Slashdot Mirror
Google Files First Amendment Challenge Against FISA Gag Order
The Washington Post reports that Google has filed a motion challenging the gag orders preventing it from disclosing information about the data requests it receives from government agencies. The motion cites the free speech protections of the First Amendment. "FISA court data requests typically are known only to small numbers of a company’s employees. Discussing the requests openly, either within or beyond the walls of an involved company, can violate federal law." From the filing (PDF): "On June 6, 2013, The Guardian newspaper published a story mischaracterizing the scope and nature of Google's receipt of and compliance with foreign intelligence surveillance requests. ... In light of the intense public interest generated by The Guardian's and Post's erroneous articles, and others that have followed them, Google seeks to increase its transparency with users and the public regarding its receipt of national security requests, if any. ... Google's reputation and business has been harmed by the false or misleading reports in the media, and Google's users are concerned by the allegation. Google must respond to such claims with more than generalities. ... In particular, Google seeks a declaratory judgment that Google as a right under the First Amendment to publish ... two aggregate unclassified numbers: (1) the total number of FISA requests it receives, if any; and (2) the total number of users or accounts encompassed within such requests."
Good luck with that. If they don't get blown out of the first Federal Court who hears it, we may have an actual chance to hear what the Government is actually requesting, not the sanitized and approved verbiage that has been coming out. Somewhere between what Snowden has been saying and the Government is allowing people to comment on, the truth may be found.
The Patriot Act needs to go and so does this secret court bullshit where information is handed over on a whim, not on a true judicial review.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Anyone else disturbed by the big G's loud claims to be oh-so-good lately?
_______________________
Good Guy Google We Are.
Logs Everything.
_______________________
The usual way First Amendment cases are decided is that someone exercises their right to free speech, the government tries to stop them, and they challenge that attempt at restraint in court. E.g. rather than suing for a declaratory judgment that you have the right to publish a James Joyce book, you just publish it, and then defend yourself if the government tries to come after you.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Unconstitutional laws are unenforceable and need not be followed.
Now, put your money where your mouth is already.
Seriously, what would the government do if Google just went ahead and released the information? I may be naive but I can't really see how they would get in trouble that they couldn't get out of. They have lawyers and lots of money, so why not assert their rights as surrogates for the millions of us than can't for one reason or another. For that matter, what would happen if they just refused to surrender to requests for blanket information?
The gag order is blatantly illegal under the 4th amendment, and as such carries no force of law.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
It doesn't look like anyone trusts what the government is saying about their FISA requests. Does anyone trust what Google says any better?
Proverbs 21:19
Unconstitutional laws are unenforceable
Not if the Supreme Court disagrees with you that a particular statute is unconstitutional.
I don't think the important point is whether there are 100 or 1000 requests for such information.
The important point is whether the government is capturing all or most internet traffic for later analysis if necessary. Even if they only "go after" some guys who are actually thought to be bad guys, just collecting such huge volumes of data on everyone's business is the problem. Even if there is, today, at the moment, oversight on how that data is used. It's only a matter of time before the scope of use expands to places we really, really don't want it to go.
And they aren't building the Utah datacenter to store just the metadata.
ding dong
"Hi, are you Larry Page?"
"Yes, who are you .. mfpmppffm mfmmppfmp fmpmfpmfffmm mmpmmmmfm ppfmpfmpf ppfmpf ppmmpp mfpmpppmfpfm mfpmpppmfpfm!!"
"Bring the truck around front, Roy, we've got him now, in the interests of National Security."
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Yeah, Google is big now. Back in the day, not so much. Back then, they really didn't have the juice to tell Uncle Sam to go piss up a rope.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
Fuckload more than any other company involved has ever done.
Along with all the phone companies and their 'we need retroactive immunity!'
This a plot by the corporates to establish more precedent for Citizens United v FEC by getting the courts to once again uphold first amendment rights for non-persons.
Enjoy figuring out where to stand on this one, Slashdot. :) If you have to write a 1500 word essay to explain your reasoning, you lose.
</troll>
They will get blown out of the first court. Thats the norm.
But it hardly matters, because sooner or later it reaches the Supreme Court, and there is this little matter of the Constitution involved.
Every company with a web presences should grow a pair and join this suit.
