Judge In FBI Case Was Forced To Redact His Mocking Of FBI's Ridiculous Arguments
from the now-revealed dept
We've already discussed how Nicholas Merrill can finally reveal the ridiculous and almost certainly unconstitutional National Security Letter (NSL) he received 11 years ago while operating a small ISP, Calyx Internet Access. However, with that revelation also came the unredacted version of the judge's ruling back in October. When we wrote about the October ruling we had mocked many of the obviously ridiculous redactions -- including this somewhat iconic redacted footnote:![](https://i.imgur.com/tYIHnO2.png)
![](https://i.imgur.com/PXkrKQA.png)
The Court notes that the Leahy Letter does not reveal the "180 day" time period in which the FBI sought order and shipping information from Merrill. The Perdue Declaration argues that if this 180-day period is revealed, then "potential terrorists" could manipulate orders to avoid having those orders fall within the 180 day period.... The Court is not persuaded. A "potential terrorist" does not know when, if ever, the FBI will issue a related NSL. The 180-day period clearly relates to the date Merill received the NSL, and it is hard to imagine any person outside of the FBI having the knowledge about when an NSL might be issued, and changing their behavior as a result.Many of the other redactions just involve hiding what kind of information is currently being redacted, even as the judge wondered why such information was being redacted. For example, we originally highlighted this section:
![](https://i.imgur.com/FlN1gnI.png)
![](https://i.imgur.com/McELV6l.png)
![](https://i.imgur.com/n5DkwZB.png)
![](https://i.imgur.com/ABxX9hu.png)
... a potential target of an investigation, even a dim-witted one, would almost certainly be able to determine, simply by running through the alphabet, that "telephone number█" could only be "telephone numbers." Redactions that defy common sense -- such as concealing a single letter at the end of a word -- diminish the force of the Government's claim to "good reason" to keep information under seal, and undermine its argument that disclosures of the currently-redacted information in the Attachment can be linked to a substantial risk of an enumerated harm.The judge also mocks the ridiculous fact that because the FBI is no longer using NSLs to obtain cell-tower location info, that because it might at some point in the future use it, such info should be redacted:
![](https://i.imgur.com/n67NjeD.png)
![](https://i.imgur.com/Gszw1VT.png)
It was pretty clear back in October the redactions were ridiculous (as was the whole gag order in the first place), and now it's been confirmed.
![Hide This Hide this](https://ii.techdirt.com/s/t/i/topclose.png)
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: fbi, national security letter, nicholas merrill, nsl, redactions, surveillance
Companies: calyx internet access
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
RADIUS
This parenthetical comment has actually attracted a small bit of attention elsewhere, with some commenters taking Judge Marrero's explanation of a “radius log” at face value, and other commenters feeling confident that this is a MESSED-UP reference to the well-known “Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service (RADIUS)”, and RADIUS's equally well-known logging.
Do you think that Judge Marrero understood whatever technical explanation he may have received regarding a “radius log” ?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: RADIUS
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: RADIUS
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: RADIUS
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: RADIUS
How much more circular is this argument going to get? I believe we've defined its circumference now, unless there's a spherical dimension yet to be revealed.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: RADIUS
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: RADIUS
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
A pleasure doing business
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
This can't be right
uh... isn't that called the "white pages" and freely available pretty much everywhere???
Aren't there several dozen web sites that have this already?
Why is an NSL needed for this?
oh wait.. ."Intelligence" agencies are involved here...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: This can't be right
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
A Redactor with a conscience?
While it's tempting to dismiss actions like this as "government stupidity", you don't get to a position of responsibility where you're entrusted with redacting documents if you're not at least a little intelligent. You're looking at someone who's at least a little bit smart in terms of legal requirements and who probably has some operational experience in the area as well.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: A Redactor with a conscience?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: A Redactor with a conscience?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: A Redactor with a conscience?
I have to wonder if they're just tying up or filling the queue with as much crap as they can find to slow the process down to the speed of molasses in Antarctica. With shit like this tying up the courts, we can just give up on this vector. It's a pointless exercise in time and resource wasting.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: A Redactor with a conscience?
I think what you're referring to will eventually become common, as people start to view the whistleblower as the people's hero against the institutional and corporate tyranny.... commonly called fascism. Snowden has laid a very good road upon which that kind of public hero can evolve.
Once started upon the road to Fascist Empire, there is no turning back for government because of the constantly increasing accumulation of criminal activities that need to be undertaken to achieve the goal of Empire.
To stop is to be caught with their myriad hands in all of the cookie jars.
Instead, the process of fear mongering via Drug War, Terror War, Cyber War, Etc. War and its accompanying pseudo-free-press scare stories has to escalate exponentially, mainly to keep the public off balance and under constant pressure and to prevent the public from having enough time to realize and analyze the flaws in the "Official Story" accompanying each pseudo-crisis and false flag operation.
I think we will be seeing more and more hidden informants and secret whistleblowers as time goes by and the government's escalating assault on freedom and "rights" becomes obviously its only real goal.
I am absolutely certain that if I were in a position of trust in one of the federal agencies today, and a young man, I would definitely be looking into ways and means of defeating the monster from within.
---
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: A Redactor with a conscience?
We've had this lesson, but people are naturally lazy, unfortunately. That can change.
People who don't remember history, blah, blah, blah.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Oh thank goodness! The government hasn't gotten around to asking companies for my telephone numbert. They'll never catch me now!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Forced?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Its been going on nigh couple hundred years now i reckon, the pretendings new........ wonder when it will end
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
Guilty until proven guilty.
Nobody's innocent.
---
[ link to this | view in chronology ]