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This is a very serious accusation to raise, and I'm hoping someone more familiar with FOIA procedure chimes in. My own guesses as to what happened in descending

This is a very serious accusation to raise, and I'm hoping someone more familiar with FOIA procedure chimes in. My own guesses as to what happened in descending order of probability: - There was a warrant and a properly worded FOIA request will eventually dredge it up - There was a warrant and it's under court seal - DigitalOne fabricated part or all of the story - There was no warrant I will lawyer up if necessary but I think it's very early to be saying that there was a warrantless search.

tptacek 15y ago
Why will you lawyer up? I'll be cheering you on, but to what end?
- dillona 15y ago
  I think he runs pinboard
  - idlewords 15y ago
    I believe tptacek knows that. I think his point was, what do I hope to accomplish by tilting at this particular windmill.
    - redthrowaway 15y ago
      It's unfortunate that your responsibilities as a business person preclude your taking on the FBI in this regard. I, for one, would be very interested to know on what basis they executed this seizure. That said, I would not expect any business, even one affected by it, to expend capital in an effort to find out.
- idlewords 15y ago
  Well, I certainly hope not to. But I'm a paranoid person by nature, and I run a service for users even more paranoid than I am, so I'd like to get some documentary evidence about what happened. I don't trust the DigitalOne people at all and so far everything we know about the raid has come from them. If I have to I'm willing to throw some money into the legal system to get some answers for our users.
  - patio11 15y ago
    You are now running a denial of service attack on yourself. Pretend I have Oracular knowledge about this case. What could I possibly tell you that would be more important to your users than your next three weeks of regular operations? Is "The FBI had a warrant for someone other than you." that information? Is "The FBI did not have a warrant but thought they had exigency, targeting someone other than you?" that information?
    - rdl 15y ago
      Yeah, the takeaway from this is "pick vendors better in the future" (I know a lot of great hosting/colo options, would love to have Pinboard...), and "have redundancy ACROSS providers." Don't focus on recovering losses, focus on the future. Buying colo (or especially higher level stuff like managed hosting or even worse, EC2 or PaaS) from a single vendor with multiple sites doesn't protect you from: 1) Them going out of business 2) Them deciding to bounce you as a customer 3) Them getting raided by FBI/Al Qaeda/etc. at multiple sites You ALSO want to make sure the providers you pick don't share much physical infrastructure (e.g. don't use SoftLayer AND Internap at the same physical buildings...). The hassle is it means 2+ sets of support numbers, 2+ sets of provisioning procedures, 2+ sets of billing and contractual relationships, etc., but it's worth it. This is why having standardized provisioning procedures across vendors is awesome (everyone uses x86 now, but having standardized management tools and APIs would be nice, especially for cloud stuff).
anigbrowl 15y ago
I wouldn't hold my breath. Their records system is terrible, in the sense of being woefully under-resourced and their software is out of date. For a recent case like this, it's highly likely that it has not yet been processed into their central records system. As a first step, I'd say go to the FOIA page on their website and look at the current backlogs. I haven't followed this episode closely, but I'd say the chances that they just steamrollered their way in without a warrant are quite low.
jellicle 15y ago
Justice must not only be done; justice must be seen to be done. If an FOIA request does not retrieve a warrant, there was no warrant for the purposes of public justice, even if there was a warrant. I hope that sentence was clear.
- Helianthus 15y ago
  Crystal.
albertsun 15y ago
Here's a guide to FOIA requests from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. You don't need a lawyer to file a FOIA request, there's even a handy letter generator tool linked to from that page.
econgeeker 15y ago
There's no such thing (legally) as a warrant under court seal. If there is no warrant presented, and no warrant that can be gotten simply upon request by the searched party, then this was a warrantless search. If it was a warrantless search, it was a crime, and every participant engaged in a felony (presuming they were armed.) US Code 18-242 makes it a felony to violate constitutional rights under color of law (while armed. If unarmed I think it is not a felony, a lower penalty applies.) If the constitution is the highest law of the land then no subordinate organization (namely congress) can make a law that violates the constitution. Congress was authorized to make laws, and the government was given limited, enumerated powers in the enumerated powers section. If a particular law is not under and enumerated power, or involution of the constitution, it is never a valid law. The moment it is signed, it is null and void-- according the the supreme court in Mabury v. Madison. Thus, a law authorizing a "court seal" for warrants, which violates the fourth ammendement, even if it exists, is null and void, and does not need to be struck down by any court to be null and void. Without this law, without any presented warrant, the search is thus illegal, and every participant is a felon (if they were armed.) I say all this to point out, just how far from obeying the law our government is. Of course, it is absurd to expect that any prosecutor in the justice department will bring any of these people up on charges (presuming that an investigation reveals the facts to be as supposed in the context of this discussion.) Since the government is not operating within the bounds of the law, the government doesn't have the protection of the law, and the government is, itself, a criminal organization (to the extend that the previous two clauses are true.) Denial of this-- which is not really an opinion so much as legal fact-- is why americans are constantly surprised when things get worse and worse. (For instance: The TSA is not valid under the law, all of their searches are illegal. But nothing was done about them, so now they are molesting children in public.) Things are going to get much worse until people start standing up to the government.

