Department of Justice Breaks Law

The Department of Justice under the Obama administration tried to intimidate and muscle a left-wing news organization. They issued a subpoena to indymedia.us demanding several things including:

• The names of all visitors to their web site
• The addresses of all visitors to their site
• The bank records of all visitors
• The Social Security numbers of all visitors
• The IP addresses of all visitors

Since indymedia.us is a news organization they are not obligated to provide this information to the government even under a subpoena. It violates the case of Anonymous Pamphleteering among other things.

To make matters worse, the Department of Justice issued a gag order to the website instructing them not to disclose the government subpoena! The Federal attorney threatened the site and told them that they would be putting people's lives in jeopardy and that people could get hurt. THAT'S THE VOICE OF THE US GOVERNMENT SPEAKING!!

Violations Committed
Clearly overreaching any reasonable authority, this incident was a giant step towards totalitarian snooping. It violated the First Amendment. It violated the Department's own guidelines, and it violated political speech.

When other attorneys in the government realized what the DOJ was doing, they suggested that the DOJ back-down and withdraw the subpoena and cease their actions. The realized that the DOJ attorney was intimidating a news organization!

This is yet another attack on America's freedoms. Recall that the White House created a Snitch website where individuals could report on people who were giving "misinformation". By the way, after the public spoke out the White House closed-down that website and the director quit. Recall also that the President and his close administrative staff all attacked FOX News. This is a frightening pattern evolving and it needs to stop. We won't tolerate this BIG BROTHER attitude from any administration!