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Librarian Stands up to the Feds
Posted by
Zonk
on Wed Feb 01, 2006 10:54 AM
from the don't-tread-on-me dept.
from the don't-tread-on-me dept.
Anonymous Coward writes "A librarian at Brandeis University forced the FBI to obtain a warrant to seize computers used to send threats. From the article: 'Federal Bureau of Investigation agents tried to seize 30 of the library's computers without a warrant, saying someone had used the library's Internet connection to send the threat to Brandeis. But the library director, Kathy Glick-Weil, told the agents they could not take the machines unless they got a warrant first. Newton's mayor, David Cohen, backed Ms. Glick-Weil up. After a brief standoff, FBI officials relented and sought a warrant from a judge.'"
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FBI Releases Secret Subpoena Information 282 comments
gollum123 writes to mention a CNN article, reporting on an FBI information release. The number of secret subpoenas the Bureau filed last year reached 3,501. These documents allowed access to credit card records, bank statements, telephone records, and internet access logs for thousands of legal citizens without asking for a court's permission. From the article: "The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the same panel that signs off on applications for business records warrants, also approved 2,072 special warrants last year for secret wiretaps and searches of suspected terrorists and spies. The record number is more than twice as many as were issued in 2000, the last full year before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001."
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You know it's sad... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:You know it's sad... (Score:5, Insightful)
Until the American people wake up and start actually seeing what the people they elected are allowing to happen without so much as a protest vote, or even actively participating in them (see Abramoff, DeLay, and other things that non-partisan public interest groups have been screaming about for years) it's going to be an extremely sad state of affairs, so I'd like to see more news of this nature, frankly. It's among the only things that keep me hopeful for this battered country.
Parent
Re:You know it's sad... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Congratz (Score:5, Insightful)
Thank you, for being a citizen. I wish more Americans would be more like you.
Re:Congratz (Score:5, Interesting)
Oddly enough, it seems Librarians spend a disproportionate amount of time doing such things.
From what I can tell, as a group they're more concerned with your rights and liberties than most everyone else.
Support your local librarian.
Parent
Where's the Fark HERO tag when you need it? (Score:3, Insightful)
She's a t'rrst (Score:5, Funny)
President Said that Wiretaps Require Court Order (Score:4, Funny)
In HIS own words:
"Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution."
G.W.B. April 20, 2004
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/04/2
Parent
Why is this news? (Score:5, Insightful)
Most people say yes, and the police can legally search with permission.
You can legally say no, and the officer must let you go due to the lack of a warrant. This happens on a daily basis.
Re:Why is this news? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Why is this news? (Score:5, Interesting)
like open the trunk of your car. However, they may ask, and they can
even lie to you ("I heard something moving in that trunk!") in order
to get you to voluntarily comply with their request.
One of the best pieces of advice that I've heard was that if you do
have contraband in your car and a police officer demands to search it
without a warrant, to simply get out of your vehicle, lock all the
doors, and close your door after putting your car keys into the car as
well. Since everything in the car is locked and you cannot get into
it, you have removed any occasion that the police officer may think
there is reasonable danger present to the officer in that he/she must
break into your vehicle (higher standard of proof required).
However, there ARE people that need less burden of proof. For
instance, said police officer may simply radio the Fish and Game
wardens that they suspect you have violated state hunting/fishing
laws. These people have the right to actually use a crowbar and force
your vehicle open without a warrant. Of course, they won't find any
illegal game/fish in your vehicle, but now that the car is opened and
subject to search, those other things in your car can be considered
fair game. (Pun not intended.)
A good lawyer (or perhaps even the public defender) can probably have
the evidence dismissed against you, but it's pretty shaky ground
you'll be standing on. Judges don't like denying evidence against
people that are clearly guilty (despite what you see on crime shows
nowadays).
Now, I'm not advocating people feel free to transport drugs or
automatic weapons. Actually, I'm advocating that people don't
transport illegal things in their vehicles! It's simply stupid to be
lulled into a false sense of security because you THINK the police
will be unable to search your car without a warrant.
