Wisconsin: Something Evil Has Been Happening There For Decades: FBI Monitoring Reddit Subscribers

Showing posts with label FBI Monitoring Reddit Subscribers. Show all posts

Monday, March 16, 2015

Reddit Has Become the Proverbial ‘Gatekeeper’ Like Google, Facebook and Twitter; Reddit Asked to Hand Over Customer Data Under a Secretive Law Enforcement Authority

siouxsie_siouxv2, a moderator at the subreddit, Making a Murderer, wrote on May 24, 2016: "Truth is there was some stuff that happened behind the scenes that makes it hard for us to keep the sub going as it has. I can't get into the details but we had no choice really."

Reddit deletes surveillance 'warrant canary' in transparency report

By Dustin Volz , Reuters

March 31, 2016

Social networking forum Reddit on Thursday removed a section from its site used to tacitly inform users it had never received a certain type of U.S. government surveillance request, suggesting the platform is now being asked to hand over customer data under a secretive law enforcement authority.

Reddit deleted a paragraph found in its transparency report known as a “warrant canary” to signal to users that it had not been subject to so-called national security letters, which are used by the FBI to conduct electronic surveillance without the need for court approval.

The scrubbing of the "canary", which stated Reddit had never received a national security letter "or any other classified request for user information," comes as several tech companies are pushing the Obama administration to allow for fuller disclosures of the kind and amount of government requests for user information they receive.

National security letters are almost always accompanied by an open-ended gag order barring companies from disclosing the contents of the demand for customer data, making it difficult for firms to openly discuss how they handle the subpoenas. That has led many companies to rely on somewhat vague canary warnings.

"I've been advised not to say anything one way or the other," a Reddit administrator named "spez," who made the update, said in a thread discussing the change. “Even with the canaries, we're treading a fine line. The whole thing is icky, which is why we joined Twitter in pushing back.”

Reddit did not respond to a request for comment. The FBI did not respond to a request for comment.

In 2014 Twitter sued the U.S. Justice Department on grounds that the restrictions placed on the social media platform’s ability to reveal information about government surveillance orders violates the First Amendment.

The suit came following an announcement from the Obama administration that it would allow Internet companies to disclose more about the numbers of national security letters they receive. But they can still only provide a range such as between zero and 999 requests, or between 1,000 and 1,999, which Twitter, joined by Reddit and others, has argued is too broad.

National security letters have been available as a law enforcement tool since the 1970s, but their frequency and breadth expanded dramatically under the USA Patriot Act, which was passed shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

Several thousand NSLs are now issued by the FBI every year. At one point that number eclipsed 50,000 letters annually.

For your reading pleasure, our 2015 Transparency Report
Submitted by Moderator spez at Reddit
April 2016

In 2014, we published our first Transparency Report, which can be found here. We made a commitment to you to publish an annual report, detailing government and law enforcement agency requests for private information about our users. In keeping with that promise, we’ve published our 2015 transparency report.

We hope that sharing this information will help you better understand our Privacy Policy and demonstrate our commitment for Reddit to remain a place that actively encourages authentic conversation.

Our goal is to provide information about the number and types of requests for user account information and removal of content that we receive, and how often we are legally required to respond. This isn’t easy as a small company as we don’t always have the tools we need to accurately track the large volume of requests we receive. We will continue, when legally possible, to inform users before sharing user account information in response to these requests.

In 2015, we did not produce records in response to 40% of government requests, and we did not remove content in response to 79% of government requests.

In 2016, we’ve taken further steps to protect the privacy of our users. We joined our industry peers in an amicus brief supporting Twitter, detailing our desire to be honest about the national security requests for removal of content and the disclosure of user account information.

In addition, we joined an amicus brief supporting Apple in their fight against the government's attempt to force a private company to work on behalf of them. While the government asked the court to vacate the court order compelling Apple to assist them, we felt it was important to stand with Apple and speak out against this unprecedented move by the government, which threatens the relationship of trust between a platforms and its users, in addition to jeopardizing your privacy.

We are also excited to announce the launch of our external law enforcement guidelines. Beyond clarifying how Reddit works as a platform and briefly outlining how both federal and state law enforcements can compel Reddit to turn over user information, we believe they make very clear that we adhere to strict standards.

