The NSA Lost In Court, So This DMCA Notice Is Totally Valid
from the not-how-any-of-this-works dept
The misuse of DMCA notices to remove unwanted information from the web has been well-documented here. The “right to be forgotten” has sort of codified this behavior, but only applies to citizens of certain countries.
James Kutsukos would like something removed — a search warrant application hosted by the ACLU, which details a US Postal Service investigation which culminated in his being convicted for marijuana distribution. It’s easy to see why Kutsukos would want this removed:
It’s far less simple to divine why the ACLU should feel compelled to remove it.
Re: This needs to be taken off ASAP NOW THAT THE NSA LOST THEIR CASE
[…]
Explanation of complaint
this must be removed now. info@jamesrisk.com
The NSA hasn’t “lost” any “cases,” so far. I assume the “lost case” Kutsukos is referring to is Judge Leon’s determination that the Section 215 bulk collection was unconstitutional (back in December of 2013). This would predate the April 1, 2014 timestamp on the takedown notice (which, for some reason, appears to have been received by the ACLU one year before Kutsukos sent it).
If so, then the decision had not been overturned by the Appeals Court yet, so it was technically still in the loss column. Even so, there’s nothing about this that involves the NSA. The investigation was initiated by the US Postal Service and later involved the FBI.
The evidence obtained by the postal inspector consisted of text messages sent using Google Voice, which is not one of the providers implicated in the NSA’s bulk collection efforts. (At least as far as we know… The phone metadata program [which also sweeps up other “business records”] targets telcos, not Google. Google’s data is likely gathered under a different authority using a separate NSA collection program.)
So, it looks like either a misreading of Judge Leon’s decision or — as we’ve seen in other cases — a sad attempt to intimidate a takedown recipient by throwing around government agency acronyms.
Either way, the document remains intact on the ACLU’s servers and in Google’s search results for Kutsukos, which lead off with a link to the affidavit.
And, because his woeful takedown attempt has been archived for posterity, Kutsukos is once again linked to a document he’d rather bury.
Filed Under: censorship, dmca, huh?, james kutsukos, nsa, search warrant, takedowns
Comments on “The NSA Lost In Court, So This DMCA Notice Is Totally Valid”
Forgive, forget, forgotten
It looks like he forgot how to implement the forget to be forgotten protocol. Being forgetful about being forgotten suggests that forgetfulness can be forgiven, but only if one forgets…forgetting.
Perjury charge?
The DCMA is flawed, but the perjury attestation is that you actually own the copyrights to the material you claim is infringed. Is he making a copyright ownership claim to the court document? Which obviously, he doesn’t own the copyright to?
Re: Perjury charge?
Mr Cushing did rather helpfully provide a link to the takdown. In the article, the link is attached to the microtext: “Kutsukos has his reasons.”
Perhaps you might consider reading Mr Kutsukos’ attestation? Before you draw any serious conclusions? When those conclusions may have extremely grave consequences?
Re: Perjury charge?
He now has the right to forget who owns the copyright. It says so on the DMCA notice the court sent the NSA over the USPS. The ACLU should get on the case and inform the FBI to arrest someone.
PS: The funny thing is the jumbled mess wasn’t even caused by the word salad of acronyms, but by this guys sheer amount of stupid.
Sent and received dates
From the Lumen record of Mr Kutsukos’s takedown notice, which was linked in the article above:
How was this takedown received thirteen months before it was sent?
Publication context
“US Surveillance Law May Poorly Protect New Text Message Services”, by Chris Soghoian, Free Future (ACLU Blogs), Jan 8, 2013
Note hyperlink at “drug case” to https://www.aclu.org/technology-and-liberty/google-texting-warrant. At that url, google-voice-weed-warrant_1.pdf is embedded in a pdf viewer.
whois jamesrisk.com
$ whois jamesrisk.com
Whois Server Version 2.0
Domain names in the .com and .net domains can now be registered with many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net for detailed information.
No match for "JAMESRISK.COM".
>>> Last update of whois database: Tue, 02 Feb 2016 22:29:35 GMT <<<
Re: whois jamesrisk.com
From Wayback Machine capture of http://jamesrisk.com [May 17, 2014]
N.B. doubled ‘l’ [0x6C] in “ gmaill ” !
This doubled ‘l’ also occurs in the email address on the “Contact Info” webpage from that site, archived Sep 23, 2014.
drugs are bad mmmm'kay....
Shit this really embarrasses me….
I KNOW, LIGHT THE WARNING BEACONS OF GONDOR!!!!
This will totally not draw any more attention to this.
Re: drugs are bad mmmm'kay....
The best he can do is put his head down and get back to work. Everyone should be forgiven for making mistakes, even big ones, if they learn from them and move on.