DOJ Demands Files on Anti-Trump Activists, and DreamHost Resists

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/08/15/543782396/doj-demands-files-on-anti-trump-activists-and-a-web-hosting-company-resists

by stefmonge • 9 years ago

193 73 9 years ago

npr.org

pmarreck2• 9 years ago

Good for them.

cypherpunks012• 9 years ago

'Them' meaning Dreamhost? Sorry to be pedantic but there are multiple subjects in the article/title and no other context.

ceejayoz• 9 years ago

The headline was edited from a "Dreamhost resists demands..." sort of construction.

pmarreck2• 9 years ago

The subject line of this submission was edited in the meantime.

greglindahl2• 9 years ago

Previous discussions:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15011636

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15018429

dsfyu404ed• 9 years ago

Why is a political organization retaining any info that isn't the minimum to do their job?

It's not like both sides haven't been trying to get their enemies membership lists for the past 100+yr.

wildmusings3• 9 years ago

Party registration is a matter of public record in almost every state in the US. Though that is admittedly different than a smaller group of people who participated in a particular riot.

bobsky• 9 years ago

Regarding logs:

"...the site's administrators didn't keep this data for DisruptJ20.org, but DreamHost did...

DreamHost keeps server logs in order to manage the sites of its 400,000-plus customers and identify issues like Distributed Denial of Service attacks.

"We only retain those logs for a very brief time," Dunst wrote. "The DOJ served us with a preservation notice immediately after the inauguration, which is why we still have access to that data in this case."

mulmen2• 9 years ago

Why would a political organization feel the need to protect their information from the DOJ?

This isn't a matter of "sides", it is a matter of extreme overreach by the executive branch.

gozur882• 9 years ago

It's not overreach if the political organization is behaving like a criminal organization. Much of the rioting and property damage at the inauguration was clearly planned, so the DOJ is just doing its job here.

EGreg2• 9 years ago

Oh you mean like this?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/06/19...

And people still say they are worried about voting from an app with cryptography.

wildmusings3• 9 years ago

The media hoopla around that story was largely Fake News. Everything in that database was taken from public records. The only value of the database is the painstaking work of making all of those public record requests to the thousands of jurisdictions in the United States, and then merging and cleaning up the data. But several organizations have done it at this point and all a leak would do is potentially cause those organizations to lose money or competitive advantage against organizations without that data.

wildmusings3• 9 years ago

They're seeking the identities of the rioters on January 20th. Over 200 people were arrested but many more have yet to face the consequences for what they did.

greekyogurt21• 9 years ago

So let's give up 1.3 million records of user info. Makes sense. /s

borisj2• 9 years ago

No, they are seeking available personal information on 1.3 million visits to the site.

marricks2• 9 years ago

So there's a million or so people that visited that website and they want to unmask all those people to attempt to find 200 alleged rioters?

That sure sounds like an overreaching fishing expedition.

borisj2• 9 years ago

They already found 200+ alleged rioters. They're looking for the identities of the other 65,844,400.

wmil2• 9 years ago

No, they are grabbing all of the comments and all of the logs so that they don't have to go back and get a new warrant every time they find something of interest. Broad warrants for electronic records are quite common.

tehlike• 9 years ago

I wonder if eff will support them.

Probably semi annual reminder time to consider donating to eff

saosebastiao• 9 years ago

In the last four years or so, we've (rightfully) had about 300 semi-annual reminders to consider donating to eff.

EpiphanyMachine• 9 years ago

Yes they are helping.

Is the government really asking for all those visitor logs?

"Yes, they definitely are," says Electronic Frontier Foundation senior staff attorney Mark Rumold. EFF advocates for Internet privacy and free speech, and has advised DreamHost in its case.

Rumold tells NPR that when DreamHost first approached EFF about responding to the warrant, he guessed "that DOJ would realize how broad the warrant was, and say, oh you know, in fact we're not actually looking for IP logs for everyone who's ever visited the site" and would narrow its request accordingly.

But instead, the government insisted on DreamHost's compliance with the warrant as written.

dmix• 9 years ago

So if any charges are brought against anyone as a result they could most likely get any evidence from it thrown out because the initial warrant was too broad and violated their right preventing unlawful search?

The real test for the legality of these warrants is typically in the courts for the defendant's trial, which is unfortunate. It's not often thoroughly challenged by the initial judge from what I've heard.

Which is interesting when you think of the implications of NSA FISA warrants not having any public scrutiny at all, just a judge's opinion in total secret.

I know in Canada it's not even full judges who sign off on police warrants but people called "Justice of the Peace" who are less trained than a judge and spend all day working with police signing off warrants.

Various defense attorneys I've spoken to have said they sign almost everything the police give them and tend to give the police the benefit of the doubt. Which is why the first thing every defense attorney does is look to challenge any warrants because they are usually the lowest hanging fruit in terms of how well thought out the police investigation was.

wmil2• 9 years ago

DreamHost is probably going to lose. The warrant is actually quite standard.

