DOJ: Defendant Has No Standing To Oppose Use of Phone Records

An anonymous reader writes with news of a man caught by the NSA dragnet for donating a small sum of money to an organization that the federal government considered terrorist in nature. The man is having problems mounting an appeal. From the article: "Seven months after his conviction, Basaaly Moalin's defense attorney moved for a new trial, arguing that evidence collected about him under the government's recently disclosed dragnet telephone surveillance program violated his constitutional and statutory rights. ... The government's response (PDF), filed on September 30th, is a heavily redacted opposition arguing that when law enforcement can monitor one person's information without a warrant, it can monitor everyone's information, 'regardless of the collection's expanse.' Notably, the government is also arguing that no one other than the company that provided the information — including the defendant in this case — has the right to challenge this disclosure in court." This goes far beyond the third party doctrine, effectively prosecuting someone and depriving them of the ability to defend themselves by declaring that they have no standing to refute the evidence used against them.

Comments

Just remember...

[Forbo]

Anything they suck up in their endless surveillance will only ever be used AGAINST you, never for your defense.

Scary

[bob_super]

"when law enforcement can monitor one person's information without a warrant, it can monitor everyone's information, 'regardless of the collection's expanse.' "

-- totalitarian cliche goes here --

Re:Scary

[gweihir]

The really scary think is that they can make claims like this in the open without fear of repercussions. Totalitarian bureaucrats all over the world must be so proud to have the US finally in their ranks.

Re:Scary

[Anonymous Coward]

This is actually a good development. This is the type of case - supported by our government's pubic declaration that no more privacy actually exists (with or without a warrant) - that will end up in the SCOTUS. We may finally get this crap struck down ... or we'll all get the officially sanctioned OK to rise up against our oppressive government.

Re:Scary

[Desler]

SCOTUS striking this down? You're joking, right?

Re:Scary

[Anonymous Coward]

Or a different Supreme Court?

It's the one that ruled that government has the right to tax people to pay for something it was already paying for. Namely, hospital visits that the patient is unable to pay for. You know, since we won't allow the hospitals to refuse treatment to people who are unable to pay.

I know you're upset at no longer getting a free ride, but please, give it a rest.

Re:Scary

[hawguy]

What exactly in my post is "trolling"?

Moderators often confuse "I don't agree with you" with "Trolling".

They either haven't read or don't agree with the Slashdot moderation guide:

http://slashdot.org/moderation.shtml

Concentrate more on promoting than on demoting. The real goal here is to find the juicy good stuff and let others read it. Do not promote personal agendas. Do not let your opinions factor in. Try to be impartial about this. Simply disagreeing with a comment is not a valid reason to mark it down. Likewise, agreeing with a comment is not a valid reason to mark it up. The goal here is to share ideas. To sift through the haystack and find needles. And to keep the children who like to spam Slashdot in check.

Re:Scary

[OhANameWhatName]

They either haven't read or don't agree with the Slashdot moderation guide

Or both.

Re:Scary

[amiga3D]

Kind of like someone putting a gun to your head and saying "pay me ten grand or I blow your brains out!" No one is forcing you to pay, you can always take the other choice. Listen to yourself. If they gave you a tax deduction for buying insurance your analogy would be fair. In fact, years ago people got tax breaks for their insurance premiums. They took that away and their answer is "buy insurance or pay a tax" so that now you get penalized on the back side as well as the front side. Think before you post.

Re:Scary

[I'm New Around Here]

More or less, yes, that is correct.

But it isn't government run, and requiring me to buy a product from a private company is in no way a tax. The fact that the fine for not buying a product is paid to the IRS does not make the fine into a tax.

Re:Scary

[I'm New Around Here]

Except it is not a tax. It wasn't a tax when the bill passed Congress, it wasn't a tax when President Obama signed it into law, and it wasn't a tax when the Supreme Court decided they would call it a tax because the FINE for not buying a product is paid to the IRS.

