[Advocacy Advisors] National Security Letters served on individuals

[James Salsman]

What would make resigning more legal than requesting a transfer to a
different department?


On Sun, Aug 4, 2013 at 9:36 PM, John Vandenberg <jayvdb at gmail.com> wrote:
> Resigning before complying is the only way to keep the WMF from being
> 'crippled' in the trust department. Or maybe WMF has a different set of
> values.
>
> Any WMF employee who complies with a NSA request to facilitate capturing
> programs has already broken the privacy policy in the extreme, and should
> probably be fired. So resigning before being forced to comply seems the
> ethical choice in my opinion.  Of course the government may serve someone
> else, but they may stop after a few people have resigned. Even the ED is
> replacable. But trust lost is much harder to replace.
>
> John Vandenberg.
> sent from Galaxy Note
>
> On Aug 5, 2013 11:49 AM, "Luis Villa" <lvilla at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Aug 2, 2013 at 3:37 PM, James Salsman <jsalsman at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Luis,
>>>
>>> Would it be legal to adopt a policy that any individual served with a
>>> National Security Letter must immediately request a transfer to a department
>>> headed by a different C-level officer?
>>>
>>> If so, is the Foundation willing to adopt such a policy?
>>
>> Hi, James-
>>
>> It's not clear to me what the purpose of such a policy would be. I can
>> think of two possible goals, neither of which really work.
>>
>> If the goal is "frustrate the purpose of the NSL by depriving the
>> recipient of the authority to respond to the NSL", then the FBI simply
>> continues to send NSLs to whoever we hire as a replacement, until we have no
>> one left in ops. At that point, they start working their way up the chain
>> and we're left with (1) a crippled organization and (2) eventually a letter
>> to the ED, who is legally compelled to make the thing happen anyway. Or, if
>> the policy is public, they just start with the ED.
>>
>> If the goal is "alert the community that NSLs are being sent" (or if that
>> alerting happens accidentally, as a result of public knowledge of the
>> policy, + goal #1) then that's probably a violation of the relevant law,
>> which allows disclosure only to "those to whom such disclosure is necessary
>> to comply with the request or an attorney to obtain legal advice or legal
>> assistance with respect to the request" (18 USC 2709(c)(1),
>> http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2709).
>>
>> Note that the statute was updated a few years back to make it quite clear
>> that you're allowed to talk to your lawyer about these when you get them,
>> recent disclosed letters appear to refer clearly to that permission, and if
>> our legal department got one, we'd be eager to fight. (That said, it does
>> probably make sense to remind our employers that if they get an NSL, they
>> are clearly entitled to speak to LCA; we'll look into how best to do that.)
>>
>> Luis
>>
>>
>>>
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>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Luis Villa
>> Deputy General Counsel
>> Wikimedia Foundation
>> 415.839.6885 ext. 6810
>>
>> NOTICE: This message may be confidential or legally privileged. If you
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>> mistake. As an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation, for legal/ethical
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>> members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal capacity.
>>
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>
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