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Court Orders Dismissal of US Wiretapping Lawsuit
jcatcw writes with a link to a ComputerWorld article about the dismissal of a case against the NSA over the wiretapping program revealed last year. The case was brought by the ACLU. A three-judge panel in the Sixth Circuit has sent the case back down to District court for ultimate dismissal. "The appeals court decision leaves opponents of the NSA program in a difficult position, said Jim Dempsey, policy director of the Center for Democracy and Technology, a civil liberties group that has opposed the program. The appeals court ruled that the plaintiffs could not sue because they can't prove they were affected by the program, and at the same time, ruled that details about the program, including who was targeted, are state secrets."
Enjoy your dictatorship, America. Bush and his cronies can do no wrong, and can block and dismiss any attempt to see JUST HOW FAR they have gone. At least until after the next election. If there IS an election. You guys still have them, right?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
prepare to be spanked in appeal!
The only way to prove you were affected is to be affected. The fact you were affected you can't prove even when you are affected because the fact that you were is to remain a state secret.
There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. (Lt.) Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.
"That's some catch, that Catch-22," he [Yossarian] observed.
"It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed.
Instead, it's fear of terror that's the new catch, completely unaccountable in its all-enforcing secrecy from the people the system is supposed to represent, and completely against the constitution that gives it the charter it exists to serve.
Ryan Fenton
So, want to start taking bets to see if this actually makes onto the news tonight...?
Before or after the American Idol/You Think You Can Dance/Duh/Paris Hilton report?
I'd think they should be able to appeal to the Supreme Court though. How can you prove you have standing if it illegal for you to know whether you have standing or not. Even the current Court would find that one difficult I'd think.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
...is the standing rulings that have collectively made it law that taxpayer participation (i.e. by paying taxes) in a program is insufficient standing for challenging that program. Is there a lawyer in the house that can explain why if I pay for something that doesn't give me the standing to complain about it? A rational explanation escapes me, but IANAL...
I mean, I can *kind of* see that if taxpayer participation was enough, then the courts would be come much busier with complaints about government spending and programs (perhaps paralyzingly so), but there must be a better way than just excluding the entire class as lacking standing.
All the techniques ever used to make men moral have been themselves thoroughly immoral... (Nietzsche)
Our government was set up on a basis of checks and balances to keep things on the straight and narrow. In a Democracy, however, the governmental checks and balances are tier 2 of the mechanism to keep things in line. The voting populace is tier 1. Without the ability to understand what the government is doing (the information is classified) we are unable to direct the government through elections.
We are looking at an example where the checks and balances system is being undermined at the most fundamental level.
We seem to be living at the period in American history that future peoples will point to when discussing the unraveling of our Nation.
Regards.
FUCK!
So the court has ruled that as long as the government keeps it's mouth shut about who it was spying on, no one can ever sue the government over un-constitutional spying. Great. No plaintiffs, no lawsuit, no broken laws.
Of course at SOME point, maybe in 20 years or so, the names of who the government was spying on will have to become a non-secret, and thus available under a FOIA request.
AccountKiller
This is a case where the only way the NSA would be found guilty is if they basically admitted to it-- but they don't have to because they can label their activities *state-secrets*. You can't win this one.
The appeals court ruled that the plaintiffs could not sue because they can't prove they were affected by the program, and at the same time, ruled that details about the program, including who was targeted, are state secrets.
Which is all true. So they should have chosen a better angle under which to file a complaint. Either find someone affected, or argue convincingly that such state secrets are unconstitutional. Should be a breeze given the current make up of the supreme court.
Otherwise, just put your money in the bank and wait until after 2008.
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
FTFA:
So, Mr. Roehrkasse, do you know what freedom is?
Do you even know what the fuck your organization is even defending?
I don't know about you, but if our freedoms are being taken away by our Government, than what is there for them to defend? I guess the status quo.
I'll do my best in the coming election to vote for someone that'll take our freedoms seriously and not just use the word as justification for eliminating the Bill of Rights - like Bush does. Sorry, when that idiot in Chief goes on national TV and says he's fighting for our freedom and then allows his henchmen in the DOJ and NSA to pull this kind of shit, it's obvious to me that he and th rest of his administration has absolutely no concept of what freedom is.
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
since the EFF was ineffective, support the NRA.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Because what it perfectly legal now, may not be so in the near future.
I'm not tense. I'm just terribly, terribly, alert.
IANAL I assume that the loss on appeal essentially erases the Michigan courts finding of the progral to be illegal, but at least it was overturned on the grounds of the ACLU not being harmed. I figure that's better than saying it is actually ok. or am I missing something?
Fortunately, the decision can be appealed. No guarantee that would do any good. Since we're in election season, judges are standing by their political affiliations on all sides. Even if the decision was favorable to the plaintiffs, though, there's no reason to believe that it'll do any good. How many Republican senators are going to want to look weak on national security right now? That means even if the matter does stay in the courts, it is very unlikely anything will happen before late in November 2008. Of course, if it does stay in the courts, the NSA could just plead guilty and have the President issue a full pardon the following day, rescinding the finding and penalties exacted.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
thank you for being a choice candidate for our Patriot Scapegoat and Patsy selection process. We will be kicking in your door at 3:04am. It is important for our subsequent forensics manipulations that you wear an orange jumpsuit and fall forward upon termination.
Wow, so the appeals court upholds the violation of the fourth amendment, and at the same time pisses all over the first (petition for redress.) Truly, this is an awe-inspiring day. Surely, the men who signed the Declaration of Independence, almost exactly 231 years ago would sing from the rooftops in joy at what became of the nation that they pledged their "lives, fortunes, and sacred honor" to create.
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
If that were true then the 400+ people held at Gitmo over these many years would have resulted in more that a small handful of trials and more than a sprinkling of convictions.
We don't know why they choose to hold the people they do, and they do not have to tell us. For all we know the Gitmo detentions are as much to change the political landscape in the Middle East as they are to fight terrorism.
We have no idea what the NSA is looking for when they are wiretapping, and more importantly, we do not know what they might find profitable to look for in the future. We only know that they are permitted to operate without oversight.
Regards.
...but then they would have to kill you.
So this is actually a good ruling.
All hail the sham republic!
Maybe the question is naive and the game of chess is obvious to everyone else. The submission says this ruling puts the ACLU in a difficult position. They are not permitted to know whether they are affected by the program or not. Perhaps the difficulty of the ACLU's current position is an unintended consequence, but that seems unlikely to me. What seems more likely is that the court did this as sort of a gotcha, as in "better luck next time, smart guy." I get this feeling every time I hear a lack-of-standing ruling. I understand that it's a valid concept it just sticks in my craw.
