by Declan McCullagh

(AP / CBS)

In a case that raises questions about online journalism and privacy rights, the U.S. Department of Justice sent a formal request to an independent news site ordering it to provide details of all reader visits on a certain day.

The grand jury subpoena also required the Philadelphia-based Indymedia.us Web site “not to disclose the existence of this request” unless authorized by the Justice Department, a gag order that presents an unusual quandary for any news organization.

Kristina Clair, a 34-year old Linux administrator living in Philadelphia who provides free server space for Indymedia.us, said she was shocked to receive the Justice Department’s subpoena. (The Independent Media Center is a left-of-center amalgamation of journalists and advocates that – according to their principles of unity and mission statement – work toward “promoting social and economic justice” and “social change.”)

The subpoena (PDF) from U.S. Attorney Tim Morrison in Indianapolis demanded “all IP traffic to and from www.indymedia.us” on June 25, 2008. It instructed Clair to “include IP addresses, times, and any other identifying information,” including e-mail addresses, physical addresses, registered accounts, and Indymedia readers’ Social Security Numbers, bank account numbers, credit card numbers, and so on.

“I didn’t think anything we were doing was worthy of any (federal) attention,” Clair said in a telephone interview withCBSNews.com on Monday. After talking to other Indymedia volunteers, Clair ended up calling the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco, which represented her at no cost.

Under long-standing Justice Department guidelines, subpoenas to members of the news media are supposed to receive special treatment. One portion of the guidelines, for instance, says that “no subpoena may be issued to any member of the news media” without “the express authorization of the attorney general” – that would be current attorney general Eric Holder – and subpoenas should be “directed at material information regarding a limited subject matter.”

Still unclear is what criminal investigation U.S. Attorney Morrison was pursuing. Last Friday, a spokeswoman initially promised a response, but Morrison sent e-mail on Monday evening saying: “We have no comment.” The Justice Department in Washington, D.C. also declined to respond.

Kevin Bankston, a senior staff attorney at the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation, replied to the Justice Department on behalf of his client in a February 2009 letter (PDF) outlining what he described as a series of problems with the subpoena, including that it was not personally served, that a judge-issued court order would be required for the full logs, and that Indymedia did not store logs in the first place.

Morrison replied in a one-sentence letter saying the subpoena had been withdrawn. Around the same time, according to the EFF, the group had a series of discussions with assistant U.S. attorneys in Morrison’s office who threatened Clair with possible prosecution for obstruction of justice if she disclosed the existence of the already-withdrawn subpoena — claiming it “may endanger someone’s health” and would have a “human cost.”

Lucy Dalglish, the executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of The Press, said a gag order to a news organization wouldn’t stand up in court: “If you get a subpoena and you’re a journalist, they can’t gag you.”

Dalglish said that a subpoena being issued and withdrawn is not unprecedented. “I have seen any number of these things withdrawn when counsel for someone who is claiming a reporter’s privilege says, ‘Can you tell me the date you got approval from the attorney general’s office’… I’m willing to chalk this up to bad lawyering on the part of the DOJ, or just not thinking.”

Making this investigation more mysterious is that Indymedia.us is an aggregation site, meaning articles that appear on it were published somewhere else first, and there’s no hint about what sparked the criminal probe. Clair, the system administrator, says that no IP (Internet Protocol) addresses are recorded for Indymedia.us, and non-IP address logs are kept for a few weeks and then discarded.

EFF’s Bankston wrote a second letter to the government saying that, if it needed to muzzle Indymedia, it should apply for a gag order under the section of federal law that clearly permits such an order to be issued. Bankston’s plan: To challenge that law on First Amendment grounds.

But the Justice Department never replied. “This is the first time we’ve seen them try to get the IP address of everyone who visited a particular site,” Bankston said. “That it was a news organization was an additional troubling fact that implicates First Amendment rights.”

This is not, however, the first time that the Feds have focused on Indymedia — a Web site whose authors sometimes blur the line between journalism, advocacy, and on-the-streets activism. In 2004, the Justice Department sent a grand jury subpoena asking for information about who posted lists of Republican delegates while urging they be given an unwelcome reception at the party’s convention in New York City that year. A Indymedia hosting service in Texas once received a subpoena asking for server logs in relation to an investigation of an attempted murder in Italy.

