America's FBI Withdraws Demand for IP Addresses of Readers of a Newspaper's Story During a 35-Minute Window (msn.com) 257
UPDATE: America's Federal Bureau of Investigation has now "withdrawn a subpoena demanding records from USA TODAY that would identify readers of a February story about a southern Florida shootout that killed two agents and wounded three others," the newspaper reported today.
Friday USA Today had reported that it's "fighting a subpoena from the FBI demanding records that would identify readers of a February story" about a Southern Florida shooting that killed two of the investigative agency's agents and wounded three others.
Long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 shared their original report on Friday: In a motion filed in federal district court in Washington, D.C. asking a judge to quash the subpoena, Gannett, USA TODAY's parent company, said the effort is not only unconstitutional but also violates the Justice Department's own rules... The subpoena, issued in April, demands the production of records containing IP addresses and other identifying information "for computers and other electronic devices" that accessed the story during a 35-minute time frame starting at 8:03 p.m. on the day of the shooting.
"Being forced to tell the government who reads what on our websites is a clear violation of the First Amendment," Maribel Perez Wadsworth, USA TODAY's publisher, said in a statement. "The FBI's subpoena asks for private information about readers of our journalism...."
The subpoena, signed by an FBI agent in Maryland, said the records relate to a criminal investigation. But it's unclear how USA TODAY's readership records are related to the investigation of the Florida shooting, or why the FBI is focusing on the time frame. Wadsworth said Gannett's attorneys tried to contact the FBI before and after the company fought the subpoena in court, but she said the FBI has yet to provide any meaningful explanation of the basis for the subpoena.
The FBI and the Justice Department declined to comment.
Friday USA Today had reported that it's "fighting a subpoena from the FBI demanding records that would identify readers of a February story" about a Southern Florida shooting that killed two of the investigative agency's agents and wounded three others.
Long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 shared their original report on Friday: In a motion filed in federal district court in Washington, D.C. asking a judge to quash the subpoena, Gannett, USA TODAY's parent company, said the effort is not only unconstitutional but also violates the Justice Department's own rules... The subpoena, issued in April, demands the production of records containing IP addresses and other identifying information "for computers and other electronic devices" that accessed the story during a 35-minute time frame starting at 8:03 p.m. on the day of the shooting.
"Being forced to tell the government who reads what on our websites is a clear violation of the First Amendment," Maribel Perez Wadsworth, USA TODAY's publisher, said in a statement. "The FBI's subpoena asks for private information about readers of our journalism...."
The subpoena, signed by an FBI agent in Maryland, said the records relate to a criminal investigation. But it's unclear how USA TODAY's readership records are related to the investigation of the Florida shooting, or why the FBI is focusing on the time frame. Wadsworth said Gannett's attorneys tried to contact the FBI before and after the company fought the subpoena in court, but she said the FBI has yet to provide any meaningful explanation of the basis for the subpoena.
The FBI and the Justice Department declined to comment.
Doesn't matter if it's democrat or republican (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no respect for civil rights in this government
Re:Doesn't matter if it's democrat or republican (Score:4, Insightful)
There is no respect for civil rights in this government
You need to scream it LOUDER from the back so the Attention Whores we call "Representatives" can hear you in between their CNN/Fox interviews and tweets to make themselves look important.
Otherwise, nothing changes.
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I'm not directing it at the representatives, they're only doing what comes naturally. It's to the voters. Only they can do anything.
Re:Doesn't matter if it's democrat or republican (Score:4, Informative)
FBI agents were shot so I expect an exhaustive investigation. I would hope that internally someone would point out that it is not a fair trade to invade the privacy of hundreds of citizens to--maybe--narrow the field of suspects. But I suspect that the reaction to that argument would be "let the courts sort it out."
Which is what they are doing, and I hope the FBI loses.