Reasonable safeguards can be put in place (delays, or reviews in an open court by a REAL judge that actually attended law school),
but telling someone they can never reveal something is just plain wrong.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Just to be clear, that was an honest "good luck with that" right?
Why would they "get blown out of" court exactly? Do most federal judges enjoy things which, to me, seem to intentionally violate the constitution? Does google lack the funds to hire lawyers who would be competent enough to point out how idiotic these things are? I'm not a lawyer, as most slashdotters are not.
But it hardly matters, because sooner or later it reaches the Supreme Court, and there is this little matter of the Constitution involved.
True, but the supreme court can be wrong, and they have been in the past.
Lol, that's cute, you think the constitution still has bearing on anything in DC.
So don't do drugs.
But it hardly matters, because sooner or later it reaches the Supreme Court, and there is this little matter of the Constitution involved.
True, but the supreme court can be wrong, and they have been in the past.
Funny thing about the Supreme Court being wrong... Its sort of like Paple Infallibility.
They are right when they make a decision (because our constitution pretty much pronounces that to be the case) and
they are just as right when they overturn their prior decisions, as they frequently do.
In the fullness of time FISA courts are going to be found unconstitutional. Precise predictions as to WHEN are not possible, but
either that happens or the United States of America ceases to exist. Some say it already has.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Discussing the requests openly, either within or beyond the walls of an involved company, can violate federal law
Any act of congress that purports to deny our freedom of speech is not a law at all, but a usurpation. Congress has no power to trump the constitution.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
The UK (home of guardian) has some of the toughest libel laws in existence, so if google is sure the claims are false and it has suffered such damage it should seek this court action. It could be both tell the truth, the NSA might have just setup shop on the fibres on the backbone, if every piece of information is logged then it is as good as having direct server access, as far as requests go.
we may have an actual chance to hear what the Government is actually requesting
They're only asking to be allowed to release counts, not the content of the requests. So, no, still no chance of finding out what's being requested.
Have you read my blog lately?
Once upon a time, I'd always heard that those types of gag orders were to prevent the individuals under investigation from being alerted so they couldn't hide evidence or flee, and I'm not opposed to that.
These days it seems to be more of a political move for the purposes of avoiding oversight and preventing the authorities from being charged with illegal, or at least immoral and unethical, activities.
They will get blown out of the first court. Thats the norm.
Federal judges have lifetime appointments, and little inventive to rule against what they actually believe to be right. Since Google HQ is in California, the first court is likely to be in the 9th district, which has a reputation for smacking down government overreach. Google may ultimately lose, but it isn't a certainty.
can you get "google" and "first amendment" into this post more often and still have it make sense?
For fucks' sake, guys, do you two work for Apple or Microsoft? Every big corporation is evil, but when they do good is not the time to bash them, no matter what their real motives are.
If you don't work for Apple or MS, grow the fuck up. Sheesh. Dumb kids... the enemy of my enemy is my friend. If they're not against you they're for you.
Free Martian Whores!
They're only asking to be allowed to release counts, not the content of the requests.
So they're only asking to release metadata, which according to Mr. Clapper isn't a type of data, so I don't see why the gov't would reject this.
In the fullness of time FISA courts are going to be found unconstitutional.
I'd be happy if they start from forcing everything to at least go through FISA. They are becoming irrelevant since government is happily bypassing the rubber-stamp overview of FISA already.
Why fight an unconstitutional body that is being bypassed in an even more unconstitutional way?
i like how you think
From TFA:
Google asked the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on Tuesday to ease long-standing gag orders
So its not even out of the FISA court yet, and when it does leave the FISA court, its not going to district court. It goes to the court of appeals.
And its not likely going to the 9th Circuit either, and you can thank your lucky stars for that.
The 9th circuit gets bitchslapped more than any other circuit for just being wrong.
The 9th approved warrant-less GPS tracking. Bitchslapped by SCOTUS.
Way too many of 9th Circuit rulings have failed constitutional muster, and bolstered big government over reaching.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Why would they get blown out of court as you so amusingly put it? Google have the money to take the government to task over this sort of thing, you should be supporting this rather than ridiculing it.
I love how all these companies who had no qualms about collecting our personal data and slinging it to anyone with a paycheck have all of a sudden become Constitutional warriors.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Unfortunately, the suit was not filed in the 9th district, but with the "UNITED STATES FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SURVEILLANCE COURT
WASHINGTON, D.C."
