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U.S. Government Intervenes in EFF vs. AT&T
An anonymous reader writes "Reuters is reporting that the US government has 'filed a motion on Saturday to intervene and seek dismissal of a lawsuit by a civil liberties group against AT&T Inc. over a federal program to monitor U.S. communications.' More from the article: " In its motion seeking intervention, posted on the court's Web site, the government said the interests of the parties in the lawsuit "may well be in the disclosure of state secrets" in their effort to present their claims or defenses ... A hearing is scheduled for June 21 before federal Judge Vaughn Walker." You may recall a few weeks ago when the DOJ asked the judge to dismiss the case. They've now taken the next step required to quash this legal action.
Guess what, the feds want the judges to approve their snooping and silence anyone daring to oppose it.
In a free country, the judges would give the government the proverbial finger and go ahead with the case. Let's see how it turns up in the US.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
In its motion seeking intervention, posted on the court's Web site, the government said the interests of the parties in the lawsuit "may well be in the disclosure of state secrets" in their effort to present their claims or defenses ... A hearing is scheduled for June 21 before federal Judge Vaughn Walker."
If I interpre this right...they want the case dismissed because it will discose state secrets? So it's okay to violate civil liberties and then get away with it because to defend it would hinder state security? Well what about my security? Hell what about my RIGHTS? Next to make a phone call you'll have to requisition phone time giving information like: number you're calling, receiving party, topic conversation.
That which does not kill me only postpones the inevitable.
the carpet, that will be exactly when the citizens of the US will know that big brother is watching, and Mr. Orwell was right. Its time for all US citizens (and now EU citizens) to make such matters of privacy a voter issue. Ask your current representatives how they stand on such issues, ask all prospective candidates, and then vote with your privacy in mind on the upcoming, and every subsequent election.
If you are not sure how to find out some of that information, go to eff.org
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
Only a dictatorship would take steps to prevent anyone from knowing if their rights were being violated.
If Mr. Bush is so sure of his assertion that nobody's rights are being trampled and that all of his Executive Orders approving these actions are legal, then he shouldn't be afraid for these actions to face the rule of law.
But then, the administration knows full well that none of this will stand up to a legal challenge.
You are witnessing the actions of a dictatorial administration consumed with the belief in its own superiority and its own place above the law. Bush believes that as President, he can do anything he wants without regard to the law; he believes himself to be invinceable.
Unfortunately, as Congress and the courts stand now, he's right.
We are the fire that lights our world.. and we are the fire that consumes it.
Anyone think that maybe there might be good and legitimate reasons for this system?
No. If there were good and legitimate reasons, they would have simply obtained warrants.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Just curious, but has anyone thought that our own government might not be the bad guys here?
Look, the idea of keeping the government in check by due process of law and constitutional guardrails is that, if it is bad, it doesn't do extreme damage, like turn into a dictatorship. When it's good, then of course it's hindered in its ability to serve citizens quickly and efficiently, but that's the price to pay.
Oh and yes, here's a hint: a good government is so rare you haven't seen one in your lifetime anywhere in the world.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Text of motion: Government's Motion to Dismiss, or for Summary Judgment [PDF, 1.8M]
EFF's page on the case: http://www.eff.org/legal/cases/att/
I'm not an American, so this is just my $0.02, but to those of you that are, your government seems to be taking away more and more of your civil liberties. America is supposed to be the land of the free, etc. etc. I think it is time that American government representatives were reminded of this - specially with elections coming up. They will do anything to remain in power. If you all tell them you are not going to put up with this kind of BS, then maybe they will stand up for you.
If everyone is silent, one day it will be too late. Speak up in unison to keep rights you have fought for over the past 200+ years. You know what they say - use em or lose em!
Good Luck!
Anyone think that maybe there might be good and legitimate reasons for this system?
Of course! Good Lord, man, no one I know has any problem with going after terrorists.
The problem here isn't that the system can be used to nail the bad guys. The problem is that there is absolutely no oversight, and it violates the law. Worse, any attempts to apply oversight have been shut down. If the system isn't being abused, then what the hell is all that about?
Our system of government is predicated on the notion that power inevitably corrupts. This system involves a lot of people, and the idea that absolutely all of them are uncorruptable is absurd.
On this very site as we type, it's reported that the U.S. Government is in negotiations to obtain the same sort of private information from European countries. Quite likely, that sharing will go both ways. Furthermore, media companies are closer than you'd like to getting access to that data, too, in order to "fight piracy". Other companies can't be far behind. Are we to believe that everyone who will eventually have access to our private communications without oversight will be on the up-and-up?
