Justice Dept. demands 1.3M IP addresses related to...[political protests]

"The Big Chill" **:

"Justice demands 1.3M IP addresses related to...[political] resistance site

The Department of Justice has requested information on visitors to a website used to organize ..[political protests], the Los Angeles-based Dreamhost said in a blog post published on Monday.

Dreamhost, a web hosting provider, said that it has been working with the Department of Justice for several months on the request, which believes goes too far under the Constitution.

DreamHost claimed that complying with the request from the Justice Department would amount to handing over roughly 1.3 million visitor
IP addresses to the government, in addition to contact information, email content and photos of thousands of visitors to the website, which was involved in organizing protests ...on Inauguration Day...

The company is currently challenging the request. A hearing on the matter is scheduled for Friday in Washington...

http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecu...esting-info-on-visitors-to-anti-trump-website

"...No plausible explanation exists for a search warrant of this breadth, other than to cast a digital dragnet as broadly as possible. But the Fourth Amendment was designed to prohibit fishing expeditions like this. Those concerns are especially relevant here, where DOJ is investigating a website that served as a hub for the planning and exercise of First Amendment-protected activities..."

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/...-overreaches-again-and-gets-taken-court-again

OMG

** "Fear, Risk, and The First Amendment: Unraveling The Chilling Effect..."

http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2010&context=facpubs

 

That sounds familiar, doesn't it?

 

All too familiar.

Staggering.

 

Wasn't the internet created to promote freedom? it seems that we're going in the wrong direction.

 

Now I am become Surveillance, the destroyer of Privacy/Freedom .

BUT Thinking that the chances of The Court enforcing this Search Warrant are approx. zero.

[Hopefully this is the reason that this story has received so little attention in the main stream media. Reporting on this story has been for the most part limited to the tech press, a blog post in Fortune and a story in The UK's Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...tion-protest-website-search-warrant-dreamhost

The Washington Post had a bottom-of-the-page story about it very late last evening, that attracted only 30 comments. That story disappeared this AM.]

But again, it's the thought that counts -- the fact that a US DOJ Official drafted such a search warrant says a lot.

IMHO this is one of the most significant privacy/surveillance stories in recent memory. It's possible implications are truly terrirfying, e.g."They're taking names." Yes, there was a very small group of anarchists (approx. 200) that tried to incite riots and set two cars on fire, and broke store windows a few blocks from The White House on Inauguration Day, but to collect in a dragnet the identities of the many that merely, excercising their First Amendment Rights of Freedom of Speach and Right to Assembly, particpated in the counter-inaugural to protest the result of a controversial electoral process is beyond the pale.

Edit Update: WP story has reappeared:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/tech-company-is-fighting-a-federal-order-for-ip-addresses-to-find-visitors-to-an-anti-trump-website/2017/08/14/a65b7544-8152-11e7-b359-15a3617c767b_story.html?hpid=hp_rhp-more-top-stories_dreamhost-1151pm:homepage/story

 

Article here also.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/us...website/ar-AAq7rGi?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartanntp

 

Some think so. Maybe the Web was. But way back, DARPA wanted a more reliable way to launch a retaliatory nuclear strike. That's what drove the "routing around damage" design goal.

 

The most corrosive aspect of this is that LE even contemplate this kind of over-reach - the courts should NOT have to consider this, and there's a very nasty ratchet continual-defence-needed salami-slicing about it all. They do not correctly factor the severe iatrogenics of the many many instances of their dodgy legal interpretations, unlawful operation, misuse of extraterritoriality, outright flouting of the constitution and unethical behavior, and secret deals.

All of which destroys trust and ironically leads regular people seeking advanced encryption and privacy controls that they would never have considered before. The whole flourishing mass market for end-to-end messaging can be laid at the Prism/X-eyes lunacy, and the many other instances of out-of-control (e.g. Stingray etc).

 

"DOJ drops request for IP addresses from ... resistance site...

The Department of Justice (DOJ) is dropping its controversial request for visitor IP addresses related to a..[a "resistance"] website.

The government said in a brief released Tuesday that it has "no interest" in the 1.3 million IP addresses related to the website disruptj20.org. It says it is solely focused on information that could constitute evidence related to criminal rioting on Inauguration Day...

'The government has now withdrawn entirely its unlawful and highly problematic request for any data relating to the visitors of the website and any unpublished data subject to the Privacy Protection Act,' said Raymond Aghaian, the DreamHost counsel.'..."

http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecu...itor-ip-addresses-related-to-trump-resistance

 

Funny. The decision finally filtered down to nonpolitical (aka competent) DoJ staff

 

Claiming, as the government did, that it had no way of knowing how broad this request was, is disingenuous and lacking credibility.

My take on this class of attempt is that they are adopting the salami-slicing approach of asking for the utterly outrageous, so that the eventual unacceptable is seen as somehow OK.

 

Maybe. But: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity"

 

GOOD,
when anything\anyone tries to destroy democracy, "resistance" a.k.a. "obstructionist"

For instance:
"Antifa groups have come under fire in the wake of the violence at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va. Many have said Antifa demonstrators played a significant role in the violent clashes in Charlottesville and at other events across the country."

