Judge Orders Google to Comply With National Security Letters

Says it all about why the ruling came out the way it did....

What is that supposed to mean?

I'm confused by this too. Is this an unwelcome jab at homosexuals, or just generally implying something about SF?

none of which are correct, but I still want to hear ropeguru's excuse for hanging himself.

Not a surprising comment coming from a Mechanicsville resident.

in some company's future.

if in Google's future you could already see if they own permits to launch any.

The people who will be launching them don't NEED permits.

the problem is Google would just corrupt the data feed to the drone and make it shoot at deer all day.

...is learning that all the pretty stories you were told as a child about how good, and moral, and righteous your country's government is were utter lies.
The sad thing is there are still adults who believe these lies, and will attack anyone who points out how blatantly false they are.

It's the people in the government that are the problem. They are the ones that might be immoral and unethical.

And what is a government, if not the people in it?

Corruption. That word gets used very rarely, no thanks to those who control others.

You get stuff like 'scandals', 'frauds', etc. being mentioned in government related articles, but not one of them relates to something of corruption. Nor do people comment and talk about such things, like it's taboo to speak of it.

I don't know where you live, but I hear and comment daily (both in-person and online) about the corruption in our government. If you're not hearing such commentary, I'd have to guess you're actively avoiding it.

It is indeed a very bad thing that all the political pond scum in office and their appointed sycophants believe that they can do anything they want. I for one now look at most government operations as the return of the Nazi or USSR approach to governing. And the previous writer is correct that far too many citizens live with their heads buried in the sand muttering ancient shibboleths to make them feel secure.

Who shall rid us of these vexatious politicians?

Sadly, it's not "politicians", but an entrenched bureaucracy that stretches from Washington right on down to your Town Hall.

The ruling that NSLs are illegal is NOT being enforced as the judge making that ruling suspended its enforcement pending government appeal to Supreme Court. »en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Na ··· y_letter

The current ruling against Google is because NSLs are still legal

Basically, google can 'claim' all they want about NSL being illegal, even use evidence when one court judge claims so, but most of the other judge will hold off the case and go 'lets ask the government, they'll know what's the truth', and waits for the government to make up some mythical excuse to it.

Again.

Isn't this the same Google that the court ruled doesn't have to answer whether, or not, they have a contract to spy for the NSA?
The same company that has the exclusive right to park its private jets at Moffett Field?

I don't worry much about Google - they clearly mine my email, which yields ads and pitches that are quite relevant and occasionally desired, unlike what one finds stuffed as commercials in tv network video streams ("is this ad relevant to you?").

But we don't use their search. Their former CEO has made it abundantly clear that he doesn't believe in personal freedom, and will use every tool he has to force us to submit to his ideal world.

Unfortunately, opting-out will only work so long; if the majority volunteers to go along with Google's one-world-governance ("free Fiberhood, so long as you install the Google Whole House Kinect"), those quietly and covertly resisting will be readily identifiable for various forms of persecution.

Because personal freedom isn't freely given, it's to be taken.
Success in life is by those who take what failures don't.

Hence the 'survival of the fittest' that is always in effect. There is always someone who will take advantage of you, so why aren't you taking advantage of others?

You take advantage of religion, to become closer to it's society and community.
You take advantage of sales, to save money.
You take advantage of other people's mistakes, for opportunity.

You can claim to not take advantage of others as much as possible, but it will happen, intended or not, as that's how life works.

True only in a zero-sum game. And there's no evidence that our world is limited to such.

The fact of the matter is, if the Government wants Billy Bob's email, search history etc. they are going to get that info, some judge ruling doesn't mean dick to them.

absolutely right! and the SCOTUS doesn't dare to rule against the government.

The spooks have become the U.S. version of the Gestapo, with far more power than the Gestapo ever dreamed of. Listen to every phone conversation in the U.S.? Covered..Read all the mail (now e-mail)? Covered. Cameras all over the country? Covered. Weapons the Gestapo never dreamed of? Covered. The spooks have the power to detain, torture, and kill anyone they freaking want to.

Gotta run..there's a black SUV with black tinted windows just pulled up in front of my house..

