Thread: Justice Dept asks for website visitor list

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2382874/posts

In a case that raises questions about online journalism and privacy rights, the U.S. Department of Justice sent a formal request to an independent news site ordering it to provide details of all reader visits on a certain day.

The grand jury subpoena also required the Philadelphia-based Indymedia.us Web site "not to disclose the existence of this request" unless authorized by the Justice Department, a gag order that presents an unusual quandary for any news organization.

The subpoena (PDF) from U.S. Attorney Tim Morrison in Indianapolis demanded "all IP traffic to and from www.indymedia.us" on June 25, 2008. It instructed Clair to "include IP addresses, times, and any other identifying information," including e-mail addresses, physical addresses, registered accounts, and Indymedia readers' Social Security Numbers, bank account numbers, credit card numbers, and so on.

Originally Posted by ReggieMay

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2382874/posts

In a case that raises questions about online journalism and privacy rights, the U.S. Department of Justice sent a formal request to an independent news site ordering it to provide details of all reader visits on a certain day.

The grand jury subpoena also required the Philadelphia-based Indymedia.us Web site "not to disclose the existence of this request" unless authorized by the Justice Department, a gag order that presents an unusual quandary for any news organization.

The subpoena (PDF) from U.S. Attorney Tim Morrison in Indianapolis demanded "all IP traffic to and from www.indymedia.us" on June 25, 2008. It instructed Clair to "include IP addresses, times, and any other identifying information," including e-mail addresses, physical addresses, registered accounts, and Indymedia readers' Social Security Numbers, bank account numbers, credit card numbers, and so on.

Oh God, I hope i didn't visit on that day.

Originally Posted by ReggieMay

...including e-mail addresses, physical addresses, registered accounts, and Indymedia readers' Social Security Numbers, bank account numbers, credit card numbers, and so on.

Sounds like another 'Public Servant" needs those 'credit card numbers' to do a little early Christmas shopping..

November 10, 2009 12:01 AM
Justice Dept. Asked For News Site's Visitor Lists


Posted by Declan McCullagh
(AP / CBS)
In a case that raises questions about online journalism and privacy rights, the U.S. Department of Justice sent a formal request to an independent news site ordering it to provide details of all reader visits on a certain day.

The grand jury subpoena also required the Philadelphia-based Indymedia.us Web site "not to disclose the existence of this request" unless authorized by the Justice Department, a gag order that presents an unusual quandary for any news organization.

Kristina Clair, a 34-year old Linux administrator living in Philadelphia who provides free server space for Indymedia.us, said she was shocked to receive the Justice Department's subpoena. (The Independent Media Center is a left-of-center amalgamation of journalists and advocates that – according to their principles of unity and mission statement – work toward "promoting social and economic justice" and "social change.")

The subpoena (PDF) from U.S. Attorney Tim Morrison in Indianapolis demanded "all IP traffic to and from www.indymedia.us" on June 25, 2008. It instructed Clair to "include IP addresses, times, and any other identifying information," including e-mail addresses, physical addresses, registered accounts, and Indymedia readers' Social Security Numbers, bank account numbers, credit card numbers, and so on.

"I didn't think anything we were doing was worthy of any (federal) attention," Clair said in a telephone interview with CBSNews.com on Monday. After talking to other Indymedia volunteers, Clair ended up calling the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco, which represented her at no cost.

Under long-standing Justice Department guidelines, subpoenas to members of the news media are supposed to receive special treatment. One portion of the guidelines, for instance, says that "no subpoena may be issued to any member of the news media" without "the express authorization of the attorney general" – that would be current attorney general Eric Holder – and subpoenas should be "directed at material information regarding a limited subject matter."

Still unclear is what criminal investigation U.S. Attorney Morrison was pursuing. Last Friday, a spokeswoman initially promised a response, but Morrison sent e-mail on Monday evening saying: "We have no comment." The Justice Department in Washington, D.C. also declined to respond.

Kevin Bankston, a senior staff attorney at the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation, replied to the Justice Department on behalf of his client in a February 2009 letter (PDF) outlining what he described as a series of problems with the subpoena, including that it was not personally served, that a judge-issued court order would be required for the full logs, and that Indymedia did not store logs in the first place.

Morrison replied in a one-sentence letter saying the subpoena had been withdrawn. Around the same time, according to the EFF, the group had a series of discussions with assistant U.S. attorneys in Morrison's office who threatened Clair with possible prosecution for obstruction of justice if she disclosed the existence of the already-withdrawn subpoena -- claiming it "may endanger someone's health" and would have a "human cost."

Lucy Dalglish, the executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of The Press, said a gag order to a news organization wouldn't stand up in court: "If you get a subpoena and you're a journalist, they can't gag you."

Dalglish said that a subpoena being issued and withdrawn is not unprecedented. "I have seen any number of these things withdrawn when counsel for someone who is claiming a reporter's privilege says, 'Can you tell me the date you got approval from the attorney general's office'... I'm willing to chalk this up to bad lawyering on the part of the DOJ, or just not thinking."

Making this investigation more mysterious is that Indymedia.us is an aggregation site, meaning articles that appear on it were published somewhere else first, and there's no hint about what sparked the criminal probe. Clair, the system administrator, says that no IP (Internet Protocol) addresses are recorded for Indymedia.us, and non-IP address logs are kept for a few weeks and then discarded.

