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DOJ To Claim National Security in NSA Case
deblau writes "Wired is reporting that the federal government intends to invoke the rarely used 'State Secrets Privilege' in the Electronic Frontier Foundation's class action lawsuit against AT&T. The case alleges that the telecom collaborated with the NSA's secret spying on American citizens. The State Secrets Privilege lets the executive branch step into a civil lawsuit and have it dismissed if the case might reveal information that puts national security at risk."
that this action by the fed pretty much confirms the EFF's claims here.
If the Executive *didn't* use ATNT to spy on Americans then it is not a security matter.
If the Executive *did* use ATNT to spy on Americans then its illegal (no warrant) and legal protection doesn't apply to illegal acts.
Try it, the judge will bend over backwards to find a way to continue this case.
Seriously, when the executive branch of the government can simply come swinging in and end any lawsuit they see fit without full explenation to all involved parties (including the public) sounds like what happens in banana republics. No justice for people when they can't get their few remaining rights enforced by the courts.
There is also the constant media consert in fortissimo about how the ends justify the means, i.e. chopping off liberty for the sake of temporary safety and all that jazz. Then there is the issue of seperation of Church and state is slowly but surely being erased. Unfounded wars of aggression (arguable to some extend though I guess) and last but not least, many computer programs are being Censored.
I find it easier to make a list (ala Kill Bill) no only for what needs to be done, but to check to make sure that basic rights are being violated. Lets call this list the constitution.
Here is your assignment for today kids: Go forth unto the internet and find EXTREME cases of governmental violations of each part of the constitution and the bill of rights. Extra points for snappy quotes from goverment officials and spokespeople chanting the party line!
Me thinks it time for a bloody revolution again!
(tickets sold seperately).
A bad analogy is like a leaky screwdriver.
So we're gonna do what we all do best; bitch and moan and pretend like there's jack shit we can do about it.
As a Muslim American, I'm told that I should invite violations of my basic civil rights with the only probable cause being my skin color, ethnicity and religion because I shouldn't have anything to hide. Yet, when the corporations involved with the government and the government itself has lawsuits filed against it based on evidence beyond the realm of "probable cause," they can invoke some act they pulled out of their asses. How do I go about obtaining an act like this but only to protect my civil/constitutional rights? Does the "if you got nothing to hide..." line work with the government too or is FOX news going to spin it some other way for all of us?
SHIT there isn't jack shit we can do about it.
Thanks for f'ing up my day
Algerath
I would like to see some serious punishment for some members of the administration after they leave office... People are talking about impeachment if the democrats get control of congress... but that seems like kind of a slap on the wrist, and would only effect bush himself.
It seems like more than anything else, what has characterized this administration is the desire for power. The wiretaps don't piss me off because I think they are unjust. They piss me off, because wiretaps without any kind of oversight seem likely to be used against the administrations political enemies. The administration has already openly abused its power to try to destroy its such enemies numerous times... they've been hunting down the people that leaked the warantless wiretapping stufff forever (didn't they find one guy?) and will probably try to bring some kind of trumped up charge against their obviously legitimate whistlebloying. Who is to say they weren't tapping democratic campaign headquarters in the 2004 election? I'm not sure that, with the character the administration has itself to have recently, that I can say that is beneath them.
At some point if the power of the executive branch isn't checked, the presidential office itself, could become a threat to the country. With the kind of power that the president has, how difficult would it be to just refuse to step down after your term was up? This president has shown no regard for the law, and a willingness to make up paper thin excuses for his abuse of power. Maybe Bush wouldn't, or couldn't take power like that, but if we set a precedent where we allow the president to break the law, and grab power like crazy all through his administration just like this one did, what's to stop someone more ambitious than him from going further in the future?
I'd like to see congress put some mechanisms in place for checking the execute branch. Specifically, I'd like whatever authority that the administration *imagines* gives them the power to do warantless wiretaps specifically removed. Power to spy on whomever it pleases the administration, without even having to tell anyone in the other branches about it, is clearly a threat to the checks and balance system. Maybe a constitutional amendment needs to be made laying out the powers of the executive branch more specifically, and limiting the power to spy on anyone without oversight from the judicial, and maybe the legislative branch.
