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Court Order told Yahoo that Prism does not require a warrant [pdf]

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Re: Court Order told Yahoo that Prism does not require a warrant [pdf]

#51

Post by mehwoot »

justinschuh wrote: post #24
mehwoot wrote: post #17

Because these are FISA requests for individuals "reasonably suspected to be residing outside the U.S.". Those have never required warrants. Before FISA existed they just did it to whomever they pleased; now it requires a FISA request which is not the same thing as a warrant. Nowhere in that document does it say anything about not needing a warrant to get information on U.S. citizens residing in the U.S. What it does…

A few points. A FISA order really is a warrant, and the NSA needs one to collect on a US person (ie. US citizen anywhere or anyone on US soil). Before 9/11, FISA warrants were also used to compel US companies to comply with collection against non US persons for which they were the carrier. At some point after 9/11 the Bush administration realized the law could be reasonably interpreted as not strictly requiring this,…

A FISA order really is a warrant

Not according to the language used in this document it isn't. You can say it is similar if you want, but when they say "A warrant is not required" in this case they are not saying "no authorization is required".

Re: Court Order told Yahoo that Prism does not require a warrant [pdf]

#52

Post by rayiner »

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #7

Wait, are there actually people in the US who still assume that there someone has to get a warrant to investigate them under the auspices of terrorism or National Security? I assumed this was a more or less accepted fact by now. They take everything they want off the wire anyway; the best case scenario is that they have FISA rubber stamp warrants for the times where they "need a warrant". Do we really care about spec…

> Wait, are there actually people in the US who still assume that there someone has to get a warrant to investigate them under the auspices of terrorism or National Security?

What's amusing is how many people assume that the police ever needed a warrant to "investigate them." The police need a warrant to search your person or your property. The police don't need anything to investigate you, and need nothing more than a court order to subpoena documents from people who might have information about you. This has always been the way our system worked.

Depending on what exactly PRISM does, it may very well not require a warrant, any more than the police require a warrant to get your bank records or other kinds of information about you held by third parties.

Re: Court Order told Yahoo that Prism does not require a warrant [pdf]

#53

Post by declan »

justinschuh wrote: post #20
declan wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't think it was controversial to claim that the PAA and FAA have similar language. Here's one section from both bills (Sec. 702 in the FAA and 105B in the PAA) authorizing warrantless surveillance: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:s.01927 : Notwithstanding any other law, the Director of National Intelligence and the Attorney General, may for periods of up to one year authorize the acquisition of for…

Claiming the bills have similar language implies that they have similar effect. However, the facts are quite opposite. The PAA significantly reduced oversight and individual protections while the effect of the FAA was to increase both. Even those passages you're citing are night and day apart. The first authorizes collection against US persons on foreign soil, which flew in the face of 50 years of precedent. Whereas…

I was amused to see your claim of the FAA "increas[ing]" oversight appearing within a few hours of the Guardian's article on the latest NSA disclosures. It says precisely the opposite: that the FAA "relaxed surveillance restrictions." Here's the link:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/27/nsa-online-metad... It relied, legally, on "FAA Authority", a reference to the 2008 Fisa Amendments Act that relaxed surveillance restrictions.

Re: Court Order told Yahoo that Prism does not require a warrant [pdf]

#54

Post by rayiner »

mtgx wrote: post #30
justinschuh wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think there's a single factually accurate statement in your comment. A FISA order really is a warrant in the legal sense, so it's not a misnomer. There's no substantiated evidence that the government is failing to comply with its legal obligations under FISA and other relevant laws here. The Supreme court has consistently upheld that constitutional protections do not apply to non US persons. The general trend…

FISA warrant = "general warrant" = misnomer According to the 4th amendment, "warrants" must be used in specific investigations and for specific individuals. There's nothing specific about a FISA warrant. They just get data en masse from a lot of people. And they use this paper that they are calling a "warrant" from the FISA court, that says they can get the data on everyone. Also, FISA warrants completely ignores suc…

You're both right. In the general case, FISA warrants are court orders sufficient to require a third party to disclose information in their possession. However, any given FISA warrant may not meet the requirements for a warrant that must pass muster under the 4th amendment. They are, however, sufficient for activity that does not require a warrant under the 4th amendment.

