[koolba]

> Prosecutors John Borchert and Jennifer Kerkhoff argued that their request had to be somewhat broad because they have no idea who was associated with the rioting through the website until they review the data.

For people who think this is wrong, assuming you accept the premise that they should be investigating rioters, what alternative is there to find out who they are?

[lugg]

> what alternative is there to find out who they are?

Whether there is an answer to that or not is irrelevant to the fact the warrant lacks specificity.

Same bullshit was used in the Kim dotcom debacle irrc.

"We're not sure what he's done wrong, but we know hes a bad guy so get every computer and we'll build a case based on what we find."

To give you an example of how stupid this warrant is, and funnily enough answer your question: it's akin to the police confiscating every computer and phone within a 10 mile radius of the riots to check the internet history.

[KZeillmann]

When you request the records of 1.3 million people in an effort to find the identities of about 200, that feels ridiculously broad. I'm not sure what they're hoping to find, but it seems like security camera footage would be much more useful than this action, which seems to look more like cracking down on political dissent.

[belovedeagle]

But when you request the records of 1.3 million conspirators to riot and commit other terrorist acts, in order to find the 200 who actually did, that's quite reasonable. The stated goal of the website was terrorism (shutting down bridges, checkpoints, etc.). Every single account is quite likely to be evidence of conspiracy.

[shakna]

That seems the perfect use-case for pre-trial injunction so that assets (data) can be seized, under RICO.

As they haven't touched RICO, it seems likely they cannot consider all 1.3 million people to be conspirators, nor even a large number to be conspirators.

[belovedeagle]

You're right; they're not all conspirators. However, as a non-expert I feel there is a good argument that there's probable cause that each account has evidence of the conspiracy.

[shakna]

> probable cause that each account has evidence of the conspiracy.

That's all a warrant under RICO would require.

Again, they haven't touched it, so they cannot consider that a large number of accounts have partaken of any conspiracy.

RICO is the first stop on dealing with conspiracies.

PATRIOT is the first stop on dealing with terrorists.

The fact they have gone another route, which is legally more difficult to accomplish, suggests they consider the majority of accounts to be innocent, of both terrorism and conspiracy.

The fact the judge has ordered any accounts viewed, and found to have no evidence, to be sealed, suggests the judge views the majority of accounts as innocent as well.

Its a broad-reaching warrant, searching for a needle in a haystack.

> ...that each account has evidence...

Nobody on either legal teams is suggesting that everyone might have information in this case. But, the prosecution is suggesting that anyone might.

There's a distinction there.

I'm not suggesting its right, but I am suggesting that nobody in the courtroom would suggest all/majority these people, knowingly or unknowingly, are terrorists or conspirators. They're looking for the few among the many, so then they can investigate if those few are indeed criminals.

[daveFNbuck]

This is the same justification people give for torture. The fact that you can't come up with another way to get information doesn't automatically justify the means you can come up with.

[astrodust]

What rioters?

This is like saying a house got broken into in Los Angeles so let's pull the world's Facebook history to get to the bottom of it.

[c3534l]

The whole point of the 4th amendment is you have to figure out what you're looking for first, then request and get permission to only that specific thing. The 4th amendment bans blanket "looking for something fishy" searches. You're supposed to be forced to justify each individual person's rights you're violating as necessary for the investigation of the crime. In other words, this is the textbook scenario the Bill of Rights is meant to prevent.

[shakna]

If we accept that premise (which seems to be the most controversial aspect of this case), and accept that the prosecution need unilateral access to all database records, then the judge's restricted timeframe fits as part of a good ruling. Also sealing any extraneous information is a good step.

However, there is still something lacking.

Setting a precedent here is important, and if the past is a guide, the precedent would be abused.

The only thing I can think of to discourage future wide-reaching warrants of this kind, is compensation.

For every individual who has their rights violated, in the pursuit of others, compensation is usually able to be granted, in most cases.

So, tie it to this case.

Such a wide-reaching warrant may be granted in difficult circumstances, if every individual whose privacy is ignored, and has no guilt in the investigated matter, are immediately granted compensation.

It doesn't even have to be much, because the cost of such a warrant would scale with the number of people they are ignoring.