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We shouldn't be on pins and needles all the time. We need to change the demeanor of the government from "master" to "servant"
Re:Doesn't matter if it's democrat or republican (Score:4, Informative)
BuSab, at your service. [wikipedia.org]
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That's not so fictional [cia.gov]
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The "Bureau of Sabotage" was depicted as competent and aware of its own flaws, unlike the gross incompetence shown by many intelligence agencies. It was also grotesquely corrupt, its leaders involved in granting immortality for their own leadership through body snatching of brutalized slaves.
Frank Herbert's fiction was fascinating. He also described a very useful distinction between "bias" and "prejudice", where bias favors one side, but prejudice is a refusal to even acknowledge evidence for the other side
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Divided government is supposed to act as a sort of Bureau of Sabotage (referenced above). The "get shit done" portion of the government (Executive) identifies an easy avenue of gathering information about a crime, and the "get justice done" branch (Judicial) steps in and tells the Executive that they can't do things the most efficient way because the competing interests are too important.
It would be nice if leadership in every branch of government thought that getting their job done should sometimes be a s
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Re:Doesn't matter if it's democrat or republican (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, Democrats = strongly right-wing party and Republicans = extremist right-wing party. What do you expect? The worst of the worst are on control of your country.
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Certainly slightly right of center.
Ultimately, under their tent does exist some actual real-life leftists, but they're a pointless amount, and some pretty far right people, which are also a pointless amount.
The vast majority are standard social democrats that are slowly moving from slightly right of center toward the center.
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100% of the Republican party is now devoted to DELUSION and CONSPIRACY over facts.
being worthy of an eyeroll, the phrase "strongly right-wing" was used so that it would be easy to tell that I was referring to his characterization of Democrats, not Republicans.
See:
Democrats = strongly right-wing party
Republicans = extremist right-wing party
And,
Don't know if I'd call them "strongly right-wing"
On a side note, if it's that easy for you to go off half cocked, I'd give up trying to be an autodidact. It will only lead you to ruin.
People like you need to be taught.
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First of all, I don't think civil rights is a left right thing. Second of all, I am not aware of anyone on the left who cares about it either (for example, I am not aware of any leftist 2nd amendment advocates). Since the 2nd amendment is right there in the bill of rights after the 1st amendment, I consider it to be under the rubric of civil rights.
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But I think mostly you're mischaracterizing the "liberal" standpoint.
The second amendment to the constitution says:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Let's avoid an "individual right" vs. "collective" right argument, because I'm not interested in that.
More importantly, I don't see anything in that which indicates that any and all things that may be considered an armament are free from regulation.
You accept that certain weaponry can be regulated,
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No, you ARE gaslighting. You are ignoring that the meaning of "well-regulated" meant "in working order" at the time. If you doubt this, look up a dictionary. The sense of "regulated" meaning "subject to regulations" was barely even extant. Quoting the second amendment and claiming it proves the lack of an individual right without quoting any of the people who wrote it or fought for it writing on the subject is a deliberate attempt to mislead. We KNOW beyond ANY DOUBT that they intended it to be an individua
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No, you ARE gaslighting. You are ignoring that the meaning of "well-regulated" meant "in working order" at the time.
Nope, I am not.
The use of those quite clearly indicates the right as a collective one.
And as I said, the amendment is silent about idea of regulating such arms.
So you simply have poor reading comprehension.
Quoting the second amendment and claiming it proves the lack of an individual right without quoting any of the people who wrote it or fought for it writing on the subject is a deliberate attempt to mislead.
I didn't say it proves, it said it was unclear.
See the Militia Clause of the constitution.
Also, see the Madison notes from the Constitutional Convention.
It's pretty clear that their concern was not individual weaponry ownership, but state weaponry ownership in the new Federal system.
However- none
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You are familiar with Heller, right? So at least a majority of then supreme court justices also agreed that the 2nd amendment protects an individual right. I guess according to you they are ideologically invested in that position and less able to see reality for what it is than you? I also find it strange that you didn't even mention Heller.
I am, and that kind of fits with my claims, doesn't it?
Heller is an example of the new latter-half of the 20th century interpretation of the right.
Heller, in particular, is a great example of just how intellectually corrupt Scalia was.