Parent
Re:Why is this news? (Score:5, Interesting)
I was annoyed with the coverage of this when it first ran because many news articles portrayed the library director as having a choice in the matter and choosing to impede the FBI. It would have been nice to see an article that ran that essentially said, "Library Director follows law and demands warrant so evidence not later thrown out of court or abused."
Parent
Ook (Score:5, Funny)
*for those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, you have my pity and should click here [wikipedia.org] or here [wikipedia.org] for more information.
Warrantless Searches Are Unreasonable (Score:4, Informative)
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Now, before you get out your boolean logic analyzers for a legal statement with centuries of precedent built on it, grok the fact [findlaw.com] that
"searches conducted outside the judicial process, without prior approval by judge or magistrate, are per se unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment--subject only to a few specially established and well-delineated exceptions."
Not a brandeis librarian... (Score:4, Informative)
Clear and Present Danger (Score:4, Interesting)
And as for oversight of the FBI, the fact is that if the computers had been obtained illegally and against procedures, the evidence that they provided would have been thrown out in court. No FBI agent is looking to have an arrest dismissed due to a technicality such as that.
I suppose you don't have to like the FBI, and certainly they got to where they were today due to a lot of PR and manuvering in the Hoover years, but they were responders, likely called in by the local authorities to help with the issue. They weren't sitting in FBI HQ spying on personal emails and suddenly decided to descend on Newton in black cars and helicopters....
Re:Clear and Present Danger (Score:4, Insightful)
And yet this story proved that even they are not above the law. For a truly lawful and just society, nobody can be. Clear and present danger or not, the law must be followed. If the law is too inflexible for this type of scenario then it must be changed, but not broken at will by those sworn to uphold it.
Finkployd
Parent
Summary WRONG (Score:5, Informative)
I should know, that library is about a mile away from where I live.
Two sides (Score:4, Insightful)
Clearly, some nut out to stir things up, but who knows? If you receive such a threat, in this day and age, wouldn't you have to take it seriously?
But she [Gail Marcinkiewicz, a spokesman for the FBI's Boston branch] said the FBI had a right to seize the computers because the agents who went to the Newton library thought Brandeis students, professors, and staff members were in immediate danger. "We could have done this," said Ms. Marcinkiewicz. "It is supported by case law."Nonetheless, she said, the FBI decided to seek a warrant. By the time agents had determined that they needed to seize only three of the computers, about 5 p.m., they realized that people at Brandeis were not about to be killed, she added.
So there was an apparent threat, the FBI determined (who knows how) that it came from the library, was ready to seize the computers until the librarian intervened, and then the FBI backed off, got a warrant, and everyone went home happy. Where's the news?
Perhaps everyone sees the FBI as the US Government's stormtroopers (remember Waco?), but the fact is they are charged with the duty of protecting all citizens of the US from harm. They saw a threat and were prepared to act accordingly. They could have simply taken the computers and have been off and no one could have done a thing about it, but they chose retsraint, perhaps wondering how credible the threat really was. In the end, no one gets hurt, Democracy is safe, and the Republic goes on.
Re:Two sides (Score:5, Insightful)
When the police/fbi/black suits come for you, demand to see the warrant. Don't agree to anything unofficial, don't agree to anything causal.
Demand a warrant.
Democracy and freedom only remain vibrant through active participation of the citizenry. This means more than "you have to vote". You have to actively stand up for your rights; rights that go unexercised you will most likely loose.
Parent
Correction - Newton Free Library (Score:4, Informative)
Because, evidently, no one has read TFA. (Score:5, Insightful)
The key to this story is the "clear and present danger" issue. According to Mayor Cohen and an FBI representative, the law actually would have permitted the agents to go ahead and just take the computers if they had believed the situation to be an emergency. And that's why there was a standoff: because FBI agents paused to evaluate the situation, balanced the risks of waiting for a warrant with the benefit of having the assistance of library IT staff, and decided to get the warrant.
