<story><title>PyPI Was Subpoenaed</title><url>https://blog.pypi.org/posts/2023-05-24-pypi-was-subpoenaed/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>wolverine876</author><text>Civil rights, including those in the First Amendment, are not absolute. Regarding speech, you also can&amp;#x27;t harass people, threaten them, defraud them, incite violence, distribute copyrighted information that isn&amp;#x27;t yours, interfere with  others&amp;#x27; activities (sing loudly in a movie theater), etc. Private entities such as your employer can restrict your speech in many ways.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; often there&amp;#x27;s posts on HN about how the UK and all other Western European countries are totalitarian because they don&amp;#x27;t have unrestricted free speech&lt;p&gt;I haven&amp;#x27;t seen these posts. Do you have an example handy?</text></item><item><author>blibble</author><text>as a foreigner (in terms of the US), I&amp;#x27;ve never understood how these gag orders are compatible with the First Amendment&lt;p&gt;often there&amp;#x27;s posts on HN about how the UK and all other Western European countries are totalitarian because they don&amp;#x27;t have unrestricted free speech&lt;p&gt;but then apparently the police (FBI) can restrict the free speech of Americans without any court involvement at all?&lt;p&gt;I really don&amp;#x27;t understand</text></item><item><author>Loquebantur</author><text>What a weird way to think about such events.&lt;p&gt;Such subpoenas are clandestine surveillance of citizens by their state. The problem with such types of surveillance in particular is the lack of accountability.&lt;p&gt;How does the ethical use of this prolematic tool get ascertained? Where and how is the democratic oversight implemented? How is misuse treated and prevented?</text></item><item><author>samanator</author><text>Yep, I was thinking the same thing. What a beautiful way of communicating that.</text></item><item><author>wongarsu</author><text>&amp;gt; We have waited for the string of subpoenas to subside, though we were committed from the beginning to write and publish this post as a matter of transparency, and as allowed by the lack of a non-disclosure order associated with the subpoenas received in March and April 2023.&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s suspiciously specific. Sounds to me like they also received some other subpoenas they aren&amp;#x27;t allowed to talk about.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>blibble</author><text>&amp;gt; I haven&amp;#x27;t seen these posts. Do you have an example handy?&lt;p&gt;here&amp;#x27;s one from earlier in the week: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=36000459&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=36000459&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;they&amp;#x27;re pretty common, here&amp;#x27;s another one: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=35617773&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=35617773&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>PyPI Was Subpoenaed</title><url>https://blog.pypi.org/posts/2023-05-24-pypi-was-subpoenaed/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>wolverine876</author><text>Civil rights, including those in the First Amendment, are not absolute. Regarding speech, you also can&amp;#x27;t harass people, threaten them, defraud them, incite violence, distribute copyrighted information that isn&amp;#x27;t yours, interfere with  others&amp;#x27; activities (sing loudly in a movie theater), etc. Private entities such as your employer can restrict your speech in many ways.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; often there&amp;#x27;s posts on HN about how the UK and all other Western European countries are totalitarian because they don&amp;#x27;t have unrestricted free speech&lt;p&gt;I haven&amp;#x27;t seen these posts. Do you have an example handy?</text></item><item><author>blibble</author><text>as a foreigner (in terms of the US), I&amp;#x27;ve never understood how these gag orders are compatible with the First Amendment&lt;p&gt;often there&amp;#x27;s posts on HN about how the UK and all other Western European countries are totalitarian because they don&amp;#x27;t have unrestricted free speech&lt;p&gt;but then apparently the police (FBI) can restrict the free speech of Americans without any court involvement at all?&lt;p&gt;I really don&amp;#x27;t understand</text></item><item><author>Loquebantur</author><text>What a weird way to think about such events.&lt;p&gt;Such subpoenas are clandestine surveillance of citizens by their state. The problem with such types of surveillance in particular is the lack of accountability.&lt;p&gt;How does the ethical use of this prolematic tool get ascertained? Where and how is the democratic oversight implemented? How is misuse treated and prevented?</text></item><item><author>samanator</author><text>Yep, I was thinking the same thing. What a beautiful way of communicating that.</text></item><item><author>wongarsu</author><text>&amp;gt; We have waited for the string of subpoenas to subside, though we were committed from the beginning to write and publish this post as a matter of transparency, and as allowed by the lack of a non-disclosure order associated with the subpoenas received in March and April 2023.&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s suspiciously specific. Sounds to me like they also received some other subpoenas they aren&amp;#x27;t allowed to talk about.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>weinzierl</author><text>Then following up on blibble&amp;#x27;s question: What &lt;i&gt;is&lt;/i&gt; the difference to the UK and other western countries that mostly also have free speech with what looks to me very similar restrictions?&lt;p&gt;Honest question, like blibble, I don&amp;#x27;t really understand it either?</text></comment>