I admit that it's just a vague sense of the way things are in this country that leads me to believe this way. I wouldn't really know how to begin looking for other examples of this legal maneuvering in the recent past (or any past.) Can anyone give me some insight into this or a place to start reading?
When the axe came to the forest, the trees said, "Look out - the handle was once one of us."
Firstly, Bush's approval rating is around 1/3 and probably at about 28%. So, unless you're willing to admit that most US citizens are liberal and that conservatism is loud-mouthed minority, then please stop assuming that anti-Bush means "liberal."
You've just sounded the mating call of the head-burying oppression sheep. Apparently, privacy to you only applies to those in power even when they break the law. I have to assume you respect the President and Co-President's unprecedented lack of disclosure. I suppose you have no problems with the government spying on innocent protest groups or citizens who object to public policy. I suppose you also have no problem with the government spying on the political strategies of its opponents. I suppose you have no problems with government using private details of people's lives to extort or intimidate them. I suppose you have no problems with authoritarianism as well since Big Brother knows what's best for all of us.
If Ben Franklin were here to read your ignorant post, you'd soon feel the swift kick of a brass-buckled foot to your back-side.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
As far as I am concerned the NSA/CIA/FBI/??? can wiretap and monitor me to their hearts content I promise it will not only be useless but incredibly boring.
Would it be OK if a government clerk spied out your business decisions and passed them on to a competitor that could pay?
Would you mind if there was only one political party because it was able to identify and neutralize anyone who disagreed with them?
Would you mind doing some menial job for your new corporate masters for the rest of your life? Remember, though crime will result in relative economic hardships. The only thing more expensive then freedom is slavery.
I mind all of the above and resent paying for such abuse. If you want a life like that, pay for it yourself.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Since you don't communicate with *known* terrorists, then you will never be tapped. The NSA has been tapping international communications for ages. The question has been can they pass this information on to domestic law enforcement? After 9/11 many decided that the "wall" between the NSA and domestic law enforcement was stupid and needed to be lowered.
The only difference pre-Bush or pre-9/11 is that the information from the NSA can be used in domestic law enforcement to bring a case against you. Before the case can be expanded, they still must go the FISA court. The Washington Post confirmed this in an article that cited a FISA judge that was uncomfortable with FISA warrants being used in domestic cases. But the fact remained that the FISA court was still being used.
Ah, the classic "I'm not doing anything wrong so I don't have to worry about it" argument.
a -surveillance-why-sho_b_16763.html
Well then do this for me:
-Record all of your phone calls and post them on the internet
-Put up all your sent/received e-mails on the internet
-Print out a copy of your bank statements showing all transactions, and put them up on the internet
-Leave your curtains/blinds open 24/7
-Stop mailing things in envelopes, send everything as a post card
-Make sure to leave your stall door open when you use the restroom at Chili's
After all, you have nothing to hide right?
You might argue that the general public having access is not the same as the government having access, and perhaps that's true. But who makes up the government? That's right, people like you and me (of/by/for the people, remember?) And when 10 years from now, your neighbor who now works for the government and has an axe to grind, pulls the complete history of your phone records and searches through it using some key words to find something to embarrass you with, you'll realize that you (and everyone else in the world) DO have something to hide, and it's not unreasonable to feel that way, even if you have committed no illegal acts. Our personal identities and our safety are centered around being able to keep some things private.
But have you REALLY committed no illegal acts? You've never traveled 1 mph over the speed limit, or downloaded a single song you didn't own, or eaten a grape you didn't pay for at the grocey store, or jaywalked, etc.?
Have you ever read Amendment #4, by the way? I'm sure some neocon lawyer type could argue that the subject of this article doesn't violate the letter of it, but it can't be argued against that it violates the SPIRIT of that amendment.
Here's an article for your further consideration:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/geoffrey-r-stone/ns
Good, then they won't have any trouble convicting you of speaking ill of the next democractic president, once criticising the president has been made a capital offense, and they won't have any trouble convicting you of treason for criticizing the law that you can't criticize presidents, an act of treason as well. Rights you give away in relatively good times are not magically granted back to you when the shit really does hit the fan, politically speaking.
I'm sick and fucking tired of hearing this word tossed around like a pejorative. Learn the definition!.
Here's a snippet:
You might think twice before you start trash talking a philosophy whose principle tenets promote the very "freedoms" you conservatives claim to love, yet consistently take away.
It's time for the EFF and some supernerds to entrap the government.
Plant some communications that raise the government's interest enough to show up to investigate. Ensure the communications, once the plot is revealed, would not be judged to be a real threat or significantly illegal otherwise. But make sure it raises ire and causes a response that could not otherwise have been wise to the communications had they not been illegally snooping.
Bonus points if you can make it high profile enough that Cheney cannot absolve himself of knowledge of the details of the trap.
Because what it perfectly legal now, may not be so in the near future.
Wait, talking to my grandma in Florida is going to be illegal in the near future?!? Link plz.
Apparently in the days of Echelon, there was an actual case where some mom said something along the lines of "Little Tommy bombed at the school play." The automated system flagged her as requiring a case file, and she was investigated and her future calls monitored. In this case, she was innocent, Tommy was innocent (except for bad acting), but the government decided it was worth expending resources to spy on her. Doesn't give me much confidence no matter how you look at it.
Just image what they'd do if you told someone you were going to nuke a tv dinner, pound it down, and crash for the night.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
Well, I guess I am about to be modded into oblivion by the anti-Bush crowd, but I don't see anything wrong with this ruling.
IANAL, but to my knowledge, in order to sue over an act (tort), you have to prove that you were not just negatively affected by that act, but affected in a specific dollar amount which the court can award you as compensation for the act. What measurable harm have these guys suffered? I don't think that the possibility that one of your conversations might be in a secret NSA database causes you any measurable harm that a court could compensate you for. If they have to ask the NSA whether they have any such records, that in and of itself serves as proof that they were not harmed in any way by the records (if they do exist), since if they were harmed in any way, they would be able to prove that in court.
I don't think it's a good idea either to seek to challenge laws in court on the grounds that you paid the taxes that support the program or somesuch. That is trying to place the courts in a role they were never meant to take - of judging the effect of laws. Passing and repealing laws is the job of our elected representatives in Congress and the President. Provided that the laws do not directly contradict the Constitution, the Courts have no say in what those laws are. (yes, I know that we seem to be steadily accumulating laws that do directly contradict the Constitution, but that's another post) If you don't like the laws, you're going to have to take it up with your elected Representatives, and you're going to have to accept that the American people do not necessarily agree with you on all issues, and they have as much right to their views as you do. If you want to change things, you have to convince your fellow Americans that you are right and they should vote your way.