Face absolutely no opposition? What are you smoking?
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
"Sir, if you have nothing to hide, then you should have no objection to a full disclosure of the documents you have created and accumulated with your wiretapping activities."
"But it is in the interest of National Security that I do not perform my legal obligations, and I do not wish to tell you"
Hypocrites - A study in government responsibility.
Even if you elect people who are less abusive of the power I doubt you are going to see any elected officials vote to reduce their own power/influence.
Algerath
Whatever the trial judge decides about the DOJ motion, you can bet this gets appealed all the way up the line to SCOTUS. The claim, as asserted by DOJ, would be a clear violation of the due process clause if the government could step into any case and inhibit discovery or evidence presentation. In other cases involving sensitive material, the trial judge has the opportunity to review such material before granting or denying the motion.
It kinda sounds like the NSA equivalent, at least.
Ok, let's ponder. So it would endanger "national security" if they told that they used ATNT to spy on their own citizens. Now, those citizens are, at least if I got the system in the US right, the ones that elect the ones in power. They are the "nation". So it would endanger their security if they knew whether they've been spied on.
Ignorance is strength... where've I heard that before...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
People on /. have been complaining about the EFF filing lawsuits that they don't win. They may not win this one either, but it proves a point: The gov't is spying on a lot of us and doesn't want us to know it.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
in the guise of "national security."
Do not downmod posts "overrated" simply because you disagree with them.
I wish it were true, but I don't think the term "rarely used" applies to the states secrets privilege any more. Unfortunately it is used far too often, and even used when there is no state secret but the need to cover some body's hind quarters.
Perhaps it should be called the CYA privilege.
Think Deeply.
It's about time to put an user-transparent version of GPG (or symmetric encryption) in about every open source project, which uses communication or stores something. I'm already wondering, why it's not included in Thunderbird by default (I know, the provided GPG plugin is one of the best available for mail systems see http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ ).
p _encryption.html ...
Good programs would be:
- encrypted storage for torrent files (F*** off RIAA)
- Generate and upload GPG key when you install Thunderbird by default
- Encryption for VoIP (yeah, Skype has it and it pisses of the feds)
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/04/voi
or zfone http://www.philzimmermann.com/EN/zfone/index.html
- GPG encryption in HTTP traffic (no more snooping on forms)
-
Here's a scenario under which quashing the lawsuit would be a good thing.
Suppose that AT&T has been cooperating w/ NSA, this wouldn't take a great stretch of anyone's imagination. Now suppose NSA is using that access to get information on foreign diplomats and intelligence officers in the US (legally allowed) and data transiting the US or used by Al Qaeda people outside the US, such as Hotmail or GMail accounts. They could have a list of known overseas email accounts, and just watch the SMTP headers and grab them as they come by, or watch for the logins to suspecte accounts, they could even monitor the IP addresses on that SMTP or HTTP transfer to insure the email was in fact being retreived from overseas. The servers are here, but all the communications are between people outside the US, and the pipelines are an easy way to access it all, instead of having to monitor a bunch of dial-up, DSL, and DirecWay connections in the Middle East and Europe.
In this scenario, nothing illegal is going on, but for AT&T to defend itself, it would have to admit to cooperating w/ NSA, and would have to explain what traffic is being monitored, so as to prove it isn't helping monitor Americans, at least willingly or knowingly. That would definitely cause some of the bad guys to stop using US based servers, so we might lose valuable intelligence.
Who knows, but that could be a large part of it, and in that case I would have to agree w/ DoJ 100% on quashing the lawsuit.
So, either they don't have such a monitoring program, but they want the terrorists to think they do, and it would compromise state secrets to reveal the fact it does not really exist, OR ...
It's exactly what people are suggesting it is, and the government is going to cover its ass with a big "state secret" stamp?
What is this? The frickin USSR?