It is the potential for abuse that is the problem. And the fact that this administration has actively resisted any attempt to apply checks and balances in order to prevent abuse is extremely troubling.
Kythe
As my moniker suggests, I prefer a balanced judgement to a dogmatic one. Interestingly, in this particular case, a balanced judgement doesn't answer your question with "Yes" or "No."
Rather, I take this approach.
Assertion: The government is not the bad guys
Conclusion: It is ok to violate our rights if it's for a good cause.
I would think that the above conclusion seems nonsensical. If we accept that the current administration's plans don't include Big Brother-like control over the American public (a proposal that to some, might seem unrealistic, but I am willing to accept it for the sake of argument), that still leaves the question of whether it is RIGHT to be carrying out these surveillance programs.
The ends almost NEVER justify the means; a superior stating of this adage is the following:
"It is never a question of whether the ends justify the means; the means make the end."
In this case, the means being used are possible encroachments on the civil rights of American citizens. Acceptance of that kind of program can only have one end: surveillance of American citizens themselves.
That is not a power I want my government to have, regardless of how "safe" it might make the country. I am not willing to give up my fundamental rights for the ethereal promise of safety.
The US government is and always was, accountable to the American people. The system of checks and balances was put in place so that the no single branch of government could have enough power to destroy the rights of American citizens; the belief was that if one branch acted improperly, at least one of the others could kick them back in line.
What President Bush is attempting to do is tantamount to suppression of the system of checks and balances put into place specifically to protect us from government abuse.
And I leave you with one final question:
If what Bush has approved is so upstanding and legal, why should he fear a legal challenge? I, for one, would like another branch of government besides President Bush to tell me that my freedoms are not being violated, not because I think President Bush is lying, but because that's what the other branches are there for in the first place. And a healthy dose of suspicion of the government is very necessary to a free democracy; that is the only way a society remains free.
We are the fire that lights our world.. and we are the fire that consumes it.
When the judicial system is being asked by an agency to not permit itself to look into a subject, you know there is something VERY wrong with this government's actions.
Even if this were really the most effective way of rooting out terrorist actions, the fact that they seem to feel they have to shield themselves from judicial inquiry breaks the accountability of such a system. Are judges and juries too dangerous for our security network now? Are constitutional protections now too restrictive for our intellgence needs?
Do we really need an unnacountable set of parasites feeding on our basic rights in order to protect us from an invisible set of enemies now? If so, does the debate about if we need these things need to be outside public consideration?
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. People died for these rights. Human beings had to say goodbye to their girlfriends, wives, parents, and children forever in order to go die a likely horribly painful death. They did this because they believed there was some value in these rights. They sacrificed themselves so that the majority of us would, in privlige, enjoy the benefits of their sacrifice. Today, in this day and age and by not caring, we as a people are telling those TRUE patriots "You can take your sacrifice and shove it up your ass." Ironically, liberty and freedom are being attacked by the same people claiming to be inspired by it.
But there does need to be some avenue for the government to actually have a functioning intelligence system. Warrents are for criminal prosecution. This is about foreign intelligence.
I think this displays a serious misunderstanding about the law and the way our system works.
The warrants in question are obtained from a court that is explicitly designed to deal with foreign intelligence, called the "Foreign Intelligence Survellience Court". The law in question is called the "Foreign Intelligence Survellience Act" (FISA). They were set up expressly for the purpose of dealing with foreign intelligence issues and the wiretaps necessary to carry out intelligence gathering.
No objection has been put forth that the current law cannot deal with. The one thing that the law wouldn't allow for is abuse of the system. In other words, the fact that they're avoiding the law and the system strongly implies that it's being abused.
The FISA system has been in place for three decades, and has dealt with tens of thousands of wiretap requests quite successfully. And because the "foreign intelligence" apparatus can be abused to harm Americans, that system provides oversight and a check.
Seriously, the arguments you're making could just as easily be used to justify putting cameras and microphones in everyone's houses.
Kythe
Judges can be impeached, so it is indeed possible to replace them. I imagine it's not that easy to impeach a federal judge, but it has happened before.
Yup. The executive branch can commit all kinds of fraud which the courts will constitute a "political question" because they could not undertake independent resolution of the issues "without expressing lack of the respect due a coordinate branches of government." There's an enlightening discussion in US v. Stahl, 792 F.2d 1438 (9th Cir. 1986).
