Judge orders tech company to release Web user data from anti-Trump website

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/judge-orders-tech-company-to-release-web-user-data-from-anti-trump-website/2017/08/24/19abeac4-88e7-11e7-a50f-e0d4e6ec070a_story.html

by dylanfw • 9 years ago

92 113 9 years ago

washingtonpost.com

irascible• 9 years ago

I am spartacus@192.168.1.13

koolba3• 9 years ago

Prosecutors John Borchert and Jennifer Kerkhoff argued that their request had to be somewhat broad because they have no idea who was associated with the rioting through the website until they review the data.

For people who think this is wrong, assuming you accept the premise that they should be investigating rioters, what alternative is there to find out who they are?

KZeillmann• 9 years ago

When you request the records of 1.3 million people in an effort to find the identities of about 200, that feels ridiculously broad. I'm not sure what they're hoping to find, but it seems like security camera footage would be much more useful than this action, which seems to look more like cracking down on political dissent.

belovedeagle3• 9 years ago

But when you request the records of 1.3 million conspirators to riot and commit other terrorist acts, in order to find the 200 who actually did, that's quite reasonable. The stated goal of the website was terrorism (shutting down bridges, checkpoints, etc.). Every single account is quite likely to be evidence of conspiracy.

astrodust• 9 years ago

What rioters?

This is like saying a house got broken into in Los Angeles so let's pull the world's Facebook history to get to the bottom of it.

jasonjei• 9 years ago

In the old days before computers, I assume, one wouldn't have to hand over all "database" records. If one were being requested to hand over all patient records, that would probably be a small mountain of data.

I think technology has made data very easy to transport, and modern day governments have taken advantage of this sort of fishing expedition.

horusthecat• 9 years ago

This isn't true. Even 10 years ago it was pretty normal for litigation involving the SEC to routinely have half a million or more hard copy pages shipping between law firms and the gov't, and 10 years ago about half of all documents that printing and scanning vendors were handling in discovery were paper. The American legal system and US-based law firms are notorious for that sort of thing. See also Iron Mountain.

nnfy5• 9 years ago

modern day governments have taken advantage of this sort of fishing expedition.

Not only that, but I think the transparency is one sided. Good luck getting anything significant from FOIA without waiting years and piecing details together from [REDACTED] pages.

lugg• 9 years ago

what alternative is there to find out who they are?

Whether there is an answer to that or not is irrelevant to the fact the warrant lacks specificity.

Same bullshit was used in the Kim dotcom debacle irrc.

"We're not sure what he's done wrong, but we know hes a bad guy so get every computer and we'll build a case based on what we find."

To give you an example of how stupid this warrant is, and funnily enough answer your question: it's akin to the police confiscating every computer and phone within a 10 mile radius of the riots to check the internet history.

daveFNbuck• 9 years ago

This is the same justification people give for torture. The fact that you can't come up with another way to get information doesn't automatically justify the means you can come up with.

shepardrtc• 9 years ago

Once you cast a wide net like this, the arguments against casting an even wider net are weakened through precedent.

shakna3• 9 years ago

If we accept that premise (which seems to be the most controversial aspect of this case), and accept that the prosecution need unilateral access to all database records, then the judge's restricted timeframe fits as part of a good ruling. Also sealing any extraneous information is a good step.

However, there is still something lacking.

Setting a precedent here is important, and if the past is a guide, the precedent would be abused.

The only thing I can think of to discourage future wide-reaching warrants of this kind, is compensation.

For every individual who has their rights violated, in the pursuit of others, compensation is usually able to be granted, in most cases.

So, tie it to this case.

Such a wide-reaching warrant may be granted in difficult circumstances, if every individual whose privacy is ignored, and has no guilt in the investigated matter, are immediately granted compensation.

It doesn't even have to be much, because the cost of such a warrant would scale with the number of people they are ignoring.

Disclaimer: No longer a lawyer. No experience in US law.

ArchReaper7• 9 years ago

I hope this is an opportunity for you to learn and not just me wasting my time addressing a troll.

what alternative is there to find out who they are?

That's not the question you should be asking. The question you should be asking yourself is "why am I OK with violating the 4th amendment rights of millions of citizens"

khazhoux2• 9 years ago

That was very patronizing. Everyone's time is valuable, and personally I choose to believe that Hacker News is NOT a troll destination, but made up of smart people with (on occasion) diverse opinions.

More to the point: the question he SHOULD he asking is "Does the government actually have a legitimate and constitutionally-sound need for this information?" If "yes", then his question follows ("What alternatives exist for getting this info?")

