Judge Keeps Gag Order In Place On ISP Boss Over Feds Demand For Info On Customer

from the does-this-make-you-feel-safer? dept

The government has the ability to issue "national security letters" that let them demand information without a court warrant and at the same time gag those who are forced to reveal the info. Given such power, it's no surprise that the Justice Department abused it widely and conveniently forgot to report many of the uses when some oversight was attempted. The whole setup of NSLs seems highly questionable. What's wrong with actually getting a warrant? Adding a gag order to it is especially troubling -- so it was great to see an anonymous ISP owner pushback on such a use of NSLs. Last year, an appeals court limited when such NSLs could be used, tightening the standard. However, the lower court has said that, even with these tighter restrictions, the government's use of NSLs against this ISP was proper. Of course, it's difficult to determine if this actually makes sense, because the gov't revealed secret info to the judge that even those on the other side of the case were unable to see. The problem, obviously, is that there's simply no way to know if this is legit or not -- but any opportunity you give the government to say "just trust us" on being able to get otherwise private info with no oversight seems like an area ripe for abuse.

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Freedom Of The Press? UK's The Guardian Barred From Reporting On Parliament

from the how-do-you-report-on-being-banned-from-reporting? dept

Over in the UK, the Guardian has apparently been barred from reporting on a certain action in Parliament (Update: read below). But how do you even report on being barred from reporting on a particular subject without reporting on it. Watch the linguistic gymnastics The Guardian goes through:

The Guardian has been prevented from reporting parliamentary proceedings on legal grounds which appear to call into question privileges guaranteeing free speech established under the 1688 Bill of Rights.

Today's published Commons order papers contain a question to be answered by a minister later this week. The Guardian is prevented from identifying the MP who has asked the question, what the question is, which minister might answer it, or where the question is to be found.

The Guardian is also forbidden from telling its readers why the paper is prevented -- for the first time in memory -- from reporting parliament. Legal obstacles, which cannot be identified, involve proceedings, which cannot be mentioned, on behalf of a client who must remain secret.

The only fact the Guardian can report is that the case involves the London solicitors Carter-Ruck, who specialise in suing the media for clients, who include individuals or global corporations.

Yet another case of chilling effects in the form of lawyers suing over coverage they don't like. Of course, we're not barred from reporting on anything, and checking through some Parliament webpages turns up the following list of questions, including the following:

Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme): To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of legislation to protect (a) whistleblowers and (b) press freedom following the injunctions obtained in the High Court by (i) Barclays and Freshfields solicitors on 19 March 2009 on the publication of internal Barclays reports documenting alleged tax avoidance schemes and (ii) Trafigura and Carter-Ruck solicitors on 11 September 2009 on the publication of the Minton report on the alleged dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast, commissioned by Trafigura.

This certainly implies that The Guardian has been barred due to this original story of how British oil trader Trafigura was offering to pay "historic damages" to 31,000 people injured in the dumping of toxic waste in Africa.

Of course, my guess is that Trafigura and Carter-Ruck are about to learn about The Streisand Effect, and UK politicians are about to get another lesson on why its libel laws need to be fixed. In the meantime, in the absence of all of this, how many people would have heard about this whole Trafigura affair? How many more people are about to become aware of it?

Update: After this story got spread all over the internet (especially on Twitter), it looks like Carter-Ruck backed down. Of course... the end result? Much worse than if they had never tried to gag the newspapers. A lot more people are aware of the story. Why do lawyers still think banning such things will work?

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Gag Order Clause Comes Back To Bite Apple In 'Exploding' iPod Case

from the ah-the-legalese dept

We've been getting a bunch of submissions from people about a Times Online story concerning Apple's supposed attempt at "gagging" someone who had their iPod explode. The company agreed to give a replacement, but the terms of the deal made them agree never to talk about it. While this may seem draconian, I'm going to give Apple the benefit of the doubt here: this is pretty standard legal language on such things. I had a laptop whose hard drive died 5 times in six months a few years back, and when the manufacturer finally agreed to replace the laptop (after multiple escalations of the issue), it had a nearly identical clause. But, it was pretty straightforward. Before faxing the agreement back to the company, I just crossed out the clause that said I was barred from ever talking about it, and the guy from the company called me immediately and said: "I see you crossed it out -- our lawyers won't like it, but that's fine, I just want to get you a new machine." Who knows if Apple would be so accommodating, but I think this story is blown a bit out of proportion. This kind of language is standard legalese, rather than some nefarious attempt by Apple to shut up those who have had their iPods explode. Still, the fact that this clause is suddenly generating press attention should put corporate lawyers on warning. These standard clauses are PR nightmares waiting to happen. Take them out of such "replacement" agreements, or be ready to see a similar story appear in the press soon...

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Judge Lets MIT Students Share Their Research On Boston Subway Vulnerabilities

from the first-amendment-wins-again dept

While it took about a week and a half, a judge has now lifted the gag order that had prevented some MIT students from sharing a presentation about vulnerabilities in the Boston subway system. The judge refused to ban the students from talking about it for a period of five months (which the MBTA insisted it needed to fix the system). This is definitely a win for free speech, though I'm sure the debate over how and when to disclose security vulnerabilities will continue for a long, long time.

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FBI Forced To Back Down On Secret Info Request To Internet Archive

from the civil-liberties-matter dept

Congress curtailed the FBI's ability to use National Security Letters (NSLs) a few years ago after it became clear that the FBI was widely abusing the process to request information from organizations with no judicial oversight and with built in gag orders forbidding recipients from talking about receiving the letters. However, the FBI is still using the letters in some cases. Last fall, it sent one to Brewster Kahle and the Internet Archive, demanding info on an Archive user while forbidding Kahle from talking about the letter to anyone but his lawyers. Kahle, the EFF and the ACLU fought back in court and have won, getting the FBI to rescind the demand and also removing part of the gag order, allowing Kahle to say he received the letter (though not discussing what info it demanded). As the EFF points out, this should serve as a blueprint for how others can challenge questionable NSLs as well.

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