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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."
...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)
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)
Two good reasons I can think of at the moment:
/aren't/ they'll be more agressive in their interactions and get things done faster, with possibly better organization.
If people know they are being spied on an tapped, they'll take fewer risks and give less away.
Likewise, if they know they
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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.
as you say, snooping on just my phone calls, no whoop. However they have the computer power to snoop on everyones calls simultaneously, aggregate the data, look for patterns, and it is so secret they 1) can't document abuses 2) can't discipline anyone who abuses it.
eg: if 1000 people call in to the brokers to sell their Haliburton stock at the same time, a flag might instantly pop up on the VP's computer, and automatically sell his stock first. Knowing one persons calls to trade a stock, meaningless, knowing a 1000 insiders did simultaneously, priceless.
Japan was accused of doing stuff like this back in the 70's. eg: The phone Company would automatically take fax's sent or received out of country, and copy them to any interested company's, "in the nations best interest". So if a American executive in japan faxed out a private bid for a contract to his home office, that fax would get to the Japanese business also bidding...
You don't think it will affects you? Business knowing they can't do business inside the US through phones, email, etc. Because they can't trust the privacy of our government...
The fact is, the legal system and especially the federal judiciary loves to throw out cases based on technicalities such as this one. There are a whole host of judicial doctrines that govern whether or not a case will be heard, such as standing, ripeness, moot issue and political question. Courts always look for sufficient standing to bring a lawsuit; they look to see if the issue is "ripe" (ready to be ruled on); they look to see if the case's outcome would be moot; they refuse to hear cases involving political questions that would unnecessarily pit them against one of the other branches of government. The courts are there to rule on violations of the law (including the Constitution), not presumptive violations as identified by laymen regarding government acts that were based on ostensibly legal grounds. And for a case to succeed, it must pass those crucial judicial tests. Except in certain bright line cases, the courts operate based on the assumption that the actions of the other two branches are lawful. That's why if people are angry about actions of the executive, the primary remedy is usually legislative; the judicial remedy is secondary. (IANAL, but I hold a Political Science degree and took a lot of pre-law as an undergrad.)
Part of the hardcore faithful who believed in Apple long before it was cool again to do so
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$k8 tH!$