That particular court is packed with judges chosen by the chief justice--so expect deference to the NSA.
Regardless of what Google is doing publicly to save face, they are still data mining much like the NSA with the little difference that Google is a private company and doesn't "have" to adhere to the same retention laws as a government entity. While NSA may collect all kinds of data off the wire, they are only allowed to keep it for a certain amount of time depending on how they classify the data (citation needed, and the time frame doesn't much matter for the sake of my argument). Google on the other hand, announced it will PERMANENTLY retain all of your browsing history (through Chrome, or through browser history when logged in to a Google/Gmail account) so that they can advertise more specifically to your trends, show you videos you'll like on YouTube, and other bogus lines. Oh, and your Android devices, yea, EVERYTHING there is logged.
Google, give up the charade, or perhaps even live up to the "don't be evil" you once thought you would live by. Stop mining data. It's not okay.
this sounds a lot like the visit Kim Dotcom received. I keep thinking about him lately, and wondering if he just wasnt going to play ball, and had the perfect platform for "enemies of the state" to take advantage of.
Our government unilaterally rewrote the basic agreement between We, the People who are sovereign, and the government which is supposed to report to us. As a result, no citizen can understand the reasons behind the actions of his Representatives or the government. Thus, the government is sovereign as We, the People, have no control of it. This is treason. This is the functional equivalent to a coup, kept secret by the people who did it. We cannot allow the government to engage in anything that require secrecy, or we will be in this situation again. So, time to become a neutral nation the way the guys who wrote the Constitution intended. Bring the troops home and repudiate all of the treaties that allow them to be overseas. Repeal the acts enabling our NSA, CIA, FBI and FISA, as these are all more dangerous to us as citizens than anything they purport to protect us against. Purge the Department of Justice, which seems to exist to write memos justifying obviously bogus interpretations of laws and the Constitution. Remove every person from government who knew about, and did nothing to oppose, any episode of torture, drone attacks on US citizens, or any of this spying, Un-elect all Representatives who knew about and did nothing to oppose these things. Anything less than this, the coup will ultimately succeed.
The leaked documents clearly show the NSA requested broad data collection from Verizon. End of history.
I think its BULLSHIT that a corporation should even seek to be protected by the US Constituion that was written to protect citizens of this country, not corporations. Corporations have priviledges, not rights. Google continues to push us around like its a citizen seeking acceptance in a world where people matter.
Hey gang, we really might be morphing into "Web 3.0" in whichever of many things that means.
We're starting to enter the age of the Law Meta-Game.
Google does their fair share of morally complex things, but they haven't been called "stupid" very often.
So *because it's Google* and not some two-guys-and-a-garage operation, they're not so easy to shove in a corner. Even at the rate that lawyer fees rise, if some "typical" (as the cynics would say) "travesty of justice" occurred, that then becomes a hell of a Meta-Game news article.
"Google: We wanted to report on secret govt data requests. Govt said no."
You/they don't file motions like that "out of boredom on a Tuesday". They have the money to submit the motion and all the bells and whistles. So this might be the first of many kinds of steps it takes to slowly begin to roll back the Big Brother Engine. Not a lot, but they're helping to drag it into the sunlight where such scampery things don't like to be.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
They're doing this, knowing full well they'll get denied, because it looks like they're "standing up for their users."
Just smoke and mirrors.
Coming from someone who happens to be sporting a big blue F on his profile.
Sorry mate, you lost all credibility, pot kettle and all that.
Fuckload more than any other company involved has ever done.
Ignorant morons like you shouldn't be welcome anywhere.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
Hats off to you!
This is the sound of one Clapper hand clapping:
Why would they "get blown out of" court exactly?
The Government will just say the spying program and information about the reasons for the data requests are a matter of national security and that will be the end of it.
They shouldn't ask. They should just do it.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
No, the enemy of my enemy is my enemy's enemy, so I'll just sit back and watch them swat each other while I eat popcorn.
Then they should have nothing to fear. Right? Isn't that what they have been telling us.
