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EFF Wins Release of Secret Court Opinion: NSA Surveillance Unconstitutional
mspohr writes "For over a year, EFF has been fighting the government in federal court to force the public release of an 86-page opinion of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC). Issued in October 2011, the secret court's opinion found that surveillance conducted by the NSA under the FISA Amendments Act was unconstitutional and violated 'the spirit of' federal law."
Shut it down......Shut it all down NOW!!!
You at the other side of the pond have generated a farce beyond fantasy. Create secret court, abuse powers, secret court says "non", ignore, expand and repeat.
As a tech I'd say your system has found a resonance point where the loop-gain is so much greater than one that it might cause the earth's rotation to change....
The same way he "hasn't" been all along. When the lies are coming from the highest levels of the government, they can brand anybody they want as anything they like. One can only hope that the EFF is large and influential enough to cope with any fallout from this.
Looks like it might be time to donate again. There's something ridiculous about the need to buy decent government by donating to a charitable organization, but hey, they're doing better than most, and most of "us" (Slashdot readers) can probably afford it. Normally I'd suggest the option of doing it by way of the Humble Bundle, but currently they don't include that option...
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Who's going to impeach him? Congress and the Senate are complicit in this, and they're the ones who have to impeach. Remember, they don't give two shits about the constitution or they'd never had passed the Bono Act or the PATRIOT Act.
Lets impeach congress next election. I want my country back.
Free Martian Whores!
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
Whenever these stories come out, I am uncomfortably reminded of conservative constitution-worship. "As the nation teeters at the edge of fiscal chaos, observers are reaching the conclusion that the American system of government is broken. But almost no one blames the culprit: our insistence on obedience to the Constitution, with all its archaic, idiosyncratic and downright evil provisions."
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
If that's what you want, then sign the petition!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
No, this is on him. Hes in the 2nd term of precidency. Its on him. He might not have started it, but he has the power to stop it, and instead chose to keep it going. Just like our occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan, just like GITMO, just like the promised end of DEA raids on legal dispensaries. Spying got worse, still in Iraq and Afghanistan, GITMO still is open, DEA raids have gotten worse. The blame is justifiably on him.
Previous NSA whistleblowers (Thomas Drake, et alia) have stated that the NSA investigated SC justices before they were confirmed.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Agreed.
However, the problem I have with a lot of Obama critics is not that the content of their criticism is actually wrong, but rather feels disingenuous. Had Mitt won the presidency, I feel like a lot of these guys bitching about Obama would be standing right in line behind Mitt, who I believe would be doing basically the exact same thing as Obama*, charging that anyone who dared criticize that "great patriot Mitt Romney" was a terrorist-sympathizing traitor who should be rounded up and executed. I don't see Mitt having a fundamentally different stance on NSA wiretapping, the Patriot Act, or drone strikes (and I bet Benghazi would still have happened under his watch, too).
For those of you (us) who have managed to remain consistent with our criticisms of both parties, bravo.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
Nixon wasn't so bad. At least he had enough respect for the law and the citizens to break in at night. The NSA does it in broad daylight, and whenever confronted, they just give another explanation of why it is okay.
Nixon wasn't so bad. At least he had enough respect for the law and the citizens to break in at night.
And enough sense of shame to resign. The more recent politicians are quite literally shameless.
To quote one of my favorite movie characters, "The shit is about to hit the fan and I want to be here to see it." (Dr. Lazarus in "Outland" in case you're curious.)
The publication of this court ruling is going to make it much easier for a federal judge and subsequent appellate judges to slam the NSA down hard. I'm not certain about the law on this but it might also make it possible to send certain NSA officials to prison. My prediction: Heads at the NSA are about to roll and I will not be surprised if one of them is Gen. Alexander. Because he is a serving general and this shit happened on active duty, he could be courtmartialed, be stripped of rank, and lose his pension, a just punishment I believe for such a grave violation of the people's civil rights.
Unfortunately, the heads will not be literally be rolling on the floor, and perhaps that's a good thing. It's nice to contemplate, however. It would have made one hell of a great game of pool on a diabolical billiard table. General Alexander's head would be the cue ball. Some people more evil than myself might possess the belief that a certain other person's head should be the 8-ball but I'm not one of them. But it's hilarious to visualize!
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
The last scary thought I shall leave with. What if J Edgar Hoover had the NSA's ability to spy on people?
I'm not sure why you're assuming that Robert Mueller is any better. Maybe because he's better at secrecy and intimidation? Think about this for a minute: After Hoover's death, when all the stuff he did came out, Congress passed a law limiting the term of any FBI director to 10 years. Yet, recently, the law was ignored and Mueller's term extended Why? Well the excuse was that it was required for "continuity", but, is that really credible coming from a Democratically-controlled Senate debating the illegal extension of term for a Bush appointee. How?
During one of the recent hearings on spying, Holder was asked if the NSA was also tapping into private phone calls and emails of members of Congress. He basically refused to answer the question, offering to "address that in a different forum." In secret, in other words. And one NSA whistle blower mentioned how the program even targeted a certain senate candidate from Illinois (yep, that one).
So we may now be in an even worse position, with a J. Edgar Hoover type leading the FBI, and with much better technology and a greatly expanded police and surveillance state.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Bush was upfront about his support for these programs. Obama specifically ran against them, but defends them publically now.
In any case, today Obama's the boss - it's his ship to steer, and we should blame him for the course he sets, even if previous leaders are bad too. Gah, if there's one thing I hate at work, it's people who say "yes, this sucks, and we could fix it easily, but we're used to the pain so just deal with it".
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
The various terror groups know Obama is full of hot air and does not follow up on attacks.
I'm sure that Osama bin Laden agrees, as do the targets of all those drone strikes.
The Syrian army crossed the red line again and nothing from Barry.
The 15-minute response you seem to be asking for with regard to Syria would be about the only action that might be considered even less civilised than gassing your own civilians. Is that really what you'd like to see?
This is not some film where you hear someone shout, "Do something!" then see 30 seconds of Barry sweating as he slowly but surely remembers and inputs the Abort code that stops the timer and keeps Dr Madguy's giant laser from lighting up and cooking Los Angeles.
I've got a brilliant idea: Let's impeach Obama and replace him with you.
This is a complex scenario with a great many players--Israel, Lebanon/Hezbollah, Turkey/NATO/EU, Iraq/Kurdistan, and Russia, amongst others--having an interest in the outcome of a civil war between the militarist fascists who've held power for decades and the militant religious whackos that seek to take their place. You've also got the UN and the norms of international law to consider. At home you've got legislators to keep happy, and there is a good chance that, no matter what your response is, at least some of them will take issue with it--and of these, some of them will be doing so merely to score points against you in the media, regardless of what might really be best for the US (or for the Syrians, for that matter).
What do you propose to do, Mr President? Go ahead--the whole world is watching and waiting.
Isn't this fun?
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.