Re:Scary

[adamstew]

Like I said before... it's an argument of semantics... getting a tax break for buying insurance is, for all intents and purposes, the same thing as having a tax penalty for not buying insurance. Either way, you are paying more in taxes for not buying health insurance...Just like you are paying more in taxes for not buying a mortgage...or paying more in taxes for not putting money in to your 401k...etc...etc...

To put it in terms a programmer can understand:

$tax=$tax+1000; if (hasInsurance($citizen)) { $tax=$tax-1000; }

is the same thing as

if (!hasInsurance($citizen)) {$tax=$tax+1000;}

Either way, if hasInsurance($citizen) is false, then the tax goes up by 1000.

Re:Scary

[amiga3D]

You really can't see the difference? If I buy a 700 dollar a month policy (what I have now) then I pay 700 bucks for that insurance. I already paid tax on that money when I made it through payroll deduction. Now if I decide not to take insurance and instead stick that money in my pocket they will take the original tax PLUS more money as a fine to penalize me for not doing what they want me to do. That is Double taxation. Now we go to the other scenario. I pay tax on the 700 dollars through payroll deduction when I make it. I pay my 700 dollars to the insurance company and at the end of the year 1 take a deduction for 700 dollars times 12 for buying Insurance. See the difference. Under scenario number two I actually get a break for doing what they wanted me to do instead of the assfucking I got in scenario one or the neutral effect that I had before the "Affordable Care" act. If they really wanted to be fair they would have used scenario 2 but instead they're fucking me. I know it and I fucking don't like it. Maybe I have to take it but I'm pissed about it and I don't give a shit who knows it.

Re:Scary

[Anonymous Coward]

You really can't see the difference? If I buy a 700 dollar a month policy (what I have now) then I pay 700 bucks for that insurance. I already paid tax on that money when I made it through payroll deduction. Now if I decide not to take insurance and instead stick that money in my pocket they will take the original tax PLUS more money as a fine to penalize me for not doing what they want me to do. That is Double taxation. Now we go to the other scenario. I pay tax on the 700 dollars through payroll deduction when I make it. I pay my 700 dollars to the insurance company and at the end of the year 1 take a deduction for 700 dollars times 12 for buying Insurance. See the difference. Under scenario number two I actually get a break for doing what they wanted me to do instead of the assfucking I got in scenario one or the neutral effect that I had before the "Affordable Care" act. If they really wanted to be fair they would have used scenario 2 but instead they're fucking me. I know it and I fucking don't like it. Maybe I have to take it but I'm pissed about it and I don't give a shit who knows it.

By *not* purchasing insurance you are placing the costs of the risk that you may need significant medical attention on society rather than on yourself. As such, you are externalizing the risk of injury and the medical costs associated and "assfucking" your neighbors in your haste to accumulate wealth.

Really?

[PapayaSF]

This goes far beyond the third party doctrine, effectively prosecuting someone and depriving them of the ability to defend themselves by declaring that they have no standing to refute the evidence used against them.

IANAL, but this statement seems overheated and inaccurate. Of course the defendant can "defend themselves" and "refute the evidence used against them": they can claim they didn't make those phone calls, for instance. What this case seems to say is that they can't simply have the evidence thrown out. That seems like a critical distinction.

Re:Really?

[ebno-10db]

The argument makes sense to me. AFAIK a defendant has the right to know specifically how the evidence against him was collected, and to be given any potentially exculpatory evidence. If you want to claim "national security", then you can't prosecute.

Re:Really?

[PapayaSF]

A little more background, courtesy of the Daily Mail. The Slashdot summary is a bit vague, referring to "donating a small sum of money to an organization that the federal government considered terrorist in nature." Apparently Mr. Moalin once missed a telephone call from "Aden Hashi Ayrow, the senior al Shabaab leader," which makes it likely that a little more was going on than merely the donation of "a small sum of money." You may recall al Shabaab as the group behind the recent slaughter at the Westgate Mall in Nairobi. So to say "an organization that the federal government considered terrorist in nature" is to omit some rather important background. By any rational definition, al Shabaab is certainly a terror group.

Re:Really?

