Archive.org Defeats FBI's Demand For User Information 224
eldavojohn writes "Although we don't know what they were after due to the settlement, a gag order was just released that kept Internet Archive member Brewster Kahle quiet. The FBI had issued a national security letter to them under the Patriot Act. Kahle fought it. Hard. The EFF came to the aid of his lawyers and what resulted was one of the only three times an NSL has been challenged: all three have been rescinded. The FBI agreed to open some of the court files now for it to be public. The ACLU added, 'That makes you wonder about the the hundreds of thousands of NSLs that haven't been challenged.'"
Stupid Questions (Score:5, Interesting)
Are they tracked somewhere publicly, and wouldn't that defeat the whole point of being secret about them?
And given that these are clear-cut violations of free speech, how is it that the entire NSL program still exists? The first time one of these was challenged, I thought any judge worth their salt would declare the NSL anti-constitutional.
Re:Stupid Questions (Score:5, Interesting)
You'd think that, but you'd be forgetting that the courts have been packed by Republicans for the last 7 1/2 years, and cumulatively, 19/12 out of the last 28 years. The courts are no more able to defend civil liberties than we are at this point; they have been too thoroughly packed with people for whom civil liberties is a dirty word associated with "flaming liberals" and "tree hugging hippies".
Yes, the NSLs are blatantly unconstitutional and represent a direct attack upon the rights of individuals to be free from unreasonable search and seizure, among other things. They also dramatically expand the power of the government to monitor the citizenry in ways that the Constitution never intended to allow and, indeed, which could not reasonably have been foreseen by the funding fathers at all. This is why the Constitution must be a living document that must be periodically revisited and updated by people whose goal is preserving liberty, not concentrating government power. Unfortunately, the Constitution's fatal flaw is that the only way it recognizes for updating the constitution is through a process that does not readily allow for apolitical review (well, not counting judicial enhancement of the Constitution through binding precedents).
For the Constitution to truly be effective, it needs a procedure for review and amendment that formally allows for and defines the process for constitutional conventions and public referendums so that a proposed Constitutional amendment, upon receiving a 2/3rds of the popular vote in two consecutive election cycles, becomes ratified without the need to go through Congress or the state governments (but subject to judicial findings of unconstitutionality if it violates any fundamental Constitutional principles). Only then can the Constitution be a truly living document that protects civil liberties in the face of those who would turn our government into a totalitarian regime, given the opportunity.
Yes, using intelligence and technology (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:It's time for Civil Disobedience and Regime Cha (Score:1, Interesting)
Nope. Bad analogy to illustrate why you're wrong about this: let's say you have a 10 year old son (let's call him Bart) and you suggest that you'd change roles for a day so that he learns how hard it is to be a parent. Instead of trying to fit your role, he instead messes up the house, sets the cat on fire, annoys the neighbors, unsettles your closest friends, attacks the candy store with bags of dog poo and causes general mischief all over the city. Bart's fault, or should you have intervened before too much damage was done? Just a thought.
Re:It's time for Civil Disobedience and Regime Cha (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It's time for Civil Disobedience and Regime Cha (Score:5, Interesting)
It's the perennial question - how exactly do we exit Iraq? What's your idea? Me, I'm against the war, but I'm not for pulling out hastily. Because, I wonder what will happen... will more people die, will it be as many as the U.S. and its allies have killed already ... will there be further ethnic cleansing and displacement of people beyond the millions who've been "invited" to leave their homes, etc.
Help me Obi Wan.
Re:It's time for Civil Disobedience and Regime Cha (Score:4, Interesting)
My big point of the year is this: The government isn't some far off, distant, thing that takes our money (and still is in debt), builds roads (to nowhere) and fights (immoral, illegal) wars. The government, in this great nation, IS the people. Once people realize this we can return to a society that valued freedom and the (history book) ideals that we were founded on.
This country needs its own French Enlightenment. It needs to have some writers, thinkers and speakers who don't involve themselves in the process at that level but rediscover the ideals we have strayed from (liberty!) and promote them to the masses. When people start saying The Government can look into your life then it's time to remind them that they are trying to look into your life, they are the ones trying to police your life. Start examining them for flaws, with most people it's not hard, and manipulate them if you have to - they need to realize that this is a very slippery slope.
Re:Mr. Peabody would be proud (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Stazi Police (Score:3, Interesting)
By the way, don't "Ministery for State Security" and "Department of Homeland Security" sound awfully similar? I don't know whether the DHS's name is unfortunate or just cynical...
Re:politology (if exists) (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, see, I think you might have that a little backwards there. You seem to be going towards the aphorism "Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely", which is anecdotally true for most of human history. But the entire point of Separation of Powers and Checks and Balances is to prevent the accumulation of virtual or actual "absolute" power in any one branch of the American government. When one branch (in this case, the Executive) makes a blatant and bald-faced power grab, it's the responsibility-- and duty-- of the other two to rein in that power. If the power is deemed necessary and proper for the well-being of the Union and the people at large, then the other two branches must find a way to ensure that the Executive cannot and does not overstep the legal and proper boundaries of the Constitution in utilizing that power; if that can't happen, then the power is rescinded and the people's rights are more protected (even if there's a slight drop in security).
A strong, overbearing Executive branch creates a police state. A strong, overbearing Legislative branch creates an ineffectual bureaucracy. A strong, overbearing Judicial branch creates a tyrannical dictatorship. None of those things are even remotely close to happening in the US (though we're currently en route to the police state Bad Ending, it's just very far off).
And a side note. We're talking about how we need revolution and regime change and all that sort of fast-movement stuff. Moving quickly is what got us into this mess. The 'Patriot Act' was rushed into law; we jumped to conclusions on Iraq; and so on and so on. In America, regime change happens every four to eight years like clockwork, and things move a little bit more slowly. Be patient. We have six months until the election and eight months until the inauguration. Once that happens we'll see some faster progress back to normalcy.
(Non-Americans, please give us a couple of months into 2009 before you start saying that we haven't changed. Like I said, this stuff takes time.)
The patriot act is appropriately named (Score:3, Interesting)