Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

DOJ Report On NSA Wiretaps Finally Released

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the drilling-giant-holes-in-secure-communications dept.

oliphaunt writes "As regular readers will recall, after the 2004 elections the New York Times revealed that the NSA had been conducting illegal wiretaps of American citizens since early 2001. Over the course of the next four years, more information about the illegal program trickled out, leading to several lawsuits against the government and various officials involved in its implementation. This week several of these matters are coming to a head: Yesterday, the lawyers for the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation filed a motion for summary judgment in their lawsuit against the Obama DOJ. The motion begins by quoting a statement made by Candidate Obama in 2007, acknowledging that the warrantless wiretap program was illegal. US District Judge Vaughn Walker has given indications that he is increasingly skeptical of the government's arguments in this case. In what might just be a coincidence of timing, today the long-awaited report from the DOJ inspector general to the US Congress about the wiretapping program was declassified and released. Emptywheel has the beginnings of a working thread going here."

5 of 174 comments (clear)

  1. Ah yes by Vinegar+Joe · · Score: 5, Informative

    The Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation.....based in Saudi Arabia, tied to Al-Qaeda and banned by the United Nations Security Council Committee 1267.

    http://www.un.org/sc/committees/1267/

    --
    "The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
    1. Re:Ah yes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      What do you think makes taping the phone call "unreasonable"?

      The constitution.

    2. Re:Ah yes by DeadCatX2 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      1) Yes, I expect the government to go before a judge and ask if they can wiretap a foreign target, because that's how we make sure they aren't wiretapping domestic targets. Remember, once they have the warrant, they don't need to ask a judge anymore.

      2) Even if they're so lazy that they can't bother to get warrants for wiretapping known terrorists, there's still the emergency retroactive warrants.

      3) Even Pentagon officials admit that the "charity" spent the majority of its money feeding hungry people, teaching poor people, and helping sick people. Only a small portion of it was skimmed by a few terrorist sympathizers who infiltrated the charity.

      4) Actually, we don't let them continue to campaign. We had many of their branches in foreign countries shut down.

      5) Do you seriously think that a handful of fools wearing sandals and turbans who hide in caves are going to take down 300 million people? Can you imagine the size of the force that would be needed to invade American soil? It's moot, anyway, because you're more likely to die of colon cancer in Wisconsin than you are to die from a terrorist attack.

      6) ...it's lose, not loose.

      --
      :(){ :|:& };:
  2. Campaign promises? by R2.0 · · Score: 5, Informative

    There's no way on earth a judge is going to hold that a statement made on a campaign is anything binding. If he were to, Obama would be utterly buried in lawsuits, as would every other president.

    --
    "As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
    1. Re:Campaign promises? by Rene+S.+Hollan · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And this would be a bad thing?

      --
      In Liberty, Rene