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National Security Letter Issuance Likely Headed To Supreme Court

Posted by samzenpus on from the give-us-an-answer dept.

Gunkerty Jeb writes The Ninth Circuit appeals court in San Francisco took oral arguments from the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Department of Justice yesterday over the constitutionality of National Security Letters and the gag orders associated with them. The EFF defended a lower court's ruling that NSLs are unconstitutional, while the DoJ defended a separate ruling that NSLs can be enforced. Whatever the court rules, the issue of NSLs is all but certainly headed for the Supreme Court in the not too distant future.

1 of 112 comments (clear)

  1. Re:DOJ Oaths by AHuxley · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It really depends on the quality of parallel construction needed and what has to be presented in an open US court.
    "Feds reviewing DEA policy of counterfeiting Facebook profiles" (Oct 9 2014)
    http://arstechnica.com/tech-po...
    "Twitter says gag on surveillance scope is illegal “prior restraint”" (Oct 8 2014)
    http://arstechnica.com/tech-po...
    US says it can hack into foreign-based servers without warrants (Oct 8 2014)
    http://arstechnica.com/tech-po...
    It seems the NSL aspect is just one aspect a very complex, hidden way of getting and using data for later use in the US legal system.
    In the past other surveillance programs like FAIRVIEW, OAKSTAR, RAMPART-A and WINDSTOP could bring in the data locally, globally via friendly nations and tame trusted big brands.
    The NSL seems to just fit in between a global sorting and direct use in the US legal system.
    It really depends how this plays out. Will the classic GCHQ view of not going to court so people feel like nothing telco related is going on?
    Or the new US idea that surveillance is now of such a global reach and low cost that US courts can know and and will have to just understand "collect it all"?
    The keys to a server and all users over time are now in play even if its just for legally finding one user for one case.
    Once your servers are part of a case, who can legally say that case has stopped? Weeks, months, years of no crypto and all logs. All very legal now? Soon?

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"