Posted on 06/04/2021 3:34:15 PM PDT by algore
The FBI has asked USA Today for the IP addresses and phone numbers of everyone who read one of its articles during a 35-minute period in February as part of an ongoing child porn probe, in what the publisher is calling a violation of the First Amendment.
On February 2, FBI agents Daniel Alfin and Laura Schwartzenberger were killed and three others were wounded when 55-year-old David Huber started shooting as they approached his apartment in Fort Lauderdale shortly after 6am.
USA Today was among the many news outfits that covered the story on February 2. It published the story at 9.29 that morning - three-and-a-half hours after it happened.
USA Today is fighting back, saying the order violates the First Amendment.
'A government demand for records that would identify specific individuals who read specific expressive materials, like the Subpoena at issue here, invades the First Amendment rights of both publisher and reader, and must be quashed accordingly,' lawyers for Gannett, the company that owns USA Today, said.
They added said the subpoena's vague reference to 'a federal criminal investigation' cannot 'possibly justify such an abridgment of free speech.'
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Yes indeed...
Should have brought up the 30’s...
Particularly since I did in another thread today titled:
“Our Government Is Evolving into Something Horrifying”
As an instrument, the FBI has played a key part in all the machinations that the government has engaged in over the past 90-years as we have now descended into a full-fledged communist tyranny...
I’m sure that when I was born, in 1933, if FR had been around I’d have written the same thing...
During WWII, my brother & I had to live (from February 1942 to October 1945) with my grandparents while Dad was trapesing around the South Pacific with the Marine Corps and Mom worked 6-days a week,12-hrs a day in a ship-building yard...
My grandparents, even then, constantly regaled us with the knowledge of the burgeoning tyranny of the socialist (communist infested) government...
This is why I still get a paper newspaper. No accounts, no logging.
Aha! You come from a good line. My mother was thrown out of the John Birch Society. She was too far right, even for them.
Most servers now have their own device recognition implemented. Gmail started it, and now it has spread. Even if they do not have the feature turned on to restrict users or public access they are still gathering this unique device information when you hit it.
Not the MAC address, or the browser, the actual device make and serial number with the proper tools on the server.
USA Today being a news organization would have every tool they can get for this even if it is a 3rd party API service added in the server it’s self and not even part of the site script.
For this reason... I have claimed for years now considering what they can get from server hits, 99% of Webmasters actually have a very high degree of personal integrity.
Me neither.
At the bottom there's HTTP with its headers which don't contain any such info. I log all the headers and look at them pretty regularly for anomalies. Above the HTTP they can send whatever they want back to the server, provided they run some javascript to gather the information and the browser gives it up to the javascript. It doesn't matter what the "server" is or does. All that matters is that something runs in your browser and is able to obtain the info. I know of none, but I haven't looked into it specifically.
Next time I get into my server to do something I will make you a list of the 3rd party tools available from my host to do detailed server analytics available to me for a price. They run ads in there offering their services and what they can do for me on the server side.
Funny you should mention the 60s as being different. That’s when I noticed a change in attitude toward the citizenry by the police in my home town, NYC. From the late 60s until I left in 2002 aside from one friend I had who was on the job, every interaction I had with NYPD, even in professional situations while working in precinct houses or HQ was contentious and adversarial. Cops seemed to treat every non-cop they dealt with as an enemy and with suspicion.
Their attitude really soured me on them and I’m not even talking about the corruption that was rampant through those years.
Color me cynical. If they wanted IPs on a story Trump supporters were reading they’d get instant cooperation.
Agreed. I can’t think of any reason the FBI would want that information.
The late sixties is also when the Weather Underground, Black Power movement, SNCC, etc were preaching against authority of any kind, disrespect for authority, God is dead, etc. And many of those same Marxist oriented leaders began to infiltrate government, universities, churches. And we see the results today. It’s not just police, it’s invasiveness infects every part of our life.
I finally thought of a scenario where this makes sense.
If someone posted on a child-porn site that this guy was killed during a porn bust, and said he read it on USA Today then they are trying to identify him.
Actually it’s not strange. The press was probably still too freaked out about finding the whereabouts of Nancy Pelosi’s lecturn and laptop to concern themselves with the deaths of a couple FBI agents.
If it was a ‘fishing expedition’ they’d want more than that very small time interval.
They certainly destroyed any feelings of support I may have had for them with the way they treated and continued to treat folks. I know I was not alone in that. On this forum, these same feelings have been voiced many times by other FReepers. Of course that also would bring derision and accusations if being cop-haters and BLM supporters from others here. Because of my life experiences with LEO in the time after I came back from the service until I left NYC in 02, I’ve become rather ambivalent toward them.
Where I now live, I’ve had no interaction with LEO except to occasionally talk to a Deputy Sheriff relative of a friend. I have nothing to do with them and they have nothing to do with me. At 76 and with response times being what they are here in the hills, in a Constitutional carry state, I can’t really foresee any need to request law enforcement assistance for anything. (except maybe for drawing the outlines)
p
... as the anti-American/anti-God left has sought for so long.
No, that's just KamelToe Harris again.
Web sites leave cookies and trackers on people’s devices.
I agree with Gannett on this one.
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