We know the success of Reddit is made possible by your trust. We hope this transparency report strengthens that trust, and is a signal to you that we care deeply about your privacy.

(I'll do my best to answer questions, but as with all legal matters, I can't always be completely candid.)

Announcing new rules and a new subreddit for theories
Submitted by Moderator NotANestleShill
May 24, 2016

Hello /r/MakingAMurderer, we mods have been hard at work enforcing the rules and coming up with new ones to improve the sub. Our feedback thread was very helpful, and we got hundreds of comments and suggestions, so thank you!

One big issue we noticed in this subreddit was the staggering amount of theories and rampant speculation. Let's be clear: the people here at this subreddit have little chance of solving this mystery from a computer monitor, compared to professionals with actual access to the evidence and actual investigative skills.

To allow this to go on and to allow people to be called out and harassed because of these armchair detectives is horrible and will be stopped. We've made a new rule, where any posts that would normally be tagged as "Speculation", "theory", or "evidence" will now be removed. We're not going to encourage people to take matters in their own hands here, and that kind of stuff is filling up the subreddit.

You might ask, "Where can I share those kinds of posts then? I still think we can solve the case!". The answer is, you can post those to /r/TheoryOfMaM, where almost all restrictions are lifted and it's supposed to be a theory and investigative based subreddit. It'll be great, since it'll be easier to concentrate everything there and to really go into the details.

You might also wonder what kind of content we'll allow here. We'll allow any content that's about the show itself, as well as news and and posts about the core issues that MaM addresses, such as overzealous prosecutions or wrongful convictions.

Thank you for posting and for your feedback! Hope to see you over at /r/TheoryOfMaM!

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Quotes

"The most common way for forensic evidence to be planted is by re-labeling the forensic swabs." - Dr. Karl Reich, PhD

A former New York City narcotics detective testified in court that planting drugs on innocent people was common practice, a quick and easy way to boost arrest numbers. Stephen Anderson, the former detective, is now cooperating with prosecutors and is spilling the beans on the crooked practice of framings and false arrests, often to reach arrest quotas. “It was something I was seeing a lot of, whether it was from supervisors or undercovers and even investigators,” Anderson testified in Brooklyn Supreme Court. “It’s almost like you have no emotion with it, that they attach the bodies to it, they’re going to be out of jail tomorrow anyway; nothing is going to happen to them anyway.” The Drug Policy Alliance, a group that promotes alternatives to the war on drugs, issued a statement calling the case against the officers indicative of larger, systematic failures. “One of the consequences of the war on drugs is that police officers are pressured to make large numbers of arrests, and it’s easy for some of the less honest cops to plant evidence on innocent people. The drug war inevitably leads to crooked policing — and quotas further incentivize such practices.” - Huffington Post, October 13, 2011

A crucial aspect of Zellner’s effort to overturn Ryan Ferguson's conviction was obtaining two recantations from key witnesses whose testimony placed Ferguson at the crime scene. They admitted to lying after being pressured by police and prosecutors. Zellner has become a standard bearer among civil rights attorneys and has long been known as a fierce courtroom advocate — armed with a recorder-like memory, trial techniques that include videotaped re-enactments of crime scenes and, perhaps most crucially for her clients, an ability to elicit the truth from co-defendants or witnesses who have previously lied about innocent defendants’ involvement in crimes in order to save themselves. Quite simply, she gets people to talk. And to tell the truth. - Chicago Lawyer Magazine, December 2014

“What drives me is the abuse of power—the bullying and the victim. I have such a strong reaction when I see people who can’t defend themselves... When I watched the Avery case, I felt that the attitude toward him by the prosecutors and the state was that he was disposable. It was almost like a class thing. [His family] didn’t matter, they had no power. The longer I watched it, the more angry I got.” - Kathleen Zellner, Newsweek, April 8, 2016

“We are continuing to examine every aspect of Mr. Avery’s case and all of his legal options. We are confident Mr. Avery’s conviction will be vacated when we present the new evidence and results of our work to the appropriate court.” - Kathleen Zellner, The Wrap, January 11, 2016