[Jason Levine]

One of the big corner stones of the criminal justice system is that both parties have equal access to the evidence and witnesses. If you were charged with murder, the prosecution couldn't have a surprise witness appear, give testimony, and then leave without your lawyer having the ability to cross-examine. If the prosecution has a potential witness, they need to disclose this to the defendant's lawyers ahead of time so that the defense can prepare.

What the government is essentially saying with this is "we can present 'a witness' (the phone records) but won't allow the opposing side to 'cross-examine' said evidence to cast any doubt that it isn't true." So the jury will be left with the government's side ("these phone records show he's guilty") and the defense's side (shrugs). Who do you think they'd go with?

Even worse, the article states that the government looked into the defendant's actions again and concluded he had no link to terrorism. This was done before his trial and was kept from the defense. Going back to the murder analogy, this would be like the police finding a gun with prints on the scene, realizing the prints were NOT the defendant's, and then hiding said gun so that the defense couldn't use it to acquit. Actions like this undermine our criminal justice system.

Re:Really?

[PapayaSF]

Look, I'm not cheerleading for the NSA, or defending their dragnet surveillance, which I consider a "general warrant" and thus a violation of the 4th Amendment. I'm just saying that in this case, it looks like they got someone who did a bit more than donate a little money to a questionable organization. When the head of a major terrorist organization calls somebody in San Diego on the phone, that's a pretty big red flag. Noticing that a foreign terrorist leader is calling someone in the USA is exactly what the NSA is supposed to be doing. Did the government do something underhanded to convict Mr. Moalin? It's unclear. It's very possible that this is another Al Capone situation: they couldn't get Capone for the major crimes they knew he had committed, so they got him for tax evasion. (Capone's official story was that he made his money in the second-hand furniture business.) In the Moalin case, it does look like they convicted someone who deserved it.

Re:Really?

[ebno-10db]

You may recall al Shabaab as the group behind the recent slaughter at the Westgate Mall in Nairobi.

As terrible as that was, I wish I could say that qualified as a major slaughter in Africa. Are you aware of what's happened in, for example, the Congo in recent years? The Second Congo War was the bloodiest war since WWII, and most Americans have never even heard of it. I don't know if the US should have gotten involved to stop it, but it didn't. Now we're sanctimonious about a mall shooting? That's called a political agenda, not a concern for human life.

Re:Really?

[the eric conspiracy]

> What the government is essentially saying with this is "we can present 'a witness' (the phone records) but won't allow the opposing side to 'cross-examine' said evidence to cast any doubt that it isn't true."

Not true at all. The defense certainly can challenge the accuracy of the evidence. What they don't have is standing to challenge the government supoena of the evidence. Basically once you disclose the evidence to a third party you lose any right to claim privacy on something unless there is some kind of privilege, such as doctor patient in force.

It's actually horrifying that Slashdot is getting so wrought up over this. It's old law, i.e. United States v. Miller (1976).

Now some people have proposed that this be updated for more modern times. Something that's worth discussing. But the idea this is new is poppycock.

Re:Really?

[ebno-10db]

It's not sanctimony to be upset about it

It's sanctimonious and hypocritical to pretend it's a matter of great concern, when you've spent decades ignoring the deaths of millions. It fits a political agenda, because it suits the US to declare the perpetrators terrorists. Many times that many people were tortured, killed and dismembered every single day of the Congo Wars.

POLICE STATE AMERICA

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Not just a provocative Slashdot Discussion Title... But the horrible inevitability you live in today.

Re:POLICE STATE AMERICA

[Aighearach]

It is, or will be, both, in this case. This is nothing new, even if it is pushed as "news." The way it works, if a company has records about you, those records do not belong to you. And if they are being searched, the search warrant deals with who owns the records. So a defendant can oppose admitting something as evidence, but they cannot challenge the search warrant, because it is not their record; it is a record about them. It is the phone company that has standing to challenge the search warrant itself.