His argument is contingent upon the idea that the first half of the 2nd amendment is unrelated to the second half. Ya, because that makes a lot of fucking sense.
Are you SURE you are not gaslighting? You are not trying to make it sound like the beliefs of the pro-gun camp are some crazy, oddball idea out of left field that literally NOBODY ever thought before 1951? When in reality, a large number of Americans have always believed that the 2nd amendment protected an individual right, and Heller made that the explicit law of the land?
When you use strawmen to frame my argument, I'm sure it looks a lot like gaslighting.
I never said they were some
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There is no respect for civil rights in this government
Well, Dumb Ass, if that was true, USA Today (Gannett) would not be having it quashed. You're as smart as a bag of rocks, and that's how much you understood of this story.
A prosecutor did something stupid, and is in the early stages of getting smacked down. But all you heard was Gubermint coming.
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That's not the government who is upholding civil rights however. In this situation, a private entity had to deny the government its request, and pay for legal council to do so without any potential reward.
How many news agencies would just quietly "comply", or worse not even require a court order.
This reporting is happening before a judge reaches a decision so we won't see if they do the dubious job of enforcing rules which hold their co-workers accountable for violating the law, so it remains to be seen if
Vote in your primary (Score:2, Insightful)
And for fucks sake vote in your mid term election.
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Unfortunately the primaries are for and controlled by the extremists and the mid-term election is subject to the gerrymandering. You can't actually hope to select a politician when the politicians have already pre-selected the voters. So this branch of the "discussion" is little better than the false equivalency Subject of the FP, but you weren't lucky enough to FP so that your Subject could be propagated through more than half of the conversation.
Meanwhile, the ACTUAL story was about a slim ray of hope. Ap
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Sure there is. If they didn't respect rights then they wouldn't be going through open court, they'd be using a dark court as is done w/ FISA. Or they would be requesting all records, not merely IP records for a very narrow 35-minute window.
Our rights aren't unlimited; they can be overridden by a court when compelling evidence is presented. As far as I have read, the FBI keeps referring to the deceased as a "child porn suspect" but never reported finding any evidence of that after the raid. For all we know,
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Re: Doesn't matter if it's democrat or republican (Score:5, Insightful)
Only on paper. I've yet to met one that cares about rights beyond those that directly affect them.
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This is the gateway drug D.A.R.E warned you about:
https://open.spotify.com/episo... [spotify.com]
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We're out there, but it'd be awful hard to get into a position of power--and we don't really want that anyway.
Re: Doesn't matter if it's democrat or republican (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the above poster is making a distinction between actual Libertarians and ones who just call themselves such even though they really aren't. It's absolutely true that the tiny US Libertarian Party of the 1970's did favor gay marriage and was generally a good bit ahead of its time in terms of recognizing gay folks as inherent equals (and they should be proud of that!) but there are plenty of people walking around today who call themselves libertarians who are really just far right conservatives.
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plenty of people walking around today who call themselves libertarians who are really just far-right conservatives.
Full legalization of all drugs, equitable spending on education, and a massive reduction in military spending are not typically considered far-right political positions.
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I'd be willing to say that 99% of people don't *like* abortion. But it's important to recognize that women have the *right* to get one, even if we don't like it.
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Libertarians lobbied for gay marriage since the 1970's.
Not the ones I know. The ones I know have said that government should not be in the business of marriage at all. If religious institutions want to marry people they can do so; and if people of any sex want to make a civil contract to live together, they can do so, too; and either way it's none of the government's business.
It's absolutely true that the tiny US Libertarian Party of the 1970's did favor gay marriage
I'd be interested to seeing a contemporaneous citation to that. By "contemporaneous" I mean "something other than 40 years later the Libertarian party claiming that they were in favor of i
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Literally any they can't find an immediate application to their current situation.
Unless said right is immediately useful to them, they are generally against anything, including portions of the bill of rights, that exert any type of control or restriction over them.
