The actual judgment: http://pdfserver.amlaw.com/nlj/NSA_ca2_20150507.pdf From the ruling: > Because we find that the program exceeds the scope of what Congress has authorized, we vacate the decision below dismissing the complaint without reaching appellants’ constitutional arguments. It appears that the government is starting to lose the ability to always dismiss constitutional rights abused on "state secrets" ground…
U.S. NSA domestic phone spying program illegal: appeals court
91–100 of 146 posts
Re: U.S. NSA domestic phone spying program illegal: appeals court
#92Pre-Snowden, I wonder if the ruling would have been different. Back then the judges would only know what was presented to them. The government would have obviously presented in a way that was most favorable to them, and their opposition would not have access to crucial evidence. Now that the cat shit is out of the bag, judges and everyone else have more background to evaluate what's in front of them. The government w…
> Thank you Snowden. Fuck you NSA. I'm going to turn that into a sticker and stick it on my laptop.
please make more then 1, i'll buy from you.
Re: U.S. NSA domestic phone spying program illegal: appeals court
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
We may be glad with what he did but do we want to encourage this type of thing? I think quietly "being nice" to him is fine but a public pardon, a welcome hope party, adoring media coverage may inspire some idiot to be the next Snowden and we probably do not want that.
"This type of thing" can be analyzed on a case-by-case basis. If, emboldened by a Snowden partdon, future whistleblowers take it too far, the president can decide whether or not they are eligible for pardon when the time comes. The pendulum has swung too far away for this to be a credible objection. Yes, I do want to encourage what Snowden did.
This president, and the last one, have decided that any whistleblowing deserves vicious prosecution. They even think that some journalists deserve that treatment too.
Re: U.S. NSA domestic phone spying program illegal: appeals court
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
We may be glad with what he did but do we want to encourage this type of thing? I think quietly "being nice" to him is fine but a public pardon, a welcome hope party, adoring media coverage may inspire some idiot to be the next Snowden and we probably do not want that.
> We may be glad with what he did but do we want to encourage this type of thing? I think this raises an issue we can't easily dismiss, how to handle whistle-blowers. On one hand they are essential to democracy, so we don't want to jail all of them; on the other they can cause great harm, so we don't want to enable all of them. How do we enable good whistle-blowers and stop the bad ones? Let's hear serious proposals.…
The courts need to make it easier to handle these type of things. One of the issues mentioned here was standing which made it hard for the ACLU to bring cases against the Government.
Re: U.S. NSA domestic phone spying program illegal: appeals court
#95Pre-Snowden, I wonder if the ruling would have been different. Back then the judges would only know what was presented to them. The government would have obviously presented in a way that was most favorable to them, and their opposition would not have access to crucial evidence. Now that the cat shit is out of the bag, judges and everyone else have more background to evaluate what's in front of them. The government w…
>Thank you Snowden. Fuck you NSA.
While that's amusing, it's an imperfect summary of the problem. DOJ had the Patriot Act in a drawer before 9/11. The Patriot Act wasn't read in full by any member of the Senate before it was voted on. And Section 215 was grossly reinterpreted, by both Bush and Obama administrations, according to that section's author, Jim Sensenbrenner.
It's said NSA doesn't have a moral compass, it's basically the components of a chess set. It just does what it's told. So really some criticism goes to a lazy, unimaginative, or ignorant Congress for not fully understanding the Patriot Act and how administrations (especially the more suspicious elements within them) would interpret and use Section 215 to give credibility to what they want to do. And more criticism goes to the FBI for telling the NSA to engage in bulk collection and FISA court for permitting it, and by extension the president (both of them) mainly for leaving this program on autopilot and also defending it.
A task for historians, is to what degree each president really actively defended bulk collection and believed in its appropriateness, vs what was politically possible with the expectation a future court would become involved in unwinding something that president really didn't approve of but merely accepted.
Re: U.S. NSA domestic phone spying program illegal: appeals court
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or even when the answer is going to be yes? Snowden shouldn't need a pardon for what he's done. Any federal prosecutor that would even consider laying charges should be removed from office immediately.