I don't see why people keep making a fuss about this part, the details seem pretty clear, easy, and correct to me. I'm against the broad warrants, but I don't see why having an opinion one way or the other about if the practice should be allowed should change the factual analysis of who has legal standing to challenge it in court.

And even if he had standing, this isn't the sort of thing that would give him a new trial. Even if he had standing, and even if that warrant was improper, it doesn't bring his guilt into question. It would not, for example, get rid of the bank records of his financial transactions with terrorists.

Re:POLICE STATE AMERICA

[tftp]

It would not, for example, get rid of the bank records of his financial transactions with terrorists.

Charities and other money-collecting entities are put on the list of terrorist groups all the time. Who can tell if some charity is on that list? Who will check? How close the match has to be? What if you send money on Jan. 01, and the group is declared terrorist on Jan. 05? Or a year later?

The safest mode of operation is to not send money to anyone.

Re:POLICE STATE AMERICA

[Anonymous Coward]

We NEED to be allowed to challenge stuff like that in court. If you cannot challenge evidence being used against you just because it does not explicitly belong to you, the road this opens is quite fatal. Anyone can use anything against you so long as it's not yours and you're not allowed to fight back? That means you can't even get false evidence dismissed, let alone get a mistrial out of it. That stuff is now 'real', and uncontested.

Now when the king accuses you of treason, you either say yes, or you are now guilty of treason for having called the king a liar.
And there go all your rights.

Re:POLICE STATE AMERICA

[girlintraining]

don't see why people keep making a fuss about this part,

They're making a fuss about it because companies don't give a flying fuck through a rolling doughnut about your civil rights, or anyone else's. They're only too happy to cooperate with the government, or anyone else with money. These records contain more personal information than would often be obtained if I ransacked your house. And having a phone, internet, etc., is essential for surviving in today's society. It isn't optional if you want a job, friends, or anything other than living in the woods. Corporations track everything about you; Bank records, cell phone records, medical records -- everything you do has a record of it kept by a corporation, somewhere.

It's an attempt to deprive someone of their rights against unreasonable search and seizure by simply asking somebody else to do it. And by attempt, I mean they already did it. And by already did it, I mean they've been doing this since the 1960s; but improvements in technology now mean they can do this globally, against everyone, for next to nothing. It's like the argument about how sharing music, etc., was legal... until advances in technology made it trivially easy, and suddenly, we had to throw people in jail for decades at a go and fine them hundreds of millions of dollars for doing the exact same thing, except they were doing it faster, and better, now.

Now personally, I don't care that the government wants to collect 'all the things', but they need probable cause to search all the things. In other words, collect everyone's cell phone records if you want, but you need a reason to look at them that passes constitutional muster. Because if we allow this to stand, then everyone will be a criminal in some fashion, and the government can, via selective enforcement, get rid of anyone they want.

The fact is, the laws are so complex that even our own government can't keep track of them all. If you let them gather evidence on everyone in bulk, you've created a system of efficiently removing political adversaries under the guise of the justice system. It all but destroys the democratic process.

THAT, is why people keep making a fuss; They can't create eloquent arguments to explain this, but it doesn't mean their fears are any less justified!

Re:POLICE STATE AMERICA

[hot soldering iron]

An improper warrant results in dismissal of the evidence it produces. It's called "fruit of the poisoned tree". I'm not a lawyer, but our lawyer used it in court once to keep my brother out. When police raid a house without a warrant, everyone walks. When police get evidence without a proper warrant, it is removed with prejudice. A proper warrant is a vital requirement for the collection of evidence.

This is basically accepting someone else's word, their records about you, as evidence. It is now legally acceptable for the government to enter "hearsay" as evidence against you. You aren't even allowed to challenge it, like you can any other evidence. It basically boils down to, "You're guilty because we say you are. Now take it like a bitch!"