I'm not surprised by this. I have a friend whose an activist / environmentalist and he keeps telling me about how awful the world has become and how the Govt is taking away heritage listed rainforest for it's own financial desire. My response to him was clear. Go to the open forums that are held discussing the future of certain lands and ask the hard questions to the face of the people who are taking active part in the corruptive activities. See I have a theory why things are the way they are.
It isn't that world has "become" a bad place and all these shady goings on have started, oh no, the world "is" a bad place and it's because nobody knows what they are doing is wrong. Consider what the internet has done here with the whole Snowden situation. The internet is shining a light on the dark crevices on our society and we are seeing all the huddled groups of cockroaches who are used to the darkness step into the light for first time.
Isn't it better to assume that Google's employees simply followed the rules of their predecessors as their predecessors perhaps thought (being patriotic and all) that what they were doing at the time was the best thing and had the best of intentions?
What Snowden did was ask the tough questions and Google answered those tough questions with a "Golly you're right!". Don't crucify Google for having a moral sense when asked because those who are in positions of power that steal only do so because they get away with it, no one questions it and therefore "it's obviously okay to do". When they find out it's not 99% of the time they back peddle, usually without any argument.
That would speed things up a wee bit.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
They are right when they make a decision (because our constitution pretty much pronounces that to be the case) and they are just as right when they overturn their prior decisions, as they frequently do.
They are just a bunch of people. They make mistakes too , better that they correct it rather than sticking to their (or their predecessors) wrong view point.
Anyway, all the courts really do is to ensure that laws are interpreted and applied consistently. They cannot ensure that the laws are correct or that they are always mutually consistent. i.e. if the congress made a law that says 1+1=3, the court says that it is OK and that the country has to interpret it as such. Later if the congress says 1+1=5, then the court has to either invalidate both laws or find one to be wrong.
Good example is the metadata issue. Courts ruled earlier on that addresses on the envelope were not secret and could be searched by the government. But everything inside the envelope was obviously private. It seems like the executive branch has stretched that interpretation to mean that metadata of emails are public (i.e. from:, to: etc.) even if the email never left a service provider (an email from hotmail to hotmail never goes through any public server, but government collects it anyway). Now the court has to either re-interpret the law or provide more detail on what the court meant earlier in the 1800s when they said that addresses are not private.
http://slashdot.org/submission/1062723/Cheap-mobile-data-plan?art_pos=2
Pretty much. Everyone heard about Dotcom's arrest, it made big news, and there was significant political fallout. Roughly what would happen if they arrested Page in a similar fashion.
I hear he's back making a new, similar business venture. Sounds like they disappeared him good!
It's apparently not illegal when the president does it. :(
I would mod you up.
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
I don't see that's necessarily the case. The Constitution says the warrants must issue upon probable cause and name the persons or things to be searched. It doesn't say that the warrants can't be sealed or that the process and evidence that led to the warrant being issued can't take place behind closed doors.
I think the regular courts are likely to find that some of the warrants issued are invalid though, particulary when they authorize the search of every record of a telecom, or inspection of vast volumes of internet data.
It's days like this that I love Google.
re-education must have worked :)
I just wish Snowden would clarify what the hell he's saying. I've read Q & A with him and I still can't work out exactly what people are looking at, how they're getting it, whether the looking has to be actively initiated or is passive, or anything else. We need more damned details, not more hyperbole. I'm by no means diminishing the value of his bringing PRISM to light, even if it turns out to be a much lesser problem than he seems to believe, but I don't really give a shit whether he believes it's the greatest assault on privacy in history, I want to know exactly what's been happening so I can decide whether I believe that it is or not. For a man whose goal was supposedly the open discussion of this thing, he's doing a pretty piss poor job of initiating one.
Can they just join the suit without it being class action or without some sort of invite from Google or, more likely, needing it to be a whole new suit? I'm not a lawyer and don't even play one on television - I don't even watch lawyer television shows for that matter.
Also, it seems to me that they have a snowball's chance in hell at being successful. Because of this it seems more like a marketing ploy than it does a realistic attempt at getting them to allow Google to reveal the information. I am not sure if my writing is clear or if that makes sense.
Basically it looks like this is so unlikely that the more probable reality is that this is a marketing ploy by Google so that they appear to actually be doing something about our privacy but that they know, the government knows, and we know that they have pretty much no chance in hell of being allowed to reveal the information.