So, kudos for Ms. Glick-Weil for requesting the warrant. And kudos to the FBI for considering the request and deciding it was the best course of action. Had they thought the threat was credible and immediate, I'm sure they would have responded differently, and I would have a hard time faulting them for it.
Having read the article... (Score:5, Informative)
The article instead gives me the impression of over-reacting investigators being greeted with a question of "Hold on a minute, tiger, where's your warrant?" followed by "Well, without a warrant, you can't cart off any of the computers. But I'll tell you what we can do -- we'll let you look at the computers here to figure out which ones you might need to grab, while you get a judge to issue a warrant. Is that workable?"
It wasn't black-hat-vs.-white-hat, it was a voice of reason calming down a couple of (rightfully) concerned FBI agents. It wasn't a stand-off, it was a prevented stand-off... which strikes me as better all around. So let's not generate hysteria after the fact, but let us be grateful that there are people willing to tell City Hall, if not to get lost, then to slow down and wait for its own papers.
Librarian Stands up to the Feds..... (Score:5, Funny)
In related news... (Score:5, Funny)
"clear and present danger" is NOT VALID (Score:5, Interesting)
Uh...that's not how "clear and present danger" was ever meant to be used. The phrase comes from a 1919 US Supreme Court case on first amendment protected speech [wikipedia.org].
Incidentally, that case was overturned in 1969.
"Clear and present danger" was specifically NOT, as of 1969, a legitimate reason for punishing someone for speech. It certainly is not a legitimate reason for illegal search and seizure (ie, bypassing the court system.)
I hate it when people romanticize unconstitutional action; happens in the movies all the time. "You can't do that!" "Oh? Are you going to make me get a warrant to search this place? Little Timmy could be dead by then!"
Re:"clear and present danger" is NOT VALID (Score:4, Informative)
It's been replaced with "Imminant Lawless Action", as stated from the Wikipedia link. Regardless of it's legality, it can easily be used to encourage cooperation between the FBI and the library to have a forensics team analyze the exact source of the message without having to do an unnecessary bulk processing of 30 computers.
How the events turned out is exactly how things should be processed. Instead of a bulk request for 30 computers, it should be narrowed down to a smaller cluster that can be more easily analysed. In terms of evidence, it is quality, not quantity.
Parent
Re:Time to vote NO, but in what election? (Score:4, Insightful)
How about the FBI department that handles serial killers? Surely that's an infringement of our freedom?
Of course, the FBI should have gotten a search warrant, but I'm sure they will now and I hope they can determine who sent the threats, because I want to live in a world where I know if someone sends me a death threat (or what-have-you), that they will be found and I won't have to fear my safety on their account.
You don't see a use for the FBI? Pleeease.
Parent
Re:Time to vote NO, but in what election? (Score:5, Insightful)
How about the FBI department that handles serial killers? Surely that's an infringement of our freedom?
Of course, the FBI should have gotten a search warrant, but I'm sure they will now and I hope they can determine who sent the threats, because I want to live in a world where I know if someone sends me a death threat (or what-have-you), that they will be found and I won't have to fear my safety on their account.
You don't see a use for the FBI? Pleeease.
If they were in the news more for finding serial killers and recovering kidnapped children than they were for using the PATRIOTACT, then perhaps. There is a use for an FBI, but not this one.
Parent
Re:Time to vote NO, but in what election? (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Time to vote NO, but in what election? (Score:5, Insightful)
I would hire a private investigator and a lawyer. Also, I don't see how someone could kidnap my child if I was a good parent and actually parented the child at all times, as a parent should.
It's nice that you seem to have a lot of money to pay for these sorts of things but what about people who aren't so well off?
And while I'm at it.. what's with the blaming the victims here? Not all kidnappings can be prevented by the parents.