EFF's Bankston wrote a second letter to the government saying that, if it needed to muzzle Indymedia, it should apply for a gag order under the section of federal law that clearly permits such an order to be issued. Bankston's plan: To challenge that law on First Amendment grounds.

But the Justice Department never replied. "This is the first time we've seen them try to get the IP address of everyone who visited a particular site," Bankston said. "That it was a news organization was an additional troubling fact that implicates First Amendment rights."

This is not, however, the first time that the Feds have focused on Indymedia -- a Web site whose authors sometimes blur the line between journalism, advocacy, and on-the-streets activism. In 2004, the Justice Department sent a grand jury subpoena asking for information about who posted lists of Republican delegates while urging they be given an unwelcome reception at the party's convention in New York City that year. A Indymedia hosting service in Texas once received a subpoena asking for server logs in relation to an investigation of an attempted murder in Italy.

Bankston has written a longer description of the exchange of letters with the Justice Department, which he hopes will raise awareness of how others should respond to similar legal demands for Web logs, customer records, and compulsory silence. "Our fear is that this kind of bogus gag order is much more common than one would hope, considering they're legally baseless," Bankston says. "We're telling this story in hopes that more providers will press back and go public when the government demands their silence."

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/11/09 ... 5506.shtml

Originally Posted by cayla99

Originally Posted by ReggieMay

Oh God, I hope i didn't visit on that day.

Visit sites by using:

http://anonymouse.org/anonwww.html

Originally Posted by millere

Originally Posted by cayla99

Originally Posted by ReggieMay

Oh God, I hope i didn't visit on that day.

Visit sites by using:

http://anonymouse.org/anonwww.html

I tried coming to alipac by that site and it would not let me

Last night I saw the new Alex Jones Movie, "Fall of the Republic " and the movie explains what the corporate elites ( Bankers and gov't's basically) have in store for us and the process by which they are putting it into effect. And to put their plan in place they needed a puppet like obama to systematically take away our freedoms. So I am not surprised that the gov't requested this private information. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8LPNRI_6T8 On You tube I found the entire movie.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEf1m1qlprM
Also a must-see is Endgame.

http://media.abovetopsecret.com/
Interesting links


http://www.fireandreamitchell.com/2009/ ... -to-acorn/
Internet Czars

http://www.fireandreamitchell.com/one-b ... ica-obama/

http://www.fireandreamitchell.com/one-b ... ica-obama/ What's really in the health care bill

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2028263/posts
Cap and Trade: The End of America
North Star Writers Group ^ | June 9, 2008 | David Karki

Posted on Monday, June 09, 2008 8:42:18 AM by Dukes Travels

This week, the Senate opened debate on the most massive tax increase in history and a government takeover of private industry that makes Roosevelt's New Deal look tiny by comparison. The sheer chutzpah it takes to even offer such a thing is breathtaking, matched only by how frightened we all should be by the sheer economic destruction it would inevitably cause and the loss of freedom to which it would directly lead.

I am speaking, of course, of the ever-so-benign-sounding “cap and tradeâ€

Thanks ELE.

Be careful if this link
http://anonymouse.org/anonwww.html is run by google because it seems that google is in bed with the gov't. Anyone notice how google is using Sesame Street cartoons and these same cartoons have also been ending up on popular television shows like Are you smarter than a fifth grader?. I am not sure how they are doing it ( Behavioral psychology strategies/Industrial Psychology) but I think that the innocent cartoons that most Americans know, love and trust are part of a manipulative scheme used to further obama's agenda.

Also notice that more programs and advertisting spots are featuring information about the joys of volunterism. Like most things in this administration they take something that seems innocent and good on the surface but then use it to their gain.

Glenn Beck - Current Events & Politics - Glenn Beck: VP debate bias?

1.Oct 1, 2008 ... By the way, ACORN was an employer of Barack Obama. Barack Obama helped train their volunteers. ACORN and Barack Obama have both called each ...
http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articl ... 198/15900/


2. Glenn Beck - Current Events & Politics - Glenn Beck: Obama resorts ...
Feb 5, 2009 ... The Obama National Anthem... GLENN: I am amazed at the comment today from Barack Obama that if we ... Why are we paying the volunteers? ...
http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articl ... 198/21108/



3. Glenn Beck - Current Events & Politics - Where America stands today
Jul 27, 2009 ... The Obama Administration's response to these events is to continue ... requested VOLUNTEERS from the National Guard to serve on the border. ...
http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articl ... 198/28451/


4. Glenn Beck - Current Events & Politics - Glenn Beck: Why Are We ...
Sep 3, 2009 ... None of the volunteers experienced any adverse effect, then or six to 10 years ... Yet, Barack Obama promised to bankrupt the industry: ...
http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articl ... 198/30042/


5. Glenn Beck - Current Events & Politics
The hometown of President Barack Obama is finding new and innovative ways to ... because Glenn actually witnessed one of these 'volunteers' taking money out ...
http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articl ... 198%26PAGE

6.Glenn Beck - Current Events & Politics - Glenn Beck: Green DNC
Aug 26, 2008 ... But they are all out in green shirts and these green volunteers and ... STU: The question of when saliva life is above Obama's pay grade. ...
http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articl ... 198/14409/

I hope you folks know what I would do if they ever sent me one of those letters.

W