Don't be so sure. What the government is doing is not something that the Bush administration just came up with. It is doctrine with long-standing in Anglo-American law called the State Secrets Doctrine and it has been successfully invoked in the past, including the very recent past. Only a year ago it was successfully invoked to terminate the whistleblower retaliation lawsuit by Sibel Edmonds, the former translator for the FBI who revealed incompetance and security breaches. The way it is supposed to work is that the head of the relevant agency (by law the only person who can invoke the doctrine) certifies to the court that continuation of the case would require the disclosure of information damaging to national security. The courts give great deference to such certification.
Even an advocate of open government such as myself can see reasons for having such a doctrine. Suppose that a deep cover agent of the US, who is providing critical intelligence about a hostile foreign power, cheats somebody in a business transaction. The person cheated sues. It could easily be the case that the information disclosed in the course of the suit would make the agent look suspicious. In a case like this, there would be a legitimate reason for the government to want to put a stop to the lawsuit. (One would of course expect the government to assume the financial burden for its action and compensate the injured party, but that's a different issue.)
The problem is that the doctrine relies on the truthfulness of the certification that national security would be damaged if the suit were to proceed. It assumes that he or she is telling the truth in claiming that the damage would really be to national security rather than embaressment to government officials or disclosure of their criminal activities. It also assumes that there isn't a workaround, e.g. limitations on certain evidence, requirement that evidence be seen only by attorneys with security clearance, in camera review of evidence by the judge, so that the only way to prevent the damage is putting an end to the lawsuit.
Unfortunately, it isn't safe to assume that agency heads will certify truthfully. That is particularly true of this administration. I say that not just on grounds of the unusually high levels of dishonesty and and self-serving hallucination in this administration but because we have strong reasons to believe that they have repeatedly lied about security issues. There are the bald-faced lie that the US does not countenance torture, the lies about the reasons for invading Iraq, and the laughable rationalization for warrantless surveillance. They have repeatedly made the bizarre claim that the disclosure of warrantless surveillance itself damaged national security. How could that POSSIBLY be? It told nobody anything about the US's surveillance capabilities, how it is done, or who is targetted. The only thing that was disclosed was that they are not getting warrants. As far as I can see, the only way in which this could lead to a security problem would be if the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court had a leak, so that terrorist organizations were falsely assumin that they knew when they were under surveillance. The Bush administration hasn't come up with any explanation for how this disclosure could have security implications - they just yammer about it loudly and hope that nobody will notice what a crock this is.
I hope that the EFF and other plaintiffs in these suits will be able to persuade the courts to require an offer of proof from the government. Unfortunately, I am concerned that they will not succeed in this, due to the dangerous and undemocratic, but established tradition of deference the government in such cases.
That's not communism, my friend. That's authoritarianism, fascism, blind nationalism, and religion run amock and manipulated against the people. Communism's got nothing to do with it.
Slashdot needs a "-1, Wrong" moderation option.
The Urban Hippie
Bush is nominating Hayden to direct the CIA. Even though Hayden broke the law by spying on us, saying the 4th Amendment doesn't require probable cause. It does.
So Bush's government is derailing justice to protect his compiling vast complex databases of our private communications. In the hands of Iran/Contra conspirators.
After Bush's Justice Department agreed to drop their in-house investigation into Bush's NSA wiretap spying because Bush's NSA told them they didn't have security clearance, these lawsuits are the main obstacle to Bush spying on you as much as he can, taxpaid by you.
Next week, NSA whistleblower Chris Strom will reveal to the Senate how the NSA domestic spying goes even further than these latest exposures (despite Bush denial at every step). Probably spying on us with our satellites, which they scare us into paying for as part of that useless $BILLION Star Wars missile shield.
Feel safer?
--
make install -not war
Just because the government has a legitimate reason (from its POV) to want something, doesn't mean it can legitimately have it.
There's no power under the Constitution to quash lawsuits based on vague claims of "national security". Yes, there is a longstanding tradition of allowing it; that doesn't make it right or legal (understanding the Constitution as "law of the land" to have priority over misbegotten case law).
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
See Amendment X:It is The People that have unenumerated Rights.
See Amendment IX:
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
You folks need more official political parties.
Imgaine the scandal if there were only two ketchups? Americans would riot if there were only two ketchups.
Two parties limits the debate to adversarial themes. How do we screw our opponents? (better for country is *so* not a part of the debate.)
Good luck to the Dems. (I guess.) I know they will be just corrupt in 8 years.
-b
All these months of emotional repression are leaking out, and I for one don't care to constrain myself. This Godwin's Law horseshit is straight out of Orwell - and please let's start trying to smear me as a paranoid hippie of some sort, because after all, who the fuck uses cautionary novels for support? (well, besides the Bible Thumpers, but I'd say Orwell remains relevant to our times)
Laughing at people who compare things to Hitler is ignoring a very large question that you (and in this case I am referring to the Grandparent and those of his mindset) should (if you weren't so educated fucking stupid) be asking yourself/yourselves: Why is this person so upset?