Crazy wabbit.

 

I think that's in Chapter 3 of How to run an Oligarchy.

 

DOJ comes back and succeeds with second, more limited, attempt - does not ask for IP addresses, the time period is more limited, and other stuff including review of material submitted by a judge, but at this point the info being reported is confusing.

"Web hosting company ordered to turn over information on ...[Inauguration protest] website

Judge imposes safeguards, but data on 'innocent' users would still end up with government..."

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/24/trump-inauguration-protest-dreamhost-court-241973

 

Cool.

 

"Judge orders tech company to release Web user data...

'They are requesting all database and database records,' Aghaian said. 'With one warrant, they are trying to obtain content from multiple email accounts...'...

At the hearing Thursday, DreamHost attorneys said even the narrowed request was still too broad because it could capture information on people who had nothing to do with the riots...

'This action will cause Web users to worry that the government will be monitoring every site they visit,' Aghaian said...

Prosecutors John Borchert and Jennifer Kerkhoff argued 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.[If it looks like a dragnet,Smells like a...]

As part of his ruling, [Judge] 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."

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?hpid=hp_rhp-more-top-stories_dreamhost-340pm:homepage/story

 

Well, this is what we paranoid crazies have been warning about, no?

I bet that there are many who wish that they had used at least VPN services. Sad

 

Smells like fascism

https://www.engadget.com/2017/08/24/judge-orders-dreamhost-data-anti-trump-site/

 

Yes and if it's not it's very close.

 

Exactly what the salami-slicing is intended to do. If this request is not obviously dragnet, I don't know what isn't, and it's laughable that innocent peoples' records would actually be protected.

Rather more chilling is that the fruits of this kind of data trawling WILL end up in databases which are GIGO-nests of dubious data that WILL result in harmful consequences to the "innocent" citizen (if there is such a thing according to government).

A more coherent motivation for pursuing online anonymity is hard to imagine - the innocent actively need to cover their tracks to avoid the unprincipled and unaccountable false-positives that could lead to loss of job opportunities, getting on no-fly lists or hassle-me lists, or worse.

 

"Prosecutors and tech company embroiled in battle over info from ...[Inauguration protest] website...

Executives from a Los Angeles-based tech company said they are weighing whether to fight a judge’s order to provide D.C. prosecutors with email addresses and other information from people who visited an...[Inauguration protest] website in the months leading to Inauguration Day...

In an interview, DreamHost’s co-founder and chief executive Dallas Kashuba said the potential implications go beyond this case. He said there is concern among tech companies that Internet users could become fearful of visiting websites if they know government authorities can monitor such information.

...prosecutors scaled back their [initial] request to include email addresses from just those people who engaged with the website by, for instance, providing their email addresses or signing up to receive information...

DreamHost said the current request involves information regarding people associated with about 10,000 email addresses..."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/loca...=hp_local-news_dreamhost-245pm:homepage/story

 

I believe the email address is the foundation stone of the state surveillance infrastructure.
A couple of years ago I decided to test my theory.
I used tails and tor from public WiFi to try and set up an email address anonymously and found it to be impossible because every email provider I tried used scrips on its signup page which would not work in tor browser and I tried a LOT of email providers, foreign ones, disposable ones of all kinds none of them worked and I don't think that was an accident of circumstance.

 

"ACLU fights federal warrants seeking political communications of Facebook users

Civil liberties lawyers are trying to block federal investigators from searching the Facebook accounts of local activists connected to protests of ...[the 2017] inauguration and for information the attorneys say would reveal the names of thousands of people who 'liked' a political organizing page...

In a court filing this week on behalf of three Facebook users, the American Civil Liberties Union said the warrants are too broad and would reveal private information about individuals unrelated to the investigation, in addition to the names of Facebook users who “liked” the public page of a group that helped plan the protests...

Of particular concern, Michelman said, is that the government search would disclose 'anti- administration dissident activities that would then be investigated by the very administration that they are protesting.'...

None of the three people in the ACLU filing has been charged by the U.S. attorney with Inauguration Day-related crimes...

About 6,000 Facebook users liked the page during the three-month period the warrant covers..."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/aclu-fights-federal-warrants-seeking-political-communications-of-facebook-users/2017/09/29/80861d52-a474-11e7-ade1-76d061d56efa_story.html?hpid=hp_local-news_aclu-protesters-235pm:homepage/story

 

"Judge moves to conceal identities of users behind anti-...[Inaugural] website

Feds probing Inauguration Day violence will get DisruptJ20 data, but stripped of details on individuals.

A D.C judge has ordered web hosting company DreamHost to turn over information about an anti-...[Inaugural] website, but moved to conceal the identities of users who feared government retaliation for engaging in innocent political speech...

The company can now redact the identities of individual users from the data that will be handed over to the government, the judge ruled.

In order to obtain that information, the Justice Department must demonstrate to the court that their activity on the site is directly related to the agency's ongoing criminal investigation of alleged rioting on Inauguration Day, according to the order

The government 'does not have the right to rummage through the information contained on DreamHost's website and discover the identity of, or access communications by, individuals not participating in alleged criminal activity,' the order states..."

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/10/anti-trump-website-judge-identities-243642