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Comment by jenvalentino | Hacker News Reader

Hi. I'm the reporter on this story. Thanks for discussing it!

I thought it might be helpful for me to make a couple points.

First, national security letters have been around, AND controversial, for years now. A number of tech companies have fought the gag orders. The news here is really that we are seeing for the first time which other specific companies get a lot of these — especially banks, credit agencies and so forth, which have all been silent on the subject.

Second, @hammock is correct to say that these are not approved by a judge. Nor are they grand jury subpoenas. They are administrative subpoenas, but unlike other administrative subpoenas, almost all of these come with stringent, long-term gag orders. So, they're a pretty special type of subpoena, not one with which everyone is familiar.

Thanks again for reading.

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This is an excellent and deeply disturbing article, but all I can do in response right now is suspect that if J. Edgar Hoover were still alive to see what shenanigans the modern FBI gets up to when nobody is looking, he would wholeheartedly approve. It's obvious that the agency has learned all the wrong lessons from the exposure of COINTELPRO.

The FBI is still The House J. Edgar Built, and Congress ought to tear it down.

>Congress ought to tear it down.

ABSCAM.

There is a Lavrentiy Beria everywhere. (There's probably thousands of Lavrentiy Beria's in the US alone, truth be told.) With the threat of ABSCAM-like ops looming out there, I wouldn't count on politicians saving us. Just ask black and hispanic males how well appealing to politicians for help from malicious prosecution has worked out for them historically.

I get what you're saying, but do you really see HN management turning a blind eye to people calling for direct action against Federal agencies when a bunch of Ycombinator startups probably do business with the Feds? Besides, Big Brother is probably reading HN as well.

You can't assume that Hoover would have been against increasing the power available to himself and his agency.

He didn't seem to mind when he was actually running the FBI. So, assuming life-after-death isn't just a fantasy, why expect that he's changed his mind? People usually don't unless forced to do so.

No this is right. If left-, right-politics have taught me anything, it is that your personal business, emails, and bedroom behavior are the concern of the federal government and its electorate--at least the 50% that agree with it.

Hoover was running his little fiefdom with minimal oversight under both Democratic and Republican administrations. Both sides used him, and doubtless both sides feared the dirt he had on them and what he might reveal if called to account by Congress.

Kompromat might be a foreign word, but it's hardly a foreign concept.

You’re kidding right? This is the history of the word blackmail:

https://www.etymonline.com/word/blackmail#etymonline_v_13560

Yea and my comment's derision is inclusive of both halves of the 2-party system.

As @mLuby says below, recipients of NSLs "can't reveal they've been gagged, or what type of data they were compelled to reveal."

Has evidence from an NSL ever been introduced into court by a prosecutor? It seems like this gag order serves to allow the FBI to pursue parallel construction and then keep their tracks covered in doing so.

Fwiw, it was the PATRIOT Act, passed shortly after the events of 9/11/2001, that allows for these administrative subpoenas and gag orders and removed any effective judicial oversight. Many of those provisions in the act were set to expire and those expirations were extended by both president Bush and Obama. IIRC the AG or their subordinates have to notify the judiciary of these subpoenas but can issue a gag order along with the disclosure effectively removing any judicial oversight.

The problem is anything that helps someone do their job more easily will get approved.

A little more background on administrative subpoenas:

We Don't Need No Stinking Warrant: The Disturbing, Unchecked Rise of the Administrative Subpoena (https://www.wired.com/2012/08/administrative-subpoenas)

Didn’t Biden take credit for writing the patriot act? Seems like a strange thing to congratulate yourself for.

The Patriot Act has done far more damage to our democracy than 9/11 did. It's actually quite sad. It can't be considered Ironic because any idiot can see it's an arrow into the heart of a healthy democracy that is leery of government overreach.

Thanks for writing it.

This is certainly disturbing news. And it's great to know about it. But I'm left feeling hopeless. Because we've been fighting this bullshit for decades, with little to show for it. And personally, there's nothing actionable.

So it goes.

Minor method of resistance: whenever you get a resume that lists work with the FBI, put it directly into the circular file.

You realize people self-report their work history on their resume? I can omit something and it isn’t a liability for anyone.

Lying on a resume may get you fired. Or so I've heard.

Omitting a job is not lying on a resume -- it's very common to prune your jobs to respect a one-page limit, and the resume is supposed to present what is relevant and persuasive to the hiring manager.

So why not ask for the comprehensive job history on the job application? The federal government does.

Do you know if anyone has ever responded to one of these letters with "If you want to access our data we need a signed order from a judge" and how that played out?

According to the EFF:

Can I challenge an NSL in court?

Yes. Since the statute was amended in 2006, an NSL recipient can petition a federal district court to modify or set aside both requests for records and the gag orders that accompany such requests.

There’s a good summary of the EFF’s challenges to the law here: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/04/disappointing-ruling-n...

Thank you for your reporting on this, even if it just seems to chronicle the ever accelerating deconstruction of the Constitution. Even if American Constitutionalists were able to walk back these types of clear abuses on the social compact that keeps peace by two steps, it will only be without realizing that five steps were taken towards the progress of disassembling the Constitution.

An old, irrelevant, outdated document the Constitution is, they tell you as part of the psychological manipulation game they play to get people to foolishly abdicate their most fundamental rights through the con job of government's benevolence. But in the end, well beyond the point of way-too-late, people will unfortunately have to come to terms with the reality that freedom, liberty, self-governance, and that the government is no one's friend are not old, irrelevant, and outdated principles; they are universal principles that span time.

