3 ms·

If someone asked me to hand over access to a database with thousands if not millions of peoples PII, I would expect it to be "on the books", not just some fishi

If someone asked me to hand over access to a database with thousands if not millions of peoples PII, I would expect it to be "on the books", not just some fishing expedition. I would feel forced to hire lawyers just to validate the request. Fishing around would cause real harm to innocent bystanders. I understand the practicality of smaller scale inquiries, but at a certain size the rules really aught to change, no?

wyldfire 5y ago
Well, yeah hire lawyers! > I understand the practicality of smaller scale inquiries, but at a certain size the rules really aught to change, no? shrug throw it on the pile of sorely needed legislative changes. The laws just haven't kept up with things.
autoexec 5y ago
> If someone asked me to hand over access to a database with thousands if not millions of peoples PII, I would expect it to be "on the books", not just some fishing expedition. I would feel forced to hire lawyers just to validate the request. Fishing around would cause real harm to innocent bystanders. In the US you may not even be given any choice in the matter. They just hand you a national security letter and you're forced to give them access to anything they want for as long as they want it while being forbidden from ever telling anyone (your customers, your shareholders, the press, etc) that it's even happening. The laws really need to be changed, but how do you petition government to give up so much power? Hell, the NSA has outright lied to congress about what they're doing so our lawmakers can't even know about the data collection going on until some brave whistleblower comes along who is willing to sacrifice everything to let us know.
- samus 5y ago
  A agent with black sunglasses and a national security letter is a very different case from cops going on a fishing trip. It's a bad idea to ignore the former. But there is probably (IANAL) no requirement to answer to queries of the latter, unless they also have a court order.
- rhizome 5y ago
  It's not and doesn't have to be an NSL, law enforcemnt can easily get a warrant via the third party doctrine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_doctrine

wyldfire 5y ago

Well, yeah hire lawyers! > I understand the practicality of smaller scale inquiries, but at a certain size the rules really aught to change, no? shrug throw it on the pile of sorely needed legislative changes. The laws just haven't kept up with things.

autoexec 5y ago

> If someone asked me to hand over access to a database with thousands if not millions of peoples PII, I would expect it to be "on the books", not just some fishing expedition. I would feel forced to hire lawyers just to validate the request. Fishing around would cause real harm to innocent bystanders. In the US you may not even be given any choice in the matter. They just hand you a national security letter and you're forced to give them access to anything they want for as long as they want it while being forbidden from ever telling anyone (your customers, your shareholders, the press, etc) that it's even happening. The laws really need to be changed, but how do you petition government to give up so much power? Hell, the NSA has outright lied to congress about what they're doing so our lawmakers can't even know about the data collection going on until some brave whistleblower comes along who is willing to sacrifice everything to let us know.

samus 5y ago
A agent with black sunglasses and a national security letter is a very different case from cops going on a fishing trip. It's a bad idea to ignore the former. But there is probably (IANAL) no requirement to answer to queries of the latter, unless they also have a court order.
rhizome 5y ago
It's not and doesn't have to be an NSL, law enforcemnt can easily get a warrant via the third party doctrine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_doctrine