Judge Rules Twitter Data Fair Game In Wikileaks Investigation 72
Wired reports that "The Justice Department is entitled to records of the Twitter accounts used by three current and former WikiLeaks associates, a federal judge ruled Thursday, dealing a victory to prosecutors in a routine records demand that turned into a fierce court battle over online privacy and free speech. ... The Justice Department has been seeking the Twitter records under 18 USC 2703(d), a 1994 amendment to the Stored Communications Act that allows law enforcement access to non-content internet records, such as transaction information, without demonstrating the 'probable cause' needed for a full-blown search warrant."
Jacob Appelbaum, one of the three, was also detained on his re-entry to the U.S. last August (as well as on numerous other occasions) and had his email records seized as well. The others are Birgitta Jonsdottir (a member of Iceland's parliament) and Dutch businessman Rop Gonggrijp.
Fourth Amendment down the drain (Score:5, Insightful)
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Does this mean they get the (real?) names of everyone who followed these guys?
Re:Fourth Amendment down the drain (Score:5, Informative)
No.
They get whether or not the three individuals sent direct messages to one another and what IP addresses they used. They get no content of any messages and they get no information about anyone other than the three named individuals.
Re:They get no content of any messages (Score:2)
I'd bet my lunch you're wrong there. Your post assumes we have anything left of privacy. When someone invokes magic words about Security Threats all that goes away.
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That's good, I need some lunch.
My post does only address what is covered by this case -- not what the investigators could possibly request (and successfully obtain) in the future.
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Speaking as a U.S. citizen, I can honestly tell you...
We are totally fucked.
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Bzzzt, wrong, try again Perry Mason. If your supposition was correct then bars could make crazy money installing webcams in the ladies bathroom, after all people can come and go right?
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I wouldn't mind martyr'ing myself for the cause..
Thats because you want to use wikileaks for your own personal gain, much like Assange himself. Sorry, he'll do his best to insure you don't get to take any of his spotlight.
free health care in jail :) as I have no health insurance atm that would be really nice
The 'free health care' in jail is no better than what you already have. You can in fact, go to the emergancy room and get health care right this instant, its not even a little bit hard. You can in fact, tell them you have absolutely no intention of paying them ... and they'll help you anyway! Now they aren't going to give you braces
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Smart motherfucker :)
and I wouldn't mind doing the same
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OOh, an AOL.com article. You showed HIM.
Also, Bettridge's law of headlines states that the answer to AOL's headline question is "No".
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If you have a real emergency (i.e. bleeding) then they will patch you up and then pursue you relentlessly for their outrageously overpriced "services". If you truly have no assets, you can probably ignore their bill collectors but if you have any assets or income, they will come after you and they will get their money.
However, emergency care is not health care. You can't get a physical exam or routi
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The 'free health care' in jail is no better than what you already have. You can in fact, go to the emergancy room and get health care right this instant, its not even a little bit hard. You can in fact, tell them you have absolutely no intention of paying them ... and they'll help you anyway! Now they aren't going to give you braces for your snaggly teeth, but neither will the prison doctors, so you must be rather fucking stupid to think going to jail is an upgrade to your existence. Any 'good' free thing you can get in jail, you can also get ... for free ... outside of jail ... at better quality levels, even the bleeding asshole that goes with the gang raping you'll get.
Not unless he shoots himself in the gut first. Without a genuine emergency, they are not obligated to treat you and will not. And emergencies aren't things that will kill you, just things that will kill you immediately. If you have cancer they don't have to do anything until you collapse on the brink of death, and by then anything they do will be too late to matter.
And whether you intend to pay for not, you almost certainly will--unless you have no assets and never plan to work again. I guess you're off
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http://gawker.com/5856346/prisoner-given-aspirin-to-treat-tumors-still-has-tumors-surprisingly [gawker.com]
You have no freedom of association (Score:2)
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Mentioning the t-shirt first and then casually throwing in that you host a mirror of the site is kind of an odd set of priorities.
Hey Governments (Score:1, Insightful)
Don't want something to leak out? Then don't do something where you can get caught with your pants down.
This just shows how free the common man really is.... not.
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Individuals in contrast, do have a right to privacy.
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The problem is that it flat out doesnt work in reality. Why dont we give Iran and Israel both all our top military and nuclear tech? Im sure that middle east problem will resolve itself.
Or why dont we make all diplomatic talks with China or N Korea public? Why didnt we make public all of the intel ops surrounding the Bin Laden strike? Why not have all our advisors tell the world what they think regarding Greece's situation, Im sure THAT wont hurt markets. Why not have the nuclear launch codes be publi
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However - in your response you seemed to have missed my main point against the Patriot Act - which was that even considering everything you raise - personal privacy should still trump national government's privacy.
The government wants to keep military secrets? I agree - with the proviso that there should be a statute of limitations on those - at which point the public gets to know.
However - my desire to not have the gov
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Thatll show them for using diplomacy instead of just bombing the shit out of people!! Diplomatic wires want to be free! Incarcerate Tsvingerai! Free Zimbabwe!