NSLs do not allow revealing emails or search histories. The only information that can be requested is credit report info from consumer credit agencies, basic account info from financial institutions, and basic customer info from communications providers (name, address, length of service, billing info). The latter is apparently what Google and others are fighting in court.

See »en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Na ··· y_letter and »www.fas.org/sgp/crs/inte ··· 2406.pdf

No one seems to mention exactly what data NSLs are requesting when they make these scare headlines about "our privacy rights being trampled". You give up more information than this routinely when applying for bank accounts, jobs, or loans.

I personally don't see the big deal, especially when you consider this information is only for investigative purposes. If you are actually indicted or arrested, you'll get to defend yourself in court. And, frankly, if you are indicted or arrested, you probably actually WERE doing something very illegal. But you'll get your day in court to challenge that.

Yea, but they are providing a service in return for that information. The government really isn't providing a service by harvesting information.

Oh you mean other than protecting our lives, families, and property from terrorist attacks. Which we pay tax dollars to support, and which we vote in officials who uphold those laws and practices through passing bills, signing bills into law, allocating resources to enforce those laws, and whose appointed court officials uphold those laws and deem them Constitutional. Across multiple Presidents and Congresses. Other than THOSE services.

Look, if you think this is wrong, go get people voted in who will undo all that and force the government to make the vetting of NSLs and FISA requests public and transparent. Taking us back to pre 9/11 and pre Patriot Act, pre NSL laws, etc. That's how this works around here. Don't sit around and try to do this by the "death by 1000 lawsuits" and "inflame the masses with hyperbolic headlines" methods. That's just lame and thoughtless and/or manipulative.

I would just ask you to get some perspective. Look at what's actually being done and what information is being gathered and how it's being handled, and judge for yourself the tradeoffs. Form your own fact based conclusions. Don't go all conspiracy theory and just make dark, unfounded statements like most of what I see around here, e.g. The OP of this topic who claimed the NSLs allowed the government to see emails and search requests.

You make great points, but in my eyes if the intelligence agency's weren't acting like a bunch of babies pre 9/11 and shared the info to put the pieces together we wouldn't be having this discussion. Why should they get more "tools" as they call them to help prevent terrorist attacks etc. when they couldn't do it before with the information that was there plain sight. They screwed up plain and simple.

Because the laws in place at that time, and the agency practices, discouraged or prevented the sharing of information, such that the dots could have been connected.

Governments are big slow herds of relatively independent beasts who will only work together if forced to. There is no incentive to think outside the box, to collaborate with other groups informally to solve a problem, or to question authority. There is no competitive force mandating effectiveness in a Darwinian way like there is in an open market.

Well, that's putting it a bit too extremely. There is a competition for votes so you can stay in power, which is exactly what drove the adoption of the laws and practices we have now. Elected officials knew they had to act or they'd be out. But this is an extremely slow process. 12 years later and we are still getting it sorted out. See the Boston bombing, for which we had ample clues that we should have been tracking these young men.

It is not at all surprising that the government, as you put it, screwed up. It would have been more surprising if they had succeeded.

OK, so we both agree the Government messed up and now we are paying the price. So let's agree to disagree.

Not sure we're even disagreeing. I was just going a little further in the thought, that big country governments have these kinds of characteristics in the first place, and it's not surprising that this happened. You see screwup, I see business as usual.

We have a long history of being surprised by attacks and reacting with strong measures. The battleship Maine led to taking Cuba from Spain. Pearl Harbor led to the atom bomb. The 38th Parallel led to North Korea being pushed back over it. The Rosenbergs giving the H-bomb to the Russians led to the cold war and the near death of classic Communism. Tonkin Gulf led to the Vietnam War (the only one where we didn't achieve our goal!). 9/11 led to the War on Terror and then the only slightly nuanced Obama version which apparently has no name .

In every case, there were clear signs that we should have seen it coming, there was a strong reaction from us that the instigators clearly did not fully anticipate, and civil liberties were curtailed (or "trampled on" as Karl likes to say).

Also in every case we did not become a dictatorship or a police state. The Constitution was fundamentally followed with lots of vigorous public debate over the details.

I don't see a lot different here, except for the technology. Which is a big difference but not a fundamental difference.

ever...ever...

Sounds like an opportunity for google to take it to the supreme court.