A Decade-Old Gag Order, Lifted
aclu.org
A Decade-Old Gag Order, Lifted
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Re: A Decade-Old Gag Order, Lifted
#2So how do we see the attachment?
Found the link, at the bottom of the article, hidden in the last sentence....... https://www.aclu.org/legal-document/merrill-v-lynch-unredact...
Re: A Decade-Old Gag Order, Lifted
#3Props to the man for sticking this out for so long. He first point blank refuses to comply, the FBI then withdraws the NSL but keeps the gag order in place and he then fights them for an additional decade to get the gag order lifted. That's tenacity.
This reminds me of the Lavabit case, wonder why the one shut down their service and the other managed to simply reject the requests:
Re: A Decade-Old Gag Order, Lifted
#4I was hoping to see the item they show screenshotted in various states of redaction, but I don't see any link to it. Anyone see one?
Re: A Decade-Old Gag Order, Lifted
#5Key quote:
"According to the Justice Department’s inspector general, the FBI issued a staggering 143,074 NSLs between 2003 and 2005. And every NSL was accompanied by a categorical and permanent gag order."
That's almost one per 2000 americans. I wonder how does this number compare to actual court orders.
Re: A Decade-Old Gag Order, Lifted
#6Key quote: "According to the Justice Department’s inspector general, the FBI issued a staggering 143,074 NSLs between 2003 and 2005. And every NSL was accompanied by a categorical and permanent gag order." That's almost one per 2000 americans. I wonder how does this number compare to actual court orders.
And that's just about 3 years, imagine how high the number must be by now.
Re: A Decade-Old Gag Order, Lifted
#7Key quote: "According to the Justice Department’s inspector general, the FBI issued a staggering 143,074 NSLs between 2003 and 2005. And every NSL was accompanied by a categorical and permanent gag order." That's almost one per 2000 americans. I wonder how does this number compare to actual court orders.
Another key quote:
> I found it particularly difficult to be silent about my concerns while Congress was debating the reauthorization of the Patriot Act in 2005 and early 2006. If I hadn't been under a gag order, I would have contacted members of Congress to discuss my experiences and to advocate changes in the law. The inspector general's report confirms that Congress lacked a complete picture of the problem during a critical time: Even though the NSL statute requires the director of the FBI to fully inform members of the House and Senate about all requests issued under the statute, the FBI significantly underrepresented the number of NSL requests in 2003, 2004 and 2005, according to the report.
Re: A Decade-Old Gag Order, Lifted
#8This is reporting that Nick Merrill, who was under a gag order restricting his ability to talk about a subpoena he received in 2004, is no longer gagged. It links to an editorial he wrote (anonymously) about that gag order, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03... , in which he writes:
> "Based on the context of the demand -- a context that the FBI still won't let me discuss publicly -- I suspected that the FBI was abusing its power and that the letter sought information to which the FBI was not entitled."
This new article does not disclose who that subscriber was, but the article, and the earlier op-ed, seem to imply that the subscriber's identity alone is enough to suspect an abuse of power. We'll probably hear more about that in the near future, but I'd like to make a prediction. The most likely interpretation is that this was a critic of the FBI or of the US government as a whole, and that the subpoena - which seeks to unmask the subject's identity - would be a prelude to retaliation.
The article goes on to describe how the FBI has materially misrepresented its use of National Security Letters to Congress, and that the practice of sending them has twice been struck down by the courts as unconstitutional. By all appearances, a significant chunk of the US law enforcement apparatus has simply gone rogue, stopped respecting Congress and the courts and is instead focused on increasing its own power.
Re: A Decade-Old Gag Order, Lifted
#9I am once again reminded that the ACLU and EFF are wonderful organizations that attempt to keep the legal system barely sane for everyone else.
Re: A Decade-Old Gag Order, Lifted
#10Props to the man for sticking this out for so long. He first point blank refuses to comply, the FBI then withdraws the NSL but keeps the gag order in place and he then fights them for an additional decade to get the gag order lifted. That's tenacity. This reminds me of the Lavabit case, wonder why the one shut down their service and the other managed to simply reject the requests: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavabi…
The Lavabit case was complicated by Ladar Levison's handling of the DOJ's request, and by the fact that his security architecture was "all-or-none" in a way that did not allow him to selectively disclose only the encrypted messages DOJ asked for.