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FISA Court Will Release More Opinions Because of Snowden
cold fjord sends this news from the Washington Post:
"Call it the Edward Snowden effect: Citing the former NSA contractor, a federal judge has ordered the government to declassify more reports from the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. In an opinion from the FISC itself, Judge F. Dennis Saylor on Friday told the White House to declassify all the legal opinions relating to Section 215 of the Patriot Act written after May 2011 that aren't already the subject of FOIA litigation. The court ruled (PDF) that the White House must identify the opinions in question by Oct. 4. 'The unauthorized disclosure of in June 2013 of a Section 215 order, and government statements in response to that disclosure, have engendered considerable public interest and debate about Section 215,' wrote Saylor. 'Publication of FISC opinions relating to this opinion would contribute to an informed debate.' The ruling comes in response to a petition by the American Civil Liberties Union seeking greater government transparency. But because the ACLU already has a similar FOIA case pending in another court, Saylor wrote that the new FISC order can only cover documents that don't relate to that case."
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said that Snowden's information leaks started conversations that should have happened a long time ago. Also, the privacy reform panel created by President Obama met for the first time earlier this week. It did not discuss the NSA's surveillance activities. [Two attendees of the Monday meeting said the discussion was dominated by the interests of major technology firms, and the session did not address making any substantive changes to the controversial mass collection of Americans' phone data and foreigners' internet communications, which can include conversations with Americans."
'nuff said.
Thank you for your service.
>" 'The unauthorized disclosure of in June 2013 of a Section 215 order, and government statements in response to that disclosure, have engendered considerable public interest and debate about Section 215,' "
Well, yeah, amazing isn't it? That is the way a democracy is SUPPOSED to work. It DOESN'T work properly when tons of things are all held in secret.
I suspect that at least half what is currently kept secret from the public is unnecessarily secret. And probably much more than half of what is left could at least be shared with Congress committees.
having these conversations (referring to Clapper) when he was the one actively LYING about the extent of activities under his jurisdiction.
So: We should be having these conversations, but I actively lied about it to avoid having these conversations.
My general experience is when people are lying about things in response to very direct questions, they're usually doing it to hide activities that they know they shouldn't be doing.
General Alexander's games only work because he can tell one story to one group of people, and another story to another.
The 5 eye allies get to see intelligence from abroad and don't see the surveillance of their own people, their companies and their politicians, and so think they are 'special', not spied up, protected and private, even as they spy on their own people for the NSA.
The FISA court was told stories about how NSA was using its warrants and how essential those warrants were. I suspect FISC never authorized storage of everything. Rather it probably authorized collection of everything, filtering out just the terrorist related and storing of that. But once General Alexander had access to all the data, he didn't need to throw it away, because FISC would never know he kept it and who is powerful enough to stop him?
Dianne Feinstein, seems to have been told all manner of court orders are needed and the data has never been abused (she said it as though she believed it). Perhaps she was shown snippets of terrorist info, and the occasional tip about her political rivals, but never shown her own record, or all the abuse of data stories, or the surveillance of ordinary Americans for reasons other than terrorism.
Obama was told all sorts of warrants are needed, and kept talking about telephone calls, as if that was the limit of the surveillance. To tap a US telephone, its done by computer request, and apparently a very large portion of US calls are routinely recorded without a warrant. They only need a warrant if they decide they need a warrant after listening and concluding both parties are American. But who would know if they didn't flag it? No one. General Alexander says only 300 selectors in 2012 were searched, yet the NSA 'auditor' says 20 million searches a month against the big database.
David Cameron was probably told only the terrorist data is filtered out of the UK feed and then the rest thrown away. But it isn't, it's kept and handed to Israel on presumably others. Used for commercial and political surveillance, there's no special relationship with 5 eyes, only 4 idiots deluding themselves and betraying their countries.
DEA thinks it's given hot tips in secret, which is why it needs to cover up the source, in reality it could well be party to falsify a crime, or covering an entrapment, or coercion. Who knows!? Because the evidence is never examined, instead a false cover story is examined in court.
Each party thinks THEY are not being spied on and only get to see OTHER people's data. General Alexander plays a very compartmentalized game to keep it so. As the FISC court saw the leaks, so it see that the FISA warrants don't correspond to the reality and want them released.
If you've done nothing wrong you have nothing to hide. But 'wrong' in the free world is supposed to mean 'illegal' not 'upset someone powerful'. The courts are there to protect people and if they did that, and the NSA ignored the court and did its own thing, then its time we knew. FISC court is happy to let people see what it authorized, so let see how the reality and the warrants correspond.
Obama is hardly going to pardon someone that outed his own criminal behaviour.
But what should be happening is a special prosecutor. Snowden would be easy to get back in the country, just give him immunity. I am sure he would be happy to come back and testify in a real court about the crimes he has knowledge of.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Two attendees of the Monday meeting said the discussion was dominated by the interests of major technology firms
Fancy that.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
The problem is that the government has no credibility. How do we know what they release are the real documents? And they can still [redact] it to the point of uselessness.
After Snowden's in prison, do the same to those whom have aided and abetted the release of such information - including those at the Washington Post(if the NSA does its job right, that newspaper should have wished that it had done the right thing by not publishing national secrets).
Given the evidence that he not only broke his trust to keep secrets, he also did so in a manner that harms this country entirely. If there should be any pardons and praise, they are to be reserved for anyone who may be prosecuted in bringing Snowden to justice. In addition, reward and protect them from any retaliation that may occur from any Snowden fanatics.
Of course, this won't all go well with those that worship Snowden as some idol and not rightfully consider him as a betrayer of one's country. However, I do not recognize any value in destroying the country or ensuring that it cannot protect itself from threats within and without.
Harmed the country or harmed the Administration? Which is the greater harm: revealing to our enemies that they are being spied on or hiding from every American that they are being spied on?