Re:POLICE STATE AMERICA

[dizzy8578]

Gen. Michael Hayden refused to answer question about spying on political enemies at National Press Club. At a public appearance, Bush's pointman in the Office of National Intelligence was asked if the NSA was wiretapping Bush's political enemies. When Hayden dodged the question, the questioner repeated, "No, I asked, are you targeting us and people who politically oppose the Bush government, the Bush administration? Not a fishing net, but are you targeting specifically political opponents of the Bush administration?" Hayden looked at the questioner, and after a silence called on a different questioner. (Hayden National Press Club remarks, 1/23/06)

---
Landay: "...the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution specifies that you must have probable cause to violate an American's right against unreasonable searches and seizures..."

Gen. Hayden: "No, actually - the Fourth Amendment actually protects all of us against unreasonable search and seizure."

Landay: "But the --"

Gen. Hayden: "That's what it says."

Landay: "The legal measure is probable cause, it says."

Gen. Hayden: "The Amendment says: unreasonable search and seizure."

Landay: "But does it not say 'probable cause'?"

Gen. Hayden [exasperated, scowling]: "No! The Amendment says unreasonable search and seizure."

Landay: "The legal standard is probable cause, General -- "

Gen. Hayden [indignant]: "Just to be very clear ... mmkay... and believe me, if there's any Amendment to the Constitution that employees of the National Security Agency are familiar with, it's the Fourth. Alright? And it is a reasonableness standard in the Fourth Amendment. The constitutional standard is 'reasonable'" ( h/t Dale)
-- Knight-Ridder's Jonathan Landay questioned Gen. Michael Hayden at the National Press Club in January.

>> from my archive.

and the amendment in question.
---

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

---

" Statutes authorizing unreasonable searches were the core concern of the framers of the 4th Amendment."

    "It is a measure of the framers' fear that a passing majority might find it expedient to compromise 4th Amendment values that these values were embodied in the Constitution itself."

    --- Justice Sandra Day O'Conner, the first woman on the Supreme Court of the United States of America. 1981-2005 (resigned)
---

Re:POLICE STATE AMERICA

[girlintraining]

Hypothetical: The police need a warrant to search your house, but it's OK to have 24/7 surveillance of the inside of your house because you purchased a Kinect, and Microsoft decided to send the stream to the authorities. Why would anyone be upset over that?

How did you miss the point here? This isn't about technology, this is about due process, it's about human rights, it's about the balance of power between the government and its citizens, and it is most importantly about answering whether a democracy can survive with this level of intrusion into people's personal lives by the government.

It is said that you defend democracy with four boxes; The soap box, the ballot box, the jury box, and the ammo box. You are to use them in that order. The soap box I think we can say has safely failed. The ballot box has become useless -- every candidate you can choose is going to support this as a pre-condition to his political career. This is the jury box now.

This isn't a technology problem. This is a social problem. And it's one that's rapidly running out of peaceful solutions. :( Is this case going to trigger a civil war? No. But the large number of cases like it paint a pattern -- and it's that pattern that everyone is worried about.

Things that nobody is worried about: The three guys who actually bought the new XBone.

Re:POLICE STATE AMERICA

[Fjandr]

There are now decisions on record allowing the use of tainted evidence so long as the police obtained it by "accidentally" violating procedural rules.

Now it's only thrown out if the defendant can prove the police violated due process intentionally, which is a much higher bar for getting evidence thrown out. Of course, with the process above, you may not even be able to see the evidence, let alone contest it.

Re:POLICE STATE AMERICA

[Spamalope]

Legally, there are categories of searches that don't require a warrant.

The plain language 'Secure against ... unreasonable searches ... no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause' is that a reasonable search requires a warrant. Period. There is not an exception in the Constitution anywhere. They've been invented by people who find the protections embodied in the Constitution inconvenient.

The framers of the Constitution were not distant figures we don't know much about. We have the minutes of the meeting and letters they wrote arguing over the wording of the Constitution. In this case, they thought that saying that (paraphrasing) "any power the federal government wishes that isn't listed here they cannot have" was quite clear and that those who choose to ignore that will do so no matter what words they write. They wrote that it's our duty to stop those people. Some of the other rights are there specifically to empower us to do so. (now discuss why -those- are under attack too)

Re:POLICE STATE AMERICA

[Applekid]

This case is the test. They threw the book at a guy obviously donating to a terrorist organization pretending to be something it isn't. Prosecutors are building a weapon for future use. This is also why it's focused at an individual, the lots and lots of the others are being ignored so they can slam-dunk this case and make it the example.

