5 ms·

The govts request was akin to asking for your hidden phone number in a phone book full of hidden phone numbers. On its face it was specific but it could not ac

by MWil 13y ago

The govts request was akin to asking for your hidden phone number in a phone book full of hidden phone numbers. On its face it was specific but it could not actually be carried out without generally applying to 400k people.

res0nat0r 13y ago
Again, a broad request like this is not illegal...
- retrogradeorbit 13y ago
  This is true, of course. The dominant power never legislates against its own self interest. And so many of the darkest parts of human history were done legally. The real issue here goes deeper than the law. The thing is, not many people believe a word the government says any-more. This is the government that doesn't "collect" any information on their citizens, doesn't "torture" anyone and so on. The government can make any promises it wants, with no intention of fulfilling them, then claim that the meanings of the words are not what you think they are, but the real meanings are secret, and why they're secret, is secret, and no one can ever know the true meaning lest we all be killed by terrorists. And isn't it funny that the government can't seem to bring itself to find this pen-register information development fee, but there seems to be an infinite line of deficit spending for all kinds of corporate subsidies, bank bailouts, spying equipment and wedding killing drones. The lawyers may argue and the courts may rule, but at the end of the day the core of this apple is rotten. And there's worms in it. Take a bite. It tastes like "freedom".
- malandrew 13y ago
  I can't understand why it is not illegal by way of being unconstitutional since it clearly tramples on the 4th amendment rights of all the other subscribers. Absent clear mechanisms for watching the watchmen to make sure they not only respecting the 4th amendment rights of the other subscribers, but technically incapable of doing so (in order to mitigate rogue actors that want to impress their superiors via fishing expeditions), I can't see why we should have any reason to believe this information will not be abused. The government, especially the NSA and the FBI (by way of parallel construction), have proven to be outright liars. This alone should be enough for a judge to rule against the right of the government to make such broad requests. The government has be proven guilty of lying here. The burden is now on them to show that they are no longer guilty.
dalke 13y ago
The government stated that they have filters which will make it so that no one would see any information other than what is requested. The judge stated that that was reasonable. Using your analogy, the government wanted to "grep '^target_name$' phone_book.txt", so while software did see all 400k phone numbers, the government did not. I happen to disagree with the court on this, but I think your analogy isn't useful as to understand why. Instead, there should be a balancing of cost vs. impact. Levinson/Lavasoft stated that they would provide that pen register information for a development fee of some $2,000-$3,500. (Note: Verizon's price list says they charge about $700 for access to that data.) The government refused to pay, saying that they were not aware of paying anyone else for pen trap data. So the first question is, how much non-revenue generating work can a company be forced to do in order to respond to a pen register request? Obviously the answer has to be non-zero in order for the law to be meaningful, but it can't drive a company out of business. The government points out that a cheap solution, which bypasses the internal architecture, is for the company to provide access to all of the data, and use filters to remove all non-relevant data. The secondary question is, where does the boundary sit? Is it at the company/filter layer, where the company is force to release all records to the filter, or with the filter/human investigator layer, where the humans only see the relevant data? Personally, I put it on the company/filter layer. The government and the court disagree with me. Their view is that you can trust the filter to do what it says it does. (When Levinson asked for oversight or audit of the filter, the judge denied the request.) However, in the case of a "grep ... phonebook", where the filter program can be audited, and run with oversight from both sides, then I find the request to be more reasonable.
- MWil 13y ago
  As far as the law goes, there should always be disclaimers that metaphors and analogies are sometimes useful but only get you so far. Especially when it comes to technology, they almost never hold water and look silly years down the line when the technology is better understood by the general population. I don't have the necessary education or knowledge to make a better analogy so for that I apologize. EDIT: Oh, I am a lawyer. I was just noting that in law school (and internet law especially) you have to be wary of judges/parties using analogies in their arguments b/c they are almost always imperfect in one way or another

by MWil 13y ago

res0nat0r 13y ago

Again, a broad request like this is not illegal...

retrogradeorbit 13y ago
This is true, of course. The dominant power never legislates against its own self interest. And so many of the darkest parts of human history were done legally. The real issue here goes deeper than the law. The thing is, not many people believe a word the government says any-more. This is the government that doesn't "collect" any information on their citizens, doesn't "torture" anyone and so on. The government can make any promises it wants, with no intention of fulfilling them, then claim that the meanings of the words are not what you think they are, but the real meanings are secret, and why they're secret, is secret, and no one can ever know the true meaning lest we all be killed by terrorists. And isn't it funny that the government can't seem to bring itself to find this pen-register information development fee, but there seems to be an infinite line of deficit spending for all kinds of corporate subsidies, bank bailouts, spying equipment and wedding killing drones. The lawyers may argue and the courts may rule, but at the end of the day the core of this apple is rotten. And there's worms in it. Take a bite. It tastes like "freedom".
malandrew 13y ago
I can't understand why it is not illegal by way of being unconstitutional since it clearly tramples on the 4th amendment rights of all the other subscribers. Absent clear mechanisms for watching the watchmen to make sure they not only respecting the 4th amendment rights of the other subscribers, but technically incapable of doing so (in order to mitigate rogue actors that want to impress their superiors via fishing expeditions), I can't see why we should have any reason to believe this information will not be abused. The government, especially the NSA and the FBI (by way of parallel construction), have proven to be outright liars. This alone should be enough for a judge to rule against the right of the government to make such broad requests. The government has be proven guilty of lying here. The burden is now on them to show that they are no longer guilty.

dalke 13y ago

The government stated that they have filters which will make it so that no one would see any information other than what is requested. The judge stated that that was reasonable. Using your analogy, the government wanted to "grep '^target_name$' phone_book.txt", so while software did see all 400k phone numbers, the government did not. I happen to disagree with the court on this, but I think your analogy isn't useful as to understand why. Instead, there should be a balancing of cost vs. impact. Levinson/Lavasoft stated that they would provide that pen register information for a development fee of some $2,000-$3,500. (Note: Verizon's price list says they charge about $700 for access to that data.) The government refused to pay, saying that they were not aware of paying anyone else for pen trap data. So the first question is, how much non-revenue generating work can a company be forced to do in order to respond to a pen register request? Obviously the answer has to be non-zero in order for the law to be meaningful, but it can't drive a company out of business. The government points out that a cheap solution, which bypasses the internal architecture, is for the company to provide access to all of the data, and use filters to remove all non-relevant data. The secondary question is, where does the boundary sit? Is it at the company/filter layer, where the company is force to release all records to the filter, or with the filter/human investigator layer, where the humans only see the relevant data? Personally, I put it on the company/filter layer. The government and the court disagree with me. Their view is that you can trust the filter to do what it says it does. (When Levinson asked for oversight or audit of the filter, the judge denied the request.) However, in the case of a "grep ... phonebook", where the filter program can be audited, and run with oversight from both sides, then I find the request to be more reasonable.

MWil 13y ago
As far as the law goes, there should always be disclaimers that metaphors and analogies are sometimes useful but only get you so far. Especially when it comes to technology, they almost never hold water and look silly years down the line when the technology is better understood by the general population. I don't have the necessary education or knowledge to make a better analogy so for that I apologize. EDIT: Oh, I am a lawyer. I was just noting that in law school (and internet law especially) you have to be wary of judges/parties using analogies in their arguments b/c they are almost always imperfect in one way or another