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Comment by dgrealy | Hacker News Reader

It's important to remember that these orders serve a real and necessary role in investigating serious criminals; these individuals are not named prior to trial or if the investigation does not lead to a trial. It should not be assumed that they were being unlawfully persecuted - rather that there was a serious reason for them to be under investigation.

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> these individuals are not named, but it should not be assumed that they were being unlawfully persecuted - rather that there was a serious reason for them to be under investigation.

If only there were some way of determining whether they were being unlawfully persecuted or validly investigated.

I know, right? Who could possibly judge one way or the other?

Do you think it might be a judge? Upon a completed investigation? One which is effective and protects the identities of the investigated prior to any criminal prosecution?

Do you think there should maybe be an oversight board and a congressional committee? Because these things exist. Do you propose something different?

These are the functions which these authorities serve in society.

Why all of these rhetorical questions? There have been hundreds of thousands of these, with only a handful released upon completed investigation. I think a transparent judge, a transparent oversight board, a transparent congressional committee, etc is what is proposed. This is how we know these functions are even being served by authorities in society. Or not being served, such as up until recently where the gag was interminable making your "upon a completed investigation" comment misinformed at the least and your blind faith misplaced.

That's what trials are for. The trial system is deeply imperfect, but investigating someone with a view to putting them on trial is not inherently untoward. You seem to be arguing that a trial should precede an investigation.

They are arguing for the 200-year+ tradition of getting a judge to sign off on invasive investigations.

And when they do so they complain about judges' willingness to do it. There is no procedural solution that will ever be satisfying to people who wish to return or a technologically simpler time.

Well think about it ... if the investigation or justice proceedings were not completed, or the investigation didn't yield prosecution, thier names would not, and should not be revealed. So which is it? You want full transparency which would cause people to be unlawfully persecuted by the public? Or do you want a functional investigative justice system which protects the identities of the not-proven-guilty?

I ask you with complete sincerity - think it through.

He wants the Constitutional requirement, and the tradition of the separation of powers, to be fulfilled by having a Judge review and sign off on the search. That is all he wants, you are the one imagining insane things.

How you are getting that I want anything different? Also, don't go around calling people insane.

> How you are getting that I want anything different?

Then perhaps you're under the misunderstanding that a judge has signed off on the NSL's. That is not the case, these are warrantless searches.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Amendment_to_the_United...

Go ahead and downvote me, but NSA has a different process than warrants for a reason. There is signoff which satisfies the constitution. Secret court, secret panel. It is secret for a reason and the court is overseen by congress.

However personally I would prefer these cases to be declassified after a reasonalbe amount of time, where it is possible to protect the innocent.

Again you seem to misunderstand: a NSL is not the NSA going to a secret court, it is the FBI not going to any court.

It should not be assumed that they were being unlawfully persecuted - rather that there was a serious reason for them to be under investigation

It's probably just my own crazy notion, but I think we should assume they're innocent until proven guilty in open court. I also have this other crazy idea that the government should obey the fourth amendment to the constitution (i.e. the highest law in the country), and only conduct reasonable searches with a judicially sanctioned warrant. One based on probable cause and a legally actionable oath/affirmation by the government official seeking the warrant.

But I guess reversing the presumption of innocence and pissing on the separation of powers by creating quasi-judiciaries under the executive arm of government is... good...

That's certainly the intent, but at this point NSL's are more of a drag-net approach. Rampant abuse is undermining it's legitimacy.

We should be totally okay with court ordered records requests against specific accounts. That's LEO doing his job. It doesn't look like these two letters were court ordered however. Even so, it was bounded time against two accounts and of course you don't want to tip them off.

It's the bulk tap rooms, such as the AT&T one, that ARE the dragnet and highly abusive of our rights. I feel like this whole NSL release program of late is a distraction tactic to take our attention away from the real abuse.

Except for 1. the extreme secrecy and 2. the matter being policed is essentially speech.

If a crime has been committed for which Twitter is evidence, then arrest the perpetrators and collect the evidence with a standard public search warrant. There isn't even an argument to be made that uncaught co-conspirators could preemptively destroy evidence, as Twitter has it all recorded! But the war on drugs has established this philosophy of cultivating ongoing crime in order to catch ambiguous "higher ups". That kind of "ongoing threat" is only compatible with a totalitarian society.

And hence all the gag orders so nobody can determine how rampant the abuse is.

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