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Maybe it's the quotes selected for the article, but it seems like the judge simply doesn't get the objections. And the reasoning is really strange: "Even if th

Maybe it's the quotes selected for the article, but it seems like the judge simply doesn't get the objections. And the reasoning is really strange: "Even if the Court were to entertain such questions, they would only work to unduly delay the resolution of the legal questions actually at issue." So because the lawsuit pertains to copyright, we can ignore possible constitutional issues because it'll make things take longer? Also, rejecting something out of hand simply because a lawyer didn't draft it seems really antithetical to what a judge should be doing. There is no requirement for a lawyer to be utilized.

judofyr 1y ago
> … but it seems like the judge simply doesn't get the objections. And the reasoning is really strange The full order is linked in the article: https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/NYT-v-OpenAI-Order-6-20-25.pdf https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/NYT-v.... If you read that it becomes more clear: The person who complained here filed a specific "motion to intervene" which has a strict set of requirements. These requirements were not met. IANAL, but it doesn't seem too strange to me here. > Also, rejecting something out of hand simply because a lawyer didn't draft it seems really antithetical to what a judge should be doing. There is no requirement for a lawyer to be utilized. This is also mentioned in the order: An individual have the right to represent themselves, but a corporation does not. This was filed by a corporation initially. The judge did exactly what a judge what supposed to do: Interpret the law as written.
- yieldcrv 1y ago
  So the arguments are sound but the procedure wasnt followed so someone else just needs to follow the procedure and get our chats deletable?
  - otterley 1y ago
    The judge went further to say the arguments weren't sound, either.
    - Aeolun 1y ago
      They went further and said they didn’t find the arguments sound. Personally I find it really hard to see anything sound in the initial order.
Alive-in-2025 1y ago
That appears to be the case to me too. There are so many similar services that people use that could fall victim to this same issue of privacy . We should have extremely strong privacy laws preventing this, somehow blocking over-broad court orders. And we don't. Imagine these case: 1. a court order that a dating service saves off all chats and messages between people connecting on the service (instead of just saving off say the chats from a suspected abuser) 2. saving all text messages going through a cell phone company 3. how about saving all google docs? Probably billions of these a day are being created. 4. And how has the govt not tried to put out a legal request that signal add backdoors and save all text messages (because there will no doubt be nefarious users like our own secretary of defense). I think it would take a very significant reason to succeed against a private organization like signal. The power and reach of this makes me wonder if the US govt already has been doing this to normal commercial services (outside of phone calls and texting). I recall reading back in the day they were "tapping" / legally accessing through some security laws phone company trunks. And then we learned about tapping google communications from Edward Snowden.
- chrisweekly 1y ago
  "saving off"? this is a strange turn of phrase
  - TheDong 1y ago