When I was reading the summary and thinking about it - it did occur to me that they had some small chance. I guess that, in the past, people were unable to bring suits because they were unable to prove harm. They couldn't prove harm because they couldn't prove they'd been targeted. In this case they MIGHT be able to prove harm in that it is damaging their reputation? However, again, I am NOT a lawyer nor do I play at one. I do pay attention to the law and the various legal proceedings from SCOTUS and my state's supreme court. I do kind of understand quite a bit of it and I do try to read up and learn about the law. But, alas, I don't know...
Perhaps someone will chime in? It seems they can maybe prove harm so the suit may be legitimate though I'm not sure harm would have to be proved if they're going for a 1st Amendment solution.
Either way, it still seems to me that it is so unlikely that it will succeed and the only reason I can think of for even bothering is not for the good of freedom but as a marketing strategy. "Look at us! Look at what we're doing. We're not just about the money, we're trying to protect your freedom! Join our latest beta program and give us more of your personal information, thanks!"
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
I have never thought of it that way. It's painfully obvious but I'd never thought of it like that. Thank you - much appreciated.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Crap. I didn't catch that. I was hoping they were going to try to release the content of the requests as well as the counts and hopefully the dates. *sighs* Yeah, publicity stunt... That's what I'm assuming and I'm sticking with it.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Troll? If anything, it's +1 Sad but true.
If you want to know who to blame in Congress for passing laws authorizing government spying, here is a very helpful summary .
Sitting members who voted for surveillance every time
Rep. Robert Aderholt (Alabama, Republican) - all five times
Rep. Spencer Bachus (Alabama, Republican) - all five times
Rep. Jo Bonner (Alabama, Republican)
Rep. Mo Brooks (Alabama, Republican)
Rep. Martha Roby (Alabama, Republican)
Rep. Mike D. Rogers (Alabama, Republican)
Sen. Jeff Sessions (Alabama, Republican)
Rep. Terri Sewell (Alabama, Democratic)
Sen. Richard Shelby (Alabama, Republican)
Rep. Ron Barber (Arizona, Democratic)
Sen. Jeff Flake (Arizona, Republican)
Rep. Trent Franks (Arizona, Republican)
Rep. Paul Gosar (Arizona, Republican)
Sen. John McCain (Arizona, Republican)
Rep. David Schweikert (Arizona, Republican)
Sen. John Boozman (Arkansas, Republican)
Rep. Rick Crawford (Arkansas, Republican)
Rep. Tim Griffin (Arkansas, Republican)
Sen. Mark Pryor (Arkansas, Democratic)
Rep. Steve Womack (Arkansas, Republican)
Rep. Ken Calvert (California, Republican) - all five times
Rep. Jeff Denham (California, Republican)
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (California, Democratic)
Rep. Duncan D. Hunter (California, Republican) - all five times
Rep. Darrell Issa (California, Republican) - all five times
Rep. Kevin McCarthy (California, Republican)
Rep. Howard McKeon (California, Republican)
Rep. Gary Miller (California, Republican)
Rep. Devin Nunes (California, Republican)
Rep. Ed Royce (California, Republican) - all five times
Sen. Michael Bennet (Colorado, Democratic)
Rep. Mike Coffman (Colorado, Republican)
Rep. Cory Gardner (Colorado, Republican)
Rep. Doug Lamborn (Colorado, Republican)
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (Connecticut, Democratic)
Sen. Tom Carper (Delaware, Democratic)
Rep. Gus Bilirakis (Florida, Republican)
Rep. Vern Buchanan (Florida, Republican)
Rep. Kathy Castor (Florida, Democratic)
Rep. Ander Crenshaw (Florida, Republican) - all five times
Rep. Ted Deutch (Florida, Democratic)
Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (Florida, Republican) - all five times
Rep. John Mica (Florida, Republican) - all five times
Rep. Jeff Miller (Florida, Republican)
Sen. Bill Nelson (Florida, Democratic)
Rep. Rich Nugent (Florida, Republican)
Rep. Tom Rooney (Florida, Republican)
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (Florida, Republican) - all five times
Rep. Dennis Ross (Florida, Republican)
I tend to agree with that. He seems to be taking cues from Assange and his antics rather than completely coming clean. The whole chat thing was weird and the Guardian in this seems more like a breaker of the information rather than just giving us all of it wholesale.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
The 9th circuit gets bitchslapped more than any other circuit for just being wrong.
