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You might want to skim the decision (try searching for the word "authorize") in the case: http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/407/297.html http://casela

You might want to skim the decision (try searching for the word "authorize") in the case: http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/407/297.html http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/407/297.html This is semantics, but they're important. The investigation you mentioned isn't someone being investigated just for their protected speech, it's someone being investigated on suspicion of a specific crime. I do believe there are frameworks in which such investigations can be legal (but whether the NSLs themselves are sufficient or warrants are necessary is another matter) but I do not believe it follows that you can be investigated solely for [any] protected speech, which is what I interpreted your comment to mean. Could the speech create the suspicion in many contexts? Sure, I don't see why not. But it must actually do so, and it's the suspicion that provides the framework for the potentially legal search, not the speech. The real law enforcement activity I think this prohibits would be pure fishing expeditions against those engaged in lawful first amendment activities. If the head of the FBI decides he doesn't like a given newspaper because of what they've said, and he can't even name a crime he suspects they've committed, I do not believe he has the legal authority to authorize an investigation into the newspaper to see if he can find something that they're guilty of. I believe it violates first and fourth amendment protections under Keith. What precisely the bar is to prove or justify any such suspicion (or even if there's any oversight) is a separate question.

sandworm101 10y ago
>>I do not believe it follows that you can be investigated solely for [any] protected speech, which is what I interpreted your comment to mean. Then you did miss my point. Often cops/feds have to investigate whether something is or isn't protected speech. When those investigations find nothing (normal) they then appear to have been an investigation into protected speech, but that wasn't clear at the time. We cannot make such investigations illegal simply because they come to nothing.
- dannypgh 10y ago
  I didn't say the investigation is/should be illegal if they come to nothing. I said the are/should be illegal if they happen without suspicion that a specific crime has been committed. The state should not be able to target someone for investigation solely because they disagree with their speech and "think they might be guilty of something." They need to state/establish what that something is. That's my read of Keith. Material support of designated terrorist organizations is a crime under the law, and investigating someone for that is wholly different from investigating someone solely because they disagree with their protected first amendment activities. Consider again my newspaper example. With terrorism cases, they can point to the laws about supporting terrorism and say that's what the person is suspected of. They likewise need to have a law they can point to that they need to believe is broken before they target the newspaper for investigation because of their speech. How they have to do said pointing (warrants, NSLs, etc.) is a separate question, but in the absence of such suspicion I do believe the search is illegal.
  - tedks 10y ago
    The FBI targets people for long-term (in some cases years[1]) entrapment based only on their social circles, like being involved in environmentalism or being a Muslim[2]. This is pretty much the definition of the government investigating people and groups solely on the basis of disagreeing with their speech. This has probably been loosely the case for the entirety of America's existence (Jefferson passed the Sedition laws), but it was only in Hoover's FBI and the Second Red Scare's explicit ban on certain ideologies in government that this process became mechanized and effective. This was a project in the FBI you may have heard of called COINTELPRO. COINTELPRO effectively never ended, and the project's strategy and tactics have advanced over the years and been buttressed by the vast amount of surveillance an American resident is subject to. But, through it all, the whole point was to investigate people solely because the government disagreed with their speech, whether that was communist speech, pacifist speech, feminist speech, pan-africanist speech, etc.. If you want to make arguments like "those uppity negros really were a threat! Look at Huey Newton!" or "all communist groups had the potential to be foreign intelligence front groups!", consider that these arguments can be applied universally, to any ideology. The alt-right could be "investigated" under the same argument used to justify investigating the CPUSA, which is, "the russians could be there." So, you can believe what you want about the legality or illegality of this practice, but the fact is that it's been continuing unabated for a long time, and it doesn't show any sign of stopping soon. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_McDavid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_McDavid [2] https://theintercept.com/2015/02/26/fbi-manufacture-plots-terrorism-isis-grave-threats/ https://theintercept.com/2015/02/26/fbi-manufacture-plots-te...

sandworm101 10y ago

>>I do not believe it follows that you can be investigated solely for [any] protected speech, which is what I interpreted your comment to mean. Then you did miss my point. Often cops/feds have to investigate whether something is or isn't protected speech. When those investigations find nothing (normal) they then appear to have been an investigation into protected speech, but that wasn't clear at the time. We cannot make such investigations illegal simply because they come to nothing.

dannypgh 10y ago
I didn't say the investigation is/should be illegal if they come to nothing. I said the are/should be illegal if they happen without suspicion that a specific crime has been committed. The state should not be able to target someone for investigation solely because they disagree with their speech and "think they might be guilty of something." They need to state/establish what that something is. That's my read of Keith. Material support of designated terrorist organizations is a crime under the law, and investigating someone for that is wholly different from investigating someone solely because they disagree with their protected first amendment activities. Consider again my newspaper example. With terrorism cases, they can point to the laws about supporting terrorism and say that's what the person is suspected of. They likewise need to have a law they can point to that they need to believe is broken before they target the newspaper for investigation because of their speech. How they have to do said pointing (warrants, NSLs, etc.) is a separate question, but in the absence of such suspicion I do believe the search is illegal.
- tedks 10y ago
  The FBI targets people for long-term (in some cases years[1]) entrapment based only on their social circles, like being involved in environmentalism or being a Muslim[2]. This is pretty much the definition of the government investigating people and groups solely on the basis of disagreeing with their speech. This has probably been loosely the case for the entirety of America's existence (Jefferson passed the Sedition laws), but it was only in Hoover's FBI and the Second Red Scare's explicit ban on certain ideologies in government that this process became mechanized and effective. This was a project in the FBI you may have heard of called COINTELPRO. COINTELPRO effectively never ended, and the project's strategy and tactics have advanced over the years and been buttressed by the vast amount of surveillance an American resident is subject to. But, through it all, the whole point was to investigate people solely because the government disagreed with their speech, whether that was communist speech, pacifist speech, feminist speech, pan-africanist speech, etc.. If you want to make arguments like "those uppity negros really were a threat! Look at Huey Newton!" or "all communist groups had the potential to be foreign intelligence front groups!", consider that these arguments can be applied universally, to any ideology. The alt-right could be "investigated" under the same argument used to justify investigating the CPUSA, which is, "the russians could be there." So, you can believe what you want about the legality or illegality of this practice, but the fact is that it's been continuing unabated for a long time, and it doesn't show any sign of stopping soon. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_McDavid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_McDavid [2] https://theintercept.com/2015/02/26/fbi-manufacture-plots-terrorism-isis-grave-threats/ https://theintercept.com/2015/02/26/fbi-manufacture-plots-te...