    Maybe it's a regional dialect? You can find a lot of examples of it in the wild, for example on microsoft forums: 1. https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/saving-off-a-column-of-calculated-values-each-week/00fa5d37-583b-4667-a8ba-0e37bc4614dd https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/savin... 2. https://community.fabric.microsoft.com/t5/Service/End-User-Saving-Custom-Copy-of-Report-in-App-without-Consent/m-p/1524776 https://community.fabric.microsoft.com/t5/Service/End-User-S... In both cases it's being used for "copying". We can also see it was used as early as 15 years ago on this very site ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1182478 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1182478 ), so it's not a new turn of phrase. My experience has definitely been that I've heard it more online and in San Francisco, and not very often in Germany, Texas, or Russia. Are you in one of those areas? I feel like the etymology is something like "print off a few sheets" becoming "copy off a sheet with the copier", and then to the more general digital copy meaning.
freejazz 1y ago
>So because the lawsuit pertains to copyright, we can ignore possible constitutional issues because it'll make things take longer? What constitutional issues do you believe are present? > There is no requirement for a lawyer to be utilized. Corporations must be represented by an attorney, by law. So that's not true outright. Second, if someone did file something pro-se, they might get a little leeway. But the business isn't represented pro-se, so why on earth would the judge apply a lower standard appropriate for a pro-se party so a sophisticated law firm, easily one of the largest and best in the country? When you are struggling to reason around really straightforward issues like that, it does not leave me with confidence about your other judgments regarding the issues present here.
- paulddraper 1y ago
  > What constitutional issues do you believe are present? 4th Amendment (Search and Seizure)
  - kopecs 1y ago
    Do you think the 4th amendment enjoins courts from requiring the preservation of records as part of discovery? The court is just requiring OpenAI to maintain records it already maintains and segregate them. Even if one thinks that _is_ a government seizure, which it isn't---See Burdeau v. McDowell, 256 U.S. 465 (1921); cf. Walter v. United States, 447 U.S. 649, 656 (1980) (discussing the "state agency" requirement)---no search or seizure has even occurred. There's no reasonable expectation of privacy in the records you're sending to OpenAI (you know OpenAI has them!!; See, e.g., Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735 (1979)) and you don't have any possessory interest in the records. See, e.g., United States v. Jacobsen, 466 U.S. 109 (1984).
    - alwa 1y ago
      This would help explain why entities with a “zero data retention” agreement are “not affected,” then, per OpenAI’s statement at the time? Because records aren’t created for those queries in the first place, so there’s nothing to retain?
TZubiri 1y ago
>Also, rejecting something out of hand simply because a lawyer didn't draft it seems really antithetical to what a judge should be doing. There is no requirement for a lawyer to be utilized. This is 100% wrong. Pro Se litigation is well regulated, in the first case a non lawyer tried to file in representation of his company, which is not himself so it's not pro se, and you need to be a licensed lawyer to represent someone else. "So because the lawsuit pertains to copyright, we can ignore possible constitutional issues because it'll make things take longer?" Not quite, the contention is that the judge doesn't see how it would be successful, so it would be a delay that never addresses a constitutional issue by her judgment.
sidewndr46 1y ago
Judges generally are either lawyers or have legal experience. The judge in question was formerly a practicing lawyer, albeit claims to have nearly completed a Ph.D. in zoology. It's extremely unlikely that a protected class is going to start treating a non-protected class with the same regard in society. I'm not even sure how there could be a constitutional issue here, but it probably isn't for this court to figure out anyways.