Is that true relative to the size and nature of the case-load? It's by far the largest appeal court in the US, so much so that there's been a number of proposals to split it (none of which seem to have been good enough to actually go ahead with so far).
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
And this is what you would expect from companies that have been lying over protecting your freedoms, Google has done a terrific job at making sure they prevent you from realizing how they mind fucked you. And it isn't just the NSA either, this has been going on for a long time..
This is why I stopped using Google, when they started to become big you knew this would happen, I never had a Gmail, or Goggle+ account, and I still do not understand why you would use any email outside the providers email, which turns out to also be a bad choice as well (well I do, spam and mail you do not want clogging up your main account).
And I am still upset and irked over the EFF and how they seemingly have become backstabbers, it seems Google and the like are lobbyist giving the EFF the money they need to keep the organization going, even tho the EFF helps those that it wants to help of high profile cases that do in fact have direct bearing on future freedoms. That doesn't excuse them from calling out the big companies when they know something is up.
Why should being a large circuit make them wrong more often?
To be fair, the rate at which the 9th is reversed has fallen in the last couple years to around 76 percent, down from 94 percent in 2009.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
let's say your error rate is 1%. Now, you make two decisions this year. Probably both were correct. Jon's error rate is only 0.5% (twice as good as yours), but he made 400 decisions this year, so two were likely wrong. He looks worse than you solely because of volume.
"Sure you can post the total number of requests. But you're not allowed to separate out the garden variety (child support, parole violations, etc.) from the NSA domestic fishing expeditions."
Lying cowards.
I love it how they add "if any" after each mention of the number of FISA requests. Google, darling, if you're asking to make a number disclosable, it is obvious this number is not zero. If there aren't any requests then why try and hide it? There is no secret if there's nothing to hide.
It's just a fig leaf. They know they are going to lose, but this gives them good PR, since they can claim they're "fighting the good fight" when they've been in bed with the NSA the entire time.
I thought Google isn't a person, but now it is? I get that people have rights, but do limited liability corporations have rights - except to avoid liability.
Not sure the connection to papal infallibility... Papal infallibility is invoked when the pope speaks ex cathedra, lit. from the chair (of St. Peter), an event that has happend twice (both Marian doctrines): Pius IX, Immaculate Conception in 1854 and Pius XII, Assumption in 1950. It's not something done willy nilly.
Versus The First Amendment, or for that matter, ANY constitutional right, it does not take a genius to figure out what side the courts are going to come down in favor of.
If you want change, stop doing the insane thing; which is essentially what you've been doing the last, what, 13 years ?
It's "troll" because it's not any kind of counter-argument or reasoned rebuttal, just a pointless teenager type reply: "lol ur so naive if you believe that, u stupid amerikkkan."
well put. thank you for yr comment.
In your example of hotmail to hotmail, in what way is that private? Every free email provider makes it clear they own it, and do what they want with it.
I wasn't trying to claim anything about absolute privacy of letters.
Just trying to explain the issue of how there was a law that said letters are private (meaning government is by constitution prevented from reading it) which was later interpreted by courts to mean contents of the letter are private, which, in the manner I pointed out above affects the topic under discussion.
This privacy has not been held to mean that a letter sent through Fedex is private under the constitution. It may be private by the contract with Fedex (such that Fedex cannot tell ebay what Amazon items are being sold the most etc.). Traditionally what it has meant is that the Government is restricted from opening and reading letters. Courts have sometimes ruled the "letters" to include packages and some forms of electronic communications.
Again, Constitution restricts only the government, not the private companies. Private companies generally do not have armies and they are not immune to prosecution (unlike the Federal Government as an entity).
http://slashdot.org/submission/1062723/Cheap-mobile-data-plan?art_pos=2
They will get blown out of the first court. That's the norm.
In other words, as this issue could reasonably be supposed to violate fundamental rights protected under the Bill of Rights (certainly the 9th Amendment, if nothing else), then you are saying that violations of the oaths of office of federal judges (such oaths requiring these persons to uphold the Bill of Rights) are commonplace.
