k wrote:
I wouldn't bet on it. What bullshit. I'd like to believe there was a good reason, such as a credible threat or lead, but these days, I really just don't have that much faith in our government or legal system.

Its highly likely that this is actionable. Its not generally legal to shut down websites in police raids in the United States. Its approximately equivelent to shutting down a newspaper printing press. Unless the whole thing is pretty much devoted to illegal content they cannot pull the plug on it. In this case they probably didn't realize they were taking out a shared hosting server. However, each and every one of those people who runs a website that was impacted and wasn't the target of the investigation can press criminal charges against the police agency involved if they get a hold a knowledgable lawyer.

See this link and this one.

It shall be unlawful for a government officer or employee, in connection with the investigation or prosecution of a criminal offense, to search for or seize any work product materials possessed by a person reasonably believed to have a purpose to disseminate to the public a newspaper, book, broadcast, or other similar form of public communication, in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce.

(The exception in this act for child pornography cases is close enough to litigate but Congress did not envision shared hosting websites when they crafted this exception. I think there is a strong arguement that the exception does not apply when the majority of the people using the printing press in question have nothing to do with the crime being investigated. The government CAN be more granular in their seizure and respect for this rule requires it.)

RE: The Department of Homeland Security Has Shut Us Down

Vintage Computer Festival East 3.0
Saturday, May 13th , 2006
InfoAge Learning Center
Wall Township, New Jersey

An event of local interest to some MemeStreams users...

Vintage Computer Festival - VCF East 3.0

A new bill called DOPA (Deleting Online Predators Act) will require schools and libraries that receive federal funding to block access to social networking sites like MySpace and FaceBook, and is written so broadly that it plausibly could encompass blogs, mailing lists, and sites like Flickr.

All this news is trite in relation to the NSA revelation, but if you're looking for more bullshit, consider warrantless searches for individuals crossing borders with pirate DVDs.

Boing Boing: Proposed law requires schools to censor MySpace, LJ, blogs, Flickr

The tin foil hat crowd has always assumed that the NSA was either directly monitoring domestic communications in the US, or at least that a foreign ally was doing it and sharing the results with them. This never really bothered me, because I assumed that the NSA wouldn't care about anything I would ever do. The NSA is mostly concerned with warfare, in which the rules of civil society don't really apply, and the only rules that matter are the ones prohibiting genocide and sadistic treatment of people. If I was ever interested in commiting espionage on behalf of a nation state, I would assume that all the rules were off and I would act accordingly.

The problem is that terrorism breaks down the barriers between what was once the domain of war and the domain of law enforcement. In the wake of 9/11 we have vigorously engaged in information sharing between domestic law enforcement and intelligence. So, wereas we might not have a problem with the NSA spying domestically in the context where they are really only looking for Soviet Spies, our feeling might be different if they are really looking for anything illegal, and sharing that information with local authorities. What we have now is somewhere in the middle, and its likely to erode further.

The minute someone says that we could have caught such and such a child abuser or murderer if the NSA had only shared the information with the police, its over. They'll start sharing it, and they'll share more and more, and you'll have the surveillance state.

Some people embrace this. They figure it is inevitable. It probably is. And they figure they aren't going to break the law, so why should they worry. I think our system often produces the wrong laws, and too many of them, and whats more, the aura of omnipresent suspicion and fear that accompanies the knowledge of the panopticon of the police state sucks the life right out of a culture. Its no longer reasonable to conceive of such a place as a "free country."

Whats worse, it is inevitable as these loopholes widen and the information sharing spreads that these systems will be used for political and economic manipulation, criminally.

This is the challenge our generation faces. How can you avoid creating a police state in an environment litered with terrorists and murderers and child abusers when omnipotent technology is at hand and it can help fight them? Is it even possible?

The Fourth Amendment issues are straightforward. It sounds like the program involves only non-content surveillance, which means that it presumably doesn’t implicate the Fourth Amendment under Smith v. Maryland.

You have no 4th amendment right to things that computers log.

First, it is doubtful that telephone users in general have any expectation of privacy regarding the numbers they dial, since they typically know that they must convey phone numbers to the telephone company and that the company has facilities for recording this information and does in fact record it for various legitimate business purposes. And petitioner did not demonstrate an expectation of privacy merely by using his home phone rather than some other phone, since his conduct, although perhaps calculated to keep the contents of his conversation private, was not calculated to preserve the privacy of the number he dialed. Second, even if petitioner did harbor some subjective expectation of privacy, this expectation was not one that society is prepared to recognize as "reasonable." When petitioner voluntarily conveyed numerical information to the phone company and "exposed" that information to its equipment in the normal course of business, he assumed the risk that the company would reveal the information [442 U.S. 735, 736] to the police.

