The NSA Lost In Court, So This DMCA Notice Is Totally Valid

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 whyKutsukos would want this removed:

It's far less simple to divine whythe ACLU should feel compelled to remove it.

Kutsukos has his reasons.

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And, because his woeful takedown attempt has been archived for posterity, Kutsukos is once again linked to a document he'd rather bury.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story