Bankston has written a longer description of the exchange of letters with the Justice Department, which he hopes will raise awareness of how others should respond to similar legal demands for Web logs, customer records, and compulsory silence. “Our fear is that this kind of bogus gag order is much more common than one would hope, considering they’re legally baseless,” Bankston says. “We’re telling this story in hopes that more providers will press back and go public when the government demands their silence.”

Update 1:59pm E.T.: A Justice Department official familiar with this subpoena just told me that the attorney general’s office never saw it and that it had not been submitted to the department’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. for review. If that’s correct, it suggests that U.S. Attorney Tim Morrison and Assistant U.S. Attorney Doris Pryor did not follow department regulations requiring the “express authorization of the attorney general” for media subpoenas — and it means that neither Attorney General Eric Holder nor Acting Attorney General Mark Filip were involved. I wouldn’t be surprised to see an internal investigation by the Office of Professional Responsibility; my source would not confirm or deny that.

by Gary D. Barnett

Just when I thought the census invasions were over, at least until the actual count next spring, the census Gestapo, or “Complete Count Committees” (CCC) are forming all around this nation-state. Once again, the long arm of government is using state and local political types to form neighbor watching and neighbor invading “community” committees. One should not take this lightly, as this is a massive government-organized army out to invade the privacy of virtually everyone. The normal culprits will be involved in this idiocy, including government agencies, education, business, faith-based organizations, nosy community “leaders,” local do-gooders, and of course the government-controlled media.

As I said in the past in my article, “In Preparation for the 2010 Census,” the 2010 census count in my opinion will be the most aggressive ever. Not only has government become much more tyrannical in the past ten years, but towns, cities, counties and states are starving for more tax revenue due to this government-caused economic debacle. Although this census is being touted by the U.S. Census Bureau as a short-form only census, only 10 questions, don’t be fooled by this deceitful ruse. In the past, one out of every six households received the long form or “The American Community Survey” which is 52 pages long and very intrusive. It is simply used as a personal information gathering and monitoring tool for government. This practice has been scrapped in its present form, but now instead of being sent every ten years, will be mailed out to many every single year. What this means is that those sent the long form each year will now be under more pressure than ever to complete and send it in. Instead of the possibility of receiving one of these long forms every ten years, you could receive one in any given year. Since the state aggression is ratcheting up for these more intrusive invasions, some of us will have to defend ourselves from the Department of Commerce on a regular basis. This is absurd!

According to the CCC guide, [see here] “Determining congressional seats and federal funding is just a hint of the many important uses of census data.” This must be news to those of us who can actually read and understand the constitution. The census was to be taken (an enumeration or simple head count) to establish the apportionment of representatives and direct taxes among the several states; nothing more. As I’ve mentioned in the past, no change in national representation has occurred in almost 100 years, and the apportionment of tax dollars has become nothing more than a tax redistribution scheme to enrich the elite few and to expand the socialist welfare state. In other words, a complete bastardization of the census process has taken place, and now it is nothing more than a scam!

But now, with Complete Count Committees in place, things have not only gotten worse, but much worse. First let’s look at some of the examples given for the many uses of the census. This comes under the very dubious heading: “Census data are widely and wisely used.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Here are some of the uses:

• Title 1 grants to educational agencies
• Head Start programs
• Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) (food grants)
• Public transportation
• Road rehabilitation and construction
• Programs for the elderly
• Emergency food and shelter
• Empowerment zones (What in the world is this?)
• The data help the private sector as well as state and federal governments determine where jobs and job programs are needed
• Census data help potential homeowners research property values, median income, and other demographic information about a particular community.
• Corporations use population data for market research to determine locations for commercial enterprises, such as food stores, pharmacies, and other essential services.

This of course is a short list. At the end of the guide, another 50 reasons are listed. And you thought the census was used to determine representative and direct tax apportionment only. No, quite the opposite is the case.