Your question, on the other hand, presupposes that it's indeed a violation of 4th amendment. Which it may well and likely is (sure seems like it!)... but the first question that has to be answered is whether this is a violation or not.

glenndebacker• 9 years ago

So what are you saying that until the Internet it was virtual (no pun) impossible to investigate crimes?

Maybe they can do like the rest of the world investigate rioters (that commits crimes) by analyzing camera footage? I find it hard to believe that countries - with less possibilities - can do it, but in the US suddenly it's impossible.

I must be careful for Godswin law but in a country where Lügenpresse is also suddenly a thing, I'm very skeptical of the fact that this is needed because its the only way to identify "rioters". It reminds me of certainly historic events where they also needed to identify opponents of X and Y for "crimes".

Btw how the hell are you going to find a couple of individuals in 1.3 million visitor records if that is the only lead?

khazhoux2• 9 years ago

Everyone: please don't downvote for disagreeing with the sentiment. Koolba poses a legitimate question. Address it or ignore the comment.

c3534l• 9 years ago

The whole point of the 4th amendment is you have to figure out what you're looking for first, then request and get permission to only that specific thing. The 4th amendment bans blanket "looking for something fishy" searches. You're supposed to be forced to justify each individual person's rights you're violating as necessary for the investigation of the crime. In other words, this is the textbook scenario the Bill of Rights is meant to prevent.

krapp• 9 years ago

For people who think this is wrong, assuming you accept the premise that they should be investigating rioters, what alternative is there to find out who they are?

Even accepting that premise, which I don't, there doesn't always need to be an alternative. The 4th Amendment appears to require far more specificity than this request allows. Political assembly and protests are obviously protected by the Constitution, and these 200 rioters are considered innocent until proven guilty.

If law enforcement can't get a valid warrant then they should lose. They can go home and polish their batons.

/IANAL

mikeash2• 9 years ago

Law enforcement has no fundamental right to find criminals. If they can't find a criminal within the law, then the criminal goes free. That's fundamental to how our system works.

"They must do X, because it's the only way to catch the bad guy" is a catastrophically bad argument.

andy_ppp3• 9 years ago

This is terrifying; am I reading it correctly that the government is, on behalf of the President, going after people who have opposed him and is starting a register maybe of those persons who hurt the feelings of the glorious leader? I wonder how far down the rabbit hole we are going :-(

bwanab• 9 years ago

It can't happen here.

ianai2• 9 years ago

Not only can it happen here, but the founders of the country thought it would by the mid 1800s.

treerock2• 9 years ago

No. I think you are reading that incorrectly.

andy_ppp3• 9 years ago

Okay, sure, care to edit your comment and explain how?

ptero• 9 years ago

While I am strongly opposed to this warrant as being ridiculously too broad, I think you are off the mark.

The government is not investigating those who hurt Trump's feelings (does he have any? sorry :) ). It is the law enforcement that is going after violent rioters whatever their political views are. I hope it does and keeps doing it every time there is a violent riot.

To me, the problem is in trying to grab a lot of private information in the hopes of easily finding leads. Instead they should focus on other sources: I suspect DC has all sorts of video monitors and was swarming with agents during the inauguration. Cannot this serve as the source of leads? Maybe cops can walk around some more and talk to people? I doubt a crowd can riot without leaving traces to the identities of a number of rioters. My 2c.

andy_ppp3• 9 years ago

Hmmmm. Seems like a really really big coincidence, but okay. I presume this information will be released by the court once it’s used in evidence or can it be sealed only for this dubious case.

snissn• 9 years ago

Just curious if you read the linked article or not before commenting?

ignoramceisblis• 9 years ago

Are you serious?

There have been threats (or "wish-deaths") made against our president's life. By members of the media, congress, and plenty more. Even that most extreme act, in my view, has received only a tepid response. Many are vocal in their support of it. And shows still go on with the president's likeness being shot, riots still continue against the president and all of his supporters, and go to nearly any major media outlet and you'll find the usual slant of derision, with all of the behavior that follows. Commentators even stoop so low as to use the latest narrative propped up by major media players to patronize the president's own daughter and tell her to "sit shiva" for her father.

All of this continues today, and it will still continue. From everything that I've seen of the president's behavior and heard first-hand from his speeches, he will do very little about the words that the media uses to describe him and how they frame him. He will take those punches, and it's obvious he's been willing to take even more.

