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Federal Judge Rejects State Secrets Claims: EFF Case To Proceed
The EFF has been attempting to sue the government over illegal surveillance since the Bush administration, and, despite repeated attempts to have the case dismissed because of State Secrets, a federal judge has now ruled that the case must go forward in public court, throwing out the government's State Secrets argument. From the order: Having thoroughly considered the parties' papers, Defendants' public and classified
declarations, the relevant legal authority and the parties' arguments, the Court GRANTS the
Jewel Plaintiffs' motion for partial summary adjudication by rejecting the state secrets defense
as having been displaced by the statutory procedure prescribed in 50 U.S.C. 1806(f) of FISA. In both related cases, the Court GRANTS Defendants' motions to dismiss Plaintiffs' statutory
claims on the basis of sovereign immunity. The Court further finds that the parties have not
addressed the viability of the only potentially remaining claims, the Jewel Plaintiffs'
constitutional claims under the Fourth and First Amendments and the claim for violation of
separation of powers and the Shubert Plaintiffs' fourth cause of action for violation of the
Fourth Amendment. Accordingly, the Court RESERVES ruling on Defendants' motion for
summary judgment on the remaining, non-statutory claims."
Although some statutory claims were dismissed, the core Constitutional questions will be litigated.
I think the fact that this has been made public and that the government itself is no longer denying this negates any attempt to call this "state secrets".
However, there will be cases that deal with actual state secrets. For those, we need a court set up to deal with that sort of thing, not just a court to approve warrants, but a court to handle cases brought up by whistle blowers that evaluate the Constitutionality of cases like this.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
1. Trial will be drawn out for six months to two years by motions, security considerations, etc.
2. Regardless of rulings, appeals will take a further two to five years.
3. Meanwhile, the government will continue to do as it damned well pleases.
4. Through it all, 99% of the public will pay more attention to American Idol or Nascar.
5. Poor ~pj at Groklaw will be driven to distraction by the huge briefs and exhibits expected to be filed.
6. Major media will spin everything pro-government.
7. At the end of it all, regardless of legal gymnastics, there will be no practical difference.
Scruting the inscrutable for over 50 years.
I wonder how much the mention of "...tapping federal judges' phones at will..." had anything to do with it.
my .02
The court system is supposed to be above public opinion and pubic opinion is not supposed to have any effect on the court's decisions.
If the judicial branch of the government is going to work outside the framework of law that it is built upon, the what's the point? Without checks that can actually be checked by an outside agency, there is no way to limit infractions, corruption, and abuse.
No, this court, like any other, would work within the law. The problem is that without the appropriate clearance, judges are not legally allowed to hear the evidence in the case so judicial oversight is not possible right now. All this would be is a court where the judges have the clearance to hear the cases and the evidence. The evidence in the cases as well as most of the information about the cases could be kept secret so these cases could go to court without damaging national security or the government using that as an excuse to keep the cases from ever being heard.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
There used to be a good separation between domestic (FBI) and international (CIA, NSA, ...) data gathering (for a good reason). In theory, any collection of data, active spying, etc. on US citizens cannot be done under a national security, restricted access setting. Nor could any of the assets used to to collect data (say for an investigation) on one or more US citizen be classified. There are exceptions for US citizens co-operating with a foreign government of course. And data can be withheld during an active investigation, etc, etc. For a long time classified assets were not allowed to be used for domestic investigations.
This separation is now gone of course. There also seems to be an attitude that if the data is collected, and not looked at, its ok as long as there check and balances to ensure that the data is not being looked at. Obviously, in a democracy, a government cannot police itself with no external visibility. It's a fundamental breakdown of the principles of a democracy. Hopefully this will be brought up when this case makes its way to the supreme court.
What is being done is so obviously wrong. It will be an interesting case to determine if the Supreme Court is representing the country or representing the government.