DHS is using obscure law to snoop on journalists, non-profits, unions (theguardian.com)
364 points by firefax 10 hours ago
softwaredoug 10 hours ago
> In several cases, the DHS has withdrawn a 1509 summons after it was challenged in court and before a judge could rule on its legality. That may be a deliberate strategy to avoid having a judge rule on the legality of the summons.
They have a toy, they’re increasingly abusing it, then trying to dodge from it being taken away.
The thing is nobody has to comply with 1509 summons, DHS has to go to court to enforce it. A lot of the fault is on a company that complies without just ignoring it.
hackyhacky 9 hours ago
> The thing is nobody has to comply with 1509 summons, DHS has to go to court to enforce it.
You're not wrong, but companies such as Google make business decisions, not moral decisions. It's far easier and cheaper for them to comply, while there is basically no incentive for them to fight the summons. Especially given the current administration's proven record of taking retaliation against anyone who stands in their way.
If you want companies to behave in the interest of the general public, you need to create an incentive structure that supports that.
buzer 8 hours ago
Wouldn't the affected individual be able to sue the provider at least in some cases? From what I understand e.g. Stored Communications Act might allow suing T-Mobile in this case, at least if the individual isn't covered by binding arbitration. And possibly even government under 18 U.S.C. §2712.
Of course then it's up to judge to determine if the request was valid or not.
coldtea 6 hours ago
mmooss 7 hours ago
The OP contradicts your theory:
"In Fort’s case, Google did not comply with the summons for any of the accounts. The company responded to the DHS by saying it had not offered evidence of how it was related to a customs investigation."
> companies such as Google make business decisions, not moral decisions
The world is more complicated than that; they make both kinds of decisions and many decisions aren't clearly in one basket or the other. Humans don't biologically change to amoral creatures when they pull into the office parking lot (despite theories to the contrary or attempts to encourage it), nor are they absolved of human responsibility when doing things for which they are paid.
hackyhacky 3 hours ago
schubidubiduba 6 hours ago
ajross an hour ago
> You're not wrong, but companies such as Google make business decisions, not moral decisions. It's far easier and cheaper for them to comply
From the space between the lines in the article, it seems pretty clear that Google denied the request, and its employees were the source for the claim being reported at all. Yes, they absolutely could be evil in principle. They appear to have been good in practice.
And in times of extremis like this, maybe it's important to call out those little victories and find allies where you can. Even if you happen to be a HN Apple stan.
michaelt 7 hours ago
> there is basically no incentive for them to fight the summons
Ehhh, seems to me a cloud provider that wants to back up my documents, communications, photos, passkeys etc has a very strong business case for ensuring the data is as safe with them as they would be in my own home.
loloquwowndueo 5 hours ago
15155 8 hours ago
> They have a toy, they’re increasingly abusing it, then trying to dodge from it being taken away.
This isn't uncommon - this is how NY deals with any compelling case involving their infringing gun control statutes. If a defendant has money and no other meaningful charges, they tend to just dismiss and moot the issue rather than risk a finding of unconstitutionality.
smalltorch 8 hours ago
Perfect thread to drop tmailplus. It's for journalists who can't rely on centralized systems.
Become your own tiny infra
skybrian 9 hours ago
Apparently in this case, T-Mobile caved and Google didn't:
> The DHS also sought and obtained six months of phone records for Fort from T-Mobile, which included records for more than 10,000 calls and text messages. Fort was not notified the government was seeking the records until mid-July, when government lawyers produced them to her lawyers. Fort’s lawyers wrote in a filing this week they were “stunned” to see the government had unilaterally been able to obtain a log of her communications after a judge had warned them about obtaining records about a journalist.
...
> In Fort’s case, Google did not comply with the summons for any of the accounts. The company responded to the DHS by saying it had not offered evidence of how it was related to a customs investigation.
> A Google spokesperson said the company reviews each request for data it gets to ensure it is legal and pushes back when it is too broad or doesn’t follow the correct process.
JumpCrisscross 8 hours ago
Note that the DHS budget ($100bn) is sufficient to provide healthcare to every uninsured child, and about half (EDIT: a third) of what it would cost to provide universal healthcare to every American under 18 at the CMS average rate.
At the end of the day this sort of wastefulness eventually attracts attention.
some_random 7 hours ago
Medicare alone costs $1.21 Trillion, I find that extremely hard to believe.
JumpCrisscross 7 hours ago
> Medicare alone costs $1.21 Trillion
To cover 70.5 million seniors [1]. $17k per senior.
“Per person personal health care spending for the 65 and older population was $22,356 in 2020, over 5 times higher than spending per child ($4,217) and almost 2.5 times the spending per working-age person ($9,154)” [2].
80 million under 19 [3] at that rate comes to about $400bn. And most efficiency estimates would take at least a third off that when we eliminate redundant billing processes.
Given 6% of children lack health insurance, we could cover them for about $24bn. Less than Trump’s war in Iran has cost [4].
[1] https://data.cms.gov/summary-statistics-on-beneficiary-enrol...
[2] https://www.cms.gov/data-research/statistics-trends-and-repo...
[3] https://www.cms.gov/data-research/statistics-trends-and-repo...
iJohnDoe 2 hours ago
This is like UAE and North Korea behavior.
