QUICKLINK Pennsylvania · November 10, 2009 · Newsgathering
Justice Department issued secret subpoena for news site's traffic
Keywords: Bloggers; Gag orders; Internet
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The Department of Justice earlier this year served and shortly thereafter withdrew a grand jury subpoena that sought information about all visitors to the journalism website Indymedia.us for one day, and also contained a gag order "not to disclose the existence of [the] request," CBSNews.com reports.
In the Jan. 23 subpoena the Justice Department demanded that the Philadelphia-based site’s server administrator turn over "all IP traffic to and from www.indymedia.us" -- meaning the logs of the Internet addresses of all the site's readers -- as well other available information including visitors' e-mail and home addresses, Social Security Numbers, and credit card numbers, for June 25, 2008.
The administrator, Kristina Clair, eventually sought the assistance of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) in San Francisco, which sent the Department letters discussing various legal defects of the request.
In its reply, the Justice Department stated the subpoena had been withdrawn — after its attorneys allegedly urged EFF not to disclose the existence of the subpoena. The Department of Justice did not reveal to which investigation the subpoena related, CBSNews.com reported.
— Cristina Abello, 3:17 pm
Comments: (2)
Comment by Bill Sowa, Thu, Nov 12, 2009, 12:22pm
I suppose the DOJ will claim "national security" as the fraudulent basis for the subpoena. Who the hell thinks you cannot publicly reveal the fact that you are the victim of s subpoena? National Security has absolutely nothing to do with subpoena's. Freedom of speech must prevail.
Comment by John Doe, Thu, Nov 26, 2009, 7:50pm
I am with you Bill. The department of justice has lost a lot of it's credibility since the bush administration and to even sumbit a subpoena like this just confirms their values. They should fire the person in charge of submitting such a horrible subpoena!
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