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Justice Dept. Asked For News Site's Visitor Lists

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Justice Dept. Asked For News Site's Visitor Lists - Taking Liberties - CBS News

November 10, 2009 12:01 AM
Posted by Declan McCullagh

In a case that raises questions about online journalism and privacy rights, the U.S. Department of Justice sent a formal request to an independent news site ordering it to provide details of all reader visits on a certain day

The grand jury subpoena also required the Philadelphia-based Indymedia.us Web site "not to disclose the existence of this request" unless authorized by the Justice Department, a gag order that presents an unusual quandary for any news organization.

Kristina Clair, a 34-year old Linux administrator living in Philadelphia who provides free server space for Indymedia.us, said she was shocked to receive the Justice Department's subpoena. (The Independent Media Center is a left-of-center amalgamation of journalists and advocates that – according to their principles of unity and mission statement – work toward "promoting social and economic justice" and "social change.")

The subpoena (PDF) from U.S. Attorney Tim Morrison in Indianapolis demanded "all IP traffic to and from www.indymedia.us" on June 25, 2008. It instructed Clair to "include IP addresses, times, and any other identifying information," including e-mail addresses, physical addresses, registered accounts, and Indymedia readers' Social Security Numbers, bank account numbers, credit card numbers, and so on.

"I didn't think anything we were doing was worthy of any (federal) attention," Clair said in a telephone interview with CBSNews.com on Monday. After talking to other Indymedia volunteers, Clair ended up calling the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco, which represented her at no cost.

Under long-standing Justice Department guidelines, subpoenas to members of the news media are supposed to receive special treatment. One portion of the guidelines, for instance, says that "no subpoena may be issued to any member of the news media" without "the express authorization of the attorney general" – that would be current attorney general Eric Holder – and subpoenas should be "directed at material information regarding a limited subject matter."

The questions raised here are certainly going to be many and point of the need to be cautious about your use of the internet when it comes to voicing your opinion. Why you ask should anyone who hasn't done anything wrong be concerned? Well that is a question ignorant people ask all the time.

What you say can easily be misinterpreted and just because someone is in the government does not necessarily them any smarter than some of those who post hear and read into things posted what they think not what is actually written.

Have your postings ever been monitored yes they have by project CARNIVORE.

But wait that's just a conspiracy theory promoted by wackos. If you are one who believed this you could not be more wrong.


Carnivore as publicized intercepts only select Internet communications while Echelon is claimed to intercept all forms of communications. The US government has admitted to operating Carnivore while no official admission of Echelon has ever been made.

The FBI Website has a section which describes Carnivore's operation with diagrams. There is no governmental site which describes Echelon, at least not in overt terms.

This I and other portions of the Constitution believe has been under attack for a long time.
Fourth Amendment – Protection from unreasonable search and seizure.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.


Be aware that if you like to text message you need to be aware that all your texted messages like your emails can not be deleted and are being archived and are recoverable. You can delete email and you can't see it any more but it remains on the server for ever. Texting is the same.

If you use G-mail or you can see that electronic monitoring like that used in CARNIVORE is at work because key words are picked up and advertising is then directed at you based on you thought to be private email,
For example if you write about Health care to your friend, advertising about insurance and health care will appear on the right side of the page. I know this to be true because i see it every day.

If you did not want to read the whole srory make note of this.
"This is the first time we've seen them try to get the IP address of everyone who visited a particular site," Bankston said. "That it was a news organization was an additional troubling fact that implicates First Amendment rights."

Welcome to the world of BIG BROTHER it's not a wacko conspiracy it's a proven fact of today's life.
 
So what happened to this outfit now that they publicized the request?
 
Indymedia has posted a number of articles related to armed resistance and revolution against the U.S. government in recent years. It's entirely possible that this search warrant is related to specific users and linkers of specific information.

Be aware that if you like to text message you need to be aware that all your texted messages like your emails can not be deleted and are being archived and are recoverable. You can delete email and you can't see it any more but it remains on the server for ever. Texting is the same.

I've really got to stop sexting my boyfriend when I drink.
 