I don't reply to ACs
Simple, they were captured on the battlefield. Diplomatic relations with their home country can get them released as per the usual rules of war. We have released some prisoners in GITMO to their home country already and will probably do it many times again. If the person is with the country we are in conflict with, then they will be held until the conflict ends. Pretty standard stuff. Corresponds to capture the flag rules. Does no one remember where the rules of the game came from?
What were you doing on the internet each night for the past month? Would you like it to be the topic of discussion on the evening news, with copies sent to all your friends and relatives? And even if you somehow lived the most boring month in history, how would you feel if a friend or family member were publicly humiliated, harassed, or embarrassed for perfectly legal conversations or activities?
Wiretapping WITH a warrant is good for catching criminals. Wiretapping WITHOUT a warrant is good for watching all of the perfectly legal stuff people do and finding ways to use it against them.
I know it goes against the current liberal anti-Bush Slashdot crowd - If you aren't doing illegal activities over the phone / airwaves / Internet then why worry ?
It's not John Q. Public doing illegal things. It's the government. It's not John Q. Public keeping things secret. It's the government. It's the government keeping its illegal activities secret.
"Law abiding citizens have nothing to hide" is not only a complete fallacy, in this case it's a complete red herring. The government isn't abiding by the law AND they're hiding. Double whammy.
And get this - the EFF is trying to go through the courts to get evidence disclosed, whereas the government is NOT going through the (secret) courts (who rubberstamp 99% of applications). Three strikes.
It's pretty clear cut who's in the right here, and who's in the wrong.
That you don't care, fine, it's your prerogative to be obtuse.
If this ruling makes you angry, support the EFF!
Why? They talk a great talk (and they love to talk- seems they're always giving speeches) but when it comes down to court time, their record is less than stellar, particularly with larger cases. I really don't give a shit about CSS or encrypted music/movies. I do care quite a bit when the government is engaged in unconstitutional wiretapping.
Please help metamoderate.
Congress won't enforce the law. The Executive branch won't police itself. The Judicial branch rules citizens can't sue because the details are classified by the Executive branch. It's a perfect, closed system. No one in the government is accountable to us anymore.
The government no longer answers to the citizens, according the the system we set up to run it. It's a very short, swift step from where we are to where ordinary citizens disappear in the night (non-Muslims, that is). We won't know exactly when that moment arrives, because we won't be told, because no one in the government obeys or enforces the law anymore.
Let's assume for a moment that you're not someone who buries his head in the sand, saying 'As long as I'm not doing anything wrong, why should I care what the government does to others?' Let's assume that your response to crisis is not to hop in your SUV, drive down to the mall, and go shopping. And let's further assume that you're a red-blooded, patriotic American who really cares about freedom and the rule of law, and about protecting the country against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
So ask yourself, what recourse do you have now?
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
See, you just pegged the problem. The Constitution doesn't mention phone and internet. So what bush is doing must be legal.
Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels.
You know, anti-Bush and anti-big-brother aren't mutually exclusive points of view. So I assume everyone who is pro-Bush is also pro-police-state??
The US is supposed to have constitutional guarantees that the government isn't snooping in on its citizenry without good reason. Think of the McCarthy era in which people were persecuted to find out if they were communists (despite freedom of association guarantees), or homosexuals, or liked Jazz. The very prospect that you might hold an opinion, or do something which some self-appointed moral censor decreed was grounds to dig into and ruin your lives.
What if you're doing something legal, but not something you'd want to be made common knowledge? What if it was just friggin private? I may not be doing anything illegal, but if I'm setting up a trist with the old lady down the street (or anything else for that matter) why should the police be allowed to indiscriminately monitor what I'm doing? It's sure as hell not relevant to anything, but once the government start collecting data on the morality, opinions, and choices of it's citizens, bad things happen.
See, the problem with secret programs which are basically illegal (or at least violate the spirit of the law) and allow such wide range snooping, is you have no oversight, and no way of protecting yourself from abuses of power. Checking out the contacts of everyone who is potentially subversive (read as: doesn't agree with you) is supposed to be something they can't do.
If you are prepared to start allowing people to monitor you on the basis that you're not doing anything illegal is really short sighted. When they start expanding it to the the full on thought police of making sure you don't have any opinions they disagree with, you might understand why it's supposed to be a blanket protection in the first place.
Would you agree with police checkpoints on every corner where you had to be searched? How about if the police routinely came into your home to ensure that you didn't have anything which was ideologically impure? I mean, surely, if you're not doing anything illegal, this couldn't possibly be an imposition.
People who fail to understand why it is desirable to keep checks and balances on government power will one day gets themselves the world they deserve. The rest of us would rather actually be allowed to do things without expectation that the government is watching and reporting on everything we do. That's part of the basis of living in a free society. The alternative is a descent into fascism.
This whole attitude of "If you're not breaking the law why do you care" has always baffled me. If you think I'm breaking the law, go ahead and check for evidence of that. Stay the hell out of my personal life, and sure as hell don't monitor everything everyone does on the hopes of getting lucky here and there.
Go read Brave New World or 1984 if you want to start thinking about why people give a crap about such things.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Screw the NRA, start supporting CTD
Its not about you, but our democracy. The presence of the illegal wiretapping program illustrates the fundamental imbalance in the system of checks and balances. The program was started in clear violation of FISA. Yet, no other branch of government has been able to exert any oversight of the program. Checks and balances should allow one branch to question or put the breaks on such a program. If you didn't sleep in US govenment class, then I wouldn't have to explain how dangerous such an imbalance is. The government has violated the rights of individuals many times in history but that system is present to rectified the violation.
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
What you are saying is that you should have NO RIGHT to privacy under any circumstance from the Government.
Do you absolutely pay EVERY PENNY of your taxes? (Never took cash for anything and didn't submit and remit the due percentage to the IRS?)
Ever exceed the speed limit? EVER?
Ever spit on the sidewalk (or near it), or jaywalk, or any one of millions and millions of petty but actual violations of the law that normal citizens do from time to time?
If the government is allowed to spy on even significantly private activities such as having a phone conversation with someone of your choosing on a topic of your own choosing, then you've just subscribed to an Orwellian fascist state.
The rights you take for granted are the ones that are (a) easiest to let slip away and (b) the hardest to get back.
By letting the government listen (and act!) on everything you say to anyone, you're giving away your rights of association, and speech. Just because right now the government doesn't (necessarily) disagree with what you're saying, once they're allowed to monitor every/any one at will (as this ruling essentially gives them carte blance to do), then the doors are open to narrowing what things you're allowed to say. Maybe in a few years it'll become "subversive" to talk about political parties/perspectives that aren't representative of the two main parties. A few years later, maybe just one of them... rights rarely disappear all at once, they just quietly slip away until one day you discover you're in a police state and you wonder how it all went wrong, but can't do anything about it because the gulags are just too damn scary...