judofyr 1y ago

> … but it seems like the judge simply doesn't get the objections. And the reasoning is really strange The full order is linked in the article: https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/NYT-v-OpenAI-Order-6-20-25.pdf https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/NYT-v.... If you read that it becomes more clear: The person who complained here filed a specific "motion to intervene" which has a strict set of requirements. These requirements were not met. IANAL, but it doesn't seem too strange to me here. > Also, rejecting something out of hand simply because a lawyer didn't draft it seems really antithetical to what a judge should be doing. There is no requirement for a lawyer to be utilized. This is also mentioned in the order: An individual have the right to represent themselves, but a corporation does not. This was filed by a corporation initially. The judge did exactly what a judge what supposed to do: Interpret the law as written.

yieldcrv 1y ago
So the arguments are sound but the procedure wasnt followed so someone else just needs to follow the procedure and get our chats deletable?
- otterley 1y ago
  The judge went further to say the arguments weren't sound, either.
  - Aeolun 1y ago
    They went further and said they didn’t find the arguments sound. Personally I find it really hard to see anything sound in the initial order.

Alive-in-2025 1y ago

That appears to be the case to me too. There are so many similar services that people use that could fall victim to this same issue of privacy . We should have extremely strong privacy laws preventing this, somehow blocking over-broad court orders. And we don't. Imagine these case: 1. a court order that a dating service saves off all chats and messages between people connecting on the service (instead of just saving off say the chats from a suspected abuser) 2. saving all text messages going through a cell phone company 3. how about saving all google docs? Probably billions of these a day are being created. 4. And how has the govt not tried to put out a legal request that signal add backdoors and save all text messages (because there will no doubt be nefarious users like our own secretary of defense). I think it would take a very significant reason to succeed against a private organization like signal. The power and reach of this makes me wonder if the US govt already has been doing this to normal commercial services (outside of phone calls and texting). I recall reading back in the day they were "tapping" / legally accessing through some security laws phone company trunks. And then we learned about tapping google communications from Edward Snowden.

chrisweekly 1y ago
"saving off"? this is a strange turn of phrase
- TheDong 1y ago
  Maybe it's a regional dialect? You can find a lot of examples of it in the wild, for example on microsoft forums: 1. https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/saving-off-a-column-of-calculated-values-each-week/00fa5d37-583b-4667-a8ba-0e37bc4614dd https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/savin... 2. https://community.fabric.microsoft.com/t5/Service/End-User-Saving-Custom-Copy-of-Report-in-App-without-Consent/m-p/1524776 https://community.fabric.microsoft.com/t5/Service/End-User-S... In both cases it's being used for "copying". We can also see it was used as early as 15 years ago on this very site ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1182478 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1182478 ), so it's not a new turn of phrase. My experience has definitely been that I've heard it more online and in San Francisco, and not very often in Germany, Texas, or Russia. Are you in one of those areas? I feel like the etymology is something like "print off a few sheets" becoming "copy off a sheet with the copier", and then to the more general digital copy meaning.

freejazz 1y ago

>So because the lawsuit pertains to copyright, we can ignore possible constitutional issues because it'll make things take longer? What constitutional issues do you believe are present? > There is no requirement for a lawyer to be utilized. Corporations must be represented by an attorney, by law. So that's not true outright. Second, if someone did file something pro-se, they might get a little leeway. But the business isn't represented pro-se, so why on earth would the judge apply a lower standard appropriate for a pro-se party so a sophisticated law firm, easily one of the largest and best in the country? When you are struggling to reason around really straightforward issues like that, it does not leave me with confidence about your other judgments regarding the issues present here.

paulddraper 1y ago
> What constitutional issues do you believe are present? 4th Amendment (Search and Seizure)
- kopecs 1y ago
  Do you think the 4th amendment enjoins courts from requiring the preservation of records as part of discovery? The court is just requiring OpenAI to maintain records it already maintains and segregate them. Even if one thinks that _is_ a government seizure, which it isn't---See Burdeau v. McDowell, 256 U.S. 465 (1921); cf. Walter v. United States, 447 U.S. 649, 656 (1980) (discussing the "state agency" requirement)---no search or seizure has even occurred. There's no reasonable expectation of privacy in the records you're sending to OpenAI (you know OpenAI has them!!; See, e.g., Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735 (1979)) and you don't have any possessory interest in the records. See, e.g., United States v. Jacobsen, 466 U.S. 109 (1984).
  - alwa 1y ago
    This would help explain why entities with a “zero data retention” agreement are “not affected,” then, per OpenAI’s statement at the time? Because records aren’t created for those queries in the first place, so there’s nothing to retain?

TZubiri 1y ago

>Also, rejecting something out of hand simply because a lawyer didn't draft it seems really antithetical to what a judge should be doing. There is no requirement for a lawyer to be utilized. This is 100% wrong. Pro Se litigation is well regulated, in the first case a non lawyer tried to file in representation of his company, which is not himself so it's not pro se, and you need to be a licensed lawyer to represent someone else. "So because the lawsuit pertains to copyright, we can ignore possible constitutional issues because it'll make things take longer?" Not quite, the contention is that the judge doesn't see how it would be successful, so it would be a delay that never addresses a constitutional issue by her judgment.

sidewndr46 1y ago

Judges generally are either lawyers or have legal experience. The judge in question was formerly a practicing lawyer, albeit claims to have nearly completed a Ph.D. in zoology. It's extremely unlikely that a protected class is going to start treating a non-protected class with the same regard in society. I'm not even sure how there could be a constitutional issue here, but it probably isn't for this court to figure out anyways.