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The man who won the right to discuss his National Security Letter (2011)
From January 2011, but well worth a re-listen today. This highlights one of the problems with government secrecy. National Security Letters come with a gag order that keeps the recipient from even discussing receipt of the letter with their lawyer.
- jdp23 13y agoNick Merrill did a Reddit AMA a couple of years ago: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/fjfby/iama_director_of_an_isp_who_was_the_first_person/ http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/fjfby/iama_director_of...
- driverdan 13y agoThis is terrible blogspam. How about linking to the original article from 2010? http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/08/nsl-gag-order-lifted/ http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/08/nsl-gag-order-lifte...
- jetti 13y agoTerrible blogspam? They have the audio interview at the top of the post for you to listen to the actual interview.
- jdmitch 13y agoThe audio from 2 years ago though...
- jetti 13y agoAnd the story that driverdan linked to is 2 years old as well. This may be a re-hashing of a 2 year old story by On The Media, but at least it is original content. The point isn't that the story is old, the point is that there was more to this than just a blog post and if you didn't listen to the interview, you missed out on that part.
- driverdan 13y agoI don't see any audio. They must be using Flash or 3rd party JS that I have blocked. The site looks like a typical cluttered blogspam blog to me[1]. They need some serious UI work. [1]: http://i.imgur.com/mnbGlEw.png http://i.imgur.com/mnbGlEw.png
- driverdan 13y agoUPDATE: I take back my statement. Apparently there is supposed to be an audio interview at the top which won't show up if you block Flash and/or 3rd party scripts / ads.
- h0w412d 13y agoNick Merrill tried to crowdfund an ISP way back that automatically encrypts all traffic, making surveillance impossible. Of course it ended underfunded.
- nfoz 13y agoIt didn't end, though its progress was slow/hurt by not meeting the targets. I think he's planning a (small) launch soon. http://www.calyxinstitute.org/ http://www.calyxinstitute.org/
- biot 13y agoWhat happens if the FBI hands you a National Security Letter but you tell them "I'm not good with legal matters at all so I won't even look at this until my legal team has had a chance to go over it in detail"? Can they verbally coerce you to read and comprehend the material?
- ebrenes 13y agoDoes it even matter if you read or comprehend the material? IANAL. As far as I'm aware knowledge of the law does not preclude it from affecting you. It's not a contract they're giving you, they don't need your consent. From my understanding they just notify you and it's up to you to make heads or tails of it.
- paxswill 13y agoI'm having trouble finding a source outside of an oblique reference in the Wikipedia article for NSLs, but yes, you can talk to an attorney about the letter. This was not the case originally (or at least in the opinion of the government), but the law was changed to allow consulting with a lawyer (and challenging the letter in court as well). IANAL, but I play one on the Internet.
- malandrew 13y agoI'm curious how these letters are delivered. If you know something is likely to be an NSL in the envelope, what happens if you just forward it along to someone else, such as a journalist, without ever opening it. Do people have a legal obligation to accept and read US mail?
- superuser2 13y agoYou probably get served with it, like a court summons or a lawsuit.