[SGVLUG] National Security Letter forces ISP president to be quieton subject

[Emerson, Tom (*IC)]

> -----Original Message----- Of matti
> 
> fyi - interesting...
> 
> Three years ago, I received a national security letter (NSL) 
> in my capacity as the president of a small Internet access 
> and consulting business.[..]

You know, sometimes you quote from the article [without attribution] and
other times you comment on your own before giving the link -- in this
case, /knowing/ that you are/were doing some consulting of that nature,
I thought this was the latter until I saw it in the article...

> -- I suspected that the FBI was 
> abusing its power and that the letter sought information to 
> which the FBI was not entitled
> 
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/ [...]

Other than the fact this is 6 months old, it got me to thinking about
the concept of "trade secrets" and other patent issues.  Once a "trade
secret" is revealed, "the genie cannot be put back into the bottle" as
they say, and you can no longer claim it as "secret".  I would think
that if you violated some of the wierder provisions of the "gag" order
and were arrested for it, the arrest would be public knowledge and raise
the curiosity of bystanders.  As more eyes "looked into the problem",
the bugs would be found in a heartbeat... ;)