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That <handwave government secretsauce> actually exists. National Security Letters come with a gag order. You are told not to tell anyone, not your spouse, not

That <handwave government secretsauce> actually exists. National Security Letters come with a gag order. You are told not to tell anyone, not your spouse, not your lawyer, not anyone, and they last forever. Presumably, if someone asks if you've ever been served a NSL, you're supposed to lie and say "no." One of the few that we know about is describe here, where a ISP provider broke the gag order to speak with his attorney, and the ACLU, and eventually the order was lifted. http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/08/nsl-gag-order-lifted http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/08/nsl-gag-order-lifte... There have been hundreds of thousands of NSLs issued since they were created. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter

DannyBee 13y ago
1. "Presumably, if someone asks if you've ever been served a NSL, you're supposed to lie and say "no."" This is an awful large presumption. You could simply say nothing, and not answer. 2. the only courts to ever confront the NSL's compelled silence have ruled it unconstitutional. There are zero courts that have ever okay'd this. 3. The "not your lawyer" part is now explicitly wrong, as the law now states (and has since 2006), "shall disclose to any person (other than those to whom such disclosure is necessary to comply with the request or an attorney to obtain legal advice or legal assistance with respect to the request)". 4. Judicial review of any NSL may now be had (again, since Mar 9, 2006), in a normal district court. See "18 USC § 3511 - Judicial review of requests for information" There are plenty of reasons to generate large amounts of righteous indignation about NSL's, but it would be nice if you actually got the law right in the hyperbole.
- nostromo 13y ago
  Thanks for the correction, I'm glad to hear the law was modified. I went back to the story in Wired and I see they did make note of the change to the law.
declan 13y ago
First, by citing NSLs, you're unintentionally proving the point of the article. Google recently began disclosing how many NSLs it received. NSLs do not require the recipient to lie. Second, two courts have ruled that NSL gag orders are unconstitutional (this is before the Ninth Circuit now with a summer briefing schedule). The <secretsauce> lie order you speculate, with any evidence, exists would be extra doubleplusungood unconstitutional. (BTW, I was the first to disclose less than two weeks ago that Google is litigating two different NSL cases. I daresay I'm familiar with the topic...)

DannyBee 13y ago

1. "Presumably, if someone asks if you've ever been served a NSL, you're supposed to lie and say "no."" This is an awful large presumption. You could simply say nothing, and not answer. 2. the only courts to ever confront the NSL's compelled silence have ruled it unconstitutional. There are zero courts that have ever okay'd this. 3. The "not your lawyer" part is now explicitly wrong, as the law now states (and has since 2006), "shall disclose to any person (other than those to whom such disclosure is necessary to comply with the request or an attorney to obtain legal advice or legal assistance with respect to the request)". 4. Judicial review of any NSL may now be had (again, since Mar 9, 2006), in a normal district court. See "18 USC § 3511 - Judicial review of requests for information" There are plenty of reasons to generate large amounts of righteous indignation about NSL's, but it would be nice if you actually got the law right in the hyperbole.

nostromo 13y ago
Thanks for the correction, I'm glad to hear the law was modified. I went back to the story in Wired and I see they did make note of the change to the law.

declan 13y ago

First, by citing NSLs, you're unintentionally proving the point of the article. Google recently began disclosing how many NSLs it received. NSLs do not require the recipient to lie. Second, two courts have ruled that NSL gag orders are unconstitutional (this is before the Ninth Circuit now with a summer briefing schedule). The <secretsauce> lie order you speculate, with any evidence, exists would be extra doubleplusungood unconstitutional. (BTW, I was the first to disclose less than two weeks ago that Google is litigating two different NSL cases. I daresay I'm familiar with the topic...)