As should be obvious, local and state governments have been co-opted to help advance the Census Bureau’s reach and scope. Since the states and local communities depend so heavily on federal largess, this by design, and the census is the mechanism used to decide who gets what, they have become willing accomplices. In a local newspaper article recently, the statement was made that “$1,000.00 a year per person comes to communities based on census figures. Missing 10 people in a census can cost a community $100,000.00 over 10 years.” Scare tactic? I would say so. No wonder the state and local governments are so heavily involved.

The Complete Count Committee is something I haven’t talked about in the past, but it is a very important aspect of the census count, and is based upon a co-opting or conscription of sorts of many state and local governments and communities. The CAC guide claims that the Census Bureau can’t do the census alone, and requiresthe assistance of individuals, groups and organizations across the nation. The CCC “is a voluntary committee established by tribal, state and local governments, and/or community leaders, to increase awareness about the census and motivate residents in the community to respond.” While this language may seem benign to some, it is in fact descriptive of even a more intrusive venture.

These committees are run in a top down manner not that much unlike a military structure. I would call it the “chain-of-command” for census counts. The U.S. government via the Department of Commerce is the head, and then the governor of each state takes charge of his domain. He then is to appoint individuals as members to serve on the committee, creating in essence, a state Complete Count Committee. This committee will normally be chaired by an individual selected by the governor. “The operation of the Complete Count Committee flows from the highest elected official or community leader to the chairperson, the committee members, and/or to the community at large.” This is based on a sub-committee structure, from highest to lowest, and sub-committees should include government, education, faith-based, media, community-based organizations, business, and recruiting. This is no innocent community project, but a planned government/private (fascist) partnership ready to assault the rest of us.

These committees are to use every possible method at their disposal to force compliance. They are to identify targetsfor aggressive outreach and set up strategic partnerships with counties, schools, state agencies, and community organizations. They will also set up non-response follow-up. They are to exhaust every avenue possible to promote the census count, including but not limited to stuffing all public utility and property tax bills with census propaganda. Banners, brochures, posters, parades, and newsletters are just a few other things mentioned to advance the count in the CCC guide; all paid for by tax dollars, of course.

In addition to the use of all public and community-based organizations, and municipalities, the census Nazis also are using the public (government) school system to help in this coercive effort. In the process, the state is indoctrinating kids attending these rotten institutions from “prekindergarten through twelfth grade, as well as postsecondary education institutions. (Ages 3 and up in other words) “Census in Schools” is also taking place in 2010, with an emphasis on kindergarten through eighth grade. The importance of this in-school census is to “educate all of the K-12 students about the importance of the 2010 census.” No one should be surprised by this, but what an obvious totalitarian approach. Just how long will it be until the “Census in Schools” program is teaching kids to turn in parents who don’t cooperate with census takers? The “Hitler Youth” of socialist Germany comes immediately to mind! What an outrage!

The bottom line is this: The 2010 Census will be the most aggressive and the most intrusive we have seen. Threats of fines for non-compliance will be more evident this time around. Neighbors and friends will be encouraged by government to put pressure on any who refuse to go along with this invasion of privacy and destruction of rights. Neighbors will also become informants. There will be a “Nonresponse Follow-up” team, as I mentioned earlier, set up for those unwilling to give up their private information to these goons. “A field operation designed to obtain a completed interview from households where a questionnaire was not returned” will send “enumerators” to these households to obtain completed interviews. If attempts to contact the residents of a household are unsuccessful, an “enumerator” will obtain as much information as is possible from a neighbor, a building manager, or another reliable source. In other words, the government will use whatever method possible to get private information about you, your family, your personal finance, your cultural or ethnic background and any other information it wants.

What will it take before most get fed up with this oppressive and heavy-handed government? When will more stand against this despotic beast? I don’t know about the rest of you, but I have had enough!

A friend’s email pointed something out to me that made me think.  He said:

Using terms like “Nazi” or “gestapo” (which means “secret state police”) etc turns the sheeples minds off immediately to the message like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohD28J5p2GE

However, by using an East German term which is a little less well known like “Staasi” (pronounced shtah-zi, which means “State Security”) is a nice little coded term that is unstigmatized and can be used as a meme.

I think he’s right.  My response was: