What happens when the Secret Service uses a NSL on you

First Amendment to the US Constitution:<p><pre><code> Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. </code></pre> Can someone please show me the asterisk that says "unless done to protect national security"?

Worth reading for this:<p>Around January, upon logging into the Google account, Google showed a strange NOTICE message asking me to accept the terms of usage of my account. This was odd, because in a decade of being a Google user, I had never seen this. I am told that this is Google's way of "telling you without telling you" that you have been served an NSL. Google, by law, is not allowed to tell you about the NSL, but they definitely are within their right to ask you to accept their TOS upon login. This is the "tell" that everyone here should be aware of. If you see this, you are likely being monitored.

That's how the feds do business.<p>I was amused by the entrapment bit. They always try that. I think of this poor black guy who got recruited into a fake islamic jihad gang and how they gave him a fake bomb and rented a synagogue for him to leave it in and he got jumped by 50 cops on the way out the door, yelling "Allah Akbar"<p>On some level I feel bad for him, but you've got to be a dope to fall for that.

A national security letter (NSL) is a demand letter, which differs from a subpoena. It can be used by US government agencies, mainly the FBI, when investigating matters related to national security.

I'm not an american, but I'm a spare-time security researcher, hoping to make a career out of this in the future. The last few cases reported here on HN give me the impression that if you stumble upon a vulnerability (which, by the looks of it, seems similar to the one involved in the AT&#38;T case), it's best to keep it to yourself. You have nothing to win by reporting it, and possibly a lot to lose if you do.

The same agency that raided a role playing game publisher because they thought a fictional game was some elaborate criminal conspiracy..<p>I think there are going to be a lot of sadly amusing and moronic stories to come.

I'm glad I live in the UK/Europe where privacy (certainly of physical post and my local network, plus the various services I use around Europe). Shame my Gmail is firmly under the US authorities.<p>It makes me sad to see the authorities of countries like the US using entrapment and other dodgy tactics to catch criminals. The US is soon to become like 1984 with drones monitoring people in cities, huge cloud computers monitoring all internet traffic, and feds running lawless tapping everyone's phones.

So for the dumb people like me, what is a NSL? A quick google define doesn't really help much (<a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=define%3A+NSL" rel="nofollow">https://www.google.com/search?q=define%3A+NSL</a>)<p>National Soccer League?

<p><pre><code> no digital information is protected from snooping unless it is stored in your home and encrypted. </code></pre> So, you shouldn't be using online backups like Crashplan?

<p><pre><code> SS confirmed over the phone that they monitored my Google account, after I told them I knew they were. At first, they would not tell me they did and denied it. The agent actually said "Google should not have told you that" </code></pre> Getting followed by a federal agency is no fun, but it's funny how they manage to muck things up once in awhile. Kind of like how the FBI, when tracking Aaron Swartz, tried in vain to locate him in Chicago: <a href="http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/fbifile" rel="nofollow">http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/fbifile</a>

NSLs remind me of the "deny and imply" clause in Super Sad True Love Story. It goes something like...<p>"By reading this, you have denied its [some type of government surveillance] existence and implied consent."<p>Very troubling news.

Right or wrong, law or no law, do something that remotely disturbs the powers that be and you will be harassed.<p>I'm sure OP knew what he was getting into, unless he actually thought he lived in Wonderland.

Anyone else get their fb account hacked after opening this article?

that email sounds like die hard 4.

The big question is if our government is supposed to be "of, by, and for the people", then how did it manage to become this separate entity--with a life and agenda of its own--that has now turned against "the people"?<p>We all (myself included) talk about the government in the third person. Yet, it is supposed to be our representative and our voice. It is supposed to be "us".<p>So, why are we so powerless to stop things like this, the Aaron Swartz tragedy, PATRIOT Act, etc?

an NSL<p>Apologize for irrelevancy of the comment. Someone needed to let squeed know.