-AC
FTA |"The plaintiffs cannot show they have been or will be subject to surveillance personally," Batchelder wrote.| Since you didn't find the 4 inch file folder on you it didn't happen... (Lets wait 30 years and see what shows up. On the other hand, no we do not have to wait this time to know what's happening.) |The plaintiff's attempts to sue for other reasons, including violation of their First Amendment, free-speech rights, are a "thinly veiled ruse," the judge added. None of the plaintiffs has shown that their speech has been hindered, she wrote.| The ACLU Lawyers should know that good old Abe Lincoln suspended "Habeas Corpus" back in the 1860's, cuz there was a civil war on. Well guess what, it must be the "Thinly Veiled Ruse 1860's" all over again, and they got the carriage before the horse this time. I didn't see congress issue a Declaration of War granting these powers, as a matter of fact I haven't seen one in the U.S. since December of 1941. I must have missed something. Also, now would someone explain to me how in the world, can we in the US have the right and/or moral authority to export this kind of democracy to the world (think J.E. Hover Justice if your unsure)? The really sad part is I voted for Bush, and was even protesting for him in the election recount. I wised up after Abu Grave and the associated White House Memos. BTW. May God Rest the soul of those fallen from the twin towers in 2001 to those that died in Iraq and Afghanistan today.
I have personally always been of two minds on the matter.
I believe that it's a ton of FUD that people are thinking that we're in the midst of creation of an awful big-brother type government. We have way too many people, and we're way too paranoid to let that happen. You need a semi-complacent population (you listening Britain??) that almost WANTS a nanny-state type surveillance for that sort of thing.
Do I think that international calls should be monitored with known/suspected terrorists? You bet your boots I want those heard. Do we need warrants for them? To a point, but there are quite a few spur-of-the-moment issues that occur here, and I doubt that anyone (including the government) understand the complexities of what is going on. Plus, there can be an argument for such a call being a military matter and falling under any President's purview as C-in-C.
That isn't to say that I am comfortable with the entire process and don't think that there may be some level of abuse or semi-dubious legality.
However, keep in mind that ANYTHING this administration has done in the last few years has had several automatic, thoughtless reactions from both sides of the aisle in attack and defense, with very little concept of historical reality and context(my common complaint of journalism, where it seems that everything happens in a 4-8 year vaccuum).
Well, that's a nice step 1.
Now, for step 2, how are you going to prove before the court that the government actually wiretapped you? That's the crux of this decision; you can't sue if you can't prove you're a victim, and who's a victim is protected by the nebulous modern legal construct of "state secrets."
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Sure you're not doing anything illegal now. But what happens when the government changes its mind and decides to outlaw the act of being a sanctimonious dipshit? Or posting on slashdot? Or being an atheist? Or a muslim? Or gay? Or speaking your mind? People who say the government can have free reign over their lives because they're not doing anything wrong according to the current criteria of "upstanding citizen" really have no imagination when it comes to what future administrations might decide to deem unfit behavior for the citizenry. They don't belong in those areas of our lives in the first place, why give them the extra leverage?
What is the use of laws if they are to be loopholed and danced around? Laws were made in place to provide a groundwork for a healthy, thriving society. We have widdled these ideals so far down that the very foundation of these laws can be bypassed.
We don't need more laws, we need more JUSTICE. Nothing is going to f***ing happen in this country until people start standing up for their morals as a nation. No laws, MORALS.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Because as a free individual my day to day life should be free of government intervention? I believe the same sentiment was shared by the founders as well.
they were captured on the battlefield
That's not true. Go ask some of the people who have been released from Gitmo. Some of them were picked up in places like Pakistan by over-zealous police or people who were after some of the bounty money the US were offering for captured prisoners, then shipped off to Gitmo for four years where no evidence was found against them.
Four years in Cuba for doing nothing. They were in the wrong place, at the wrong time.
The general public don't care though. Talk to someone about it and you'll hear things like "They were probably up to something anyway. What were they doing in Pakistan so close to the border with Afghanistan? There's no smoke without fire."
you are one of those who have a Bush/Cheney bumper sticker next to freedom first?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
How about if you were a lawyer? Do you think the NSA would be bothered in the least about passing along information to the DOJ reguarding your stratagies in pursuing a $B class action case against the US for unlawful imprisonment?
The problem isn't that the NSA is tapping the phones of US citizens, it's that Nixon did it & the US govt expressly wrote laws forbidding exactly what the NSA is doing - unsupervised wiretaps. They created an entire court & post approval schemes to make sure that the approval process didn't interfier with priority/time sensative investigations. I don't care if you aren't breaking the law & don't care who listens in on your calls. I do care that the Federal Government doesn't give a shit about the very rule of law it's supposed to be upholding!
Bush & the NSA got caught with their hands in the cookie jar. Like the average 2 year old, they first denied that the facts were the facts. Once they couldn't get past that point they switched to beligerant teenager & just said 'fuck off the rules don't apply to me'. That's where we stand now. Bush & the NSA acknowledge that they broke the law & then hide behind the 'state secrets' act to shield themselves from any investigation/proscecution relating to it.
Note how they are even stonewalling the security subcommity that's trying to look into exactly how bad of a legal fuckup this is. "This stuff is so super secret that we can't even show 8 members of Congress with top level security clearances what we are doing. The fact that we are legally mandated to advise them & we can only perform these operations under their oversight is irrelevant."
I think this is eventually going to fall apart into a cluster fuck that's going to make Watergate look like a well coreographed ballet. This suit was turned down because the plaintifs couldn't show direct harm with the 'chilling effect' on free speech being completely dismissed by 2 judges as a 'concoction'. Eventually there's going to be an arrest made & it'll get tied to the NSA.
The game is over once that happens, Bush has already lost almost every aspect of the 'state secrets' cover he has. As more & more information is leaked out, he's got less & less coverage. The 'unable to show cause' requirement to continue these cases is one of the last pieces of the puzzle. Once a case is tied to the project, that's gone & he's down to 'fuck off'. There's one case that's already in play because of this very fact. Parts of it were thrown out, but the judge ruled that there is enough public knowledge about the project to continue, and the fact that the party suing was accidentally provided documents showing he was under survailance is sufficient to prove cause.
The Shrub has all the pieces he needs to do the job, he just doesn't like having to play by the rules that accompany those tools. Sorry, if he can't win playing by the rules, he needs to step asside & let someone else have thier chance.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Sound familiar?