Snowden very blatantly broke laws, if a federal prosecutor doesn't charge him they should be removed from office. The laws he broke being immoral/unconstitutional/for the greater good is to be determined by the judge/jury, not the prosecutor.
Perhaps we should all look forward instead of back, you know the way did with fucking torture.
Re: U.S. NSA domestic phone spying program illegal: appeals court
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
We may be glad with what he did but do we want to encourage this type of thing? I think quietly "being nice" to him is fine but a public pardon, a welcome hope party, adoring media coverage may inspire some idiot to be the next Snowden and we probably do not want that.
1. I did not criticize what Snowden did. He was very careful and responsible. 2. All I was trying to say is that turning Snowden into a public mainstream hero could inspire some idiot that "wants to be a hero too" to do something dumb.
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140128/08542126021/new-y...
Blame the New York Times instead of Snowden for that failure if you want, but I wouldn't call sending that information to the New York Times in the first place 'very careful'.
Re: U.S. NSA domestic phone spying program illegal: appeals court
#98Today's ruling should be a lesson for future NSA/CIA/DOD/FBI/etc. leakers: get your hands on those original documents. Telling reporters about illegal activity, without those documents, isn't enough.
We've known about the NSA's illegal domestic surveillance of Americans' phone records via leaks for almost a decade. USA Today disclosed it in May 2006, and there were congressional hearings, etc. (I wrote about it for CNET at the time as well): http://yahoo.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-nsa_x.h...
But it wasn't until Edward Snowden leaked the actual secret court orders -- which the executive branch was forced to acknowledge were legitimate -- that the lawsuits could be filed, which resulted in today's ruling that the domestic surveillance is illegal. (The court held that NSA's phone "metadata program exceeds the scope of what Congress has authorized and therefore violates §215.")
Three other thoughts:
* What's been made public about the Patriot Act 215 metadata program refers only to metadata collection of Americans' phone calls. There's no reason to think that 215 domestic surveillance is limited to phone calls -- phone companies including VZ, AT&T, etc. rolled over for the Feds on phone metadata. Why wouldn't they turn over email metadata as well? (DOJ previously confirmed that 215 "has been used to obtain driver's license records, hotel records, car rental records, apartment leasing records, credit card records, and the like.") http://www.justice.gov/nsd/justice-news-0
* DNI James Clapper lied to Congress about the existence of NSA's 215 phone metadata vacuum. I wonder how things would have turned out differently if he had told the truth? (On the other hand, he never got fired for it and still has his job.)
* Now that an appeals court has ruled that NSA illegally used Patriot Act 215 to vacuum up Americans' phone metadata, I guess we don't need to worry about renewing it?
Re: U.S. NSA domestic phone spying program illegal: appeals court
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
The difference isn't so much whether they conduct surveillance, within or on the edges of the law, but whether they can use whatever information they find. If the information that is found cannot subsequently be used to (legally) further whatever agenda they have, then it is of very much diminished value, and its collection will receive less support. Small steps...
That's not the only issue. Parallel construction is also a concern - a process where the government "launders" information received unconstitutionally, such as lying and claiming it was from a confidential informant; or using the illegally received information to give them insight into how to pursue building a "clean" line of evidence that appears to be from scratch but isn't, such as "coincidentally" stopping a part…
Sure, but its a small step in the right direction. Outright parallel construction is evidently illegal, and if is caught would be a major embarrassment. The other problems are age old and not specific to internet surveillance.
Re: U.S. NSA domestic phone spying program illegal: appeals court
#100The actual judgment: http://pdfserver.amlaw.com/nlj/NSA_ca2_20150507.pdf From the ruling: > Because we find that the program exceeds the scope of what Congress has authorized, we vacate the decision below dismissing the complaint without reaching appellants’ constitutional arguments. It appears that the government is starting to lose the ability to always dismiss constitutional rights abused on "state secrets" ground…
How do you explain this from a few days ago: http://motherboard.vice.com/read/one-of-the-biggest-privacy-... ?