“There is evidence that already exists in the case that points to a different location and a different suspect. We've got a combination of forensic evidence and a tip from somebody that we've interviewed multiple times that we think is credible... I've never seen a more graphic, compelling illustration of a crime scene that was fabricated.” - Kathleen Zellner, The New York Times, August 18, 2016

During a press conference on August 26, 2016, Kathleen Zeller said: “[In the post-conviction petition] we're going to lay out all of our investigation that we have done that will point to a third party. That was not successfully done at the trial level. I think the most reassuring thing is that we are going to get to the bottom of who killed Teresa Halbach... we're not going to disclose that until we do the post-conviction petition. But I can tell you that the testing we've already done will establish Mr. Avery's innocence. But we are going to do the whole thing; we're going to do every conceivable test. We've been contacted by scientists all over the world, volunteering, offering us ideas. And now we've got it pinned down to the testing we need to do to determine once and for all: was the evidence in the vehicle planted, was the DNA on the bullet planted, was the car key planted, was the DNA on the car key planted? We're going to be able to answer all of those questions because it's been almost 10 years since the verdict and there have been really huge developments in forensic science... Because he [Avery] never made any incriminating statements. The [Dassey] confession has been invalidated. So you're down to the evidence at the crime scene. You're down to the key, the hood latch, the blood in the RAV and the bullet.” When asked, “Do you just have one suspect in mind or are you looking at multiple suspects?,” Zellner replied, “In fairness, yeah, we are looking at multiple people, but we are narrowing it down.” And when asked, “What can you tell us about the suspect?,” she answered: “Nothing. Nothing. Not until I file [the post-conviction petition].”

“Not 1 but 8 plants: bullets, bones, blood, camera, cellphone PDA, key, car + false confession. World's best experts on it. #MakingAMurderer” - Kathleen Zellner, Twitter, January 17, 2017

“There’s always an element of misconduct. Police, prosecutors—They’re actually able to sleep at night knowing they’ve convicted an innocent man. They rationalize it. They say ‘I didn’t convict him, the jury did!’” - Paul Henderson, Private Investigator, May 7, 2013

"My biggest problem with police interrogations is they don't believe anything you say. So right out of the gate everyone is a liar as far as they are concerned. They are pretty much trained to be cynical of society and given power over them at the same time. They claim you are lying, while they themselves lie. To them, the end justifies the means when you’re a police officer protecting the citizenry from the scum of the city." - Reddit

“I think people become jaded when they spend too much time as a prosecutor, or if they first come to be a prosecutor after being a victim of some kind. They start seeing all of the accused as a subclass of humanity that doesn't deserve due process. Then they start watching Nancy Grace, and hanging around with the like minded, until their journey is complete. Unfortunately it is within human nature to descend down these paths to prejudice, to form self congratulating, witch burning mobs, and to rationalize the injustices they cause by dehumanizing their victims.” - magilla39, Reddit, October 11, 2017

"She’s not intimidated by anybody. In particular, she doesn’t have much respect for authority. She has a willingness to challenge and be skeptical of authority. And she has a real compassion for the underdog. Most of the people in prison are dangerous, violent criminals who belong there—she knows that. She’s not starry-eyed about criminals. But she’s not starry-eyed about people in authority, either." - Robert Zellner, January 2018

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions rededicated his department to working with local law enforcement on civil asset forfeiture efforts that bypass the need for criminal convictions to seize property—and also bypass state and local safeguards. Forfeited funds are split between federal and local agencies in a lucrative arrangement for everybody but the victims. "Equitable sharing" collaboration between federal and local agencies was suspended under former Attorney General Eric Holder, but the new regime is jump-starting the program. Yes, Sessions promised that "the federal government will not adopt seized property unless the state or local agency involved provides information demonstrating that the seizure was justified by probable cause." But that's cold comfort if the probable cause comes from eager cops planting bags of drugs hither and yon. The evidence—not planted—suggests that police officers don't need more incentive to falsify reasons for slapping on the cuffs. Day-to-day pressures to meet arrest quotas, out-do colleagues, or spackle over errors in judgment seem to have already done the job in spades. - J.D. Tuccille, July 24, 2017

'If I was able to spoon feed an audience for 10 hours facts that I could pick and choose, edit or even create from other clips I could get an audience to believe whatever I wanted them to believe." - Ken Kratz, Daily Mail, February 13, 2017

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