In a few years from now, suppose you decide to donate to what is obviously not a terrorist organization, but runs contrary to the goals of the government (an ACLU, an EFF, a Wikileaks, any number of organizations). This weaponized test case can help support throwing the book at you, too.

They begin to show their true colors...

[gweihir]

Obviously they _want_ a police and surveillance state where everybody is a perpetrator and everybody needs to be constantly afraid and keep their mouth shut. The steps to come are extreme behavioral regulations, an one-party system, removal of most personal freedoms, death camps for anybody undesirable etc. Just look a bit at history (Germany, USSR under Stalin,...), or at what North Korea is doing to see where the US will be in 20 years or so if this is not stopped _now_.

Re:They begin to show their true colors...

[AHuxley]

One generation sees "something" and all the rights get weakened to the point of been useless. Color of law, giving more weight to the domestic surveillance findings, a NSL, our allies use the same methods, they where going to protest without the city paperwork and telling the police first.
Now the legal rights after arrest are been hurriedly closed off.
No basic rights to protest, no basic rights during the investigation and interrogation, no legal secrecy standing before the court, no public trial with fully presented evidence, make a fuss and other medical options become available.

Re:Speech

[ebno-10db]

If money is speech as is precedent in the U.S, why is his donation to a terrorist group not protected under the first amendment?

Touché.

Point of order. He isn't refuting the evidence

[DaveV1.0]

He is not claiming the evidence is wrong, which is a refutation. He is claiming the evidence was collected illegally, which would allow the court to exclude the evidence. The government is claiming that he doesn't have standing to claim the collection was illegal, only the company the data was collected from can do so because the data doesn't belong to him but rather to the company.

Poisonous tree

[gd2shoe]

We know (now) how the evidence was collected. We also know that most of it was collected without probable cause. The issue isn't the method of collection, but the justification for it. This isn't exculpatory evidence that they're withholding; it's evidence that they're using, but was obtained through improper means.

This is the "fruit of the poisonous tree" argument. It doesn't matter if it's true or not; evidence illegally collected by the government can't be used in court because of the "slippery slope" precedence that it sets.

Re:Poisonous tree

[Jason Levine]

The issue isn't the method of collection, but the justification for it. This isn't exculpatory evidence that they're withholding; it's evidence that they're using, but was obtained through improper means.

Actually, it's both. From the article:

FBI Deputy Director Sean Joyce recently revealed to Congress that the FBI had also conducted another investigation into Moalin's activities in 2003 and ultimately concluded that there was “no nexus to terrorism.” This evidence was kept from the defense during trial.

So not only didn't they collect evidence wrongfully, but the evidence they collected showed that he was innocent and they hid this from the defense. This isn't just slippery slope, this is greasing the slope and then shoving the American people down it!

Re:Poisonous tree

[dcollins]

Well, we now know that the NSA has been secretly and illegally handing off intelligence to other agencies (SOD, DEA, IRS, etc.) for years, telling them to cover it up for court cases via a process called "parallel construction". So it would be completely within their established modus operandi.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/05/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE97409R20130805

Re:Poisonous tree

[Rich0]

We know (now) how the evidence was collected. We also know that most of it was collected without probable cause. The issue isn't the method of collection, but the justification for it.

Actually, the method is also important. If the government claims they intercepted an email sent by the defendant, how does a jury know whether he actually sent that email if the defense can't subject the government's methods to scrutiny. For all they know the government mixed up the email addresses/etc.

You can't just present evidence against somebody in court without defending the methods under which the evidence was collected.