Think about that the next time you use Google. BTW, I don't like this precident either.
Here is an insightful comment from the Volokh Conspiracy:

It is a planned tactic. Disclose early a lesser problem, deny that it is really a problem, hint at something else while denying it and then, later, disclose what was initially denied.

If enough noise is heard, it is termed "old news," and we just need to move on. Too many people forget about it or are labeled "tin-foil hats."

All of this intrusions into our lives is for our good and safety.

It is a way to "slow boil" the mythological frog.

OrinKerr.com » Thoughts on the Legality of the Latest NSA Surveillance Program

Over at National Review Online, Adam White defends the new nominee to lead the CIA, General Michael Hayden, for his statements about the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.

This is, er, noteworthy. I've been looking for a reference on this and Orin Kerr was nice enough to provide one. Hayden is getting butchered for his comment about the 4th Amendment being more about "reasonableness" then about "probable cause." Frankly, he is "correct" insofar as his explanation of what the law is. I happen to not like this particular interpretation, but Hayden is not a justice. The people to be unhappy with are the courts that set these precidents. Hayden was just explaining what they have decided.

The Constitution doesn't literally say that you always need a warrant. It says no unreasonable searches and seizures and no warrants shall issue.... To me, it plainly means that there will never, ever be an unreasonable search, and we're not going to give you permission to do any searching unless you meet certain requirements. Thats how it seems to read to me. Courts have decided that it actually means that warrants are only required when they decide that they are required, and its possible that some searches where a warrant isn't required are reasonable, and those are legal. Thus, the erosion process begins...

A choice quote:

I think it’s fair to say that the development of the Fourth Amendment since 1971 has substantially undercut the idea that the exceptions to the warrant requirement are “few” or “well delineated."

What I find most entertaining about this is that its a perfect example of a place where a viewpoint that is "strict constructionalist" or "originalist" is unlikely to be popular with conservatives.

OrinKerr.com - Does Michael Hayden Understand the Fourth Amendment?

FineThen says: The letter from the Pres. of Iran. Very strange read.

My summary: So, you're Christian, Eh? Well, Iraq was a bunch of bullshit, we think we have a right to make nuclear reactors, and we don't recognize the right of Israel to exist because they ran out a bunch of Arabs. But the important point is that people are sick of Liberal Democracy. It obviously doesn't work. We should all turn to fundamentalism instead. If you were really Christian you'd agree.

Its unfortunate that they squandered the opportunity to make substantive points, relying instead on subtle hints of conspiracy theories about September 11th and about the holocaust. However, the general value of this is that it signifies a tremendous turn in strategy. They have decided that getting bombed isn't in their strategic interest. This reduces the risk of more war.

Dear President Bush...

Brother Consolmagno, who was due to give a speech at the Glasgow Science Centre last night, entitled "Why the Pope has an Astronomer", said the idea of papal infallibility had been a "PR disaster". What it actually meant was that, on matters of faith, followers should accept "somebody has got to be the boss, the final authority".

"It's not like he has a magic power..."

Hillarious....

Scotsman.com News - Creationism dismissed as 'a kind of paganism' by Vatican's astronomer

"I had thought I would be sentenced to death based on the emotions and anger toward me for the deaths on Sept. 11, but after reviewing the jury verdict and reading how the jurors set aside their emotions and disgust for me and focused on the law and the evidence ... I now see that it is possible that I can receive a fair trial even with Americans as jurors."

ROTFLMAO... If this isn't a victory I don't know what is. I hope this story receives broad coverage in the Middle East.

Moussaoui Asks to Withdraw Guilty Plea - Yahoo! News

I just received fairly reliable word that the Georgia Private Investigator Felony Statute has been vetoed by the Governor. Unfortunately I don't have a press link on that, so if anyone out there has a secondary source they can confirm this through, that would be helpful, but it seems like the Governor has heard the message from the technology community and understood the ramifications of this law. Thank you to everyone who communicated with them!

Confirmed:

The existing definition of “private detective business,” continued in this bill, in conjunction with the applicable exemptions in the law, fails to exclude from the private investigator licensing requirement many professions that collect information or may be called as expert witnesses in court proceedings. To expand the penalty from a misdemeanor to a felony without revision of the existing definitions in the law could result in unintended consequences; I therefore VETO HB1259.