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Comment by mikeyouse | Hacker News Reader

The US Government absolutely has the right (under court order) to compel a US-based company to hand over data about a US citizen.

Do you really think that if Google had access to OBL's whereabouts and wouldn't comply with court orders to provide the information, that the acceptable outcome would be the CIA whining about Google on TV?

    If Google refuses to help track down Osama, then the
    government can announce this, and people will be outraged
    at Google. Snowden is a different matter, many people
    don't believe he did anything wrong, so it is hard to
    take the government's side of things.

Are you really suggesting that our laws should be based on public opinion?

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If giving up Osama Bin Ladin's location also required giving up the privacy of everyone that uses Google to the CIA, then I would say that act would become OBL crowning achievement.

He already succeeded in destroying an icon of our economy and taking thousands of lives with it. Are you really suggesting that its acceptable for us to debase one of the basic human rights that are the foundation of this country in order to capture one man? This is exactly what is happening with Lavabit.

I don't think any law should be based on public opinion, but when the interpretation of a law is potentially unconstitutional, then that interpretation becomes a matter of public opinion that should be decided in the US Supreme Court.

Lavabit had the option of providing access to only Snowden's account. They declined that option. The FBI then escalated their demand to get the data they were entitled to.

This 'unconstitutional' demand from the FBI was Lababit's creation by being obstinate to begin with. Did they just expect the government to give up after Lavabit told them they couldn't access that data?

The government doesn't get to escalate, that's not how it works. The government has structural, fundamental, limitations on its power: http://alexgaynor.net/2013/oct/02/thoughts-lavabit/

So let's blame the victim? If only Lavabit had capitulated then the poor FBI would not have had to escalate their demands. If only the battered wife had just done what her husband wanted, he wouldn't have had to break her nose. The government does not apply the law uniformly. It escalates when it wants to, when it's been embarrassed or slighted. Keep your head down and don't make trouble.

> Are you really suggesting that its acceptable for us to debase one of the basic human rights that are the foundation of this country in order to capture one man?

That ship has already sailed. Take a look at the Boston marathon bombing manhunt if you need any more evidence of how far 'out the window' your fundamental human rights can go, given the right circumstances.

Compare this:

>The government shouldn't have the right...

to this:

>The US Government absolutely has the right...

You can't refute a normative claim with a positive claim.

----

>Are you really suggesting that our laws should be based on public opinion?

I think he's suggesting that violence (which ultimately backs state compulsion) is not an appropriate response to a non-violent act (declining to hand over keys).

    I think he's suggesting that violence (which
    ultimately backs state compulsion) is not an
    appropriate response to a non-violent act
    (declining to hand over keys).

I'm sure that's what he is saying, but it's an intellectually lazy claim.

If you only look at the scope of the demand (hand over the keys or we will put you in jail), it may seem like an escalation of force by the government. The real normative claim being made is that contempt of court charges are unconstitutional. Which is patently absurd.

The threat of force exists because through contempt, 'non-violent' dissenters can enable further violence.

the rights of the U.S. government are determined by the constitution of the U.S.

the 4th amendment of the constitution makes it perfectly clear that the government can only receive a warrant when they can establish probable cause of criminal activity AND that the warrant is specific and particular. no blanket searches.

Unfortunately, precedent holds that intercepting stuff broadcast over the wires is not a search.

"In Smith v. Maryland, the Supreme Court held that a pen register is not a search because the "petitioner voluntarily conveyed numerical information to the telephone company." Since the defendant had disclosed the dialed numbers to the telephone company so they could connect his call, he did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the numbers he dialed. The court did not distinguish between disclosing the numbers to a human operator or just the automatic equipment used by the telephone company."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_v._Maryland

Unfortunately, precedent holds that…

While I can see why lawyers and judges should care about that bit of information, I completely fail to see why the common man should. Bad precedents, destined to be overturned, are created all the time. Even the Supreme Court overturns its own "precedents".

So while I agree that info is not completely useless, it's not actually relevant to the question of what the common man should do, because that doesn't change: he should do what's right and just, regardless of the present position of the state.

IANAL, but "reasonable expectation of privacy" sounds like a default position when no expectation has been set between the customer and the service provider. In this particular case, there was an explicit expectation of privacy set out in the terms of service, and in fact that expectation was the entire justification for charging for the service amid a proliferation of free competitors.

Of course my interpretation could differ from established case history, or even with a technical legal reading of that particular clause, but there seems to be a logical argument there (whether or not there's a legal one).

I believe that statute is the reason why Lavabit considered it legal to provide metadata information only. Numbers dialed is a form of metadata. The contents of the call (or email in this case) is another thing entirely. Thats really the basis of the appeal.

Right.

The government had a specific and particular warrant to a single account on the Lavabit service. Lavabit denied them access to that account. So the government requested broader access.

false. Lavabit declined to hand over its secret keys. The technical design of the system made it so Lavabit did not have a key that could unlock only one user's account. This was not denial of access. This was a technical limitation. The system was specifically designed to have this limitation as a form of privacy protection. That privacy protection ought not be considered illegal though. This is the essence of the 4th amendment. Its the reason this case is going to a court of appeal.

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