Parent
Re:Time to vote NO, but in what election? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Time to vote NO, but in what election? (Score:5, Informative)
The rich already makes and enforce the laws. Look at copyright extensions, software patents, DMCA, and other related legislature. Most libertarians do not support this political bribery at all, and wish it would be done away with.
Why do so many people spew all of this bad crap about libertarianism? Libertarianism is about reducing the government's role to protecting our individual freedoms, and is about promoting free markets, indivudal freedoms, and limited government. You need to start reading about libertarians before you compare a libertarian society to serfdom. (In fact, one libertarian, Friedrich Hayek [wikipedia.org], wrote a book called The Road to Serfdom which describes what happens when socialist and collectivist policies are implemented. Go and read, before you spew anti-libertarian garbage.
Parent
Re:Time to vote NO, but in what election? (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Time to vote NO, but in what election? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Time to vote NO, but in what election? (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, it's a matter of statistics that most kidnappings are BY one of the parents. Kidnapping by stranger is so rare as to be the exception that makes the news (extra points for young, white, girl).
Parent
Re:Time to vote NO, but in what election? (Score:5, Insightful)
What planet are you on? A private investigator?? Do you *know* how hard it can
be to track down kidnap victims even with the latest foensic techniques and
hundreds of people working on the case. So how do you think one single gumshoe
is going to manage that on his own with just his notebook?
As for the second comment, thats just so absurb and out of touch that it doesn't
even deserve a reply. When you come back down from the Planet Brainless Hippie
let us know and maybe we can have a proper discussion.
Parent
Re:Time to vote NO, but in what election? (Score:5, Insightful)
Now that's just a heartless thing to say. Many good parents still lose their children, often through no fault of their own.
For example, on our last family vacation we visited a children's museum. While we were building a dinosaur from bones together, my youngest son (only 3 years old!) sneakily departed. We noticed his disappearance pretty quickly, but couldn't find him anywhere in the multilevel facility. Since the facility had no real security, anyone could have picked him up and run off with our child while we were trying to locate him. A kidnapper could have easily attributed his crying to misbehaving rather than apprehension.
Eventually the employees found him in a dark "virtual" batting cage. He got a good lecture for taking off like that, but then managed to sneak out of an ambulence he was "driving" just a few minutes later. (He's a sneaky bugger. I was sitting right next to him, look down at the radio, look up and he's gone.) Thankfully, I found him much quicker this time and kept him on an even tighter leash after that. (Also threatening to take him to the car and keep him there for the rest of the trip unless he kept in my sight at all times.)
Now consider all the parents who have their babies stolen by adoption scams. Or kids kidnapped while they're on the school playground. (Especially by relatives who might seem to be sent by you, but often aren't right in the head.) There are just so many ways that kids can be lost or kidnapped that it just isn't funny. A good parent has a far lower chance of their kid being abducted, but they can't guarantee against it.
So do be a little careful about such sweeping statements, will you?
Parent
dada21 never sleeps! (Score:3, Insightful)
dada21: I don't see how someone could kidnap my child if I was a good parent and actually parented the child at all times, as a parent should.
doughrama: You just lost all credibility.
You got that right! Denial of reality and good parenting are hardware incompatible.
Some of us have to work. And sleep (one of my kids sleepwalks, incidentally, as does my spouse). And some of us have chosen to parent more than one bright, inquisitive child. Human beings can't do these things and simultaneously do 24 hour bo
Your smug pontification makes me angry. (Score:4, Insightful)
#1 - I ADOPT. Do you? No? Then shut up about who has the "right" to have kids. And yes, I am fertile, as is my spouse, although it's none of your business. I have a biological kid too. And no, I don't adopt Chinese or Russian babies, I can't afford to fly to exotic places and rescue children. I go to the closest major city, which happens to be Wilmington.