@HbFyo0$k8 tH!$
Just spouting off, but what if you setup communication between a few computer that only you have access to, then began sending a bunch of "terrist" messages between them over the public internet?
When the FBI/CIA/NSA/SS shows up at your door and whisks you off to Romania, you file suit... oh fuck.
Then it is up to their country to negotiate their release. Standard stuff. How do you think prisoner's of war were handled during the World Wars? Since this is not a perfect world, people will get pulled in by being near the battle. That has probably happened in many wars. People unjustly accused of being spies, etc. Just because that happens does not mean that we change how things have been done.
The ACLU needs to work more closely with congressional staffers. Joe Q citizen will always get the run-around against the executive branch. Without congressional subpoena power they are up a creek. Also, SCOTUS can't give them the denial of standing BS.
bash-2.04$
bash-2.04$yes "Don't you hate dialup connections?"| write USERNAME
No, but talking to your grandma about views alternative to whoever controls the NSA might be.
That's an awful lot of assertions with nothing to back them up, whatsoever.
It's almost like you're shilling for the government.
That's right bitch. We will have our rights, even those the Conservatives in this country want to take them. Liberals are better paid, better educated and perform all the real services you require.
Any chump can work on a car, not many can work on computers. Guess how liberal the computer workers are?
Yeah.
DIAF.
Blar.
The reason why the 4th amendment doesn't apply to any of this, is because this is not about criminal cases. Understand?
This is about gathering intelligence to be used against foreign agents who are engaged in a war against us, and who are trying to kill Americans and attack this country. The executive branch has a legal and constitutional right to gather intelligence about our enemies and attacks on this country. These wiretaps remember are all dealing with people outside of the USA talking to people inside of it, or vice versa. To make things even more clear they've limited that scope further by only tapping those with known or suspected enemy agents.
None of what is gathered in these wiretaps can be used in a criminal court against you, to be honest I don't know if they could be used in a criminal court against anyone. They're solely for the purpose of gathering intelligence. Now I agree we should lean on the government to make sure that they're only used for that intelligence and not criminal proceedings, or harassment.
BTW, Clinton did this. So I'm very sure did all the prior Administrations. But the scope was much broader then, then they could use any phone call you made overseas as an excuse to tap all of your phone calls.
As a conservative, and an IT employee to boot, I resent your post.
I know plenty of conservatives who know what they're talking about, are well-educated and eloquent. Some are even of other ethnicities, like my Hispanic self, and most are not particularly wealthy.
By the same token, living in Madison, Wisconsin, I have met plenty of left-wing folks who are completely and utterly insane, closed-minded, and outright stupid. I've also met plenty of right-wing folks who are completely and utterly insane, closed-minded and outright stupid. It's silly to generalize one group as smart and the other as stupid, or one as crazy and the other as sane. There are idiots and smart people, whack jobs and reasonable folks on all ends of the political spectrum.
YOU may be innocent, but your spouse/child/parent/sibling/co-worker etc. may be suspected of wrongdoing. Unless all of your associates are innocent, you would be dragged into their web
Even if no prosecutions could result, you WILL be blackmailed and threatened. Nobody has done anything illegal, but the information could cost you your marriage, your job, future jobs, and your reputation in the community
Even if you and all your associates are innocent, with enough personal details, someone could plausibly accuse you of a crime and you would have no way to deny it
Because a government that believes it should be able to illegally wiretap at will and not be held accountable is exactly the government that we should fear engages in blackmail and fraudulent criminal prosecution
Some details are mentioned in this article: Secret Court's Judges Were Warned About NSA Spy Data
"Both judges had insisted that no information obtained this way be used to gain warrants from their court, according to government sources, and both had been assured by administration officials it would never happen."
Do you see what happened here? Information from a NSA wire tapping program (that can only tap international communications) was used to obtain further warrants. This was a big no-no pre-9/11. NSA wiretaps could never be used to obtain a warrant for criminal prosecution. Here we have a judge complaining about how they were asked for a warrant. Ask yourself why? Why did the government want a warrant? Why did they need a warrant?
The NSA *cannot*, itself, get a warrant. They can only pass on the information to others to get a warrant. It was decided that domestic law enforcement could get a warrant if they were not solely dependent on NSA tap information. In other words they had to do some field work before they could get a warrant.
"So early in 2002, the wary court and government lawyers developed a compromise. Any case in which the government listened to someone's calls without a warrant, and later developed information to seek a FISA warrant for that same suspect, was to be carefully "tagged" as having involved some NSA information. Generally, there were fewer than 10 cases each year, the sources said."
"According to government officials familiar with the program, the presiding FISA judges insisted that information obtained through NSA surveillance not form the basis for obtaining a warrant and that, instead, independently gathered information provide the justification for FISA monitoring in such cases. They also insisted that these cases be presented only to the presiding judge."
This is what has changed. NSA tap information *can* be used this way now. Nothing has changed with regards to what the NSA has been doing for years. What has changed is what happens with the information.
Democrat's Shade Truth On FISA-NSA
So let's see.... G W Bush has a few of his thugs break into your house, drag you off shoot you. You are never seen again. This is all part of his new "Pure Thoughts" program where they will eliminate people who they guess might one day think a bad thought.
Many people here may feel that this program is wrong and possibly illegal.
But under the NEW system...
1) GW would simply pardon (or commute the sentence of) his thugs if they were caught. With the promise of a pardon they can act with impunity.
2) There is nothing WE can do to stop it because WE were not effected. The courts hold that only those who were actually killed can sue. And the killing are a state secret.
When I was in school they told us we should study history so that we don't have to repeat it. Looks like a few people in our government were asleep when they covered the part about Nazi Germany in the 30's and 40'.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
Piss off a slashtard, mod parent up!
"persons, houses, papers, and effects". Well "effects" is pretty broad, I think that would cover a lot of things that may not have existed in that time period.
You mean, negotiate the release of people held secretly?
Yeah, good luck with that theory.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
...raise your right hand. Then make a fist and bring it down on your head. Repeatedly. Helen Keller could have seen this coming.
~Eien no Inori wo Sasagete~ Searching for my Hatsumi...
This could sound like a strange argument, but any government or agency has the ability to spy on you, and they will do it whether you like it or not, but at least they're telling you they're doing it.
"we've got trenchcoats and bad attitudes" - John Constantine, HellBlazer
Firstly, Bush's approval rating is around 1/3 and probably at about 28%. So, unless you're willing to admit that most US citizens are liberal and that conservatism is loud-mouthed minority, then please stop assuming that anti-Bush means "liberal."
Hey! Shhhh! You're screwing up the game.