This article is only meant to stoke the flames of the "never-Trumpers" once more. To inject more fear into the population and convince them that they're the victims, that they're being attacked. A strategy that is played time and time again and one that is destroying our cohesion ("You attack one of "us", you attack all of "us"." Where "us" is usually decided by some superficial property.)

Look at the language of the lawyers, as highlighted by the Washington Post: “This action will cause Web users to worry that the government will be monitoring every site they visit.” “This is a case about a website that is engaged in political speech.”

Please. "Speech", or planning riots? This is a court case seeking some justice for riots that "left six police officers injured and caused tens of thousands of dollars in damage when downtown D.C. businesses were vandalized just blocks from where President Trump and his family paraded following the swearing-in ceremony." This is not an attack on innocent Americans who had nothing to do with those peaceful riots.

Don't fall for the trap.

appleflaxen• 9 years ago

why does the site seem like a place to investigate a riot? were there posters saying "I'm leaving now to go riot"?

If there is nothing specific, then why is this allowable at all?

And if there is something specific, then why can't they request those specific messages?

makomk• 9 years ago

DisruptJ20 appears to have been created for the quite specific purpose of organising people to disrupt the presidential inauguration through illegal "direct action" tactics, with particular focus on teaching people to interfere with police checkpoints, resist arrest, etc. (By the way, remember those photos of the endless empty seats at the inauguration parade? The site in question has a post up bragging about how they shut down most of the security checkpoints, stopping people from entering: https://archive.is/SZwAO For some reason that didn't make the press, then or now.)

1_2__4• 9 years ago

I suspect because it's a complete and utter lie and there's no evidence to support it.

jakebasile• 9 years ago

There's lots of disturbing internet precedents being set in the last few weeks, both legal and corporate policy. I try not to be hyperbolic but I really am beginning to worry about the future of freedom of expression and association on the net.

metaphorm2• 9 years ago

I don't think its hyperbole. This is deeply concerning. We're entering a new era of authoritarianism.

to_bpr3• 9 years ago

More accurately we're entering a new era of politically slanted selective memories.

See: The bulk phone data collection programs instituted by the Patriot Act, the vast expansion of NSA data collection (of us all) under the Obama administration, the straight-to-the-wire tapping of critical internet infrastructure and providers such as Google, Microsoft etc. enabled by the establishment of the secret FISA court which has never denied a warrant, and so much more.

Let's also not forget the persecution endured by the whistleblowers for the above institutions by the Obama regime.

Set your partisan, hyperbolic "outrage" aside.

sseveran• 9 years ago

I think this horse left the barn a long time ago. At least they are actually going to court and not doing something like use the NSAs database and then utilize some parallel construction technology technique to lie in court about how they discovered the alleged wrong doing. This is hardly the first time a court has granted the serving of an overly broad warrant. I would like to say that we could put this horse back in the barn but I think the previous administration made it clear that there is no political will in the US to do so.

qrbLPHiKpiux• 9 years ago

And people don't care. Their pocket devices keep them engaged on what content providers want them engaged on. They can't see through it all.

kchoudhu• 9 years ago

Note to self: purge records. Religiously.

You can't hand over what you don't have.

asdfgadsfgasfdg• 9 years ago

These records only exist because there was a previous court order to start taking them.

mtgx• 9 years ago

One more reason (other than data breaches) for why services should look for ways not just to minimize storage of records and data on users that they don't absolutely need to provide the service and that alone, but also to offer users way to encrypt the data with their own key.

twoquestions3• 9 years ago

How did this travesty pass 4th Amendment muster?

"Yes Mr. Bar Owner, a few of your patrons stole a car a few weeks back. We'll need the names and addresses of all the people who visited this place for the last year please."

tptacek• 9 years ago

Wait, don't the police get similar information dumps from similar fact patterns kind of routinely? I know they can't properly use dragnet searches as a starting point for an investigation, but if they have a reasonably specific criminal inquiry they're pursuing, can't they get their hands on a lot of stuff?

I'm not sure the fact pattern you're providing really illustrates the concern.

Rather, I think the concern is that the prosecutors have what appears to be a very diffuse criminal inquiry, and that the specific information they're looking for has a clear side-effect of intimidating lawful protesters. The concern is that the "investigation" is a pretense for intimidation.

You can't say that about the police investigating bar patrons for a specific car theft or whatever.

twoquestions3• 9 years ago

Wait, don't the police get similar information dumps from similar fact patterns kind of routinely?

It does, and that's bad. Hopefully more people start realizing this.