Last edited:
Correct response for Indymedia.us is


"come and get them dickwad"
 
Justice Dept. Asked For News Site's Visitor Lists - Taking Liberties - CBS News

This is rather interesting. It claims the government tried to subpoena an independent newsite to get a butt load of information about people who visited the site on a particular day. It's rather off putting, and the blog makes it seem as if there was quite a bit of menace on the part of the government. I particularly liked the

Morrison [U.S. Attorney Morrison] replied in a one-sentence letter saying the subpoena had been withdrawn. Around the same time, according to the EFF, the group had a series of discussions with assistant U.S. attorneys in Morrison's office who threatened Clair with possible prosecution for obstruction of justice if she disclosed the existence of the already-withdrawn subpoena -- claiming it "may endanger someone's health" and would have a "human cost."

Don't know if this will be validated or not, but if true it's a bit disturbing the scope of power the government believes itself to have.
 
Yes it is disturbing, I like to think they are testing the waters, I am just glad to see that at least some journalists, still exist in this country.
 
I heard about this before it was ever reported, as I have friends in the indymedia network. The court ordered police to seize the servers if the information was not delivered in a timely manner. I'm glad the silence was broken and the issue was made known.
 
I'm so glad that the government recognizes that it shouldn't engage in unreasonable search and seizure.
 
It seems Holder was not in the loop on this.

Someone lower down failed to follow procedure.

Can't smack Holder on this, but not cool in any event.

Now that this has been made public, I believe it should put a halt to such nonsense. Here's to hoping.

.
 
The amount of information they were looking for was peculiar, and something I'm not sure the government should be able to easily get. Apparently, this was done without the knowledge from the attorney general, which is highly illegal. And the whole threatening of the people mafia style is incredibly disturbing. If that part is true, then who ever made the threats, told the guy to make the threats, and all those aware that this practice was encouraged should be fired and never allowed to work in the law or political field again.
 
For what it's worth, the bolded portion is completely false:

The subpoena (PDF) from U.S. Attorney Tim Morrison in Indianapolis demanded "all IP traffic to and from www.indymedia.us" on June 25, 2008. It instructed Clair to "include IP addresses, times, and any other identifying information," including e-mail addresses, physical addresses, registered accounts, and Indymedia readers' Social Security Numbers, bank account numbers, credit card numbers, and so on.

The author misread the subpoena. I emailed him to explain the error, though he didn't respond or correct it.
 
So, in your opinion, library records should not be subpoenaed, ever?

They don't have to even tell you, nor do they have to have charges presented in order to check your library records. They can waltz in, check it, and waltz out.
 
What's the point of warrants anymore?
 
The whole library records thing was insanely overblown. People got riled up about it because it sounds bad, but there was really nothing there.

In order to seek library records under the patriot act, an application had to be presented to a magistrate judge, just as if the government was seeking a subpoena. Furthermore, the provision could only be used to access documents that were not within the possession of the target, so there is absolutely no reasonable expectation of privacy. In addition, it could only be used where the target was not a US citizen or where the information concerned foreign intelligence activity.

In terms of the actual intrusion on privacy, this section was significantly less burdensome than most of the rest of the patriot act. The only reason it got such play is because people conflate library records with some unspecified version of the First Amendment.
 
Anything can be subpoenaed with enough probable cause.

True. Anything and anyone that can be proven to have a legitimate role in a trial or investigation can be brought in. I wonder though...can any sentient being can be subpoenaed or just inanimate things?
 
The whole library records thing was insanely overblown. People got riled up about it because it sounds bad, but there was really nothing there.

In order to seek library records under the patriot act, an application had to be presented to a magistrate judge, just as if the government was seeking a subpoena. Furthermore, the provision could only be used to access documents that were not within the possession of the target, so there is absolutely no reasonable expectation of privacy. In addition, it could only be used where the target was not a US citizen or where the information concerned foreign intelligence activity.

In terms of the actual intrusion on privacy, this section was significantly less burdensome than most of the rest of the patriot act. The only reason it got such play is because people conflate library records with some unspecified version of the First Amendment.

This particular one may not be a "big deal", but I still don't think the government should have the power. And it speaks further to the types of spying and data collection that the government currently does do. We have to watch and tightly constrain it on this front.
 
This particular one may not be a "big deal", but I still don't think the government should have the power. And it speaks further to the types of spying and data collection that the government currently does do. We have to watch and tightly constrain it on this front.

My recipe for boiling a frog comes to mind....
 
My recipe for boiling a frog comes to mind....

That's an urban legend, you know. Frogs won't actually let you boil them. Plus, everyone knows that frogs get gooey when you boil them. The only way to properly cook a frog is by pan-sauteing them.

Recipe fail.
 
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