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Warrantless Wiretapping Cases At the 9th Circuit
sunbird writes "The EFF argued several critical cases yesterday before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Both Hepting v. AT&T and Jewel v. National Security Agency raise important questions regarding whether the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program (pdf summary of evidence), disclosed by whistleblower Mark Klein and implemented by AT&T and other telecoms, violates the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The full text of the Klein declaration and redacted exhibits are publicly available (pdf). ... The Klein evidence establishes that AT&T cut into the fiber optic cables in San Francisco to route a complete copy of internet and phone traffic to the 'SG3' secure room operated by the NSA. The trial court dismissed the Hepting lawsuit (pdf order) based on the 2008 Congressional grant of immunity to telecoms. Similarly, the trial court in Jewel dismissed (pdf order) the lawsuit against the government agencies and officials based on the state secrets privilege. Both cases were argued together before the same panel of judges. The audio of the oral argument will be available after noon PDT [17:00 GMT] today."
Are at war with the people of the US. The lickspittle courts are their puppets.
End allegiance to this so called "America" right now. It's like a being a convict, with allegiance to his penitentiary.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Rule 1: We can do whatever we want to you.
Rule 2: If you have a problem with that, see Rule 1
but if we elect a president next year we are completely at the mercy of corporate America.
FTFY. Unfortunately, the only viable form of government I can think of that's not subject to human corruption is SkyNet.
ROFL! We all know how that ends up.
Still, it might be the better choice.
Stepping back from the sillyness, it's a scary idea. That said, it's scary because it's an unknown. It may well actually be the best choice!
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Unfortunately, it seems like the only way to defend our constitutional rights these days is with lawyers, and lawyers cost money, even EFF's lawyers. And therefore, you and I and anyone who is not either a billionaire or a fictional legal person is at a severe disadvantage, almost impossible to overcome.
Therefore, if you have any money to donate, even if it's only $5, please follow the link in my sig and contribute to the few people who are really, truly fighting for your rights.
I can see the fnords!
"Let's impeach the President for spying
On citizens inside their own homes
Breaking every law in the country
By tapping our computers and telephones"
- Neil Young
It is illegal for the government to directly collect this information, but it is not for a private company... This should be fixed.
David Leigh of The Guardian may have sodomized Assange of Wikileaks. Assange said "no" but Leigh kept on pressing. Now Assange is suing for rape, but it all depends on the rape laws in UK.
"One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that ones work is terribly important." -BRussell
The full text of the Klein declaration
The 9th circuit is considered the most liberal by far. If the warrantless program doesn't take a hit here, it is here to stay.
I was in the San Francisco central office where this all happened doing some work in customer accessible areas and got to chatting with an AT&T technician. My friend and I mentioned the 4ESS that's in that building and the tech said oh do you want a tour? So of course we said yes, because how often do you get to walk around in a 4ESS?
At one point we came across some equipment that had a large amount of fiber going into it. My friend commented on how poorly the cabling was done. There was a huge tangle of fiber at the top of the rack. Very bad work by AT&T standards (say what you will about their service, their CO standards are still impeccable).
We just shrugged it off and went further into the room. At the back of this room was another smaller room. We asked the tech what it was and he said "oh, that's secret government stuff. I don't really know more than that." We assumed it was CALEA gear or something and didn't ask any more questions.
These days whenever I hear more about this case I sort of shake my head at my ignorance. But I mean seriously, didn't really think they'd go this far. But in a sort of not good way, it's kinda cool to know I was literally a couple feet from all of this.
Side note: If you ever do get the chance to tour a 4ESS, GO FOR IT! It's a beast of a switch and most of them take up multiple floors of the COs they're in, not including the power plant. When I say "walk around in a 4ESS" I mean it literally. It's not like the 5ESS and the DMS family where it's just a bunch of cabinets. This is old school telephony that's still powering the bulk of AT&T's core voice network and it's all 1960s and 1970s era technology that's been updated like patchwork. These guys are going to be disappearing over the next few years, so if you know someone, beg and plead for a tour. I've seen two of them and they're a phone phreak's dream to tour.
The audio recording of the oral arguments are now available (.wma).
The above link is the argument in Jewel. Here is the audio of the arguments in the Hepting case (wma).
Why does America with 310,000,000 people living there have 550 people (senate, house, and supreme court) making all of the decisions for the entire rest of the country? .00015% of the population with a say in the laws of the country. That's the same number as when the country had only 2,500,000 people living here.
That's roughly
If our forefathers saw what the population growth rate was going to look like, I can assure you that there'd be more than 600 people making all the rules today. That's a major cause of the first American Revolution... Taxation without representation.
If you do the simple math, by today's population we'd need roughly 72,000 people working in Congress & Supreme court to match the standards of when the constitution was written.
I say, it would be a lot harder to bribe ('lobby' is a cute euphemism) 51% of those people into passing your agenda. It would mean the difference of kicking some dough at 300 people as opposed to 35,000 people.
Looks like a pair of "you're on a need to know basis, and you don't need to know" cases. How sad that (for the most part, this is par for the course) even the judicial circles are plagued with decision makers who are undoing the very transparency and due process which was designed to keep "the powers that be" honest.