EFF Sues NSA, President Bush, and VP Cheney

VisualE writes "The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) will file a lawsuit against the National Security Agency (NSA) and other government agencies today on behalf of AT&T customers to stop the illegal, unconstitutional, and ongoing dragnet surveillance of their communications and communications records. The five individual plaintiffs are also suing President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Cheney's chief of staff David Addington, former Attorney General and White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and other individuals who ordered or participated in the warrantless domestic surveillance."

Comments

Almost Got It

[Anonymous Coward]

I was going to get the first post, but the extra surveillance on my connection slowed me down.

How can you sue?

[boxless]

when you can't legally get at the evidence?

The plaintiff's need to prove they were harmed in some way. And proving they were harmed will require divulging state secrets.

Case dismissed.

Re:How can you sue?

[Gat0r30y]

Unfortunately you are probably at least a little right. Hopefully something will come out in discovery though. Often even the most secretive and closed off agencies have poor controls on what they will release during discovery, maybe the EFF gets lucky. Also, we already know what ATT and the NSA were doing, so it isn't exactly a state secret anymore. Although I wouldn't put it by this administration to argue that even though the illegal program is now public knowledge it is still a state secret because they say so.

Re:How can you sue?

[CorporateSuit]

I am not a lawyer, but some evidence is already a little glaring in this case:

People complain about government surveillance sponsored by telecoms
Telecoms say "Government made us do it!"
Everyone looks at government and says "You can't do that."
Government passes a law that says "Now we can, and we're adding in a provision to say you can't complain about when we did before we passed the law!"

I've said it before and I'll say it a thousand times if I must: The constitution was written by, for, and in behalf of terrorists, traitors, and criminals of their time. Possible terrorism is not an excuse to violate the constitution, as that is what it was written to protect. The illegal surveillance and retroactive immunity both violate the constitution.

This is like calling the police about a shooting, and when they get there, they find the dead body burned to ashes. When they ask "Why did you burn the body?" you say "Because if I burn the body, you can't arrest me for shooting him! You have no evidence!"

NSA?

[sanosuke001]

NSA Press Conference: We have decided to take over the EFF in hopes that their participation with our goals will aid in furthering the United States' interests in National Security. We have assessed their allegations and decided that they were unwarranted and unfounded. Thank you for all your cooperation and we appreciate all the help from the leaders of the EFF.

EFF @ Gitmo: Fuck, I don't want a cock-meat sandwich...

woot!

[TXG1112]

The NSA is EFF'd.

DONUT???

[BPPG]

If you were ever planning to donate to the EFF at all, now might be a good time.

http://www.eff.org/support/

Re:Big

[gfxguy]

They don't have anywhere near the recognition outside of the IT industry that the ACLU has.

Most of what you wrote about the EFF applies to the ACLU, also.

If they are redundantly making a case, they ought to be careful about it - the ACLU and EFF should certainly be cooperative towards each other, IMO.

Re:Big

[TheRaven64]

Oh look, someone who reads Andrew Orlowski articles. There are two things you should be aware of when you read one of his pieces:

1. He almost never checks his 'facts'.
2. You are wasting time that could be more productively spent banging your head against your desk.

There's a nice long list of cases they won, but somehow the fact that Orlowski cited half a dozen where they'd lost (including at least one where they'd dropped the case because they'd won a victory in a related case that made it irrelevant) started the meme that they always lose.

Re:Big

[btempleton]

The EFF does not of course always win, but it does frequently and has effected quite a bit of change to bad law as a result.

http://www.eff.org/victories/

Outlines just some of the major victories.

The EFF also sometimes engages in cases where probability of victory is lower, but we judge that the case must be fought, and that public benefit will come just from the fighting, and the hearing of evidence in open court. Of course we hope to win, but we also know that even if we don't win, there are other upsides.

This case (and the case vs. AT&T) get much of their benefit simply by having a court examine this illegal wiretapping program. Part of our message is that this program has not been subject to review by the courts, and that in of itself is bad.

The ACLU won early victory but fell down due to standing. We have well established evidence of massive interception of traffic. While some might think there is only an illegal wiretap if the government listens to you, it is unlawful for them to even intercept your communications, even if they toss them away later. Warrants must name specific targets, and it is the job of phone companies to isolate the traffic of targets and hand it over under lawful warrants. The government does not get to just intercept all the traffic and pull out what it desires.

Re:Big

[Mister Whirly]

"ONLY ON PAY PER VIEW!"

Nah. I'll just wait until someone puts up the DivX torrent on Pirate Bay.

Re:Big

[Anonymous Coward]

First of all, that nice long list of cases does not disprove my assertion, that they lost plenty of cases.

Don't be throwin stones from your glass house - your assertion of the unnumbered 'plenty' aint shit without a cite.
At least he did better in one post than you have in two.

That list doesn't have their losses I notice.

Ah, so it is up to him to prove your point too? No wonder lawyers have such a piss poor rep.

Re:Big [waste of time]

[russotto]

However, the Constitution specifically forbids Congress from writing any ex-post-facto laws, which includes retroactive immunity.

No, it does not include retroactive immunity.

These are the ex post facto laws, according to the Supreme Court in Calder v. Bull :

-----
1st. Every law that makes an action , done before the passing of the law, and which was innocent when done, criminal; and punishes such action.

2nd. Every law that aggravates a crime, or makes it greater than it was, when committed.

3rd. Every law that changes the punishment, and inflicts a greater punishment, than the law annexed to the crime, when committed.

4th. Every law that alters the legal rules of evidence, and receives less, or different, testimony, than the law required at the time of the commission of the offence, in order to convict the offender.
----
A law making something NOT a crime when it was a crime when committed is not covered.

(incidentally, the Supreme Court has pretty much chipped the 3rd one away to nothing since Calder v. Bull)

Re:Big [waste of time]

[megamerican]

You are incorrect. Calder V. Bull deals with Article 1 Section 10 which deals with STATES. Article 1 Section 9 deals with CONGRESS of the US.

Of course that doesn't stop any court, including the supreme from changing the meaning of words in the constitution.

Don't you remember when Scalia recently went on ABC saying that not all torture is cruel and unusual punishment?

If you don't think that giving retroactive immunity to corporations who spied on American citizens wasn't what the framers had in mind when they wrote in Article 1 Section 9, "No bill of attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed." you must be smoking something.

Please go read what Thomas Jefferson had to say about the judicial branch and maybe you'll be able to get a somewhat clearer picture.

Also remember that the supreme court has ruled that how much wheat you can grow on your own land is "interstate commerce" and can be regulated by congress.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn

Re:Reintroduce what the ancient Greeks did.

[bill_mcgonigle]

If we did this, where could we banish Bush?

Well, that's so astoundingly obvious I'm surprised you needed to ask the question.