Disclaimer: No longer a lawyer. No experience in US law.

[glenndebacker]

So what are you saying that until the Internet it was virtual (no pun) impossible to investigate crimes?

Maybe they can do like the rest of the world investigate rioters (that commits crimes) by analyzing camera footage? I find it hard to believe that countries - with less possibilities - can do it, but in the US suddenly it's impossible.

I must be careful for Godswin law but in a country where Lügenpresse is also suddenly a thing, I'm very skeptical of the fact that this is needed because its the only way to identify "rioters". It reminds me of certainly historic events where they also needed to identify opponents of X and Y for "crimes".

Btw how the hell are you going to find a couple of individuals in 1.3 million visitor records if that is the only lead?

[krapp]

>For people who think this is wrong, assuming you accept the premise that they should be investigating rioters, what alternative is there to find out who they are?

Even accepting that premise, which I don't, there doesn't always need to be an alternative. The 4th Amendment appears to require far more specificity than this request allows. Political assembly and protests are obviously protected by the Constitution, and these 200 rioters are considered innocent until proven guilty.

If law enforcement can't get a valid warrant then they should lose. They can go home and polish their batons.

/IANAL

[khazhoux]

Everyone: please don't downvote for disagreeing with the sentiment. Koolba poses a legitimate question. Address it or ignore the comment.

[jasonjei]

In the old days before computers, I assume, one wouldn't have to hand over all "database" records. If one were being requested to hand over all patient records, that would probably be a small mountain of data.

I think technology has made data very easy to transport, and modern day governments have taken advantage of this sort of fishing expedition.

[horusthecat]

This isn't true. Even 10 years ago it was pretty normal for litigation involving the SEC to routinely have half a million or more hard copy pages shipping between law firms and the gov't, and 10 years ago about half of all documents that printing and scanning vendors were handling in discovery were paper. The American legal system and US-based law firms are notorious for that sort of thing. See also Iron Mountain.

[nnfy]

>modern day governments have taken advantage of this sort of fishing expedition.

Not only that, but I think the transparency is one sided. Good luck getting anything significant from FOIA without waiting years and piecing details together from [REDACTED] pages.

[ArchReaper]

I hope this is an opportunity for you to learn and not just me wasting my time addressing a troll.

>what alternative is there to find out who they are?

That's not the question you should be asking. The question you should be asking yourself is "why am I OK with violating the 4th amendment rights of millions of citizens"

[khazhoux]

That was very patronizing. Everyone's time is valuable, and personally I choose to believe that Hacker News is NOT a troll destination, but made up of smart people with (on occasion) diverse opinions.

More to the point: the question he SHOULD he asking is "Does the government actually have a legitimate and constitutionally-sound need for this information?" If "yes", then his question follows ("What alternatives exist for getting this info?")

Your question, on the other hand, presupposes that it's indeed a violation of 4th amendment. Which it may well and likely is (sure seems like it!)... but the first question that has to be answered is whether this is a violation or not.

[ArchReaper]

You're right, I was quick to judge and patronize the previous comment, which isn't helpful. My b.

I think what irked me, specifically, is the way the question was phrased, as though guilt was the default assumption, which is absurd to me.

I interpreted "What alternatives exist for getting this info?" as "What other way would big brother be able to violate your rights, except through this?" which I now realize is not what he was trying to say.

Has there been any evidence linking the users of this site directly to this riot? My core issue is that this seems to me to be a case of attacking political opponents through the legal system.

What evidence do they have that there is relevant information in those records directly tied to someone who committed a crime? I fail to see anything in this article that actually mentions a valid reason for this search.

Their original request covered over a million users. How could that possibly be reasonable?

[koolba]

> You're right, I was quick to judge and patronize the previous comment, which isn't helpful. My b.

No offense taken!

> I think what irked me, specifically, is the way the question was phrased, as though guilt was the default assumption, which is absurd to me.

I tend to ask a lot of open ended questions on HN as I like to read and gauge the variety of responses. While usually driven by my own opinions of right and wrong, I don't uniformly stick to asking it from my particular angle either. In fact, I'm generally more interested in the responses on the other side.