The concern is that the "investigation" is a pretense for intimidation.

Absolutely, and that's the toxic cherry on this poisoned cake.

ArchReaper7• 9 years ago

This is absolutely insane. I hope this eventually reaches an appeals court that understands the 4th amendment.

sbov• 9 years ago

The article is pretty vague on the specifics of the ramifications of the new request. It says 1.3 million, but that seems to be in reference to the broader request. From what I can tell the more narrow request both narrows down the timeframe, and specifies disruptj20.org visitors? It's hard for me to tell from the article.

xienze• 9 years ago

Pretend we're talking about Daily Stormer and Charlottesville and I bet you'd see things differently.

Rmilb• 9 years ago

I think the point was that is a slippery slope. Where do you draw the line? Do we trust the restrictions we have placed on our government to not violate our rights?

williamscales• 9 years ago

"Yes Mr. Bar Owner, a few of your patrons incited a racist mob a few weeks back. We'll need the names and addresses of all the people who visited this place for the last year please."

Nope, I still feel the same. It's going too far.

0xbear• 9 years ago

Pretend further that an angry mob at work would get you fired if they don't like your stance on this issue.

twoquestions3• 9 years ago

Not at all.

If you have individual user accounts that you want more info on, and have evidence that they used the forum to plan a serious crime, sure that passes muster.

Giving the Committee for Public Safety the names and addresses of every single user that registered or posted there, hell no.

belovedeagle3• 9 years ago

It's a website created for the sole purpose of promoting terrorist acts at a certain time and place. I think that's enough to say that every individual user account is suspect. I consistently reject government overreach but this isn't an example of that.

CalChris• 9 years ago

You can pretend all you want about something that didn't happen. That is a counterfactual: a conditional statement the first clause of which expresses something contrary to fact, as “If I had known.”.

There have been no judicial orders requiring the Daily Stormer to turn over any records relating to Charlottesville. Instead, quite the apposite, various private companies have decided that having anything to do with the Daily Stormer was beyond the pale.

We have a shared fact set called reality. Argue that.

jrowley• 9 years ago

Wouldn't it be amazing if the providers released the IP addresses of the the Daily Stormer users, just because they can. That would be interesting, and totally within their power.

spaceribs2• 9 years ago

No, not at all, not even close.

Was the Daily Stormer's visitor logs up for grabs at any point? Did GoDaddy/Google hand over data to the government as a matter of public record? No.

What about visitor data for any alt-right or white supremacist sites being requested by the government? Maybe in association with a possible hate crime investigation, but nothing I've heard about recently.

What kind of muddying logic are you trying to communicate here, or is this just trolling?

simonh• 9 years ago

Nope. Violent islamic extremists are just as odious as violent facist extremists, yet the consensus here was to support Apple's position on the security of private communications.

mikeash2• 9 years ago

Why? Bulk data about visitors do the Daily Stormer wouldn't be very interesting or useful. I'd show up in such a list, for example. If it turns out that the site was used to plan the violence that occurred then more specific warrants for the planners might be useful, but not a blanket "give us everything" one.

sctb• 9 years ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15099632 and marked it off-topic.

alansammarone• 9 years ago

Every week we're seeing more and more news like that - whether its the government or internet companies - in which people's right to privacy and to freedom online are being severely threatened. I'm not an american, but I grew up seeing the USA as an example of freedom and progress. It's very sad that this is becoming less and less true every passing day.

We must build a decentralised web. Now.

nnfy5• 9 years ago

The outrage on this site is more selective than I would have anticipated. If you think your rights have only been eroded over the last few weeks, you've been drinking kool-aid.

icebraining3• 9 years ago

The parent's post makes zero reference to how long they think this has been going on.

mnm12• 9 years ago

Dreamhost is a hosting provider. Why do they keep these records in the first place and especially over six months later? It seems to me that there will be a big market for hosts that don't keep such logs or delete them after a specified period where they might be useful to debug issues (24-48hrs).

fraserharris• 9 years ago

They received a preservation order requiring they do not delete the logs for this domain for period of time prior to the inauguration.

