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A month ago, the Department of Justice served a warrant (PDF) to Dreamhost regarding one of its clients. This is routine for law enforcement to make such requests, the website hosting service said in a blog post -- except the page in question, disruptj20.org, had helped organize protests of Trump's inauguration. And the DOJ is demanding personal info and 1.3 million IP addresses of visitors to the site.
[...] After questioning the warrant's extreme volume of info requested, the DOJ fired back with a motion (PDF) asking the DC Superior Court to compel the host to comply. Dreamhost's counsel filed legal arguments in opposition (PDF), and will attend a court hearing about the matter in Washington, DC on August 18th.
It's not the first time authorities have tried to pry information from internet companies on users that attended anti-Trump protests.
Source: Engadget
Additional Coverage at The Guardian and DreamHost
Related: Facebook Appeal
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Wednesday August 16 2017, @05:01PM (4 children)
What we know - for certain - is that this is a fishing expedition. It requests information about people for whom there is no probable cause, no valid oath or affirmation.
So the warrant is unconstitutional.
I do understand the authorized process. I also understand, that as here, the government is very prone to ignoring the authorized process.
The constitution authorizes search and seizure under a very specific set of metrics. These do not include "hiding what we're looking for."
You can try to justify this travesty all you like, but the bottom line is that the government is not authorized to do what it is doing here. That doesn't mean they'll be stopped from doing it - we have ex post facto laws, the inversion of the commerce clause, "free speech zones", all manner of infringements on the right to keep and carry arms, and so forth that amply demonstrate that the system is deeply corrupt and routinely operates well out of its authorized bounds. But while you can cheer these criminals on, and they have the power to keep doing things any way they like, they're still no more than criminals.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @05:35PM (3 children)
Please look at what you're doing! Yes there specifically is probable cause, oath, and affirmation! And document sealing is an integral and standard part of law and has been for many many decades. What you're saying is effectively equivalent to trying to argue that 1+1=3, realizing its wrong - and then doubling down on it. If you want to know why political debate, of any sort, in this nation is falling apart - this is why. And I'm certainly in part responsible for the inanity in our little thread. I failed to accurately discern your position which could have clarified this up in a single post. But we're all so fast to want to hear more of... ourselves, aren't we?
And in many ways I'd even agree with your beliefs, ideologically. I wish that there was a notion of digital rights of privacy. But while it's easy to blame politicians, the reality is that we have the politicians we deserve. People get upset when their privacy is violated and then simultaneously hand over massive amounts of information to Facebook, Google, and nearly all major social media platforms. When Snowden revealed that the US was turning into a digital surveillance state, he undoubtedly thought he would start a revolution in awareness and public reaction. Instead he caught a 'Hey that's not cool!' until something shiny grabbed the mass's attention 15 minutes later and they followed the media's next carrot. It's probably just growing pains of the information age, but we sure are slow to grow up.
Respectfully yours,
Anonymous Coward
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Wednesday August 16 2017, @06:02PM (2 children)
No. That only exists for a few users' information. That doesn't magically turn into something that applies to all users because the government wants some level of convenience, or they want to hide the process, or for any other reason, either. This warrant is for a huge number of users' information. If the warrant was for those few users' information for whom the required metrics have been met, that would be fine. But it's not. It's an illegal warrant.
They are operating outside the bounds of constitutional authorization; those responsible are rogue governmental elements by definition. They are in violation of their oaths, and should be dismissed from their positions immediately.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @06:56PM (1 child)
You are conflating disclosure with seizure, again. Not fond of getting into circular debates.
Those "rogue government elements" signing off on this are operating out of big blue DC. The DA listed on the warrant has been there since at least 2011. The current DC US attorney who would have ultimate oversight is Channing D. Phillips. You can read more about him here [justice.gov]. He's an Obama appointee. I can almost assure you that the judge who signed off on this is also a democrat. This case isn't about politics - it is about a large criminal conspiracy of individuals engaging in criminal activity.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Wednesday August 16 2017, @09:13PM
No. I'm pointing out the illegal, unconstitutional search.
There's nothing complicated or circular about this. There's no way that incorporating a search of a huge number of innocent people's information in a warrant is legal. It just isn't. Your stated reasons are irrelevant, because the warrant itself is constitutionally non-compliant, in a blatantly obvious way: no probable cause (and consequently, no possible valid oath or affirmation.) It fails the 4th amendment metrics for reasonable. It's unreasonable, and therefore invalid and illegal. That's the whole reason the 4th is in the bill of rights: to prevent the government from just jumping down anyone's throat any time some judge or prosecutor feels a vague, unspecified itch.
Sure is. The judge who issued the illegal warrant is one of those criminals.
As for the bit about Obama and how long someone's been in office, that's all irrelevant. The point is the warrant is illegal because the search is illegal. That's the entire point. Wouldn't matter if it was issued by God himself who had been in office a million years. The US constitution forbids this quite explicitly.