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Ninth Circuit rules NSA's bulk collection of Americans' call records was illegal

politico.com

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Re: Ninth Circuit rules NSA's bulk collection of Americans' call records was illegal

#371

Post by brobdingnagians »

kelnos wrote: post #368
AndrewBissell wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huge parts of these agencies' activities have been moved off the books or to private entities. It's not as simple a matter as just cutting off their funding anymore.

Sure, but the money still has to come from somewhere, and that's from appropriations authorized by Congress. Now, if you believe that these agencies have amassed and hoarded enough of the money they've already been given that they now have an endowment that can perpetually fund their activities, then yes, that would mean you really can't stop them. But I'd find it hard to believe that's the case; what they do is not…

I'm not so sure they would go away without a fight. These are people who gave grown accustomed to breaking laws (including US laws), fomenting coups, and even assassinations in order to gain control. If Congress was seriously threatening to abolish them, Congressmen might start having a sharp uptick in "accidents". That's the problem with getting in bed with dubious characters.

Re: Ninth Circuit rules NSA's bulk collection of Americans' call records was illegal

#372

Post by Erlich_Bachman »

ardy42 wrote: post #54
_8j50 wrote: post #6

You know what I don't get? There is no penalty for violating the highest law of the land (the constitution). How is it anymore than a suggestion or a guidline if government officials are not punished for violating it? And that is exactly how lae enforcement and intelligence community treat it. The US constitution needs lots of updates but this maybe the most important item -- manadatory prison terms for anyone acting…

> You know what I don't get? There is no penalty for violating the highest law of the land (the constitution). How is it anymore than a suggestion or a guidline if government officials are not punished for violating it? And that is exactly how lae enforcement and intelligence community treat it. It's because it can't reasonably work like that. At a certain point, defining punishments is moot, because there's no highe…

> and Congress still makes a law, what are you going to do, throw Congress in jail?

Yes that's exactly what you should do. That's not nonsense. That's how a non-corrupt state should work. At the very least the law itself should be nullified.

Re: Ninth Circuit rules NSA's bulk collection of Americans' call records was illegal

#373

Post by eqvinox »

AnonHP wrote: post #325

Whenever I see such news and then look around at what they’ve been doing and continue to do (revealed sometimes in congressional hearings), it seems to me that the executive and the legislature are truly toothless in the face of these three-letter agencies. Nothing they say or put forth as law will be obeyed. So why even have laws then? Then you also have top representatives from these agencies lying outright in publ…

These agencies are part of the executive and greenlit by the legislature. Mentally divorcing them from that is part of the problem and creates this exact situation where the agencies roam uncontrolled.

The chain of accountability for their actions does not end at the head of the agency. It extends into both the White House as well as Congress. As indeed "resignations here and there" are pointless, the public perception needs to shift to a point where elected officials are actually held to what they do (as opposed to, as is frequently happening, what they say.)

Re: Ninth Circuit rules NSA's bulk collection of Americans' call records was illegal

#374

Post by erikerikson »

kelnos wrote: post #368
AndrewBissell wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huge parts of these agencies' activities have been moved off the books or to private entities. It's not as simple a matter as just cutting off their funding anymore.

Sure, but the money still has to come from somewhere, and that's from appropriations authorized by Congress. Now, if you believe that these agencies have amassed and hoarded enough of the money they've already been given that they now have an endowment that can perpetually fund their activities, then yes, that would mean you really can't stop them. But I'd find it hard to believe that's the case; what they do is not…

https://www.iqt.org/

Re: Ninth Circuit rules NSA's bulk collection of Americans' call records was illegal

#375

Post by vinay427 »

StavrosK wrote: post #361
sk5t wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But as much as they enjoy bluster, Americans are afraid [...] Are Americans really afraid? Or is it that Americans feel comfort in having the meanest dog on the block, even if that dog sometimes nips its master?

When I expressed horror and outrage at the notion that the TSA can go through your luggage, an American friend told me "well if it keeps us safe...", so I'd say "afraid".

First of all, it's not at all clear that this implies fear as I understand the emotion.

More tangentially, as I usually fly outside the US, it's fair to say that this is far from just an American reality. For example, the Dublin Airport even explicitly mentions that hold baggage may also be searched by hand on their website: > "Both your carry-on luggage and check-in baggage will be checked by means of detection equipment and may also be subject to a hand search." [1]

I have a hard time believing that airports with any restrictions on what check-in/hold baggage may contain (virtually all of them, if not all) don't have any provisions for searching bags, although maybe I'm wrong here.

