zlacker

I'm curious if we'll ever find out what they thought they'd learn from this.

>>myself+(OP)
From the article, that’s why they withdrew it.

—-

“ The subpoena, issued as part of an investigation seeking to identify a child sexual exploitation offender, was withdrawn after investigators found the person through other means, according to a notice the Justice Department sent to USA TODAY's attorneys Saturday.”

>>myself+(OP)
More likely they acquired the data through other means like hacking into a "foreign" server.

>>b9a2ca+x
Probably easier to subpoena the many many tracking pixel providers embedded on the USA Today website...

>>mathat+q
I think you may have replied to the wrong comment.

>>myself+(OP)
Maybe they were hoping to get enough information to do browser finger printing?

https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/

>>resolu+U
I don't think they did. That reply tracks

>>mathat+q
Right, so it wasn’t public outrage around privacy that impacted the decision at all.

>>tekrom+t4
To paraphrase: "What did they think they'd learn?" "That's why they withdrew it."

I don't understand how that reply works. Can you elaborate?

(The best way for me to reconcile those would be to interpret it as a snarky "you're realizing it's useless, they also realized that, so they withdrew it" but that doesn't answer the question of why they made the request in the first place. Or I could interpret it as "the quote below is why they withdrew it" but that's even further from answering the question of why they made the request in the first place. Is it supposed to mean "they withdrew it so we don't find out what they'd learn"? It's hard to see how withdrawing the request helps very much there. Overall, I'm lost.)

>>Dylan1+Y9
> but that doesn't answer the question of why they made the request in the first place

most likely the fbi was monitoring some website somewhere and the person of interest posted a link to or talked about the article and it was 35 min after the story was posted when the guy linked to it.

>>Dylan1+Y9
Not being snarky- the FBI claimed they were looking for a pedo and found him elsewhere.

It could be a smoke and mirrors response to get people to say “well in that case...” but the article does answer the question.

>>mathat+q
Sounds like they subpoenaed dozens of websites. While USA Today fought it, the rest fell right over without mentioning it/fighting it.

I’ve seen this before where a user got an email from Google legal about a subpoena against them, spent $7k successfully fighting it, but it didn’t matter because several other $BigCos didn’t even let the user know.

>>Scound+HM
I’m not American and I’m curious what is your personal position on this. And I wonder how far your logic transfers to the real world. If FBI subpoenas you to show CCTV records in your convenience store to identify a suspected child molester, do you insist you should fight that subpoena and “let the user know”?

To what extent do Americans want to not help investigate crimes to defend corporations “protecting user privacy” (all while these corporations collect and keep the data to themselves and do as they please, including profiling and selling it to third parties).

I guess there is some greater good that your position intends to stand for, but what is that greater good?

Genuinely curious.

>>donny2+oH2
Not American either. As for fighting the subpoena themselves, that's the corp's choice, but kinda nuts to not let the user know about it if they're not going to fight it themselves. But falling over to a government demand (valid or not) protects you from future antitrust accusations.

Answering this from the point of view of an informal request: If it's not a situation of active harm, then they have time to get their court order. If it is a situation of active harm, there should still be a process to ensure the request was valid after the fact. Police can and do lie to get access under false pretences. Without a valid followup process, you can't be assured their request is legit.