However, what makes you think that the people who get selected for the Supreme Court will be any better? After all, to get to that position, they've probably had to make many rulings over the years. If we suppose we have a badly screwed up legal system -- something that could reasonably be inferred from the fact that there is any dispute over this issue at all -- then many of these earlier rulings are likely to involve a judge ignoring an ethical conflict of interest and/or otherwise violating his or her oath. This line of reasoning seems to imply that we can not trust the integrity of persons selected for the Supreme Court (individually, or collectively). After all, there is no reason to suppose a person who fails to show integrity in a lower office would suddenly gain it when appointed to a higher one.
Further, the selection process for the Supreme Court is a process run by politicians. If we suppose that corruption and incompetence are widespread amongst our politicians -- and given that the politicians passed laws permitting this conduct in the first place, I imagine most Slashdot readers would take that as a given -- then why would we suppose a selection process overseen by corrupt and incompetent people would produce a competent and ethical Supreme Court?
They are right when they make a decision (because our constitution pretty much pronounces that to be the case) and
they are just as right when they overturn their prior decisions, as they frequently do.
It's not really clear that our Constitution actually says that "the Supreme Court is always right". There are two considerations that seem relevant:
First, Supreme Court judges are required to swear oaths to uphold the Constitution. The oath of office is appropriately viewed as an invariant for holding office: should it ever be violated, the person or persons doing so become disqualified for office. One obvious problem with this situation is that the Constitution does not spell out how to determine when this oath is violated, or who can take action in that situation, or how we remove such oath-breakers from office. Oops! What were the Founding Fathers thinking when they wrote (or failed to write) that???
This oversight by the writers of the Constitution is probably one of the reasons the Anti-Federalists expressed such strong disapproval of the pre-Bill of Rights Constitution. After all, if they were prepared to trust the Presidency, the Congress, the Senate, and the Supreme Court, individually or collectively, they would not have disapproved of the original document. It follows that they didn't trust these groups, individually or collectively, and wanted a mechanism in place by which an action taken by any or all of these groups could be overturned by a response short of armed revolution.
We can therefore infer, by the acceptance of the Bill of Rights by the Anti-Federalists, that they were recognizing in this document a mechanism sufficient to overturn the powers of any or all of the above by means short of war. This conclusion stands contrary to claims that the "Constitution says the Supreme Court is always right".
Second, in making the Bill of Rights open-ended, James Madison retained unspecified rights to the people (9th Amendment) and reserved unspecified rights to the people (10th Amendment). By definition, rights retained by the people are retained by the people. If we assume the Supreme Court can steal these rights, they would no longer be retained by the people, but that contradicts the written text of the Bill of Rights. It, again, follows (essentially a proof by contradiction) that there ARE limits to the authority of the court.
Or, in other words, the fact that the Bill of Rights post-dates the Constitution and was required for acceptance means that it overrides the authority of the original text, and thus can limit items such as the authority of the Supreme Court to judge cases arising under the Constitution.
We can think of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's as an example of a situation where the people, in expressing their displeasure at the "separate-but-not-actually-equal" system, were actually asserting one or more rights "retained by the people", such as the right not to be discriminate against on the basis of one's skin color. Consequently, we can also assert that the Supreme Court justices who for so many years permitted the "separate-but-equal" system to exist were acting contrary to fundamental rights protected under the 9th and 10th Amendment, and therefore were in violation of their oaths to uphold the Constitution.
As I understand this, this means the government can just freeze anyone's ownership of shares in a public company by telling him material classified information about the company. Or what's the legitimate way out of this situation?
Which is why I spoke in terms of percentages.
It goes further than just percentages or numbers.
The methodology followed by the 9th is different from any other court, which can have it issuing opinions that the majority of the justices in the 9th disagree with.
How? The 9th does not hear all cases en banc. In fact they hear only a very small number of cases en banc, and the bulk are heard by much smaller "limited en banc" panel of judges, which can and apparently frequently do issue rulings that much of rest of the 9th actually disagree with.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
But the thread you replied to was speaking in absolute terms. Why did you throw oranges into a discussion of Apples?
Well, my company having a "pair" (mine) and a web presence (which holds my pre-paid mobile phone number ; that's all that it needs), finds this exhortation less than helpful, because it can't join this suit. Shocking though it may be to you, I'm not American and so this is only of passing interest to me.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"