Exposing Marxist Plans Daily
Posted on 05/02/2014 6:00:45 AM PDT by xzins
The low level griping about law enforcement subpoenas requesting user information and instructing companies to not tell the subjects of the subpoenas has burst into full fledged rebellion.
From the Washington Post:
"This increasingly defiant industry stand is giving some of the tens of thousands of Americans whose Internet data gets swept into criminal investigations each year the opportunity to fight in court to prevent disclosures. Prosecutors, however, warn that tech companies may undermine cases by tipping off criminals, giving them time to destroy vital electronic evidence before it can be gathered."
Now Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, and Google have joined Yahoo in saying they will notify anyone whose accounts are the subject of an investigative diploma unless they receive a judicial gag order.
As citizens rely more and more on technology to communicate and store personal information, the abusive use of investigative subpoenas has become endemic. Often investigators request enormous amounts of information and bully ISPs, etc., into keeping quiet about the subpoena denying the subject the opportunity to challenge the request in court.
As the Post notes:
"As this position becomes uniform across the industry, U.S. tech companies will ignore the instructions stamped on the fronts of subpoenas urging them not to alert subjects about data requests, industry lawyers say. Companies that already routinely notify users have found that investigators often drop data demands to avoid having suspects learn of inquiries.
“It serves to chill the unbridled, cost-free collection of data,” said Albert Gidari Jr., a partner at Perkins Coie who represents several technology companies. “And I think that’s a good thing.”
Naturally, the government is not amused that their backdoor to the Fourth Amendment has been taken away.
“These risks of endangering life, risking destruction of evidence, or allowing suspects to flee or intimidate witnesses are not merely hypothetical, but unfortunately routine,” department spokesman Peter Carr said, citing a case in which early disclosure put at risk a cooperative witness in a case. He declined to offer details because the case was under seal.
In other words, its secret and if I told you I’d have to kill you.
It is a sad state of affairs when we’ve come to the point that law enforcement is no longer assumed to be acting in good faith and the abuse is so widespread that virtually all the major technology players have ceased cooperation.
But since NSA continues to have full pipe recording for (reportedly ???) 1 year (???), and they can crack selectively anytime during the retionion period, and they can, by IP address interactions determine pretty much all of a user’s traffic regardless of device/protocol, then this article is really disinformation.
Pretend we’re “darn mad and we’re not gonna take it any more”.
Oh, it’s ok now, I can trust these guys.
What’s full pipe ? You mean like water pipe ?
Yes, these corporations know that eventually they will loose their subscribers, if they keep quiet.
This is a saavy move, and finally the Constitution is being supported. But take away the long term money motive, and they would be absolutely silent.To keep thenm quiet, all the government has to do is promise them money or special waivers from Obamacare.
I have to agree with PieterCasparzen: Disinformation. Internet companies pretending to stand up for individuals against the government, to lull us into a sense that someone is looking out for us, and to siphon off outrage.
"The lurkers support me in e-mail...."
The industry is idesperately trying to salvage the US-based cloud-computing business, which went straight into the toilet once the world found out about the NSA’s antics.
‘...citing a case in which early disclosure put at risk a cooperative witness in a case. He declined to offer details because the case was under seal.’
“There was this bad man, see. Let’s call him ‘Mister Child Pornographer Terrorist Drug Dealer Homophobic Islamaphobic Catholic Tea Party Member.’ Well anyway, we got an anonymous tip from another guy, who we’ll call ‘Mister Good Citizen Democrat Campaign Contributor’, that MCPTDDHICTPM was going to do something horrible and awful and evil and terroristic, like supporting a challenger in a primary race against one of the senators who is a big supporter of our National Security Intelligence Surveillance system.
“So obviously it was a matter of National Security that we *had* to listen in to every conversation he made, and any of the conversations everyone he ever spoke to made, as well as everything said by those who spoke to them. Just a few tens of thousands of people.
“But we can’t say any more about it because it is under a double-secret court seal in a secret court run by a secret judge, who even we can’t contact directly, unless we go through either Valerie Jarrett or Debbie Wasserman Schultz.”
I agree with you. The NSA collects everything and at the touch of a button can target you with your entire life history on file.
If you don’t become a problem, they don’t push the button. They hide this by using the terms like “listening” as in “We’re not listening to your communications.” What they’re really doing is collecting and “listening” later depending on if they decide you are a person of interest to them.
Questioning authority and not trusting government are hallmarks of the American Spirit.
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