If we can't cite Hitler, we can't learn from our mistakes. If we can't learn from our mistakes, there's no point in making mistakes. If there's no point in making mistakes, then we should live in constant fear of making a mistake. If we should live in constant fear of making a mistake, we should all wipe ourselves out, because mistakes are inevitable, whether they be supporting facists or making a spelling error on Slashdot.
I am sick and tired. I can TASTE the contempt I have for people like you in my TEETH. "I'm content to be stupid, I enjoy being a parrot, and I can be happy with making little sacrifices - I'm not a bad person. Why can't everyone else be just like me?"
I... there's just so much contempt within me that I find it almost impossible to coherantly express how I feel. It's thanks to moron idiots like you that Stalin was able to remain in power. It's thanks to moron idiots like you that Hitler was able to commit crimes against humanity. It's thanks to moron idiots like you that Bush and the fascists in office can feel free to trample all over every basic human dignity and liberty alike, because you will accept, and even defend, this practice. Not because you actually relate to it - though it gives you a goofy rise, much like how civilized people get a goofy rise out of watching Sonny Chiba movies - but because you are a crippled creature, willing to surpress your basic, ingrained notion of Right, and Wrong, and Fair. Whether through phony intellectualization or simple contempt for whoever's hurt your feelings (which you allow to spread over to the rest of humanity because epic destruction is so awesome), you become a creature of contempt. And even if you were touched by these idiotic policies which your contemptable straw man voodoo rhetoric supports - you know, say your brother got shot to death in Iraq, your father was imprisoned for talking with an old college bud of his and joking about killing the President, and your mother was stalked and raped after trying to rally people in support of your father - you would still sooner claim it the fault of liberalism, misunderstanding, dirty Islamic towelheads who have no right to anything, violent videogames, or God's Will - rather than simply admit that you are wrong, that you have been wrong, that your desire for a cheap rise, a moment of feeling Intellectually Gifted, and/or your simple crass thoughtlessness - whatever it is - is to blame.
The problem isn't that people feel, or think, that Bush is like an American Hitler. The problem is inside you, and inside anybody who would laugh off a comparision without actually giving it some thought, just because they read on Somethingawful/Fark/The "New" MAD Magazine/your satire source of choice that it's apparently "ridiculous" to say such things. Because "OOOOH HITLER, LOL! OMG, WTF, BBQ??? get it??? (insert heavy handed dose of "we're saying this is funny, in an unfunny way, because we think we actually ARE funny in some way, and therefore right - irony" here)", or something.
I have yet to actually read anywhere a coherant and sober reason for why it's a fallacy to compare things to Hitler or the Nazis. Maybe it's because Moderate folk (who can be just as emotionally overwraught as diehard Liberal or Conservative - leaning folk) can't stand t
The point with Godwin's Law is that the mention of Hitler/Nazis is very often too emotionalizing to continue the discussion in a constructive way, thus it diminishes the probability of resolving the debate in a good way.
The reason for this is that just by mentioning words such as "Hitler" or "Nazi" you are stirring up images and irrational thoughts that everyone of us is confronted with when learning about that part of history. We connect these words with visions of extreme atrocities against other humans, but also with simple anti-nazi propaganda that we have been fed with since WWII.
A very simple example to reflect this: if I were to say "Hitler did many good things." the first thought that will go through most people's minds would be that I am a nazi with all the characteristics associated with one (racist, anti-semitic, authoritarian etc.). Thing is, that I'd consider myself as quite the opposite of a nazi, yet I would stand by that sentence above because it is true (as true as "Hitler was not a good man."). Yet due to the reasons mentioned above most people will react irrationally to my statement and any possibility for rational discussion will be buried.
This is why mentioning Hitler as a comparison to augment a rational debate will only work with certain (educated) people, but usually not if your peers are your average Joe Doe - yes, even here on Slashdot, though at least here fortunately the demographics seem to be scewed a bit towards the 'rational debaters'. Apparently the moderation system improves the SNR as well ;)
And when you gaze long enough into the code, the code will also gaze into you.
THANK you - that was one of the few informative posts in this entire thread. Somebody mod parent up.
Here in Canada, in a case like this, the judge has the power to require the state to disclose the information to HIM, so he can rule on the validity of the secret status of whatever the hell it is.
It's implied in your post that that's not the case in the states - is that true?