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There are elements of an individual's rights that can come into conflict with another person's rights. One larger problem happens with economic externalities. My right to operate a company as cheaply as possible can come at the expense of other factors like excessive pollution that impedes on other's rights to safe environments. There's also a host of policies that they advocate for which for additional choices to be available in life decisions, but generally don't provide provisions to allow increased acce
Re: Doesn't matter if it's democrat or republican (Score:4, Insightful)
Well put.
I can expect a Libertarian to fight for my rights of choice or any freedom they can personally empathize with.
I can also expect one to fight vehementantly against my right to not be actively poisoned by industry. Environmental and health protections are 'evils' to the ideology because they restrict their 'freedoms'.
If it's their family being poisoned, oppressed or elsewise troubled, that tune will change in a heartbeat, but otherwise any restriction or tax on their actions, to quote, "is inherently wrong and should have no role in a civilized society."
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I'm not seeing the Constitutional Right(s) you're talking about in my copy of the Bill of Rights. Could you itemize by Amendment number?
While most of us would like to maybe expand the Bill of Rights in a few ways, the fact that we'd like something doesn't actually make it part of the Bill of Rights by definition....
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I explicitly indicated that those rights were not included in the US Constitution. We have an amalgam of provisions written down in many state Constitutions and the 14th guarantees equal access to those services, but the country was founded 250 years ago when only a few regions even had publicly funded schools. There were simply bigger problems keeping the fledgling band of largely independent states together. It was only the backstabbing each state did to each other while operating under the Articles of Co
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Until the bill comes for those rights and suddenly their heels are caked in dirt.
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In practice, they're Republicans who are trying to pitch social conservatism without the label that brings immediate discounting of their bullshit.
Ron Paul was close, but he still let his colors show at times.
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I'm hard pressed to see anything in social conservatism that resembles libertarianism. Economic conservatism of course is another matter. There the resemblance is much greater.
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But like it or not, social conservatives have coopted the term to the point where you can't discuss any actual libertarianism without it devolving into No True Scotsman.
It sucks, because libertarianism is an interesting political ideology.
They call themselves libertarians. But they are not. They're social conservatives wearing a mask for one reason or another.
A notable current exception to this that I'm keeping an eye on is J
Re: Doesn't matter if it's democrat or republican (Score:5, Informative)
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But I don't think that's the real problem.
The real problem with libertarians is that conservatives have coopted the the name to hide behind its veneer of honor, so ultimately, anyone who declares himself a libertarian has about an 80% chance of really being a conservative who is happy as fuck to curtail any of your rights that goes against their personal moral or religious code, and about a 20% chance of actually being an honorable human.
Not to be a luddite (Score:3)
but don't you wish paper rags hadn't been killed by web-based newspapers now?
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but don't you wish paper rags hadn't been killed by web-based newspapers now?
You act like a redaction on page 17 three months later is any better for a paper document full of biased lies vs. the electronic version.
Doesn't matter the medium when the product they're selling is Clickbait Bullshit.
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Good luck selling paper newspapers as clickbaits...
Re:Not to be a luddite (Score:4, Informative)
The point is that with the actual printed paper, there exists no log of who read a particular article and certainly not exactly when.
Re: Not to be a luddite (Score:2)
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but don't you wish paper rags hadn't been killed by web-based newspapers now?
I do not.
I subscribed to the paper edition of my local newspaper to get digital access because it was cheaper than subscribing to digital-only, and the paper goes straight into the recycle bin since I've already read all of the stories I'm interested in by the time the paper arrives. I couldn't even give it away, asked my doctor and dentist if they wanted me to have it sent there and they both declined.
The distribution media isn't the problem (Score:2)
side channel attack (Score:4, Interesting)
my guess
someone they want but can't find posted a link to the story in that time slot and the hope is they used their real ip address.
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It's plausible. The FBI would still be running afoul of Blackstone's Formulation.
This is a common pattern. Whenever a cop gets killed, they throw all the rules out the window, and, frankly, show their true selves
Re: side channel attack (Score:2)
It can be used to prove or disprove the location of an individual. They probably have some information already, possibly through hearing an individual.
