Government prosecutors investigating bloggers
A story in the New York Times today details a case where government prosecutors in New York attempted to determine the identities of anonymous posters on a political blog:
A grand jury subpoena sent by prosecutors in the Bronx earlier this year sought information to help identify people blogging anonymously on a Web site about New York politics called Room 8.
The subpoena carried a warning in capital letters that disclosing its very existence “could impede the investigation being conducted and thereby interfere with law enforcement” — implying that if the bloggers blabbed, they could be prosecuted.
“We were totally perplexed,” said Ben Smith [me: a senior writer at Politico], who co-founded Room 8 with Gur Tsabar. (The site calls itself an “imaginary neighbor” to the press room — Room 9 — in City Hall in New York.) The two promptly began looking for a lawyer. “We knew enough to be scared.”
This, of course, is a blogger’s nightmare: enforced silence and the prospect of jail time. The district attorney eventually withdrew the subpoena and lifted the gag requirement after the bloggers threatened to sue. But the fact that the tactic was used at all raised alarm bells for some free speech advocates.
The demand for secrecy raised the unnerving prospect that prosecutors could quietly investigate anyone who posts comments online, while the person making those comments is unaware of and unable to respond to the risk. The tactic also robs bloggers of one of their most powerful weapons: the chance to spread the word and turn the legal attack into an online cause célèbre.
The fact that prosecutors were issuing secret criminal subpoenas to determine the identities of anonymous posters on a political blog alone is troubling. Even more so considering that the prosecutors office is refusing to share the motive for the now-withdrawn request. This leaves the possibilities open to wide-ranging speculation — including political reasons.
Some of the people blogging on the Room 8 site are named, but many choose to be anonymous. Mr. Smith said he called the assistant district attorney in the Bronx who had issued the subpoena to try to find out more about why prosecutors wanted the Internet Protocol, or I.P. address, of the person who blogged under the name Republican Dissident. But the prosecutors would not share any information, he said.
An I.P. address, together with the date and time of an online comment, can help identify the computer used to make that comment.
…
In addition to Republican Dissident, prosecutors wanted to identify several other people who chose to post comments anonymously. Some of the comments cited news reports about investigations to support their criticism of Republican officials.
The prospect of helping to unmask some of the commenters on the site made Mr. Smith and Mr. Tsabar nervous.
“If our anonymous bloggers were to learn that we’d been handing out their identities to politicians whom they’ve been criticizing, I think they’d be much less likely to write on the site,” Mr. Smith said.
Quite. The chilling effect that such heavy-handed action is bound to result in is undeniable:
Paul Alan Levy, a lawyer at Public Citizen Litigation Group in Washington who has played a role in many free speech cases involving technology, filed a motion to quash the subpoena and argued that the proceedings should not be secret. Filings in the case are on Public Citizen’s Web site.
“They refused to go anyplace and tell me, what are they investigating, why is this speech relevant,” Mr. Levy said. Prosecutors also opposed posting a note on the blog announcing the subpoena, though they eventually permitted Room 8 to try to send an e-mail message in May to Republican Dissident about it. No one answered, but by then, Republican Dissident had already deleted all of his or her posts from the Room 8 site.
To call this episode “troubling” is a bit of an understatement — it’s downright scary. This sort of thing elicits irresistible comparisons to cases in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, or China, countries where political bloggers are routinely identified, arrested, and jailed — and sometimes worse — for writing things critical of the government or ruling regime.
We’re far from that point, of course. The Room 8 case may have just been a harmless mistake by overzealous prosecutors. But we should be watchful to ensure it doesn’t become a trend.
Oh, we are not at all far from that point. Civil right’s violations are no joke and are happening all the time. The attitudes of the violaters are, so what, what can you do about it? For too many who are violated, the answer is NOTHING! Unless they go bananas, then in this case the evil has gotten the best of the victim along with the evil perpetrators.
Agree with D. Walker. Controlling the Internet is the government’s unspoken agenda, and this is how they are doing it:
Utah just passed a law that, depending on the offense, all RSOs will have to provide passwords along with the online IDs, and/or a list of websites where they are registered: http://le.utah.gov/~2008/bills/hbillenr/hb0034.pdf
“(c) require that a sex offender provide to the department any password required for use with an online identifier. Passwords provided to the department may not be disclosed to the public….”
“(g) the name and Internet address of all websites on which the sex offender is registered using an online identifier, including all online identifiers and passwords used to access those websites.”
Anyone believe they’ll stop at RSOs? Who does the government fear more, RSOs or anonymous political dissidents?
After this the Democrats are going to silence their critics by re-enacting the (un)Fairness Doctrine to get rid of talk radio. Talk about the Fascists coming and the end of free speech in America.
The New York Times story admits that no one know why the prosecutors wish to learn the bloggers’ identities. Therefore, it’s a bit premature to conclude that the subpoena is politically motivated. Though some of the posters cited newspaper articles to bolster their criticism of Repubican officials, perhaps other posters stated that they had first-hand knowledge of government corruption. Thus, the subpoenas might be an effort to root out these violations. Instead of jumping to conclusions, D. Walker and morehouse, perhaps we should wait and see how this story unfolds.
http://www.grafshepherd.com
@grafshepherd
The story is already unfolding, in China, where U.S. companies are fine tuning police state surveillance to market to the U.S.: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/20797485/chinas_allseeing_eye/print
FISA, Copyright suits, and RSO legislation are cornerstones on that front.
Morehouse: U.S. companies are helping the Chinese government. Not the U.S. government, which I take to be a relevant distinction. Just because U.S. companies are involved in some morally sketchy business overseas, does not mean that subpoenas served by the U.S. government are designed to suppress free speech in the U.S.
@shep
U.S. companies with U.S. government contracts using technology developed with U.S. tax dollars:
“You have probably never heard of L-1, but there is every chance that it has heard of you. Few companies have collected as much sensitive information about U.S. citizens and visitors to America as L-1: It boasts a database of 60 million records, and it “captures” more than a million new fingerprints every year. Here is a small sample of what the company does: produces passports and passport cards for American citizens; takes finger scans of visitors to the U.S. under the Department of Homeland Security’s massive U.S.-Visit program; equips U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan with “mobile iris and multimodal devices” so they can collect biometric data in the field; maintains the State Department’s “largest facial-recognition database system”; and produces driver’s licenses in Illinois, Montana and North Carolina. In addition, L-1 has an even more secretive intelligence unit called SpecTal. Asked by a Wall Street analyst to discuss, in “extremely general” terms, what the division was doing with contracts worth roughly $100 million, the company’s CEO would only say, “Stay tuned.”
It is L-1’s deep integration with multiple U.S. government agencies that makes its dealings in China so interesting: It isn’t just L-1 that is potentially helping the Chinese police to nab political dissidents, it’s U.S. taxpayers. The technology that Yao purchased for just a few thousand dollars is the result of Defense Department research grants and contracts going as far back as 1994, when a young academic named Joseph Atick (the research director Fordyce consulted on L-1’s China dealings) taught a computer at Rockefeller University to recognize his face.”
You’re right, not a direct connection to the blogger secret subpoenas, just a look at what is unfolding, and the possibilities of future connections.