Here's a clue: if the system had been set up via legislation, so that there was debate about its merits and it had some kind of legal legitimacy, it wouldn't be a big deal to keep the details of its implementation secret. But secretly set up something that sure sounds as if it must be violating well-established law, and of course people are going to be pissed off and demand answers to questions. They are asking now for answers and justification that should have been provided before the thing was deployed.
At least the Great Firewall of China is openly admitted to exist, and everybody already knows the government there is authoritarian. Does a Great Firewall of the USA exist? The world may never know. But if its existence and justification is not properly explained to its own people it will say much more about the current US regime than the answers to the legal questions in this case ever would.
In what kind of bizarro democracy would the government truly be better off not explaining itself? Shouldn't they dispell people's concerns about these rumors?
Who allied with Iraq to fight against the United States?
Words are one thing. Actions are another.
"In spite of what everyone keeps saying about the current case, it is not domestic spying. One end of every communication intercepted is in another country"
No, that's what the administration is claiming. The truth is, no one knows for sure and the administration is doing its damndest to make sure no one will. That sure makes me feel more secure!
Well, seems to me that they have two choices.
Either they go ahead with the prosecution and risk creating this precedent that you fear. Or, they do not, and the government gets away with it.
Either way, with no consequences to their actions, the government is (or might as well be) above the law. At least with the EFF trying to prosecute, they
a) have a chance of doing something about it
b) bring it to people's attention
c) in the event of losing, sow the seed in people's minds that they *must* have been up to something in order to quash the case like that
Incidentally, you also mustn't forget that precedent is a guide, not an iron clad rule. Judges are free to rule differently; precedent just gives them something to use as guidance, and to point at in the event of their ruling being questioned.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
You obviously didn't read US v. Reynolds. The plaintiffs were seeking federal data to support their CIVIL lawsuit. The case established the Government's right to invoke Executive Privilege to stop disclosure in a tort.
The EFF case is entirely different. The government claims that Executive Privilege is a higher power than the 4th Amendment in the Bill of Rights. And the EFF, in the process of losing their lawsuit, will permanently erode the 4th Amendment, and place the Executive Branch beyond the reach of the courts.
Are you sure about that? The way I read the EFF case and the and the Wired writeup, they are under the belief that ALL communications are being re-routed to the NSA. Not simply all calls which are going international.
If they are truly getting copies of every single AT&T communications, this would most especially NOT be limited to international communications -- it would, in fact, be large-scale domestic spying with no warrants or specific targets. Merely recording everything that goes on to see if they can sift out anything useful.
That is bloody scary! And, highly illegal.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Quite a few people believe it is our duty to support our President, even if he's a lying, cheating, murdering, egg-sucking, goose-fucking prick (and he is, too). Many even think that "freedom of speech" goes too far, and that the government should approve news stories (it seems it is these days). These same people have perverted the meaning of patriotism.
Patriotism is standing up for liberty. Patriotism is battling against tyranny, even if that tyranny is home-grown. Patriotism is putting the rights of the people before the rights of the government, and before the rights of corporations.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
The government's argument here is a very dangerous one. They seem to argue (in the actual filing) that national security is a greater interest than constitutionality-- i.e. that they can continue such a program indefinitely without judicial oversight simply because they can argue that national security information would be compromised in such a lawsuit.
This is part of a larger pattern, unfortunately. In defending this program, AG Gonzalez has stated that the AUMF of 2001 allows such a program because, in its words, it allows the president to take action against all "states, persons, or organizations that he determines" were involved in the 2001 attacks. Such an interpretation would essentially mean the official end of the American republic and the rise of an imperial military dictatorship. At the risk of invoking Godwin's law, this is not fundamentally different to *how* the Nazis took power after the Reichstag was burned. Our system is designed to protect against this exact danger.
The problem is not the spying per se. It is instead the way the program is run without adequate safeguards to the system of government of our democratic republic. I certainly hope that the court in this case does not give the Executive a free pass in this area. Allowing the State Secrets privilege to be invoked as a way to quash judicial oversight of such a program would be such a free pass.
All most of us are asking is for judicial oversight.
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