#2 - I do not ask for or receive any charity from you, the government, or anyone else. Period. I am self-sufficient through 20 years of hard work; I own productive land with game and clean water and I would be fine if every other human on the planet disappeared tomorrow. So shut up about paying for me, you simply don't. I pay for you, though, since you require the business environment that my tax dollars make possible - an environment my family does not require. I have read your blog and posts; you require social support structures far more than I do.
#3 - I don't watch TV, we cook at home, we don't have an X-box, we drive to the beach for vacation, and all your other typical classist and racist arguments don't apply to my family either.
So, I do have a right to have kids. I have demonstrated it by providing a home and education for homeless, parentless kids you clearly don't want to pay for.
You, on the other claw, have not earned the right to even talk about parenting, much less the right to be one. Your snide contempt for poor people's financial mismanagement invalidates whatever good your "churches" do with your donations, as far as I'm concerned; in fact I'd rather you kept your money and grew some compassion.
And finally: Listen, I've seen "kill all nigger-lovers" spray-painted on my goddamn sidewalk, when we were the only mixed-race family in the plastic yuppie neighborhood I used to live in. I'm marked for death by the fucking phineas priests because I'm actually doing something meaningful while you grub for money and post clueless tripe about parenting on the Internet. Go adopt some parentless inner-city children, raise 'em up to be productive, self-actualized human beings and then you'll have the right to lecture me.
Parent
Re:Time to vote NO, but in what election? (Score:5, Insightful)
Until the 1930's or so when organized crime figured out that state run police was terrible at tracking them across borders. The FBI was formed for a reason. Whether or not they've over-stepped their bounds I'm not arguing however.
Parent
Re:Time to vote NO, but in what election? (Score:3, Funny)
In Adams-Friendship, Wisconsin, there's a store called "Al's Guns and TVs". Does that count?
[insert jokes about replacing the Nintendo Zapper here]
Re:Time to vote NO, but in what election? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure we see them handed over in the movies and on tv, but they never go over them and double check them.
Is there a number we can call to confirm that a warrant is actually valid?
A determined criminal could create a fake warrant easier than most other official ID badges purely because we don't know what they look like?
(Of course I'm not American and might be completely wrong, but requiring a warrant in my simplistic eyes is usually just a delaying tactic by the criminal)
Parent
Verifying warrants (Score:4, Funny)
Yes - fortunately, though, it's printed on the warrant itself so there's no need to remember it.
Parent
Re:Time to vote NO, but in what election? (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Time to vote NO, but in what election? (Score:5, Interesting)
That person is me. I recommend voting for yourself on every ballot, straight ticket, every position. Vote NO to all referenda and judge retentions. Write yourself in and you'll be voting for the only person able to enforce the law the way you want it enforced.
Picture the next presidential election: Condi Rice 7%, Hillary Clinton 8%, Other 85%. I like that. That's my kind of mandate.
Parent
Re:Did they GET the warrant? (Score:5, Insightful)
And you know, just because they went and tried to ask for the computers without a warrant doesn't mean they didn't have just cause to obtain one. Getting a warrant takes a bit of time, and it's not unreasonable to assume that they were merely trying to be expeditious and hoping the librarian would cooperate. They ended up conceding the point, however, and went to a judge. And as the article says, if the danger had been clear and present, they could have legally taken the computers without a warrant anyways.
In the end, they ended up only getting a warrant to take some of the computers, anyways, not all of them. But the fact that they got a warrant at all is more likely to be an indication that they had just cause to take the computers in the first place than it is that the judge that issued it was corrupt.
Parent
Most important (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Librarians (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Alternate version? (Score:4, Informative)
No no, if Brandeis blew up the headline would have been: "Authorities fail to evacuate, results in death of 50." Finding the source of the email isn't going to necessarily get you anywhere closer to the (hypothetical) killer bomb. If they thought there was such [i]clear and present danger[/i] there'd have been noone at the threatened place to begin with.
Seriously, the whole "but the terrorist are after us!!!1" scaremongering to trample all over the citizen's rights is geting really really old.
Parent