Basically the DOJ is just grabbing everything so they can filter through the comments and logs at their convenience.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...

blfr2• 9 years ago

In the physical world, the government can search only one apartment in an apartment building with a single warrant; it can’t search the entire apartment building. Are the collective records of a website more like an apartment building or a single apartment?

If this is the reasoning they're going then yes, Dreamhost is out of luck. One account is pretty obviously an apartment on a server (building) with the website being an even smaller part than that.

JumpCrisscross7• 9 years ago

It's also extremely pertinent that the warrant is being executed against an organization exercising political speech. That's very different from, say, the DoJ requesting visitor logs to a film torrent site.

FireBeyond2• 9 years ago

Context can be important, too.

Perhaps the website is the "apartment building" and the accounts on the website are the apartments. In that case, not so obvious.

krath94• 9 years ago

Sorry, but antifa is more than Anti-Trump Activists, they are dangerous. They attack people for political reasons and are largely unpunished because they wear all black and wear masks. They are the clowns that started fires in berkeley and hit the Trump support in the head with a bike lock, causing a fractured skull. That's no good imo.

sergiotapia4• 9 years ago

Correct.

Pardon the source but I just searched for "antifa knife" and copied the first link: http://bigleaguepolitics.com/man-stabbed-antifa-mob-outside-...

The alt-left is getting bolder and more dangerous.

JumpCrisscross7• 9 years ago

So anyone who visits a far-left or far-right political website should have their identities unmasked to the federal government?

pmiller2• 9 years ago

Don't refer to these morons committing violent acts in the name of protest as "alt-left." It does nothing but legitimize them, much as the moniker "alt-right" legitimizes white supremacists.

There is a time and a place for violent protest/revolution, but we're nowhere near there yet.

1_2__4• 9 years ago

And the alt-right is getting dumber. Seriously, "bigleaguepolitics.com"? Are you going to peddle Seth Rich conspiracy theories now too? Because that's also on their front page.

mattnewton• 9 years ago

Be careful what you read on the internet. A lot of what I have seen is made to intentionally deceive. For example: http://www.snopes.com/antifa-member-photographed-beating-pol...

There are enough nutjobs on both sides without making them up.

Not defending violence in any form.

pcwalton• 9 years ago

The article does not mention "antifa" even once. Can you not throw unrelated bombs into this thread?

Boothroid• 9 years ago

Eric Clanton.

flipgimble• 9 years ago

so antifa = anti-fascists, right?

By fascists we are talking about the white supremacists fascists with Nazi flags and salutes that staged violence in Charlottesville last weekend?

If you openly glorify Nazi-ism then I'm going to assume that you would kill a few million people you don't like, given any political power. Incidentally a person was killed by fascists.

Given that background, whats wrong with being against fascists?

Now that you mention it, I am an anti-fascist and still firmly committed to non-violence.

sergiotapia4• 9 years ago

The alt-left are dangerous but Dreamhost should resist until all legal channels are exhausted. Checks and balances!

knieveltech3• 9 years ago

What alt-left? Are you referring to community defense groups trying to protect their communities from Nazis? Dangerous to whom?

zionic2• 9 years ago

The antifa that tore up Berkley come to mind.

sergiotapia4• 9 years ago

No, I'm referring to the alt-left who attacked white supremacists, minorities and Trump supporters in Charlottesville.

MollyR• 9 years ago

I believe its a new term for what used to be called the radical left. There is evidence they go beyond attacking nazi's, to attacking journalists or just people who "look" like nazis.

Antifa is a good example with their huge riots and firebombing of cars during Trump's inauguration.

The son of Israel's PM considers them a bigger threat to the jewish people than actual neo-nazis (surprising to me). http://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-junior-says-leftists-...

zionic2• 9 years ago

I believe the term used is ctrl-left and alt-right.

stevenh• 9 years ago

"Alt-left" is being used now because Trump said it in his press conference yesterday.

whipoodle• 9 years ago

Somehow I doubt all our stalwart free-speech proponents from the other week will come out in force for this issue.

yew• 9 years ago

It's for the best. Now if they just learn to stay away from right-wing causes too, maybe they'll actually make the world a better place.

greglindahl2• 9 years ago

The EFF is supporting Dreamhost. Was that what you had in mind?

generic_user• 9 years ago

The lesson to take away from this regardless of your political leanings is that whatever power you give the state to go after a group you may disagree with will always, eventually be used against you.

It makes no difference if the target groups are alleged terrorists, alt-right, alt-left or or any other group. When you expand the power of the state that diminishes the privacy rights of the citizen that law applies to you, your family and your friends also.

DOJ Demands Files on Anti-Trump Activists, and DreamHost Resists

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