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Judge Rules NSA Wiretapping Unconstitutional
strredwolf writes "CNN is reporting that NSA's warrantless wiretapping program has been ruled unconstitutional. This is the ACLU lawsuit on behalf of journalists, scholars, and lawyers. From the article: "U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit became the first judge to strike down the National Security Agency's program, which she says violates the rights to free speech and privacy.""
Actually, you are thinking about the wrong program.
The Federal Judge has ordered NSA to stop wiretapping international calls that the Government says targets suspected al qaeda members.
The one you are thinking about (a much broader domestic wiretapping) was recently dismissed. It was also filed by the ACLU, hence the confusion.
While the decision may be a good news for privacy advocates, it is certain that the Government is likely to appeal Judge Taylor's decision.
I would argue that of the three known warrantless data collection programs, the one targeting international calls has the least privacy impact and the most potential to garner actionable intelligence and protect the American public, so it may be unfortunate that this is the one ordered stopped, while the other two are allowed to continue.
Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
Folks, it isn't over until it's over. The ruling can still be appealed. Bush nominated judge Samuel Alito to the supreme court. Alito subscribes to the notion of the unitary executive, which basically means that anything the president does is legal, by definition. Alito may be sympathetic to the administration's view on this. He is just one of nine judges, but I point him out to show you who Bush is appointing.
Remember the Total Information Awareness project, proposed by Admiral Poindexter, shortly after 9/11? It was to be a gigantic database of all electronic information -- the complete, ongoing electronic record of every US citizen. Of course, because of public outcry, the project was defunded. However, the project has simply been broken apart and pursued. Wikipedia says "An unknown number of TIA's functions have been merged under the codename "Topsail".
We don't know the full story, yet we are being given some very clear, bright red flags. Why does the government need to keep track of every single citizen?
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
And yet, you say it's false without presenting any evidence of your own (or perhaps obtaining it from the same region as the GP). I'm not aware of a poll that asks a question like, "Do you trust the current administration?" I think it would be a poor question, because it's too vague to be meaningful. Most of the time, we'd trust people so far in a certain situation; trust is not a binary issue. For example, I trust Bush not to intentionally bring down the USA, but I don't trust him to make accurate statements about intelligence. There are some things we can say, however. We can say that according to polls most people disapprove of the overall job that Bush is doing (see almost any recent presidential approval rating poll), and we can say they're almost evenly split on the question of whether warrentless wiretaps are ok (see, for example, this Newsweek poll). Most of the polls I've seen, but not all, show a slight majority for the opinion that these searches are a bad thing. Perhaps if you're going to attack people for a lack of facts, you should at least try to offer some to support your own claims.
"You call it a new way of thinking; I call it regression to ignorance!" -- Operation Ivy
I was interested in your question, so I did some research. The grandparent poster is overstating the case, but there were polls back in December/January that kind of back him up.
The NY Times says, "The poll found that 53 percent of Americans approved of Mr. Bush's authorizing eavesdropping without prior court approval 'in order to reduce the threat of terrorism.'"
The CS Monitor (reporting on a Zogby poll) says, "Nearly half of likely voters, 49 percent, say Bush has the constitutional powers to approve such a plan".
I don't have more recent figures. The President's popularity is roughly the same now that it was then, though it had risen a bit for a while in the meantime.
The actual decision by the court is worth reading. Some quotes:
IT IS SO ORDERED.
ANNA DIGGS TAYLOR
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE"
There is hope.
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
From the WashingtonPost article:
Do officials actually do the torture, or do they give commands? Ahh.. Furthermore, if a president ordered such an act, wouldn't this amendment absolve him?
From the article I originally posted, the lawyer that leaked this information to the press had this to say about the amendment he helped to draft:
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
"The government admitted to tapping all [my emphasis] phone calls that had an end-point in any foreign country."
Huh? Where do you get this? Even the judge's opinion striking down the program had this to say:
It is undisputed that Defendants have publicly admitted to the following: (1) the TSP exists; (2) it operates without warrants; (3) it targets communications where one party to the communication is outside the United States, and the government has a reasonable basis to conclude that one party to the communication is a member of al Qaeda, affiliated with al Qaeda, or a member of an organization affiliated with al Qaeda, or working in support of al Qaeda.
- Alaska Jack