> Has there been any evidence linking the users of this site directly to this riot? My core issue is that this seems to me to be a case of attacking political opponents through the legal system.

In this situation my understand is that there were rioters who were using the website in question as a means of congregating. I don't see this as going after political opponents. I see it as going after violent anarchists. I don't care whether they're far left or far right, I don't want anyone like that operating with impunity.

> What evidence do they have that there is relevant information in those records directly tied to someone who committed a crime? I fail to see anything in this article that actually mentions a valid reason for this search.

I'm not sure but if the site was used by rioters to conspire to riot, I'd imagine it could be useful in tracking down how they communicated, who they are, and where else they were plotting or targeting.

> Their original request covered over a million users. How could that possibly be reasonable?

The website in question lists out[1] organizations that are listed by government agencies as domestic terrorists[2]. Does the number having six zeros in the number of people involved make it unreasonable? If a website pledges to commit anarchist destruction, a million people create accounts, and then some large number of people show up to commit said destructive acts, why wouldn't the full list be fair game?

[1]: http://www.disruptj20.org/event/disruptj20-protest-the-inaug...

[2]: https://www.njhomelandsecurity.gov/analysis/anarchist-extrem...

[ArchReaper]

Thank you for responding, these are some really good points that really made me rethink my opinion of this topic.

I definitely agree that I do not want extremist groups to grow and become even more of a 'thing' in the US. However, I do not know if I am OK with stripping people of their 4th amendment rights just because they have been 'associated' with a terrorist group (or visited a terrorist group's website...) That's a dangerous path.

I also still fail to see how the information taken from Dreamhost would help them track somebody who committed a crime. What, are they going to subpoena everyone's ISPs to find out who every single person is, then arrest them and see if they happen to be someone who committed a crime? That's wrong. What am I missing here? How could this be used in any way except to build a list of 'potential terrorists' in some 3 letter org's database?

[koolba]

> I definitely agree that I do not want extremist groups to grow and become even more of a 'thing' in the US. However, I do not know if I am OK with stripping people of their 4th amendment rights just because they have been 'associated' with a terrorist group (or visited a terrorist group's website...) That's a dangerous path.

Me neither. I'm about as gung-ho about personal privacy as it gets.

I'm also practically minded and understand the difference between things that are and are not in your control. The log of whether I visit a particular website on my computer is under my control. You need a warrant for that. But that same website has it's own logs and I know that I have no privacy or 4th amendment protections[1]. Now they can demand a warrant from the government for their records, but they can also give it willingly. Either way it's up to them, not me.

> I also still fail to see how the information taken from Dreamhost would help them track somebody who committed a crime. What, are they going to subpoena everyone's ISPs to find out who every single person is, then arrest them and see if they happen to be someone who committed a crime? That's wrong. What am I missing here?

I can imagine intersecting whatever lists they get from here with other similar data. Maybe mixing in the geolocation of the anonymous user's IP addresses. Combine in email address to name lookups. Without knowing what else they have it's all conjecture, but I'd imagine they've got something to tie it against.

> How could this be used in any way except to build a list of 'potential terrorists' in some 3 letter org's database?

I wouldn't be surprised if they're doing that and bet most three letter agencies have multiple lists of potential undesirables on which they want to keep tabs. I mean that is their job right? You don't just want the FBI to arrest people after they commit the crime, it'd be nice if some of the crimes were stopped before they happened right? It doesn't have to be a full on Minority Report style world but proactive measures are necessary to stop crime before it happens.

The other approach would be confirming the involvement of known offenders. They arrested a number of people. If they can tie those specific people to known usage of a site, say by linking their IP address to a known location or a known email address, then that would further build a case against them.

[1]: NOTE: I'm purposely ignore medical and legal related content here as they'd be covered by separate confidentiality provisions.

[mikeash]

Law enforcement has no fundamental right to find criminals. If they can't find a criminal within the law, then the criminal goes free. That's fundamental to how our system works.

"They must do X, because it's the only way to catch the bad guy" is a catastrophically bad argument.

[shepardrtc]

Once you cast a wide net like this, the arguments against casting an even wider net are weakened through precedent.