So the FBI is bad again? (Score:4, Insightful)
I got so use to unquestioning deference to all things FBI while Trump was in office that stories like this are weird. For a while there no abuse of power by the FBI seemed to phase anyone.
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Wait, what? It isn't?
Fine, fine, we'll give you the info (Score:5, Funny)
Judge: "Information has been provided and the subpoena has been ruled as satisfied."
FBI: "Ok! Here we go, the IP addresses trace to ... what's at this address ... a brothel? And the credit card attached to the physical address provided for the subscriber are ... wait, I think this is my mom's address."
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Talk about working from home due to COVID-19, amIright? Of course, their Mom always had to wear a bag over her head, so adding the mask really wasn't a big issue.
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Privacy is a universal human right, in no way contingent on the freedom of speech.
Also, the FBI Library Awareness Program [wikipedia.org].
Re: Fine, fine, we'll give you the info (Score:3)
So nobody listens to the conspiracy nut anymore. But free speech while removing the listeners is of no value. Stopping people from listening is a violation of free speech.
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Yeah. A variation on the "chilling effect."
What could possibly justify this? (Score:4, Interesting)
I think I've come up with the only scenario where this could reasonably be justified, and it's quite absurd:
1. USA Today publishes a change to the article at 8:03PM about a mass shooting.
2. An anonymous caller at 8:38PM calls up the FBI to bitch about inaccuracies in the story wanting to correct them because he's the shooter.
The article in question was last updated at 6:23PM ET that day. There's a 100 minute gap there so even my absurd hypothetical makes no sense.
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How about this:
Someone prints out an article and sends it to the FBI as part of a taunt, or the FBI comes into possession of a printed copy of the article through a search, or some other means.
Somehow the FBI can track the specific version of the article to a 35 minute window -- or perhaps the 35 minute window is simply that there is a timestamp in the printed copy, but the FBI doesn't trust the accuracy of the timestamp?
Has the FBI heard of NTP? I would not count on it.
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That's a fair assessment and hardily unreasonable for digital forensics. There are a few other artifacts visible that could be used, some other news stories and ads when viewing the site:
Depending on what artifacts are visible on an article, you might actually get a pretty narrow window of time. Like right now the last 2 slashdot articles posted have a 1 hour delta between their timestamps. If I included an article with the title "GCC Will No Longer Require Copyrights Be Assigned to the FSF" but "Google Rel
Re:What could possibly justify this? (Score:4, Informative)
It is a remarkably *specific* demand.
The shooter, by the way, is known. David Lee Huber was killed during the incident, so that part of your scenario can't be right, but I think you've got what's going on right *in principle*. Someone who for some reason is known to have looked at the article in that window can be linked to some *other* crime, and his identity is unknown.
Since Huber was being served a warrant on child porn charges, it's likely to be related to that, not the shooting.
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Re: What could possibly justify this? (Score:2)
Or they did hear a suspected party that claimed he was at a certain location reading that article and can't be involved.
What, me worry? (Score:3)
I'm kind of surprised that this news doesn't make more people on Slashdot react and participate in a discussion about this.
Why? Because that's the beginning of a very dangerous trend in our society. If you read news about it, you must be involved and interested in that "sort of thing".
Imagine the following scenario, you read some news about burglaries, and you skip reading news about anything else, let's say the police get this bright idea that they want the IP addresses of the readers of a local newspaper, to see how many people reads the news about a local burglary. Would some of those readers be the involved parts in that burglary? If it catches your fancy, or your interest - you COULD be one of them, or perhaps you like to read about burglaries and that makes you more likely to become a future criminal?
You can "insert any crime here" as future thought crimes and how the gov. could demand information about people who tend to read news about minority groups or anyone that has a different agenda than what your current government wants you to have. Let us say that you don't like the current ruling politicians and you read news that critique these, or/and critiques the current system - are you more likely to become a threath to their rule? So you should be monitored, because you are a risk to the system (officially), but unofficially perhaps you're a future school shooter? Perhaps someone so dissatisfied with a local politician that you plan action against him/her?
Where does this end?
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Hmm, in my case, have been reacting to this. Just not on /.