Just like many things in humanity have been discovered and crated, then forgotten and taken for granted and driven to being lost and collapsed, and then rediscovered or reinvented; so too, does it seem humanity is on course to bury this experiment with self-governance that was kicked off in 1775, for maybe another 1,000 years, if not permanently. Is there even an opportunity or chance for freedom to rise again when it is suppressed so thoroughly by way of technology and soulless robots and AI? I think not. I hope I am for once wrong. ... War or galvanizing event to rationalize ever more eradication of liberty, incoming, all to the cheers of adoring fans.

In memoriam the people who's voices have been squelched by the tech tyrants. They will not be the last victims of this evil that is descending on us with ominous persistence.

I'm not sure how the constitution is remotely relevant here. It's clearly not protecting us from this in it's current state. If we want protections against secret government gag orders, we have to vote for people who will oppose them, which is a really small number of people indeed, or else vote to change the constitution to actually start protecting these rights. And if this turns out to be impossible, what is at fault? Probably to some extent... the existing powers of government, as enshrined in the constitution.

The governmental system we have is not a perversion of the constitution, but a reflection of its inadequacies.

You're right. Discussing the shortcomings of the constitution is sort of viewed as a faux pax in American society, but the fact is that the current government, including its weaknesses, is an outcome of it. Discussions of how it could be improved, particularly given the almost 250 years of data we have, should be welcome.

Another strongly American social phenomenon is viewing the government as an intrusive enemy. The result is this kind of wish that the government would just go away and I think a lot of Americans think that if we could just somehow suffocate the government then the problems that it presents would vanish. The reality, of course, is not even remotely that way. Government is a tool that the powerful will continue to use to clobber each other.

It seems hopeless, but we at least need to talk about how the government can be improved, including its fundamental structures.

... we at least need to talk about how the government can be improved ...

I would amend that to "... we at least need to talk about how the government can be improved or eliminated ..."

One has to consider what the fundamental basis for government even is and how government can have any authority at all, and what the limits on that authority are.

I would encourage everybody reading this to go read The Law[1] by Bastiat, for a highly cogent analysis of these issues. The entire essay is a delight, but one point he makes stands out to me:

What, then, is law? It is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense. <snip> Thus the principle of collective right — its reason for existing, its lawfulness — is based on individual right. And the common force that protects this collective right cannot logically have any other purpose or any other mission than that for which it acts as a substitute. Thus, since an individual cannot lawfully use force against the person, liberty, or property of another individual, then the common force — for the same reason — cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, liberty, or property of individuals or groups.

If you adhere to this viewpoint, the "government" (which we usually take as a proxy for "the law") is only an extension of existing individual rights, and cannot have any authority or right that an individual doesn't have. Of course one can also get into a different discussion of whether or not it is even correct to treat "the government" (or "The State") as the natural (or only) proxy for what we mean by "the law".

[1]: http://bastiat.org/en/the_law.html

The Constitution is only a piece of paper. Lots of people tell you this, usually when they're arguing against gun ownership; but they completely miss the point of what that means. In their minds that means, "So we should just do whatever we want."

Everything "enshrined in The Constitution" is no such thing. It's enshrined in our culture, and individual hearts and minds. That's why it's so incredibly stupid and naive to push for things that are unconstitutional: it means you've dismantled your respect for the ideas in the constitution in your own mind, and you're cool with others, even your enemies, dismantling it in theirs. Usually you do this for some short-term, inadequate political reason (vague promises about controlling guns or banning abortion or taxing rich folks).

The Constitution isn't inadequate. We are, because we have no respect for the rights of others when it comes to what we think is best for everyone. We are, because we believe the lies that are pumped at us 24 hours a day. We are, because we argue that the Constitution is just a piece of paper when it gets in the way of what we want.

It's not about The Constitution. It's about people generally having the government they deserve.

"Democracy is government for the people, by the people, on the principle that the people should get the kind of government that they deserve, good and hard."

[wish i could attribute this, but i don't remember where i first heard it]

It's by H.L. Mencken (1915): https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/H._L._Mencken. https://books.google.ca/books?id=hXVHAAAAYAAJ&q=%22Democracy...

Thanks! I had a feeling it was Mencken, it certainly sounds like him.

Not sure what you're talking about, the courts have ruled that NSLs are constitutional.

That's the problem. I'm almost 100% sure that, if you explained an NSL to Jefferson, he'd say that it clearly wasn't constitutional. Washington too, very likely. Adams, though, might have gone either way.

The Supreme Court has been a treasonous organization since Wickard v Filburn (8 of 9 justices then of course appointed by Roosevelt)

NSLs are unconstitutional.

> The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

I agree there is nothing at all constitutional about them, just like the Patriot Act.

The Constitution still says what it always said. The problem is that there's been 243 years of interpretation. So what it effectively says in many cases bears little relationship to it.

Hi reporter on this story:

Are we aware if these are targeted (~60 orders = ~60 targets) or requests for large swathes of information?

Hi. We don't know for sure how many targets are involved in these letters. However, the USA Freedom Act prohibited bulk collection of information here.

The government now releases basic statistics on NSLs, for example here: https://www.dni.gov/files/CLPT/documents/2019_ASTR_for_CY201....

In 2018, there were 10,235 NSLs, with 38,872 "requests for information" (ie targets) within those NSLs. So you can make some general inferences.

As a suggestion for following articles on the subject, you could explore why there is no remedy for this apparent loss of privacy.

I personally think that the Bill of Rights should have been amended once tabulating machines were used for the 1890 census, without which, it would have taken the whole decade to count.

It wouldn’t take a whole decade to count. Just hire more people. A census’s cost is proportionate to the population.

Amdahl’s Law is real.

It's trivially parallelizable.

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