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Comment by rhino369 | Hacker News Reader

This person had no reasonable reason to flee to Germany. Beyond paranoia and maybe a persecution complex. The FBI isn't going to "disappear" someone they subpoena.

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Yes unlikely this person would be disappeared.

Tor Project distributes binaries, though. So it's not unreasonable to immediately hop on a flight to leave the country permanently. Once they hand you a national security letter (or use some other leverage), not sure what effective recourse you have. I think it would be like dodging service in a lawsuit (which can work).

I think this is the most likely answer. Once handed an NSL, you either have to quit the project or hurt people; or maybe even less than two options.

What is a NSL supposed to achieve here?

What non-content information could they have wanted from her?

If she has commit rights to the tor project they could require her to submit a patch which could be used to reviel metadata about tor users.

What you said. The ECI leaks say they use them gor SIGINT-enabling. In Lavabit, the court order was to compromise all the keys then lie to users that it never happened.

Or ignore the NSL, talk to the press about it openly, and become the case which invalidates them.

I'd do it.

That's really easy to say behind a throwaway account on the internet. It's a much harder choice when it's your life and freedom on the line, and I don't know if anyone can truly say it for sure until they're in that position.

This is an absolutely fair observation.

I seriously don't understand this NSL business. There's this secret institution misusing the name court which kinda doesn't exist but makes rulings and if you're on the naughty list of the powers to be, you might get an invitation. To me this all sounds like dark ages of inquisition. I thought we were over that with Enlightenment and such and there were no witch burnings anymore. The painful effect is that many people self-censor and act like they're in China or DDR (communist Germany). Better not get on their radar.

NSL only cover "non-content information" (metadata) and can't force you to do something like backdoor TOR. And you can fight them in Federal Court.

You can't NSL "how does TOR work?" or "give me the encryption keys to X."

What an NSL can do is say "give me a list of emails sent by XYZ@yourdomain.com" and you aren't allowed to tell anyone.

How do you know?

What verifiable evidence do you have that no NSLs have been issued demanding encryption keys, or that all such NSLs have been successfully challenged in court?

What verifiable evidence do we have that no NSLs have been issued demanding that someone dance around naked on the FBIs parking lot?

Probably the fact that that simply isn't what NSLs are for.

Encryption keys are most definitely "content".

It's irrelevant. The ECI leaks had one statement that said that the FBI "compels" US companies to assist in "SIGINT-enabling" (backdoors or taps). We should assume they can secretly order such things given it was in the most secretive leaks.

For foreign companies, they sent the black bag operators of CIA or ISA to get job done. ISA is an interesting outfit to have coming after you or your data.

So, she could legally be compelled to do something disuptive to catch criminals like Feds do all the time in physical spaces (esp hotels). Thing is, leaving to avoid that might put her at risk of what's used outside jurisdiction. Fleeing was a bad move.

That is what is legal. So sure, if the FBI was going to completely violate the law they can send something that looks like an NSL. But they could do that even if NSL isn't legal.

Are you serious? Have you read what the FBI has done so far? It's one thing to get subpoenaed by a public servant of a real court, but it's reasonable to be afraid if FBI agents act like they want to serve her papers in person by a fake court named FISA and either shut her up or force into cooperation in something she wouldn't do if given the option.

FISA is a real court but this information wouldn't be under FISA court jurisdiction.

If it's secret, it's not a real court. Even the founding fathers of the USA would disagree and they're kinda still fresh history-wise in terms of justice systems around the world.

> FISA is a real court

No, its not. FISA (the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) is a real law.

FISA creates two courts, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review.

I believe she was planning the move well in advance of this story.

That's already explicitly stated in the article:

> "Lovecruft had intended to move to Germany someday, but she put those plans on overdrive."

My recollection was from her blog post a week or two ago.

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