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A federal judge has approved a warrant for web hosting company DreamHost's records for DisruptJ20.org, a site that was used to plan anti-Trump protests on Inauguration Day. However, the scope of the warrant has been significantly narrowed:
"[W]hile the government has the right to execute its Warrant," D.C. Superior Court Judge Robert Morin wrote in his order, "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 government sought the warrant as it gathers evidence for its cases against nearly 200 people charged with rioting on Jan. 20.
The judge's new order instructs DreamHost to redact identifying information of "innocent persons" who visited the website before providing the records to the government. It also dictates a protocol for incorporating procedural safeguards to comply with "First Amendment and Fourth Amendment considerations." Among other stipulations, the government must submit to the court its plan for permanently deleting from its possession all information not within the scope of the warrant.
DreamHost considered the judge's ruling a significant victory. "The new order is a far cry from the original warrant we received in July," DreamHost General Counsel Christopher Ghazarian wrote in a statement to NPR. "Absent a finding by the Court that probable cause of criminal activity exists, the government will not be able to uncover the identities of these users. There are also quite a few modifications that further reduce the government's ability to review unrelated data. This is another huge win not just for DreamHost, but for internet users around the world."
Also at Reason, The Register, Engadget, and Infosecurity Magazine.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday October 16 2017, @02:48PM
Agree. It is only good at throwing grenades into the room. Undermining its own staffers. Tweeting about breaking treaties America has entered into with other nations.
Yes, but consider:
1. an orange jackass clown1 says I want such and so's head on a pike because he said bad things about me on the intarweb tubes! Whaaaa! (sniff) Whhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
2. The stormtrooper in charge of getting his head on a pike ask the court for the sun, the moon and the stars. All they really want is the moon. And the court gives them only the moon. They go away happy. They got exactly what they wanted.
Just because an orange jackass1 is inept doesn't mean everyone working for it is equally inept.
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1Not referring to any orange jackass in particular. Merely a reference to any hypothetical orange jackass clown from the entire set of all orange jackass clowns.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.