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National Security Letters Ruled Unconstitutional, Banned
A U.S. District Court Judge in California today ruled that so-called National Security Letters, used by government agencies to force business and organizations to turn over information on citizens, are unconstitutional. Judge Susan Illston ordered the government to stop using them, but gave the government a 90-day window to appeal the decision, during which the NSLs may still be sent out. The letters were challenged by the Electronic Frontier Foundation on behalf of a telecom who was ordered to provide data. "The telecom took the extraordinary and rare step of challenging the underlying authority of the National Security Letter, as well as the legitimacy of the gag order that came with it. Both challenges are allowed under a federal law that governs NSLs, a power greatly expanded under the Patriot Act that allows the government to get detailed information on Americans’ finances and communications without oversight from a judge. The FBI has issued hundreds of thousands of NSLs and been reprimanded for abusing them — though almost none of the requests have been challenged by the recipients. After the telecom challenged the NSL, the Justice Department took its own extraordinary measure and sued the company, arguing in court documents that the company was violating the law by challenging its authority. The move stunned the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is representing the anonymous telecom. ... After heated negotiations with EFF, the Justice Department agreed to stay the civil suit and let the telecom’s challenge play out in court. The Justice Department subsequently filed a motion to compel in the challenge case, but has never dropped the civil suit."
It's nice to see checks and balances. I wondered what happened to those.
It's not just for Humble Bundles anymore.
they are constitutional. I have proof but you're not allowed to see it. I'd tell you how many pages that proof has but that would endanger the lives of officers in the field.
. Stunning is the right word. That lawsuit, which appears to still be active, is an affront to a nation of laws with respect for civil rights. Legally attacking citizens for challenging authority ought to carry a steep political price.
There should be a mechanism for cases like this to leapfrog to the SC. Nothing will be decided 'till it gets there. (I should live so long...)
to support this and help it get driven all the way to the top SCOTUS?) so it gets set in concrete?
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
And then no one can ever challenge their constitutionality again.
Well, there's the Dred Scott decision; but the process of challenging that one killed 600,000 Americans.
Less difficult challenges were "Buck vs. Bell" which IIRC was the one that allowed states to sterilize people against their will and was the source of the infamous "3 generations of imbeciles are enough" quote.
I'm sure there are plenty of other cases; but the bottom line is that SCOTUS ruling one way doesn't etch things in stone. You know what they say, Freedom isn't Free. Sometimes you have to die, fill the jails, lose all your money, etc; and if you're lucky you'll live to see your grandchildren get their God given rights back from those who stole them.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Many people think that a corporation's Human Resources department is there for the protection of the employees. In reality, the opposite is the case - to protect the management from the employees. The same is true for the Justice Department. It doesn't exist to protect the people, but rather to protect the administration and control the population. Sure every once in a while they manage to do the right thing to satisfy the people. My HR department organizes an annual summer picnic.
How is this not all over the front of every news site's homepage?
Which is silly, because if companies even wanted to expend the slightest effort to pretend that was the case, they would call it "Employee Services". They call it "Human Resources" quite honestly -- its there to manage corporate resources that happen to be human.
No, its there to protect the value of the employees (including those that are "management") as corporate assets; protecting the corporation from harm when those assets operate outside of the corporations desired parameters is a part of that, but doesn't define the role. This is much the same role as, say, the department tasked with overseeing factory operations has with respect to heavy machinery.
Manging morale for the purpose of increasing retention and productivity is part of the positive value side of protecting the value of the employees as corporate assets as much as mitigating the harm from dissatisfied employees is on the negative value side. You oil the machine to keep it working while it is working as desired, and you contain the damage and discard it as quickly as possible when it stops doing so and becomes a liability to keep around. All part of the same mission.
Even as I was a TSA screener for a while, the whole "papers please!" measures that have been coming down have simply reminded me of "Nazi Germany" from old movies and the like. At some level I found it amusing if only because people were so easily pushed into accepting this. Nobody questioned things enough. Nobody asked "why is the security threat condition never 'GREEN'?" Of course I was also disgusted by it. That we were told to explain to people about rules which were 'secret' and couldn't be shown to them made me feel like a real shit. I was glad to finally get another job when I could.
A government which cannot be trusted has already betrayed the people and it needs to be corrected. "It was my job" was an excuse I used too... though, the things I let slip by me... well... :) I can't say that I let them slip by intentionally, but in one attempt, I was foiled by a co-worker who ratted out a one-legged man who had marijuana in his pocket. I *so* wanted to let that go...
Their address is:
This is probably as close as you can get to anonymous, unless you have a friend drop off cash at their office.
Some people still think there are two parties in Washington instead of two faces of the same party, the Money Party.