美国国家公共电台 NPR Government Can Search Inauguration Protest Website Records, With Safeguards

 

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

Now a court decision in a case that pits president Trump's Justice Department against a web hosting company whose services were used by anti-Trump activists¹. The company DreamHost challenged the U.S. government over what it saw as an excessive request for information. Well, today a federal judge sided mostly with the government but not entirely². And here to walk us through this case is NPR's Camila Domonoske. Hiya.

CAMILA DOMONOSKE, BYLINE³: Hi. How are you?

SIEGEL: This story's a bit complicated, so remind us how it began.

DOMONOSKE: So back before the inauguration⁴, this website disruptj20.org was organizing protests. And then on the day of the inauguration, more than 200 people were arrested, charged with felony rioting. Nearly 200 of those cases are still pending⁵. And the Department of Justice has asked for records relating to that website - lot of data from DreamHost, the company that hosted the website. And they have resisted. They've challenged that in court.

SIEGEL: Yeah. Last week, our co-host Audie Cornish spoke⁶ with the CEO of DreamHost, and he said that the company's objection to the warrant wasn't political. So what is the problem with the request?

DOMONOSKE: Well, they had real concerns about privacy and free speech. Initially⁷ DreamHost was particularly concerned about the fact that the request from the government would require them to disclose 1.3 million IP addresses. And you could use that information to get some information about the visitors to the website. So they fought that really fiercely. And earlier this week, the Department of Justice decided⁸ to narrow its request and no longer seek those visitor logs.

SIEGEL: Why did they agree to do that?

DOMONOSKE: Well, the Department of Justice said that they didn't realize how much information DreamHost had, so they didn't know how much they were asking for. Lawyers for DreamHost are a little skeptical⁹ of that explanation. They say that they told the Department of Justice very early on what this meant.

SIEGEL: Well, in that case, what is the issue now?

DOMONOSKE: Well, there's still a lot of data that the government is asking permission to look through, including email accounts associated with the organization. And they're asking for the ability to search through, find what's significant and then basically set the rest of this information aside. Now, lawyers for DreamHost say that's still problematic. I talked to Raymond Aghaian.

RAYMOND AGHAIAN: The fact that an FBI agent will be sitting there and actually reviewing and reading the emails and knowing who this person is is the issue in and of itself.

DOMONOSKE: Basically before they can decide that something's not relevant to a court case, you still have the Department of Justice looking at it. And DreamHost says that that could have a chilling effect on speech.

SIEGEL: And presented with these problems, what did the judge decide?

DOMONOSKE: Basically he said that DreamHost should hand over that big pool of data to the government and let the government search through it to find the evidence that it's looking for. But at the same time, the judge said that there are serious concerns about privacy and free speech. And as a result, the Department of Justice has to come up with some procedures to minimize the exposure of, quote, "innocent users." That's what the judge called them.

We don't know exactly what that would look like. And in the meantime, DreamHost is supposed to hand over all of this data to the government, and the Department of Justice will wait until they've got the go-ahead to actually filter through it. Lawyers for DreamHost are evaluating their options. That includes a possible appeal. The Department of Justice won't comment on a pending case.

SIEGEL: NPR's Camila Domonoske, thanks.

DOMONOSKE: Thank you.

1 activists   

n.（政治活动的）积极分子，活动家( activist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• His research work was attacked by animal rights activists . 他的研究受到了动物权益维护者的抨击。
• Party activists with lower middle class pedigrees are numerous. 党的激进分子中有很多出身于中产阶级下层。 来自《简明英汉词典》

2 entirely   

ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
• His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 inauguration   

n.开幕、就职典礼

参考例句：

• The inauguration of a President of the United States takes place on January 20.美国总统的就职典礼于一月二十日举行。
• Three celebrated tenors sang at the president's inauguration.3位著名的男高音歌手在总统就职仪式上演唱。

5 pending   

prep.直到，等待…期间；adj.待定的；迫近的

参考例句：

• The lawsuit is still pending in the state court.这案子仍在州法庭等待定夺。
• He knew my examination was pending.他知道我就要考试了。

6 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

7 initially   

adv.最初，开始

参考例句：

• The ban was initially opposed by the US.这一禁令首先遭到美国的反对。
• Feathers initially developed from insect scales.羽毛最初由昆虫的翅瓣演化而来。

8 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

9 skeptical   

adj.怀疑的，多疑的

参考例句：

• Others here are more skeptical about the chances for justice being done.这里的其他人更为怀疑正义能否得到伸张。
• Her look was skeptical and resigned.她的表情是将信将疑而又无可奈何。