Donate to WikiLeaks (Score:1)
Flattr is still open for donations to WikiLeaks.
https://flattr.com/profile/WikiLeaks [flattr.com]
One Way to Free Speech (Score:5, Interesting)
There is a question raised, occasionally, of freedom from government versus freedom through government. It should be apparent, by now, to everyone that Free Speech cannot be had through the U.S. Government. They no longer defend the clear expressed will of The Constitution. That leaves us only one choice for the defense of Free Speech: Darknets.
If you've got the skills, get a darknet node up now, and begin teaching your less skilled friends how to do so. It is the only chance we have of retaining our right to Free Speech. And as so many of The Founding Fathers made so clear, Free Speech is the most important right for the defense of democracy. Without Free Speech, we are no more than a tin-pot dictatorship in sheep's clothing.
One important note before you venture there, though: Truly free speech can be a horrifying thing. I have seen things on I2P that have forced me to run back through the logic that leads me to the conclusion that the good of Free Speech outweighs the bad of it. There are things out there that are painful to see if you stumble across them. My advice is this: If you think it might be there, and it might be disturbing; do your very best to avoid stumbling across it. The worst you can imagine is a good enough representation of what is there -- you don't want to see it. Seriously. I heard the same advice but did not take sufficient care about what links I clicked on. It is so profoundly disturbing that I considered uninstalling I2P, despite my absolute conviction that darknets are necessary.
This is what escalation in the war on Free Speech leads to. Sigh. Those images in my head are because of the MAFIAA and the authoritarians. They did this. And I hope someday they suffer for it. They are monsters.
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American's freedom is gone, their rights are gone, and they can't change it back through the 'legal' system or the 'democratic' system because both systems are now much too corrupt. Give up, it's over, there is nothing you can do anymore. The USA simply had inadequate separation of powers: the government makes the law, then it also chooses the judges who are tasked with upholding the law. The central government also has way too much control over the police and other authorities - the government keeps giving
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It certainly is possible to have absolute freedom of speech and still have privacy. You'd have to make sure that none of your information gets out, of course, but you could still have privacy (and people that, say, break into your house and publish information, would be punished for breaking into your house in the first place).
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This issue is about privacy and protection from unreasonable search I would think.
Primarily, and on its face, I completely agree. And I don't want to suggest that those issues are not vital to our Nation. They are. It is only that I believe that Free Speech is the most important right in the protection of our Nation (Nation in the metaphysical sense, not our borders or governing bodies).
The threat to freedom of speech from this is more subtle, and relies on the assumption that government is inherently imper
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Fourth Amendment Abuse (Score:3, Insightful)
This really seems like quite the abuse of the fourth amendment. The whole lack of a need for probably cause is extremely troubling.
A nasty blow to privacy.
Mod points? (Score:2, Interesting)
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No, most good comments taking particular stances on certain issues will be modded up. I've seen utterly countless excellent posts been modded down that disagreed with every other highly moderated comment.
It also frightens me slightly that between you, betterunixthanunix, and k6mfw, not one of you can conceive of a person disagreeing with the /. groupthink for any reason other than being paid to do so
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It also frightens me slightly that between you, betterunixthanunix, and k6mfw, not one of you can conceive of a person disagreeing with the /. groupthink for any reason other than being paid to do so, or "smoking crack".
This wasn't in response to a comment I disagreed with, it was in response to a comment wondering why interesting comments had been voted down. Modding down a comment simply because you disagree with it is usually bad form.
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probably some shills with mod points, I got dinged for disagreeing with the judge's decision (I was getting multiple troll awards but now back into "insightful").
Just Repeal It Already (Score:4, Interesting)
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I mean, how hard is it to get a damn warrant these days?
Not nearly as hard as amending the Constitution. Why go through the bother of a Constitutional amendment when you can simply ignore the Constitution?
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Please explain in detail how this violates the Fourth Amendment.
Like the guy said. (Score:5, Insightful)
--Abraham Lincoln
Re:Like the guy said. (Score:4, Insightful)
Habeas Corpus? (Score:4, Insightful)
Lincoln ignored a court's ruling that his detention of people without habeas corpus was unlawful since the Constitution reserved the power to suspend habeas corpus to Congress alone.
Congress later approving the action does not make it right. He did what was at the time blatantly unconstitutional.
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So he knew first hand that it was possible to destroy from the inside.
I'd say he's one of the best people to say that statement then!
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He should know. He was the one that destroyed it. Has any President commited more unconstitutional acts than Lincoln?
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Who is surprised? (Score:1)
The problem with a large number of you Americans.. (Score:2)
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You got all that from Back To The Future?
Or did you watch Teen Wolf too?
I worry if this will bite me... (Score:2)
I wrote a blog post on my site on how to mirror the Wikileaks website on your smart phone anonymously using some simple tools. Jacob Appelbaum tweeted about this, and we followed each other. Then shortly after, this all happened with the Twitter info and the stops at the border. I watched his live tweeting with a bit of worry for myself.
Why do agencies want Twitter and email information? Appelbaum is a smart guy, part of the Tor project, so you can bet anything that is sensitive is encrypted. What they w