If you have to spy on these particular groups then you know you’re doing something wrong.
inigyou 9 hours ago
Use small platforms where possible. Oh wait, small platforms get sanctioned as terrorist organisations. I've been thinking I need to get my own IP range, but that requires exposing a lot of personal information.
noman-land 6 hours ago
They just removed ownership reporting requirements. Feel free to start an anonymous company and buy an IP block.
inigyou 6 hours ago
Hm true but I'm not in the US (and if I was I'd have much bigger problems). Maybe I have to register a company in my country that owns one in the US. But I wouldn't want the US to have power over my IP assignment, that defeats the point. Even if it was a US company registering with RIPE, the US government would have a veto by deleting the company.
There may be other uses for an anonymous US company though.
inigyou 10 hours ago
I'm surprised they still need a law.
0xbadcafebee 2 hours ago
“It’s outrageous conduct on so many levels. It’s hard to know where to begin,”
Do they not get that we live under an authoritarian regime? The regime doesn't care about the law. They have been installing their own people at every level of government for years, taking over parts of the government, and granting themselves new powers. When eventually every powerful person in government is part of the regime, it won't matter what the law says. This isn't hyperbole, this is how they have been operating for 1.5 years.
This is what the beginning looks like. The end looks like Germany 1942.
wolfcola 7 hours ago
ah, but the boot is off of a16z’s neck, so it’s all worth it!
antonvs 6 hours ago
Joke’s on them, Andreesen has no neck.
blurbleblurble 9 hours ago
Friends don't let friends use SMS/MMS
kingkawn an hour ago
They are disgusting pigs and the sooner the public sends them to political hell the better
java-man 10 hours ago
19 USC 1509 – dealing with customs imports
edot 10 hours ago
I like 2D, that one's nice. So in total it reads (ellipses for brevity):
"In any investigation or inquiry conducted for the purpose of ascertaining the correctness of any entry, for determining the liability of any person for duty, fees and taxes due or duties, fees and taxes which may be due the United States, for determining liability for fines and penalties, or for insuring compliance with the laws of the United States administered by the United States Customs Service, the Secretary (but no delegate of the Secretary below the rank of district director or special agent in charge) may ... summon, upon reasonable notice ... any other person he may deem proper".
And of course, one could argue that it's important to just double check and determine (note it doesn't say suspect, just determine) if someone has entered the country legally, ever, and paid all import taxes, ever. In order to do that, you'd need to see a lot of records. And of course the result can be "nope, they're all good". You don't need to have a good-faith suspicion of these things, just that you have a need to determine these things.
How many laws like this are on the books? In the same way that LLMs are fantastic at finding bugs, what other bugs are in the U.S. Code or similar that LLMs could find? We've been living in a world for a long time where things like this wouldn't be exploited, or maybe even noticed, but now it feels like these vulns are being hoarded and used like software exploits.
lovich 10 hours ago
It also requires a judge who is willing to interpret the rule the way you want. Law doesn’t execute deterministically like code does.
edot 10 hours ago
firefax 10 hours ago
edited title for length
creamedcorn 3 hours ago
DHS is using obscure law to snoop on China and Russia
FTFY
shevy-java 9 hours ago
Welcome to the dictatorship.
One has to wonder whether all Trump voters wanted this. I don't think so.
deathanatos 3 hours ago
> One has to wonder whether all Trump voters wanted this. I don't think so.
They voted for it. The GOP quite clearly spelled out the authoritarian desire well before the election.
LtWorf 6 hours ago
They wanted it, but for someone else.
tialaramex 6 hours ago
A key Republican insight, many years ago was that their voters prioritize causing harm to those they dislike. You might naively assume that out of "Kick everybody in the head" and "Kick nobody in the head" the latter would be more popular with voters, but Republicans discovered that their voters absolute will pick "Kick everybody in the head" so long as you emphasise that people they don't like get kicked in the head.
They don't enjoy being kicked in the head, they agree that part is bad, but they experience joy knowing that people they don't like got kicked in the head.
A difficulty is coming up with a way to ensure your wealthiest donors don't get kicked in the head, they annoyingly may not accept that it's a fair price unlike voters - but you can often fiddle around this, we'll find a way. If that donor doesn't even live in the area affected by the policy, for example because he's a War Criminal who lives in a different country entirely, that's not a problem...
tdeck 2 hours ago
charcircuit 5 hours ago
Wanted what? Government agencies to efficiently be able to obtain subpoenas. I want that.
p_j_w 3 hours ago
You want them to be able to snoop on journalists and unions without showing any sort of criminal behavior? Definitely checking those Republican boxes.
JuniperMesos 2 hours ago
charcircuit 5 hours ago
>There is no judge in the loop. You don’t have that independent authority to scrutinize the demand and to say whether or not it’s legitimate,
The 4th amendment does not require a judge in the loop to decide if a search is unreasonable. This type of thinking leads to adding bureaucracy making law enforcement less efficient. Criminals benefit from having law enforcement's throughput minimized so they will campaign at every turn to make the government less and less efficient and require more and more procedures for an investigation so it all comes to a halt that way as long as they aren't most wanted 1-10 for a year they can get away with what they are doing.
smalltorch 5 hours ago
Can you expound on your viewpoint?
It's dicey to say that because warrants are needed in the majority of places to search and individual.
charcircuit 4 hours ago
My viewpoint is that we should eventually have AI be assisting in determining if a search is reasonable in the moment. If there is an actual constitutional violation that that happens it can be resolved after the fact. So for simple cases you could get the equivalent of a warrant in under 10 seconds.
By increasing efficiency and decreasing cost it allows for both higher quality, consistent, and wide spread law enforcement. I believe every part of the law enforcement and legal system needs to be systematically reevaluated finding ways to increase efficiency.