Justice Dept. asked for news site's visitor lists

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 "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 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.

Read more of "Justice Dept. Asked For News Site's Visitor Lists" at CBSNews.com.

[krosafcheg]

Overreaching paranoid people with too much power.

Subpoena this.

[Lerianis3]

I have to agree.... seems to be no explanation for this subpoena in the other news stories I have seen on this.

[Been_there_Saw_it_before]

This type of "give us everything" is why many libraries stopped saving the borrowing history of the public.
I do not keep records on my visitors for that exact reason. The response would be a blank sheet.

[jezzur]

That is worrying.

[Manitook]

I have less issue with the subpoena than I do with the gag order. Evil things happen under the cloak of secrecy.

[ddhboy]

Apparently the FBI spends most of its time going around the internet looking for "questionable" content. This is your government after 9/11. Untold amounts of taxpayer money not being used to solve murders or anything like that, but going on a virtual McCarthy hunt for anything that happens to go against the message of the president at the time. I say at the time because Obama's doing this same stuff too. Sure Obama's not going to be sending people out to indymedia.us, but he'll sure as hell keep an eye on a right wing news site where one user said that they wish he would leave office.

I guess the joys of being a moderate is being able to see with clarity, but whatever, apparently we don't exist anymore. Its all just liberals and conservatives, they say.

[gggg sssss]

that did not seem to help them identify Nidal Malik Hasan

[ddhboy]

Hence why these things are pointless. You can't arrest someone on their comments, you can't use the comments as actual evidence, and if your dealing with a real terrorist they'd probably hide their IP address, making it difficult to track people down. Besides, Nidal Malik Hasan was probably had a psychological break, and the media's really reaching far to try and mark him as a terrorist. Not every crime that involves gun violence and groups is terrorism. Columbine was terrible, but I don't think we'd call that a terrorist attack.

[ddhboy]

Apparently the FBI spends most of its time going around the internet looking for "questionable" content. This is your government after 9/11. Untold amounts of taxpayer money not being used to solve murders or anything like that, but going on a virtual McCarthy hunt for anything that happens to go against the message of the president at the time. I say at the time because Obama's doing this same stuff too. Sure Obama's not going to be sending people out to indymedia.us, but he'll sure as hell keep an eye on a right wing news site where one user said that they wish he would leave office.

I guess the joys of being a moderate is being able to see with clarity, but whatever, apparently we don't exist anymore. Its all just liberals and conservatives, they say.

[Lerianis3]

Actually, most of the time when the FBI is approaching things, they do it with a NEUTRAL viewpoint and unless you say "I wish Obama was dead!" and they actually think that you are one of the 'looney fringe' who might try to actually kill him, they will leave you alone.

[gertruded]

Remember, this happened during the Bush Administration. Maybe another Cheney thing.

[doubtthat]

Yes, but it is still happening under the Obama administration. When are people going to realize there is a new Sheriff in town? When too, will they realize he is no different than the old Sheriff?

there is no proof that this is also happening under Obama.

[ps_martin]

The subpoena was issued on February 24th, 2009. I'm pretty sure this happened during the Obama Administration. Maybe another Rahm thing.

[doubtthat]

Sure there is. He is stalling on producing info on the telco wire tap case, he won't release the names of visitors to the White House and he and the Dems still keep the Homeland Security act in place.

[ps_martin]

My mistake, the subpoena was issued January 23rd, 3 days into President Obama's administration, but a week-and-a-half before Holder was sworn in. Even Rahm doesn't work that quickly.

I still don't see what it really has to do with Bush or Cheney, other than they are convenient targets of blame for everything that is wrong with the world.

[ddhboy]

More than likely, it was something that started in Bush's time, but he probably had nothing to do with it directly. Most of the stuff we shame him for, he probably wasn't involved in directly, but his underlings were, and since Bush became such a figure in his own right, there really wasn't a degree between bush and some bureaucrat in an office some where. Same applies to Obama and groups he's not really involved with like ACORN. But hey, people need someone to blame, the president is always the biggest figure, and the news loves this sort of thing because it makes their job easier.

[intoxination]

@ps_martin:

The subpoena was pulled on 2/25/09. It was entered into the court record on 1/23/09, meaning that is the latest date it was issued:

http://www.eff.org/files/subpoena.pdf

I really doubt that within 72 hours of becoming President that Obama got a prosecutor, a grand jury seated and argued for this subpoena and got it. As matter of fact I guarantee that it didn't happen. This occurred under Bush.

[cloudmatt]

I hope they fight it. I hope they win. a win on something like this could lead to precedence and I want the precedence to be in favor of our freedoms not our bush era big brother style freedom.

[RobertAPierce]

Scary stuff.... Unfortunately, the Obama administration has not shown any desire to clearly get rid of these heavy handed Bush-era tactics.

[umbrae]

Once power is given; it is rarely taken away. Shame on every American for allowing the fear driven laws to be passed.

[perfectblue97]

I think that they've probably been too busy, what with the banks and all.

