
FBI: If We Told You . . . (Part II) - trotsky
http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/fbi-if-we-told-you-part-ii
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fleitz
I think that whatever grounds corporations (and their customers) have to
challenge these requests that those grounds have far more basis in the law
than "it would be bad for business." If the grounds for challenge are baseless
then a court will toss the case, but I think that would be highly unlikely.

People have a constitutional right to be secure in their papers and effects
and the court should be the one judging where these rights start and end, and
not the FBI.

Exactly what is so important that a warrant cannot be obtained from a judge
before tapping these lines? Where is the justification that this is necessary
to secure our happiness and freedom?

If it is necessary to repeal parts of the constitution then we should have a
frank, open and honest discussion about it. The more likely case is that
Augustus has no clothes.

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ncarlson
> I think that whatever grounds corporations (and their customers) have to
> challenge these requests that those grounds have far more basis in the law
> than "it would be bad for business."

I wouldn't underestimate the extent to which the Commerce Clause could be
applied.

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CWuestefeld
Sure. Congress never underestimates how far they can take it.

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ramdac
To me, this suggests that corporations have too much power in this country.
This explains why the FBI is heavy-handed with their "do not disclose" style
issuances to corporations. It isn't so much that the FBI is scared the company
will tip someone off, but that people in general will become more
knowledgeable about these activities. This poses a risk for companies as
proponents of privacy will be very outspoken.

If anything, this is a great argument for why these things SHOULD be public
knowledge.

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meatsock
'if what we ARE telling you is this scary imagine the stuff we're protecting
you from knowing.'

how fantastically polite.

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smokeyj
Someone should start a company that rates how companies handle customer data.
On a scale of 0 to telco, how invasive are you.

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ramdac
I actually like this idea. Where does facebook sit in that scale? I imagine
pretty close to telco.

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Helianthus
Hell, I'd put facebook ahead of telco. Telcos have the bureaucracy that begets
incompetence and therefore inaction; facebook ranks whose profiles I visit
most so it can optimize my search results and minifeeds.

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firefoxman1
Reminds me of a certain movie...

"Operation Blackbriar started as an NEAT surveillance program. It is now the
umbrella program for all our black-ops. Full envelope intrusion, rendition,
experimental interrogation - it is all run out of this office. We are the
sharp end of the stick now"

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nkassis
Hum I read that more as, we need it secret or corps providing us info will
never accept to do it and will fight to the end even if they are legally bound
to provide the information.

So it's not that they don't want challenges it's that they think they can't
even get what they legally can without secrecy.

It's not a very good argument by the FBI for sure. Obviously if people knew
that some corps provided info but not other, it could penalize the first by
losing customers but we already know we can't trust certain companies even
with all the secrecy.

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armored
As a corporation that would like to resist any demands for my customers
information & data stored on my servers what can I do? Currently the way the
laws are written it is illegally in some cases even to notify the customer
that they are being surveilled.

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shareme
Not true.. the old Clinton era law states that after 30 to 90 days FBI has to
tell someone that they asked for records.

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btilly
Your information is seriously out of date. The PATRIOT act takes precedence,
and it famously authorized gag orders where the people under surveillance
cannot be told that their information was requested by law enforcement.

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jaredwill
In other words: The only way we can obtain this information is to not tell
what what information we're obtaining.