So the question is: what requires a warrant that meets the strictures of the 4th amendment? Not every kind of data gathering or information collecting activity requires a warrant.

A good hypothetical to think through is a Tesla car. Tesla has the capability to track you via GPS, though the functionality is apparently disabled on retail models. But say it was enabled, and Tesla collected and stored information about where you went to optimize your ownership experience. Do the police need a warrant to get that information?

On one hand, the police do require a warrant (meeting 4th amendment strictures) to put a GPS on your car (because it is a physical invasion of your private property). On the other hand, police don't need a warrant to ask your neighbors what they know about where you've been.

So: what do the police need to get your GPS information from Tesla? On one hand, you can say that the police shouldn't be able to do indirectly what they can't do directly, and say that they require a warrant meeting 4th amendment strictures to get that information from Tesla. On the other hand you can point to a crucial distinction: the police did not need to invade your physical property to put a GPS bug on you--you did that part yourself and voluntarily told Tesla exactly where you were going. If you had phoned Tesla, and told them exactly where you had went, and they wrote that down and stored it in a file, the police would not have required a 4th amendment warrant to get that data. Just a lesser court order in the event Tesla did not cooperate.

Re: Court Order told Yahoo that Prism does not require a warrant [pdf]

#55

Post by koops »

"...the petition requires us to weigh the nation's security interests against the Fourth Amendment privacy interests of United States persons."

The text Fourth Amendment doesn't narrow itself to "United States Persons". It says:

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

Re: Court Order told Yahoo that Prism does not require a warrant [pdf]

#56

Post by fsckin »

koops wrote: post #55

"...the petition requires us to weigh the nation's security interests against the Fourth Amendment privacy interests of United States persons." The text Fourth Amendment doesn't narrow itself to "United States Persons". It says: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon p…

Why do you think 'the people' in the Fourth Amendment is not a reference to the same "We 'the people' of the United States" in the Constitution?

Re: Court Order told Yahoo that Prism does not require a warrant [pdf]

#57

Post by drivebyacct2 »

justinschuh wrote: post #50
btilly wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me channel our resident conservative lawyer, raynier. The 4th only applies to US citizens. Therefore a FISA warrant targeting people outside of the USA who are not believed to be US citizens does not have to meet the standard of the 4th. A National Security Letter targets third parties (your email provider, your library, etc) and fails to search, seize, or directly affect any of you, your house, person, papers or…

Thank you. I wish more of the commentary on this subject was like yours. It's a refreshing to see someone who can disagree with a position but accept that it is still legal if the courts have upheld it.

I made it pretty damn clear that I was talking about it at a constitutional level and it's kinda irksome to watch you find the only person who barely-even-doesn't-really-agree with you and act like they're the only respectable person in the thread. It's not my god damn fault you refuse to read the wikipedia page and inform yourself.

edit: Look, all over the front page this morning. MORE sources and allegations describing MASSIVE domestic surveillance that occurred without any sort of oversight or warrants. How can you just ignore story after story after story and push your anecdotes?

Re: Court Order told Yahoo that Prism does not require a warrant [pdf]

#58

Post by Andrew_Quentin »

It is so strange to see a judgment reference a previous case as Re Sealed Case.

It feels like the judge is stating: The authority for this principle can be found in Black Box.

It may be justified for civil cases to be held in secret. After all, civil cases can be resolved by mediation, arbitration, even just negotiation. When the matter concerns a petition against the government however, or against a law, there is no reason for the case to be sealed or secret.

Whats next, the congress voted in a closed secret session a new secret law?

Re: Court Order told Yahoo that Prism does not require a warrant [pdf]

#60

Post by [deleted] »

justinschuh wrote: post #50
btilly wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me channel our resident conservative lawyer, raynier. The 4th only applies to US citizens. Therefore a FISA warrant targeting people outside of the USA who are not believed to be US citizens does not have to meet the standard of the 4th. A National Security Letter targets third parties (your email provider, your library, etc) and fails to search, seize, or directly affect any of you, your house, person, papers or…

Thank you. I wish more of the commentary on this subject was like yours. It's a refreshing to see someone who can disagree with a position but accept that it is still legal if the courts have upheld it.

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