Warrantless Wiretapping Decisions Issued By Ninth Circuit Court

sunbird writes "The Ninth Circuit yesterday issued two decisions in the Electronic Frontier Foundation's lawsuits against the National Security Agency (Jewel v. NSA) and the telecommunications companies (Hepting v. AT&T). EFF had argued in Hepting that the retroactive immunity passed by Congress was unconstitutional. The Ninth Circuit decision (PDF) upholds the immunity and the district court's dismissal of the case. Short of an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, this effectively ends the suit against the telecoms. In much better news, the same panel issued a decision (PDF) reversing the dismissal of the lawsuit against the N.S.A. and remanded the case back to the lower court for more proceedings. These cases have been previously discussed here."

Comments

Rights.....

[P-niiice]

Hey, why not? We already have unlimited detention without charges/evidence/probable cause. Might as well go for it all.

Nuremburg Defense

[Anonymous Coward]

Great. The Ninth Circuit just made it OK to use "I was just following orders" as a defense, if you're a telecom.

Re:Nuremburg Defense

[Kjella]

For that reason, I'd probably have to agree with the court and state that nothing prevents Congress, as the legislative branch, from absolving or nullifying previous criminal behavior by legislation.

So far that's fine but Congress should not be able to absolve breaking the constitution without amending the constitution. So if your fourth amendment rights were violated, Congress shouldn't have the power to pass a regular law granting immunity to those who broke it. In that case you might as well use the constitution as toilet paper.