As to participating, when I have something that I want to say about it, I'll post it. Till then, I'll just read. Which is the same thing I do to every story, on every forum that I read.
This story? Need more information before I can tell who is behaving like an idiot here. The Cops? Likely, but not certain. Everyone else
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Count me in the camp that has trouble understanding the objections (with a warrant). It is a very specific window and article. It would take much more to actually convict someone of a crime, but it might verify something they already know or lead to something.
I’m not for trusting law enforcement blindly, but I also think distrusting them blindly is non-productive.
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Sure, the FBI is corrupt (Score:2)
..but what judge signed off on a warrant so obviously unconstitutional?
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It is a subpoena. Not a warrant. No judge signed off on it.
That's why this is before a judge now, for a hearing.
Itâ(TM)s a short list (Score:2)
Itâ(TM)s USA today for gods sake, whatâ(TM)s that , like a couple of octogenarian at most
This is why I do my "news" reading on (Score:2)
archive.ph
Sometimes someone else has already archived it for me.
To me this is dumb (Score:2)
So the FBI thinks the person who leaked the info could not wait until a story appeared in USA Today ? What, they think he was hitting refresh thousands of times to see the story on the site like trying to buy tickets for some popular activity ?
How dumb is that. Also, if an FBI employee, don't they have spyware on their Workstations ? Yes they could have used another device, but if they are stupid enough to sit waiting for a article on the USA site, maybe they could narrow it down by seeing what their wor
IP addresses? (Score:4, Insightful)
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It's not just Amazon sidewalk. One can sign onto the publicly available WiFi network that Comcast attaches to its cable modem/routers in people's houses.
Backstop? (Score:2)
Perhaps they are just trying to backstop some information they have that they can't introduce in court?
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They're not introducing anything in court, the perp died during the incident that they're investigating.
They're really investigating a leak, and they wanted to show their extreme incompetence while they were at it. Maybe the investigator was is the leaker, and wants to prove a point?
Saving IP addresses? (Score:3)
The newspaper would not have to worry about turning those IP addresses over to the police IF they did not store those IP addresses themselves. Duh. The newspaper put their own readers in jeopardy by doing that.
Anyone know why (Score:2)
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Perhaps ... (Score:2)
35 minutes because publishers have been known to redact sensitive or incorrect data from web pages pretty quickly.
The DOJ and FBI have lost all trust! (Score:2, Insightful)
what you read is private (Score:2)
or should be.
Regardless of your chosen media. Librarians have defended this principle for a very long time.
http://www.ala.org/advocacy/in... [ala.org] : "All people, regardless of origin, age, background, or views, possess a right to privacy and confidentiality in their library use.1 When users recognize or fear that their privacy or confidentiality is compromised, true freedom of inquiry no longer exists. "
A few librarians have been very courageous in defending this principle, standing up to powerful forces. It has
Subpoena Withdrawn (Score:3, Informative)
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Is the paper required to store these addresses? (Score:2)
Is there a law requiring to newspaper to store these IP addresses in the first place?
If so then (a) How much detail do they have to keep (e.g. Do they have to record record individual article access or just overall access to the site? Could they just record access time to one hour resolution?) and (b) How long do they have to keep the data for?
If there isn't such a law then why are they bothering to store all this data?
America's FBI? (Score:2)
How many other FBIs are there?
Why bother with the newspaper? (Score:2)
Both Facebook and Google probably have more detailed records.
Not with the 'protect civil rights' angle on this (Score:2)
I'm not with the 'protect civil rights' angle on this one folks
The fact the FBI only want IPs for a specific 35 minute window means they likely have specific information. Perhaps a taunting phone call made during that time referencing the
Their mistake was to file a subpoena. They'll probably serve a warrant instead.
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If you see no material differences between China and Russia, you are blind.
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. . . yeah, okay. Sure.
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A simple rule of thumb; if you can't spell precedent even with the help of modern automatic spell-check, you probably don't understand the concept.
Precedents are not created just by doing a thing and getting away with it.
tldr; you're an idiot