Author: Shawn K. Quinn

Calling the bluff: Twitter’s response to a subpoena

Wired.com’s Threat Level blog recently featured Twitter in what I believe to be a very positive light. Rather than just quietly fold when faced with a subpoena for information about people of interest in regard to Wikileaks and a corresponding gag order forbidding Twitter from informing the subjects about the subpoena, Twitter decided to call the bluff–or even raise, depending on how you look at it. From the article:

The court order came with a gag order that prevented Twitter from telling anyone, especially the target of the order, about the order’s existence.

To Twitter’s credit, the company didn’t just open up its database, find the information the feds were seeking (such as the IP and e-mail addresses used by the targets) and quietly continue on with building new features. Instead the company successfully challenged the gag order in court, and then told the targets that their data was being requested, giving them time to try and quash the order themselves.

Twitter and other companies, notably Google, have a policy of notifying a user before responding to a subpoena, or a similar request for records. That gives the user a fair chance to go to court and try and quash the subpoena. That’s a great policy. But it has one fatal flaw. If the records request comes with a gag order, the company can’t notify anyone. And it’s quite routine for law enforcement to staple a gag order to a records request.

That’s what makes Twitter’s move so important. It briefly carried the torch for its users during that crucial period when, because of the gag order, its users couldn’t carry it themselves. The company’s action in asking for the gag order to be overturned sets a new precedent that we can only hope that other companies begin to follow.

It is refreshing to see a company stand up and defend the rights of its users the way Twitter did here. I’m quite disgusted from a civil liberties standpoint that it’s now routine for law enforcement to attach a gag order to a subpoena. Someone needed to do something about it.

I concur with the author’s hope that other companies follow Twitter’s lead. Specifically, Facebook and Yahoo (who currently owns Flickr and Delicious) would do well to adopt the challenge of gag orders attached to subpoenas as a matter of company policy. For that matter, anyone responsible for an online service involving the data of others, even as a hobbyist effort, would do well to challenge a gag order attached to such a subpoena, especially one from a law enforcement agency, or perhaps even defy it outright (riskier, and only for the especially brave).

At the poker table, players who routinely bluff with nothing eventually have to show down a losing hand. Usually, they don’t bluff for a while after that. This is surprisingly similar to what happens in real life, certainly more similar than most cops and prosecuting attorneys would have you believe. Because the concept of a citizenry that knows their legal rights and asserts them is anathema to them, and a direct threat to how many of them do their jobs.

The price of brutally honest reviews

According to the recent story on thecelebritycafe.com, the food reviewer for the LA Times, S. Irene Virbila, was recently outed on the Tumblr blog for the restaurant Red Medicine, with the added comment that she was no longer welcome to eat there by managing partner Noah Ellis.

From the story:

Virbila has diligently worked at remaining anonymous since 1994 because if restaurants knew she was a critic, she would receive special treatment from the staff and owner. Therefore, her job would be pointless as she’d be unable to give an honest review of the food, atmosphere, and wait staff.

Ellis said he took her anonymity away on purpose because he doesn’t like her reviews. He said, “Our purpose for posting this is so that all restaurants can have a picture of her and make a decision as to whether or not they would like to serve her. We find that some of her reviews can be unnecessarily cruel and irrational.”

As the story also states, Irene has worked hard to preserve her anonymity for over a decade and a half. The case could be made is equally cruel and irrational to destroy someone’s anonymity in spite in such a fashion. While Mr. Ellis may technically be within his legal rights to post the picture and identify Irene to the LA restaurant community, the question of whether or not it’s in good taste to do so is another matter entirely.

I should note that I normally defend actions which preserve freedom to make an informed decision. On its face Mr. Ellis’s action may qualify as such. However, there are far better ways to do this than posting it to the entire world on a Tumblr blog. Maybe Mr. Ellis, or another of the restaurant’s partners, has realized this as well in the week this story has sat in my draft queue, as the posting appears to have since been deleted.

Also of note is that the blow to Irene’s anonymity apparently will not stop her from writing more reviews, according to this Yahoo! News story. Kudos to Irene for not giving up in the face of flagrant intimidation.

I do believe there will be a place for professional restaurant reviewers, whether employed by newspapers (or their equivalents) or others, for some time, though the role may differ significantly with the rise of the Internet, which allows anyone to post anything at relatively low cost. Or, put another way, the A. J. Liebling quote “freedom of the press is limited to those who own one,” as it relates to professional reviewers, takes on a whole new meaning in the age where anyone with $20 can own their own printing press.

In the specific case of restaurant reviews, sites such as Yelp allow anyone to post their reviews in relative anonymity (first name and last initial). This allows truly malicious reviewers to be held accountable, while still allowing a forum for the posting of “real customer” experiences. Some of the Yelp knockoffs may allow posting under an alias which leaves no clues to one’s real identity, and Yelp itself does not check the identities of its users.

Finally, the angle from which I’m writing this: I review/recap local events on my other blog Quinn’s Big City. I do not, as a rule, need to rely on anonymity in order to write unbiased reviews. However, I recently felt it necessary to adopt and post a specific editorial policy that being asked to leave or being denied entry to an event, similar to what happened to Irene, would not preclude a recap from being posted. In a perfect world this is unnecessary; of course, we do not live in a perfect world. As of now, it has yet to be tested and, obviously, I hope it never becomes an issue.

In re Gary Kubiak and the Houston Texans

I haven’t done a sports rant in a long time. So I have a lot of ground to cover with this post

I’m starting with a simple summary of my position: It is my belief that the problems with the Houston Texans’ performance this season will not be solved by firing Gary Kubiak as head coach. While I understand the popular trend in professional sports fandom is to blame the head coach (or manager, in MLB) for everything that goes wrong, the ultimate responsibility for the final score of any game and final standings of any sports season rests with the players.

