you look at the details, the feds will be able to search the site for evidence with the judge acting as an intermediary to ensure that all the searches are justified.
' ..."and to prevent the government from obtaining any identifying information of innocent persons." '
This comes across to me as a rather threatening statement.
Protecting the first and fourth amendments makes sense, the later part there though comes across to me as saying something along the lines of "Citizens we the government will protect the first and fourth amendment as long as no crime is taking place, and here's how to help prevent us from being forced to break the law of the land and get away with it."
The first part of the statement makes it clear that it is illegal to snoop through the entire records because of the first and fourth amendments, followed up by offering ways to 'prevent' the government from being ...forced?... to take illegal unconstitutional action?
It is the governments own responsibility to not commit illegal actions, just the same as anyone else.
It really is amazing the crap being spewed out of the swamp now that they're under the microscope of a president that was snooped on, before and on the way into office.
I think this is what people might call a sh*tsh*w
I doubt that. Distributing a foreign magazine, book, pamphlet, tract, etc. in the USA would be covered under the USA Constitution. Also foreign websites that can be viewed by a person in the USA are covered . Foreign videos, movies, etc. that can be streamed to a device and viewed by a person in the USA are covered. You think that the USA Constitution doesn't cover foreigners? Or that they actually have to be here?
Logging does not equal security. Logging enables forensic analysis after the fact.
Cameras don't prevent the bank robbery, but they may help you find the robber.
I am not in US. Looking from outside, I find the apparent general lack of faith in the ability of US judges to act with impartiality in respect of the law surprising. This is doubly so when you consider that, with few exceptions, decisions are subject to appeal and review by many others. Can someone in the US please explain whether my perception is skewed or there is a general distrust? If the latter, where does that stem from?
Patent litigation: A doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction... in which everyone seems willing to push the button
It covers everyone within its borders.
separation of power still works.
define "borders" in the Internet era ?
The same as the pre-Internet era?
Personally I have a deep hatred for anyone who self identifies as a democrat, vegan or a Prius (pronounced pry-us) driver.
Fuck the air that you breathe as it sustains your worthless fucking life.
I want them to rummage through your life, your phone, your computer your everything.
If you find their fucking boot on your neck and you can breathe in some shitty hole in the desert where you are about to die.... if I was there I would be eating popcorn watching hopefully as YOU fucking die.
The democrat party is the party of slavery.
You were SHAMELESSLY that party over a hundred years ago. I HATE you for that.
You are today that party that allows immigrants to be exploited by their slaver employers. Underpaid? No health care? Employer not paying taxes?!?!? DEMOCRAT!
So, the party of slavery, yesterday and today! Can I prove you to be the party of slavery tomorrow?
Communism... Socialism... you expect the people to pay for those who cannot or do not wish to work.
Slavery.
And this... this... this is why we hate you democrat. This is why you need to be removed from humanity, slaver.
then how do you apply 1st Amendment enforcement to virtual data ? The storage location ? So as such, should ISIS be free to spread their content without restriction (after all, hate speech is still free speech ? [and yes, I believe they should.])
The Government can rummage through DreamHost's logs if anyone in those logs can rummage through Trump's hair(piece).
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
> Their goal was to get more access than they needed for whatever reason, and they failed at reaching that goal. I'd say they lost; now they're going to have to do their jobs (or whatever facsimile thereof they've been tasked with) using only the legal amount of information.
Right, and you're a mind reader now? I don't know about you, but I'm more wary of people who have decided the police are out to get them, like those crazy people who assassinated random cops for no reason...
Anyhow, I suggest taking some actual law classes someday, instead of getting your education from fiction. We have an adversarial justice system. They always ask for the max and it's the defense's job to whittle that down with the court as the referee. I realize it may be strange if you're from a country where they have, say, an inquisitional system or any of the other models, but this is pretty much normal. They basically always ask for everything they could possibly get and leave it to the judge to whittle that down. Sometimes nobody bothers to contest it and they get everything, after all.
Sure, this one's a bit abnormal because it's getting a lot of attention, so the judge put more effort into that order than usual. But there's nothing particularly noteworthy here other than the level of controversy.
This is far too preliminary to be interesting. Sure, it's important because it lays the foundation of the case(s) to come, but it's usually more instructive to wait until there are trials and both sides show what evidence they have.
But I guess some judge will receive a threat to 'remove his license'
This is the Superior Court of DC, so I think this is actually the relevant law on search warrants:
https://beta.code.dccouncil.us/dc/council/code/sections/48-921.02.html
The Constitution doesn't exactly provide a lot of details, so one normally looks at the actual laws on the subject. To re-derive the constitutional contours of search warrants from constitutional principles every time would be sort of like trying to do this every time you want to add 2+2. In short, no, it doesn't work that way.
It's normal for demands to be overly broad. They ask for whatever they might plausibly get, because sometimes the judge agrees with them and they won't get anything they don't request. This is how an adversarial justice system works. There are other models, for example, inquisitional systems, in use in other countries.
Note that I am not arguing with you about this being non-public information. You were right to correct the other poster about that. And you were right that it is, in fact, completely obvious from the fact that they issued a search warrant. The judge realized there were real concerns here, so they narrowed the scope of what was asked and are allowing the police to search it first, then unmask people later if they have probable cause to believe they were participants in a crime.
In short, it's a detailed and perfectly sensible decision that appears to be quite fair to both sides.
He swallowed the government's coolaid after all. The 4th amendment does not protect "innocent" persons because guilt is only established in court proceedings, it protects persons not specifically targeted by an investigation. Once we apply the threshold of "innocence", somebody has to make that decision, and to make the decision, he needs to view the information. So we are again talking about dragnet operations under government control and are just bickering about who is responsible for operating which parts of the dragnet.
Nope, it's tiny hands he's talking about, moron. DO try to keep up with news. Hillary didn't get the presidency 8 months ago. Get over it: you deplorables have to actually DO something (and get blamed for it) rather than just whining about those who do.
The headline rates are high, but not the highest.
And I thought all rightwingnutjobs in the USA whined about Europe being commie with massive taxes crushing people and businesses, yet now you're all here whining about how much higher than those socialist tax hellholes the USA is...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
that there exists a small number of judges that are still willing to defy the Department of Justice. This was the correct ruling. DoJ needs a good swift kick in the balls as a reminder that, as much as it wants to, it cannot violate the constitution.
Keep ya hands off
when Trump gave Obama the credit for allowing ISIS to form in the first place, it was called a lie by the MSM.
Meanwhile... in Paul Manafort's world...
Guess what's good for the goose ain't always good for the gander.
Nobody seemed to object to Obama spying on his enemies.
the 1st Amendment doesn't provide free speech. It prevents the US Government from creating laws that restrict it.
Perhaps you should read it.
Freedom of speech doesn't include incitement of hatred or violence, aka "fighting words"
3rd paragraph, page 68, "Recapturing the Spirit: Essays on the Bill of Rights at 200"
https://books.google.com.au/bo...
So no, ISIS should not be free to spread hate.