tptacek 15y ago

Why will you lawyer up? I'll be cheering you on, but to what end?

dillona 15y ago
I think he runs pinboard
- idlewords 15y ago
  I believe tptacek knows that. I think his point was, what do I hope to accomplish by tilting at this particular windmill.
  - redthrowaway 15y ago
    It's unfortunate that your responsibilities as a business person preclude your taking on the FBI in this regard. I, for one, would be very interested to know on what basis they executed this seizure. That said, I would not expect any business, even one affected by it, to expend capital in an effort to find out.
idlewords 15y ago
Well, I certainly hope not to. But I'm a paranoid person by nature, and I run a service for users even more paranoid than I am, so I'd like to get some documentary evidence about what happened. I don't trust the DigitalOne people at all and so far everything we know about the raid has come from them. If I have to I'm willing to throw some money into the legal system to get some answers for our users.
- patio11 15y ago
  You are now running a denial of service attack on yourself. Pretend I have Oracular knowledge about this case. What could I possibly tell you that would be more important to your users than your next three weeks of regular operations? Is "The FBI had a warrant for someone other than you." that information? Is "The FBI did not have a warrant but thought they had exigency, targeting someone other than you?" that information?
  - rdl 15y ago
    Yeah, the takeaway from this is "pick vendors better in the future" (I know a lot of great hosting/colo options, would love to have Pinboard...), and "have redundancy ACROSS providers." Don't focus on recovering losses, focus on the future. Buying colo (or especially higher level stuff like managed hosting or even worse, EC2 or PaaS) from a single vendor with multiple sites doesn't protect you from: 1) Them going out of business 2) Them deciding to bounce you as a customer 3) Them getting raided by FBI/Al Qaeda/etc. at multiple sites You ALSO want to make sure the providers you pick don't share much physical infrastructure (e.g. don't use SoftLayer AND Internap at the same physical buildings...). The hassle is it means 2+ sets of support numbers, 2+ sets of provisioning procedures, 2+ sets of billing and contractual relationships, etc., but it's worth it. This is why having standardized provisioning procedures across vendors is awesome (everyone uses x86 now, but having standardized management tools and APIs would be nice, especially for cloud stuff).

anigbrowl 15y ago

I wouldn't hold my breath. Their records system is terrible, in the sense of being woefully under-resourced and their software is out of date. For a recent case like this, it's highly likely that it has not yet been processed into their central records system. As a first step, I'd say go to the FOIA page on their website and look at the current backlogs. I haven't followed this episode closely, but I'd say the chances that they just steamrollered their way in without a warrant are quite low.

jellicle 15y ago

Justice must not only be done; justice must be seen to be done. If an FOIA request does not retrieve a warrant, there was no warrant for the purposes of public justice, even if there was a warrant. I hope that sentence was clear.

Helianthus 15y ago
Crystal.

albertsun 15y ago

Here's a guide to FOIA requests from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. You don't need a lawyer to file a FOIA request, there's even a handy letter generator tool linked to from that page.

econgeeker 15y ago

There's no such thing (legally) as a warrant under court seal. If there is no warrant presented, and no warrant that can be gotten simply upon request by the searched party, then this was a warrantless search. If it was a warrantless search, it was a crime, and every participant engaged in a felony (presuming they were armed.) US Code 18-242 makes it a felony to violate constitutional rights under color of law (while armed. If unarmed I think it is not a felony, a lower penalty applies.) If the constitution is the highest law of the land then no subordinate organization (namely congress) can make a law that violates the constitution. Congress was authorized to make laws, and the government was given limited, enumerated powers in the enumerated powers section. If a particular law is not under and enumerated power, or involution of the constitution, it is never a valid law. The moment it is signed, it is null and void-- according the the supreme court in Mabury v. Madison. Thus, a law authorizing a "court seal" for warrants, which violates the fourth ammendement, even if it exists, is null and void, and does not need to be struck down by any court to be null and void. Without this law, without any presented warrant, the search is thus illegal, and every participant is a felon (if they were armed.) I say all this to point out, just how far from obeying the law our government is. Of course, it is absurd to expect that any prosecutor in the justice department will bring any of these people up on charges (presuming that an investigation reveals the facts to be as supposed in the context of this discussion.) Since the government is not operating within the bounds of the law, the government doesn't have the protection of the law, and the government is, itself, a criminal organization (to the extend that the previous two clauses are true.) Denial of this-- which is not really an opinion so much as legal fact-- is why americans are constantly surprised when things get worse and worse. (For instance: The TSA is not valid under the law, all of their searches are illegal. But nothing was done about them, so now they are molesting children in public.) Things are going to get much worse until people start standing up to the government.