That said, I was disturbed by what I read today on a site called, surprisingly enough, firegarykubiak.com:

Due to unrelenting hate mail and threats, I have decided that I am taking the site down.  It was initially created as a fun place for people to gather who had the same thought process as I did.  I really never intended for this to get as big as it did, and have no desire in taking on the world.  Thank you to all of the supporters, and others that voiced their opinions.  Time will tell if we get a new coach.

Despite the fact I vehemently disagree with what the original site author wanted, I defend his right to want what is best for the city of Houston and its NFL football franchise and to unite others behind him. I am horrified that there are football fans in Houston that have chosen to resort to hate mail and threats. I’d like to think we are a higher class city than that, but I’ve been wrong before.

I’m not leaping to the defense of Gary Kubiak’s job. Should Bob McNair decide it’s time for Kubiak to go, I respect his decision as a Texans fan; he knows his franchise better than I do. And indeed, firing Kubiak may fix the more urgent problem of keeping the fans happy. Make no mistake about it: I think that is unfortunate. But, it is the reality of professional sports in 2010, soon to be 2011.

In the name of homeland security…

Apparently, if you work for the Department of Homeland Security, you’re above the law, and can do things with impunity that can easily result in ISP abuse complaints if done by an average citizen. Like this:

A recent Infowars post (warning: link contains profanity) details what some DHS employees do on company time. George Donnelly had his curiosity piqued by one of the few offensive comments posted to Infowars, and decided to see who the IP address belonged to. For those who don’t want to read the unedited copy, it goes something like this paraphrased version (misspellings in original):

Screw you, screw all you lower lifeforms, you wont change anything. ride the bus, TSA is here to stay there doing a great job keeping americia safe.

The answer shocked him as much as it shocked me, and it’ll probably shock you as well: the comment came from an IP address (216.81.80.134) registered to the Department of Homeland Security. In plain English: it was most likely posted by a DHS employee on paid time; at minimum, it was posted from the DHS computer network. It would be one thing if it was just a flame with no profanity, but as posted, it goes way over the line.

George poses some interesting questions for the DHS worth quoting:

  • Is this an official statement?
  • If not, is it an accurate representation of the DHS position?
  • Was this person on the public dime when he or she posted this?
  • Who posted this and what is their position with DHS?

We know what the answers should be. I anxiously await whatever response George gets from the DHS. I’d also like to know who at the DHS thinks it is such a good idea to go trolling blogs that express negative opinions about the government, which are protected speech by the First Amendment of the US Constitution. To me, this is dangerously close to intimidation by the DHS, the type of thing which Thomas Jefferson had in mind when he uttered this quote:  “When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.”

As a US taxpayer, I believe I’m entitled to know why the DHS is spending my tax dollars like this. While I would find it slightly repulsive if DHS employees did this on their own time, I find it positively abhorrent this is happening from an IP address registered to the DHS and quite possibly done by DHS employees on the clock.

And I am giving everyone advance notice: comments of the sort referenced by George in his post to Infowars linked above are, as a rule, unwelcome on this blog, particularly if they contain profanity. Even if such comments are not published on this blog, I reserve the right to forward such comments directly to news media if I determine such comments are posted from government networks, the corporate networks of known government contractors, or if otherwise connected to the government or corporations which contract for government business. As part of one of my jobs, I talk to news media on a regular basis, and I will not be shut up easily.

Let there be no mistake about it. I love my country, and I love the First Amendment, which gives us the freedom to criticize our government when it makes mistakes. In closing,  I’d like to refer to another, possibly lesser known, quote of Thomas Jefferson’s: “In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.”

I consider this a matter of principle. I stand like a rock.

Net neutrality: why we need it, now

Okay, for those of you who don’t know, I’m going to try to explain just what net neutrality is, and why we need it now more than ever.

First, we have the recent attempt by Comcast to block Internet-based video services such as Netflix and Hulu. (Most of the news reports about this have only mentioned Netflix, however some Twitter users I am following seem to have implied that Hulu might be getting blocked as well.) There is no good reason for this other than a control freak mentality on the part of Comcast, who might block YouTube and Vimeo next unless they are stopped.

That’s bad enough. But you know what really hacks me off? This article on Engadget which shows what some Internet providers want to do: charge specific tolls and set specific bandwidth limits and restrictions on access to selected Internet sites. Facebook will cost, say, an extra 2 cents per megabyte, and YouTube will be capped at 60 kilobytes/second with an extra 50 cent fee per month. The frightening thing? There’s nothing stopping an Internet provider from just up and blocking blogs like the one you’re reading now, or to charge an arbitrarily high fee to read them.

I pay very little to keep my blogs online; the traffic charges are at worst $1 per gigabyte (and go down as I accumulate more total traffic over the lifetime of the account). And none of that is paid by my readers. I intentionally accept no advertising on this blog; I am open to the idea of accepting it on my other currently active blog, Quinn’s Big City, but as a practical matter the readership numbers are not high enough to make it feasible right now.

This is about profit for Comcast, Verizon, AT&T, and Vodafone don’t want you to hear. I’m getting the message out now while I still can. Because there’s no telling when it’ll cost you an extra 25 cents per megabyte to read my blogs, if you can at all. Every blogger should be worried about this, especially those who blog on controversial topics and call out the corporations, particularly those in the large to gargantuan size range, for greed like this.

The last thing the Internet needs is a bunch of greedy companies throwing up tollbooths in front of Internet services “just because.”