General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums“What Is That Box?” — When The NSA Shows Up At Your Internet Company
http://www.buzzfeed.com/justinesharrock/what-is-that-box-when-the-nsa-shows-up-at-your-internet-compWhen people say the feds are monitoring what people are doing online, what does that mean? How does that work? When, and where, does it start?
Pete Ashdown, CEO of XMission, an internet service provider in Utah, knows. He received a Foreign Intelligence Service Act (FISA) warrant in 2010 mandating he let the feds monitor one of his customers, through his facility. He also received a broad gag order. In his own words:
The first thing I do when I get a law enforcement request is look for a court signature on it. Then I pass it to my attorneys and say, Is this legitimate? Does this qualify as a warrant? If it does, then we will respond to it. We are very up front that we respond to warrants.
If it isnt, then the attorneys write back: We dont believe it is in jurisdiction or is constitutional. We are happy to respond if you do get an FBI request in jurisdiction or you get a court order to do so.
The FISA request was a tricky one, because it was a warrant through the FISA court whether you believe that is legitimate or not. I have a hard time with secret courts. I ran it past my attorney and asked, Is there anyway we can fight this? and he said No. It is legitimate.
***the banality of evil.
Agony
(2,605 posts)Gag orders are not part of a functioning democracy.
"There is absolutely [a] need for secrecy when you are dealing with a criminal investigation. You dont want to tip off criminals being monitored. But you cant say, You can never talk about this ever, for the rest of your life.
The FISA court should be a public court, and documents should be sealed for a set period of time, [to] let people audit the actions later."
LuvNewcastle
(16,846 posts)Law enforcement thinks that everything they do is a criminal matter and everyone is a suspect until proven innocent. But of course, no one is really innocent in their eyes, either. We're all criminals; it's just that most of us haven't been caught yet. Due to gag orders, we can't talk about any of these investigations, either. So much for whistle-blowing.