[1] https://www.dublinairport.com/at-the-airport/security

Re: Ninth Circuit rules NSA's bulk collection of Americans' call records was illegal

#376

Post by Erlich_Bachman »

vonwoodson wrote: post #69
_8j50 wrote: post #6

You know what I don't get? There is no penalty for violating the highest law of the land (the constitution). How is it anymore than a suggestion or a guidline if government officials are not punished for violating it? And that is exactly how lae enforcement and intelligence community treat it. The US constitution needs lots of updates but this maybe the most important item -- manadatory prison terms for anyone acting…

You can’t hold a random analyst, usually a contractor and not a “government official”, for not sharing your opinion on what a 200-year old, intentionally vague, document meant about who-was-contacting-who on a pice of technology that wasn’t invented. Let alone a law that was, albeit controversial at the time, in place for almost 20 years. Would you prefer that your public servants follow the law... or do whatever the…

That's one of the weakest attempts to justify illegal and unconstitutional actions I've seen.

> Metadata is not the content of the calls but the data that the users put out to the world.

So when I make a call to my private friends, that's "me putting data into the world"? And it is ok for everyone to read it because I did not write it on a paper and instead used the phone? That's how you treat the constitution's "persons, houses, papers, and effects"? Really?

This is not how most people would even think about their information. There is nothing vague about it.

Re: Ninth Circuit rules NSA's bulk collection of Americans' call records was illegal

#377

Post by MertsA »

freen wrote: post #277
205guy wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_North "In July 1987, North was summoned to testify before televised hearings of a joint congressional committee that was formed to investigate the Iran–Contra scandal. During the hearings, North admitted that he had misled Congress..." One of the sources explains that when congress investigated the Iran-Contra scandal, it granted Oliver North immunity for what he would say. From o…

Ahh yes, then North proceeded to head up the NRA. It’s grifts all the way down!

Don't forget North then was forced out of the NRA after being appalled at the widespread corruption around the executive vice president of the NRA, Wayne LaPierre. It's pretty sad when Oliver North is the ethical voice of reason in the room.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9oV17dIza4

Re: Ninth Circuit rules NSA's bulk collection of Americans' call records was illegal

#378

Post by m463 »

tialaramex wrote: post #338
AnonHP wrote: post #325

Whenever I see such news and then look around at what they’ve been doing and continue to do (revealed sometimes in congressional hearings), it seems to me that the executive and the legislature are truly toothless in the face of these three-letter agencies. Nothing they say or put forth as law will be obeyed. So why even have laws then? Then you also have top representatives from these agencies lying outright in publ…

They're spooks. This is what they're for. The constraints are at best just theatre, obviously their adversaries aren't going to obey these rules, and they know that so if they are to be effective (and if they aren't why would they exist at all?) they will also disobey these rules. The purpose of such rules in practice is to help the American public to sleep at night despite having tacitly authorised a nightmare. You…

The old "We sleep safely in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm." - anon

Re: Ninth Circuit rules NSA's bulk collection of Americans' call records was illegal

#379

Post by kelnos »

versteegen wrote: post #333
Igelau wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Polarizing much? When you get to "or the CIA torturers" back up and find the verb. It's just poor sentence structure.

I can see your argument that it's ambiguous, but the wrong reading is the most natural one to me. Clarification is justified.

Just another data point: I read it same as the parent, that the original text was referring to the fact that the Obama administration didn't prosecute the torturers (regardless of when it occurred).

It seemed obvious to me that the point being made was that neither party seems to care to hold wrongdoers in government accountable for their actions.

Re: Ninth Circuit rules NSA's bulk collection of Americans' call records was illegal

#380

Post by vinay427 »

srtjstjsj wrote: post #193
adventured wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We can and do love building prisons. Not so much any longer. The US incarceration rate is at a 20 year low and keeps falling. We've been reducing the prison population for a decade now. For example the black male imprisonment rate began declining finally during the second year of George W Bush's Presidency. It has dropped by around 36% since the year 2001. The US incarceration rate began declining about the same ti…

That's an misleading stat. Incarceration trends are highly variable by state. https://www.sentencingproject.org/the-facts/#detail?state1Op...

The overall incarceration rate wouldn't be misleading with this information, although the correlation they draw with privatization of prisons in some states very well could be. Is there a specific pair of states you would refer to here?
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