The right has a new imaginary 'center' that's about where the right was in 1996, and a left where the right was in 1984 and the center was in 1996. They own the media, they loudly proclaim day in and down out that is the center, it is where 'Americans' are.
They say people on the whole don't care about torture, don't care about civil rights, don't care about the rule of law, don't care about anything except HULK SMASH TERRORIST. They certainly don't want a usable health care system or to help the poor in any manner or unions or clean air. In fact, people are usually against those things.
Some people on the left complain about those definitions., and, factually, they are correct. On the whole, if you were to plot out a people's political positions, it would be a bell curve, but one that peaks about 2/3rds the way to where the left is. The vast majority of people have no problem with abortions or gay people, even in conservative states. The vast majority of people like some sort of social security and would like some sort of universal health care. Yes, 'the left', politically, is about at the 85 percentile of the curve on the left, but the right is at the 99 percentile on the right.
Anyway, don't tell anyone this. Let the right get away with it. Let them move the definitions as far to the right as possible, as fast as possible, for as long as possible. Why?
Because this makes almost everyone 'left'. And people are not idiots forever, they'll look around, and notice they fall, according to the right itself, squarely in the 'left' camp.
Guess who they're going to vote for?
The right are, right now, destroying their own party, and they don't seem to grasp the idea. Moving the pretend center towards you, without moving the actual population, is a bad thing, because it makes more people on the other side!
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
You're a moron, and you linked to a moron site.
The problem isn't what can and can't be used in court. No one gives a shit about that except the courts. The reason the courts don't want the NSA's wiretapping-without-warrants used in courts is that it is illegal.
The problem is, in actual fact, that the NSA is operating wiretaps without any court oversight at all. Any court oversight.
And the NSA 'can't get a warrant' because THE NSA IS NOT A INVESTIGATIVE AGENCY, you nimrod. The NSA runs a bunch of computers and does other stuff like protect classified information. It does not hunt down terrorists, and it is not supposed to. It operates the wiretapping system, it does not initiate wiretaps. The NSA is not supposed to start a wiretap within the US without one of three things:
1) An actual, signed warrant, by a judge. (Technically, this can be for any reason, but in practice it's only issued because the court agrees that someone is probably committing a crime, and thus the wiretap will involve an investigating agency in some manner.)
2) The CIA or FBI operating within FISA guidelines that let it get a tap in an emergency and then get a warrant within 72 hours, signed by a judge.
3) A signed statement by the Attorney General that the wiretap does not include any US nationals. This is also subject to judicial review, and is designed for spying on, basically, embassies.
Instead, what actually happened is that the AG signed a statement saying that, in his opinion, the wiretapping he wanted the NSA to do was legal, because the President is Really Cool, so they set up wiretaps. (This was not even vaguely an attempt to follow (3), and in fact the government has never even suggested that as a defense, just to nip that argument in the bud. There are specific forms and whatnot for that.)
We don't actually know who was receiving these wiretaps, if it was the CIA, the FBI, or Dick Cheney himself. I believe it's been hinted at that it's the CIA, but I can't recall any specific proof of that. We also have absolutely no idea who was being tapped, despite claims by the White House that it was only tapping international calls made to and from suspected terrorists. Because there has been no judicial review of any of this, we don't actually know said wiretapping even exists except that the government has admitted to it.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
You're a moron, and you linked to a moron site.
No it isn't... as you say: And the NSA 'can't get a warrant' because THE NSA IS NOT A INVESTIGATIVE AGENCY, you nimrod. Exactly my point. They have been tapping for years and years and years. But what happens to the data? After 9/11 the data *can* be passed on to domestic law enforcement for them to follow up on.The problem isn't what can and can't be used in court. No one gives a shit about that except the courts. The reason the courts don't want the NSA's wiretapping-without-warrants used in courts is that it is illegal.
You re-enforced my point. Thank you. The NSA runs a bunch of computers and does other stuff like protect classified information. It does not hunt down terrorists, and it is not supposed to. It operates the wiretapping system, it does not initiate wiretaps. The NSA is not supposed to start a wiretap within the US without one of three things:
There are no restrictions on the NSA for tapping foreign signals. If the signal happens to terminate in the US they do not stop tapping. The problem previously is that they couldn't do anything with the data when this happened. In fact the NSA had connected dots pre-9/11, but they couldn't do anything with it. The data couldn't legally be used in court. This didn't stop them from doing what they always did. This has now changed. The FISA court is now more willing to work with this now, though some judges are "uncomfortable" with this approach. 1) An actual, signed warrant, by a judge. (Technically, this can be for any reason, but in practice it's only issued because the court agrees that someone is probably committing a crime, and thus the wiretap will involve an investigating agency in some manner.)2) The CIA or FBI operating within FISA guidelines that let it get a tap in an emergency and then get a warrant within 72 hours, signed by a judge.
3) A signed statement by the Attorney General that the wiretap does not include any US nationals. This is also subject to judicial review, and is designed for spying on, basically, embassies.
Instead, what actually happened is that the AG signed a statement saying that, in his opinion, the wiretapping he wanted the NSA to do was legal, because the President is Really Cool, so they set up wiretaps. (This was not even vaguely an attempt to follow (3), and in fact the government has never even suggested that as a defense, just to nip that argument in the bud. There are specific forms and whatnot for that.)
The tap is not on US Nationals, it is on foreign communications. If you call a criminal, is your phone tapped or the suspected criminal? The answer, of course, is the criminal. Now if you said something that would implicate you, law enforcement could follow up on you and even go back to the court to tap your phone. This is how the NSA works. They do not hang up if the call happens to terminate in the US. The difference is now that can tell someone that something is up and get the ball rolling (further FISA warrants) to investigate the US side of the call. The domestic side can't do anything with your phone until they get a warrant (FISA or otherwise). This is how taps have worked for years and years.We don't actually know who was receiving these wiretaps, if it was the CIA, the FBI, or Dick Cheney himself. I believe it's been hinted at that it's the CIA, but I can't recall any specific proof of that. We also have absolutely no idea who was being tapped, despite claims by the White House that it was only tapping international calls made to and from suspected terrorists. Because there has been no judicial review of any of this, we don't actually know said wiretapping even exists except that the government has admitted to it.
Whether or not you're being sarcastic, it should be known by those who read your thread that even though the 1st amendment only refers to Congress passing laws the Supreme Court says it doesn't work that way.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
The NRA has this to say about that issue:
Furthermore, in respect to your comment on ICBMs, logically, "arms" must include anything comparable to whatever a government holds. To say otherwise is to say that the founding fathers only meant that citizens could have slingshots against cannon (BTW, T. Jefferson had personal cannon, and private ownership of cannon was not unusual). If nukes are unreasonable for personal ownership, then so to for governmental ownership. After all, ultimate control of even govenment arms comes down to individuals. Logic concludes, and history proves, that governments are no more responsible than individuals, and there is good reason for "like-for-like" reciprocity. The natural and absolute right to self defense extends to the doctrine of mutually assured destruction.