[georgivich]

I'm not saying I'm for or against their tactics, but THINK ppl! When such a request is made, it's usually because someone has hijacked a portion of the hosting server. It's usually not about the hoster, or the content! They're looking for certain packets, certain headers, certain port traffic, etc. to follow hackers' footsteps from hijacked applications/servers/etc.

Maybe you don't like the government's tactics but at least wise up to what they're trying to do.

[Endbringer]

Thank you for thinking clearly. Apparently a lot people on here do not do that.

[0ri0n]

If that were the case, typically the administrator is involved (or at least aware) of what the investigations pertain to. As an administrator myself, an investigation does not come out of the blue and center on a specific day; the process is involved, and lengthy.

The gag order bothers me as well. There is no accountability for justification, and freedom of speech is nullified under the guise of "it will interfere (indefinitely?) with the investigation or jeopardize national security".

[perfectblue97]

Yeah, but we still have to ask they big bad question. What exactly was it that they were looking for. It's one thing if they were them to look for evidence of a bot belonging to a criminal gang looking to harvest data, and it's another thing if they were trying to track down a liberal blogger commenting on a news story.

The gag also bothers me a lot, too. Since 9/11 the feds have done a lot of bad stuff, and have made a lot of fishing trips based on nothing more than hearsay (or worse), and they've tried to hid the fact that they are doing it.

That's not a place that a modern democracy should be in. It stinks of the cold war. The soviets used to do stuff like that.

[Endbringer]

@perfectblue97

We're not a democracy. I hate it when people call the United States a democracy. No where in our founding documents is that word found. In fact, the founders HATED the idea of a democracy because it would lead to the rule of mob, instead of the rule of law. That's why we're a democratic REPUBLIC.

[georgivich]

OriOn,
Subpoenas are never open-ended. Depending on the evidence presented, the judge involved, etc., there are always limits. One aspect of the request though was that it probably was wider than needed in order to mask the specifics of what they were looking for from the hackers themselves. That was probably the reason for the gag order, too. But anyway...

[Lerianis3]

Guess again: a lot of the subpoenas written today are written so that they are SOOOOOOO loose in how people can interpret them, that they can basically lead to the seizure of anything and everything, and the judges STILL sign the subpoena in question.

[Portal12]

We're not sure of the circumstances. However, if they have a comment system, and someone on there posted some sort of serious threat, this would be no different than someone coming into a business and threatening to do something horrible. That business would be asked for all video, records, and anything else that might help shed light on the situation being investigated.

I'm not sure how this is even news worthy?

[Pete Bardo]

Not sure how this is news worthy? You're kidding, right? The subpoena asks not only for IP address, but account numbers, Social Security numbers, credit card numbers, physical addresses of everyone who visited the site that day. If some individual posted "some sort of serious threat" it seems that individual could be identified without turning over the entire membership list of the site.

[kaifanun]

I hate to say it but it was the Bush Administration that gave all this power to the Democrats. When Republicans were enacting all this security and secrecy powers, didn't they realize that once Democrats take over they are going to keep using and even expand the policies? Whoever thought that Obama and the Democrats will revert all powers back to the people think again.

[kaiman75]

Why would this webhost know the SS and CC #s of its visitors. This isn't to justify what the Justice Department is asking for, but honestly,, do they actually believe that some leftist indymedia site is going to have this info on record?

Dumba**es!

[Dr_Zinj]

Should charge everyone involved at the Justice Department in this event with conspiracy to violate the Constitution, convict them and throw them in prison for maximum length sentences.

By the way, any "gag order" in a subpeona is also un-Constitutional and can be legally ignored. That doesn't mean that going public about it won't have practical, or severe repercussions, but if anyone tries to tell you they are legal, they are wrong.

[masonx]

Note the dates. This was pure GOP under the guise of Bush and Co. doing what they do so well - destroying freedom, abusing power, creating wholesale corruption and trampling the Constitution. So what is the logic of giving any credibility to what's left of the GOP today? I'll never understand why the Democrats have even given the GOP the time of day, much less why they are even minimally concerned with by-partisanship. Talk about collaborating with losers. You can't deny the voter intelligence curve is bell shaped - with the GOP base occupying it's lower quadrant and therein lies the great challenge of democracies.

[Endbringer]

Are you on crack? Destroying freedom? At least Bush isn't trying to unconstitutionally force citizens to purchase a service and put you in jail if you refuse. At least Bush didn't unconstitutionally appoint a secretary of state that had an increase in salary during her time in the Senate. At least Bush wasn't trying to send a known, corrupt organization to handle the Constitutionally mandated census. At least Bush didn't spend in one year what every other administration and Congress had since the founding the country.

And we're not a democracy. Your government education has failed you once again.

[ckerr]

So if I understand the link edstory correctly..... a Subpoena was issued, then when challenged the Subpoena was withdrawn. Prosecutors casting an overly wide net in the hopes of finding something. Seems to me like Fodder for the conspiracy theorists more than anything else.

On a slightly different tangent..... doesn't anyone simply ask nicely anymore? "Hey, Administrator, we're trying to catch a bad guy, can you help us out? We need traffic logs from here to there to catch them."

[jmoran]

If the Bush administration was doing this the old media newsreaders would be having hernias!!