ArchReaper7• 9 years ago

How is that legally sound?

mnm12• 9 years ago

I'm asking why these records were held in the first place. If they didn't store the data in the first place, there'd be nothing to preserve. The government could send preservation orders all they want and Dreamhost wouldn't even have to go to court because they could comply without hurting their customers' privacy.

jdavis7032• 9 years ago

I'm not really surprised at this. I was in DC for the inauguration at an officially permitted protest. Afterwards I'm heading back on the Metro with a small sign saying "illegitimate president." When I get to the platform level there are several armed people in camoflauge, I'm assuming military, but I'm not 100% positive. I'm told by one of them that I need to leave the station immediately. I responded "is this a joke?" (Hindsight 20/20 that probably wasn't the best idea) and she says "no" as more armed people start approaching. Needless to say I left the station, but at that moment I realized something was different this time. You may disagree with the message I was carrying, but having military (or their look-a-likes) booting out people with messages against the official government line is pretty scary.

enraged_camel2• 9 years ago

Stuff like this is why we need to have more political discussions on HN. If we don't talk about these issues openly and try to come up with solutions, we will look back and wonder how we managed to spend this era of USA's transition to fascism discussing utterly trivial stuff like the latest JavaScript frameworks.

To paraphrase the famous saying, evil succeeds when good men and women do nothing. I have seen this happen in my own country. Don't want to see it happen in the USA as well.

davidw• 9 years ago

If we don't talk about these issues openly and try to come up with solutions,

You can check out my twitter feed if you think I don't care about politics, but there are a ton of places where we can 'talk about these issues openly'. Just maybe spare this one site from all the politics? It tends to, uh, eclipse, everything else, as it is far more important.

jbergstroem• 9 years ago

The same reason the Go 1.9 changelog won't be discussed in political forums, opinions on USA's political landscape surely has a better home on the Internet than here.

to_bpr3• 9 years ago

This thread is actually a prime example of why we can't have politics on HN.

Even in an otherwise smart, rational and measured community, in this thread we're seeing appeals to emotion, partisan "outrage" and downvoted being used as a tool of disagreement.

jeffdavis2• 9 years ago

I don't approve of scaring people like that of course.

But it's possible that they thought you were carrying the protest on into the train station or some other place which they had safety concerns about.

Broken_Hippo• 9 years ago

Carrying the sign is a danger now? How about printing it on your clothing? Must one cover up to go outside and only protest when one is licensed to do it? Could he have worn a full-body protest costume instead and traveled in it? If not, how is this more dangerous than a Big Bird costume?

There are multiple ways to handle a safety concern, one of which is just by talking to the individual and observing. Someone with a sign acting like all the other passengers isn't much of a worry, I think.

burkaman• 9 years ago

Are you sure they were in the military? I wouldn't be that surprised to see armed people in camo who aren't in the military at a Trump event. I think open carry is illegal in DC though, so if they had obvious weapons they were probably officials of some sort.

Also, were there other people in the station? Were you the only one asked to leave, or were they clearing the whole platform?

I ask because I was in DC for the inauguration and the women's march, and there were thousands and thousands of protesters with costumes and signs of all sorts. It seems weird that they would single you out.

nnfy5• 9 years ago

Prosecutors’ original request in July would have yielded IP addresses for about 1.3 million users of the site, court filings show.

Whether I agree or not, here is another example of sensationalism which has made me distrustful of news media. How many of those "1.3m users" were actually unique?

trgv• 9 years ago

I wonder if this isn't part of the games that prosecutors play. It seems like prosecutors might request the largest amount of data possible, knowing that someone will object and they'll get only a fraction of that.

In general the logic in the article doesn't follow. It says 200 people have been charged, so why not request information relating only to those 200 people? Regardless, internet messages can't prove participation in a violent riot, so I would assume the prosecutors have other, harder, evidence. if not they're just wasting everyone's time.

dsfyu404ed2• 9 years ago

Buried in the article is a key detail.

Prosecutors earlier this week scaled back their request and changed it to seek emails associated with Disruptj20.org and email addresses of third parties associated with the website, such as individuals who volunteered to help provide supplies or support to rioters.
As part of his ruling, Morin ordered prosecutors to tell him who was going to review the data DreamHost provides and, once that information is found, explain to him why prosecutors deem the information “critical” to their case.
Under Morin’s ruling, any information prosecutors find unrelated to the rioting would be sealed and could not be shared by prosecutors with anyone else or any other government authority.

nnfy5• 9 years ago

Under Morin’s ruling, any information prosecutors find unrelated to the rioting would be sealed and could not be shared by prosecutors with anyone else or any other government authority.

May as well be unsealed because of parallel construction.

dsfyu404ed2• 9 years ago

If they want to do parallel construction they can already get the base information a handful of other ways that don't as directly open them up to the allegation of parallel construction.

Judge orders tech company to release Web user data from anti-Trump website

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