If you want a more pure defense of the principles of the Second Amendment, then support the GOA.
Now, after my party hangs up, I just blow my whistle into the phone really hard. At least I get the satisfaction of hearing them scream.
I suppose it should come as no surprise that a deafblind bitch failed at getting first post.
Failure, this is failure, Helen. That's right, failure! Failure! You've got it, now, failure! Failure! Yes, Helen, Failure! Failure!
The classic "I'm not doing anything wrong so I don't have to worry about it" argument's strongest counter is error. You can be pure as the driven snow and still be swept up by mistake, by greedy or incompetent operators cutting corners or hiding other mistakes. Ask many of the current Guantanamo residents or any small child struck by bullets in a drive-by who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
-- Gary Goldberg KA3ZYW 301/249-6501 AIM:OgGreeb Digital Marketing Inc., Bowie, MD
Fortunately, there's still this lawsuit, where the government accidentally sent the defendant a transcript of his own phone records obtained without a warrant.
John Dingell (D-Mich) has an very good NRA rating.
I suspect that you fall into the ignorant (spelled "troll") category.
The supremes said years ago that growing your own crops is "interstate commerce." If you think they're going to do anything to undermine the power of the Federal Government, you're very sadly mistaken. The US hasn't been a nation of law since the 1860's and the illegitimate rise of unconstitutional Federalism.
This is the stongest argument, but I agree that a runamok, error prone and error denying organizaiton can be quite dangerous.
Yes, I am sorry it wasn't clear. It was sarcasm. There are basically two interpretation of the constitution. The strong federal government view and the strong state government view. Both interpretations have been used at different times in our history.
The strong state government people (my preferred interpretation) believe that the federal government should be weak and the states should act as the primary government of the people. The federal government is there to carry out the functions of nationhood (treaties, war and such), and to guarantee that some things are the same for all of the states. (Equal Protection, Due Process and such). The strong federal government people believe that the federal government can't do heir job without having supreme power. The problem is, concentrating power, while convenient, tends to be bad. Today we are a strong federal government society. The president also believes in a unitary executive. This basically means, the president believes his views, actions and interpretation of the constitution, as they apply to the day to day running of executive branch, are beyond review, by either congress of the judiciary. So a federal government with very little state authority, run by a person who thinks that what ever he does, by definition, is constitutional, sounds, to me, like a recipe for disaster.
Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels.
Resent it all you want. Hard numbers of democrats vs republicans are hard to come by, but we can use campaign contributions (which at least are recorded) according to open secrets.org.
http://opensecrets.org/industries/indus.asp?Ind=B
Electronics/Computer Industry 2006 55% Dem .......44% Rep .......40% Rep .......40% Rep .......45% Rep
2004 59% Dem
2002 60% Dem
2000 54% Dem
In my personal experience its even more slanted to the dems. We just don't give as much as republicans do to campaigns.
I'm absolutely sure there are Republican IT workers, just like I'm sure there are Black republicans, they just aren't the majority. This is the crux of the parent post that you take offense to.
This is where I would normally insert a joke about How the competence of republican IT workers is equal to the competence of Republican Administrations, but that would just be cruel and possibly redundant.
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the (supposed) good of its victims may be the most oppressive
Let's cut through the b.s. and strike at the core of this issue. All this brouhaha from the press came about when some cowardly, anti-bush government official strategically leaked the NSA's secret terrorist surveillance program for maximum political impact. Recently, a liberally biased, anti-bush judge couldn't even nail the president on this. Now, the Sixth Circuit has essentially threw the book back at the likes of the ACLU, telling them they have absolutely _no_ standing! It must be a dark day for conspiracy theorists nuts. Now the conspiracy theory has to grow just to stay alive!
It would seem that the courts may finally be wising up to all these politically driven conspiracy lawsuits. Indeed, this would be "good news!"
You, of course, assume that they still teach about Nazi Germany in public schools. Unfortately, that isn't politically correct -- you know, you might offend those descended from German emigrants!
Personally, I graduated high school in 2000 from a relatively decent, middle-class suburban town. Although the school system received few much criticism it wasn't bottom of the barrel either. I clearly remember having an interest in this part of history, because I believe the same as you, "history repeats itself". Unfortunately, in my school, they jumped from the first World War to the Civil Rights movement. I don't believe they mentioned much about Watergate either.
I only imagine things are becoming worse. To what details are teachers now allowed to explain or describe violence, hatred, political abuses, and racism? School administrators are afraid that teaching students of these things, that at worst they will instigate these things, and at best they might draw lawsuits. Imagine the terror inflicted upon the school board upon the following:
What if the school was teaching about WWII when a student decided to bring a gun to school and shoot a jewish student? Surely, the school would be in hot water -- best to just not teach about WWII, that will at least cover the school board's ass.
I applaud all school teachers and their administrators that still care more about teaching our youth than they do about covering their asses.
The president has violated his oath to uphold the constitution
Your argument lacks any historical context.
In historical terms, Bush's wiretaps and even Gitmo are positively tame. Washingon shot suspected British spies in his army on sight. Lincoln flat out suspended Habeas Corpus to deal with Confederate spies / terrorists. Wilson basically suspended the constitution for citizens of German descent during World War I, and Roosevelt broke the Constitution in so many ways that it cannot even really be enumerated.
You talk about Bush's "secrecy", well, Roosevelt built the atomic bomb so secretly that his own VP didn't even know about it. Johnson had the government doing all sorts of crazy research projects on people, like the CIA's MK-ULTRA program or giving plutonium to retards.
And, if you want to talk about power grabs, Roosevelt set aside a long time national tradition of only serving two presidential terms to be elected to a third and a fourth, a tradition re-instated into law only by Republican insistence during the Eisenhower years. For that matter, Roosevelt tried to stuff more Supreme Court justices on the court so that he could get a majority of justices to side with him.
Kennedy and Johnson both used the CIA to spy on US citizens in flagrant violation of the CIA's own charter, Nixon used the CIA to spy on everyone and Clinton used the IRS to go after political opponents.
What Bush is doing is far, far more moderate than any of the above.
