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Apparently in this case, T-Mobile caved and Google didn't: > The DHS also sought and obtained six months of phone records for Fort from T-Mobile, which include

Apparently in this case, T-Mobile caved and Google didn't: > The DHS also sought and obtained six months of phone records for Fort from T-Mobile, which included records for more than 10,000 calls and text messages. Fort was not notified the government was seeking the records until mid-July, when government lawyers produced them to her lawyers. Fort’s lawyers wrote in a filing this week they were “stunned” to see the government had unilaterally been able to obtain a log of her communications after a judge had warned them about obtaining records about a journalist. ... > In Fort’s case, Google did not comply with the summons for any of the accounts. The company responded to the DHS by saying it had not offered evidence of how it was related to a customs investigation. > A Google spokesperson said the company reviews each request for data it gets to ensure it is legal and pushes back when it is too broad or doesn’t follow the correct process.

edot 1mo ago
[flagged]
- noir_lord 1mo ago
  An extremely cosy relationship between large corporations and a government. I've seen this somewhere before and I can't quite put my finger on where I saw it.
- deleted 1mo ago
  [deleted]
- xoa 1mo ago
  >Since when were private companies part of the Judicial Branch? What part of GP's quote from the article gets you to "private companies are part of the judicial branch"? The judicial branch wasn't involved there, only the executive. All of us, private individuals or organizations, have the right to challenge any requests by the executive branch (and by the same token, unless forbidden by law we can also just voluntarily go along with its requests). The judicial branch can then rule on who is right. If the executive wants to force it then it can go to the judicial branch up front and get an actual for real warrant. If it wants to bypass judicial review, then it doesn't have the same legal force either. Here, it asked T-Mobile and Google for a bunch of stuff on a journalist. T-Mobile said sure. Google said no, come back with a warrant. >I don’t remember that part of the Constitution. Might want to reread if it's been awhile for you.
  - edot 1mo ago
    I get what you're saying, but "the company reviews each request for data it gets to ensure it is legal" just sounds like something a judge should do, no?
    - PretzelPirate 1mo ago
      Company legal departments should absolutely review requests and make sure they're legal before handing over data. If they suspect the request isn't legal, they can refuse it, and then it can be escalated to a judge. Are you suggesting that every request should go through a judge before it gets sent to a company? That would be great, but even then, different judges interpret laws differently, so a company will still do a legal review before deciding whether or not to comply.
    - xoa 1mo ago
      >but "the company reviews each request for data it gets to ensure it is legal" just sounds like something a judge should do, no? No, unless you're arguing that the government should be barred from even making voluntary requests at all? I'm not sure I'd agree with that either though, there's plenty of times where a government request really is just an honest "request" for pure info, like a poll or survey or something on how a program is working and any feedback participants want to give. Though of course it's also easy to see how things like 3rd party doctrine have expanded in effect over time and gotten badly abused, particularly in combination with other levers government has. Perhaps that doctrine should be abolished and the government shouldn't be able to make "voluntary requests" for anything that'd touch on a criminal or civil investigation (so they'd still be able to ask for surveys and the like), but that'd require some careful consideration. Or maybe there are some reasonable limits in terms of data automatically and unavoidably collected (like cellular location) vs data voluntarily shared. Regardless however, if the government wants to compel somebody to comply, well that's literally what a warrant (or court order) is for right? If the government chooses not to involve a judge in a request for data that'd require a warrant to force, then yeah of course the private party they're asking gets to decide whether to voluntarily go along with that or not. That's the trade.

edot 1mo ago

[flagged]

noir_lord 1mo ago
An extremely cosy relationship between large corporations and a government. I've seen this somewhere before and I can't quite put my finger on where I saw it.
deleted 1mo ago
[deleted]
xoa 1mo ago
>Since when were private companies part of the Judicial Branch? What part of GP's quote from the article gets you to "private companies are part of the judicial branch"? The judicial branch wasn't involved there, only the executive. All of us, private individuals or organizations, have the right to challenge any requests by the executive branch (and by the same token, unless forbidden by law we can also just voluntarily go along with its requests). The judicial branch can then rule on who is right. If the executive wants to force it then it can go to the judicial branch up front and get an actual for real warrant. If it wants to bypass judicial review, then it doesn't have the same legal force either. Here, it asked T-Mobile and Google for a bunch of stuff on a journalist. T-Mobile said sure. Google said no, come back with a warrant. >I don’t remember that part of the Constitution. Might want to reread if it's been awhile for you.
- edot 1mo ago
  I get what you're saying, but "the company reviews each request for data it gets to ensure it is legal" just sounds like something a judge should do, no?
  - PretzelPirate 1mo ago
    Company legal departments should absolutely review requests and make sure they're legal before handing over data. If they suspect the request isn't legal, they can refuse it, and then it can be escalated to a judge. Are you suggesting that every request should go through a judge before it gets sent to a company? That would be great, but even then, different judges interpret laws differently, so a company will still do a legal review before deciding whether or not to comply.
  - xoa 1mo ago
    >but "the company reviews each request for data it gets to ensure it is legal" just sounds like something a judge should do, no? No, unless you're arguing that the government should be barred from even making voluntary requests at all? I'm not sure I'd agree with that either though, there's plenty of times where a government request really is just an honest "request" for pure info, like a poll or survey or something on how a program is working and any feedback participants want to give. Though of course it's also easy to see how things like 3rd party doctrine have expanded in effect over time and gotten badly abused, particularly in combination with other levers government has. Perhaps that doctrine should be abolished and the government shouldn't be able to make "voluntary requests" for anything that'd touch on a criminal or civil investigation (so they'd still be able to ask for surveys and the like), but that'd require some careful consideration. Or maybe there are some reasonable limits in terms of data automatically and unavoidably collected (like cellular location) vs data voluntarily shared. Regardless however, if the government wants to compel somebody to comply, well that's literally what a warrant (or court order) is for right? If the government chooses not to involve a judge in a request for data that'd require a warrant to force, then yeah of course the private party they're asking gets to decide whether to voluntarily go along with that or not. That's the trade.