Re:Abuse of our legal system, plain and simple

[ebno-10db]

This guy knew straight-up he was funding terrorist activities

I don't give a damn. I could care less if he's as guilty as sin. The Constitution is more important than catching some two-bit financial contributor to an organization the US government has labelled terrorist. You want the terrorists to win? Just keep wiping your ass with the Constitution. Then the terrorists win by getting us to abandon what's been the organic law of this country for over two centuries, and which every school child in this country is taught the importance of (apparently many people didn't pay attention in class).

As insulting as it is that we have to entertain this "appeal"

We won't know if it's being seriously entertained until he's granted a new trial, and the court takes his case seriously.

And what's insulting about it? I'll posit that he's guilty. It's still a defense attorney's obligation to try to get his client off. It wouldn't be the first time that evidence was tossed out because of a Constitutional violation. It's more important to defend the Constitution than it is to not let one or two criminals off.

Read up on the case, it's enlightening

What better source to get unbiased information than the FBI. Even believing everything the FBI says, this case is penny ante. Why not give them the same strict punishment that HSBC got for knowingly laundering billions of dollars over a period of years for terrorist organizations? I'd worry a lot more about that than a contribution that most people could put on their credit card.

Is this important?

[Okian Warrior]

Apparently Mr. Moalin once missed a telephone call from "Aden Hashi Ayrow, the senior al Shabaab leader," which makes it likely that a little more was going on than merely the donation of "a small sum of money."

Is this important?

He's claiming not that the evidence is wrong, he's claiming that it was collected illegally.

It's often been said that the defense of freedom is the defense of scoundrels (H. L. Mencken). We believe that a kiddie porn merchant has the right to a fair trial, the KKK has the right to assemble, and Rosa Parks has the right to sit in the front of the bus.

Should we base the legitimacy of rights and freedoms on the character of the accused party?

Re:Is this important?

[Hydian]

First, terrorism is not war. It is crime. War is something that occurs between nations. Terrorism has only been treated as an act of war since 9/11 because doing so allows the government to do things that they couldn't otherwise do and it helps to keep the sheep scared enough to not look too closely. If this didn't happen and we treated it like crime (as it should be and always had been in the past) then we would probably be safer than we are now and still have the rights that have been taken away from us for this illusion of security.

Second, unless my reading comprehension has gone to crap, the 4th amendment doesn't say anything about foreigners. Nor does it apply differently to citizens and non-citizens. This is because just like with all of the Bill of Rights, it is not granting rights to anybody, but limiting how the government may infringe upon those rights. Rights being something inherent in being human and not something that can be granted to you, your citizenship does not play a factor into whether or not you have them. And since the articles in the Bill of Rights do not specify citizenship, the government is equally restricted no matter who the person is (not that it stops them).

As for the immediate question...it does matter how the evidence was collected whether the man is guilty of what he is accused of or not. Those protections are there for a reason and everybody benefits from them even if it means that a bad guy gets away once in a while. The alternative is for the system to be tilted even further in the direction where innocent people get accused and convicted of things they did not do. It already happens too often.

Overused comparison but ...

[speedlaw]

Germany, 1930's was a state with rule of law. Bit by bit it was dismantled. We know the end result, but the end result was due to very deliberate chipping away at the underlying laws and through "correct" Judge selection. Really, now that the political class KNOWS that NSA and others are reading all of THEIR mail, who will challenge them ? None of them, and if they play nice, they might get a "tidbit" about their adversary. Osama Bin Laden succeeded beyond his wildest dreams, even if he is dead.

Re:Speech

[ub3r n3u7r4l1st]

The list of banned organizations are not public. The Electronic Frontier Foundation could be considered a "terrorist organization" under a secret NSA list. Once you donated to that organization and later the government declares that organization is considered "Terrorist organization" it is too late. It is now for you to sell all your belongings to get a good lawyer just to stay out of jail.

Government shutdown, debt default

[ulatekh]

When the government chooses to conduct its affairs with such ruthless disregard for its citizens, I'm glad it's shut down, and I hope it defaults on its debt. Nothing else is going to stop these abuses.

Apparently, the percentage of people that advocate a debt default is up to 10 to 20 percent. That's a lot of support for something widely perceived as drastic and destructive.