And similarly, any of the above is far far more moderate than what our enemies do. In Iraq, Al Qaeda, to terrorize a village, will invite a family that needs convincing to "dinner", and then serve them their own son cooked. Or, they will go and blow up your house. If you disagree with them, they will kill your whole family. You talk about the USA's effort to stop free speech, and to this day the government of Iran not only blocks all free speech in its own country, but has a million dollar bounty on the head of Salmon Rushdie, and has vowed to hunt down a couple of cartoonists for daring to draw a picture of Mohammed. You talk about Bush's oppression of woman's rights, but in the middle east, women are routinely stoned to death or whipped for the "serious" crimes of having an extramarital affair. You talk about the poor defendants in Gitmo, and the need for a Jury trial, but when did Al Qaeda in Iraq have a jury trial for the 75 people they blew up today, the 50 yesterday, and so on? Where was the jury trial for the occupants of the north and south towers of the world trade center? Where was the jury trial for the occupants of the lockerbee flight? For Klinghoffer and a host of others assasinated by the PLO? Where's the jury trial for all those "jewish criminals" engaged in the horrible crime of eating bagles in a restaraunt in Jerusalem?
So, yeah, I see your point about how on some level it is wrong that Bush is harrassing an Islamic organization, but after having carefully considering the track record of Islamic organizations, I can only sanely conclude that Bush's wiretapping of them is entirely appropriate. If it makes you feel better, write the law that says: "any foreign funded political organization is subject to wiretap without warrants", and I dare you to find any nation that does not engage in the same.
This is my sig.
Don't get me wrong, I would love to see how the courts deal with it, after all they claim to have found one of the copies and have gone through with a lawsuit. But don't be disappointed and all NSA/George Bush/FBI conspiracy theory if he loses the case, because it nowhere says that any of the calls where domestic and American to American calls.
If i had one dollar for every brain you dont have, i would have $1.
Exactly my point. They have been tapping for years and years and years. But what happens to the data? After 9/11 the data *can* be passed on to domestic law enforcement for them to follow up on.
If the tap was a law enforcement requested tap, they would pass it on to the law enforcement based organization that requested it. If it was an intelligence based tap, they would pass it on to the intelligence based organization that requested it.
I will repeat: THE NSA DOES NOT ORGINATE TAPS. It doesn't choose who to tap, it doesn't choose why, and it doesn't choose who to share them with.
Within the CIA and FBI, there were regulations about the sharing between intelligence and criminal information gathering, including but not limited to taps. This had nothing to do with the NSA. Organizations walk up the NSA, ask for a tap, produce documentation the tap is legal, the NSA does the tap, gives the information to the people who asked for it, and that's the entirely of the NSA's job. (Well, for wiretapping. It does other stuff also.)
Any failure to share information is a matter between the intelligence community and the investigative community, and the NSA is neither. The NSA does not try to figure things out, the NSA runs computers for those two sets of people, and others, it makes no decisions itself.
There are no restrictions on the NSA for tapping foreign signals. If the signal happens to terminate in the US they do not stop tapping. The problem previously is that they couldn't do anything with the data when this happened. In fact the NSA had connected dots pre-9/11, but they couldn't do anything with it. The data couldn't legally be used in court. This didn't stop them from doing what they always did. This has now changed. The FISA court is now more willing to work with this now, though some judges are "uncomfortable" with this approach.
They can't do anything with the data now. They do not 'do things' with data. They collect data and give it to others.
You have confused two things: The huge problems with the disconnect between intelligence gathering and criminal investigation, which actually does exist but has almost nothing to do with the NSA. Seriously, some of that has never entered the NSA at all, like when the CIA bugs places outside the country or the FBI executes search warrants and finds information linking people to terrorist organizations. The NSA and FBI are two separate departments of a company that don't share information, and the NSA is just the IT guys...blaming them because each group has had their servers made off-limits, by company policy, to the other is rather idiotic.
You've managed to confuse that with the fact the NSA, which has specific legal guidelines about who and when they can tap people at all, was operating outside those guidelines simply because the AG said so. We don't actually know who they were turning the information over to...the FBI, the CIA, or, hell, the VP himself.
The tap is not on US Nationals, it is on foreign communications. If you call a criminal, is your phone tapped or the suspected criminal? The answer, of course, is the criminal. Now if you said something that would implicate you, law enforcement could follow up on you and even go back to the court to tap your phone. This is how the NSA works. They do not hang up if the call happens to terminate in the US. The difference is now that can tell someone that something is up and get the ball rolling (further FISA warrants) to investigate the US side of the call. The domestic side can't do anything with your phone until they get a warrant (FISA or otherwise). This is how taps have worked for years and years.
No, the taps are on everyone over 6'2" inches tall that drive Ford cars.
What, you say I have no evidence of that? Well, you have no evidence of your claim. Without the taps being reviewed by courts, we have no idea who was being tapped.
And, you've gotten th
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
I think the legal standing ruling is part of a chess game as someone said. The court might have been saying "this is not a strong enough case for us to rule on, make sure you can prove you were affected and then we can rule". Of course, part of the problem with that is you would also have to show that you were wiretapped, and not the person you were conversing with. If John is talking to Terror Suspect A, and the only reason John's conversations are recorded is because TSA was tapped, John would also have no standing to sue. There is another case brewing: http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007 /03/72811?currentPage=all posted on the main page as well. If W. Belew had conversations with this Al-Buthi, and the co-counsel Ghafoor had conversations with Al-Buthi, than how do they know it wasn't Al-Buthi who was wiretapped? If Al-Buthi is out of the united states, then the tapping could be covered by CIA/NSA.
And why do we still use this term "wiretapped"? Its from days when there was no wireless communication between regular people. Now, with cell phones, many (most?) calls take place over the electromagnetic spectrum. This is Public! Licensed through the FCC for commercial use. But why would anyone have any expectation of privacy when transmitting information over the "airwaves"? Anybody can listen in, as piggybackers should know.
> If you aren't doing illegal activities over the phone / airwaves / Internet then why worry ?
> - They could probably get more useful stuff out of your garbage can. As far as I am concerned
> the NSA/CIA/FBI/??? can wiretap and monitor me to their hearts content I promise it will not
> only be useless but incredibly boring.
Then, one day in a not-so-distance future, some people decide that loading small remote-controlled airplanes with explosives and flying them into loaded bus stations is safer and more fun than suicide bombing.
Suddenly, your interest in modifying and operating Focke Wulfe 190 replicas gets the interest of the three letter agencies. Oh, and that message in your voice mail was made by a person with a middle-eastern accent that called himself Khalil. Could have been a wrong number but why take any chances? Better put you on the no-fly list just in case...
1. This 1-1-1 decision (pdf) is just on technical grounds -- plaintiffs' lack of standing.
2. In view of the concurring and dissenting opinions, and the importance of the subject matter, it is likely to receive Supreme Court review.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful