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When FISA Court Rejects a Surveillance Request, the FBI Issues a NSL Instead
An anonymous reader writes We've talked quite a bit about National Security Letters (NSLs) and how the FBI/DOJ regularly abused them to get just about any information the government wanted with no oversight. As a form of an administrative subpoena -- with a built in gag-order -- NSLs are a great tool for the government to abuse the 4th Amendment. Recipients can't talk about them, and no court has to review/approve them. Yet they certainly look scary to most recipients who don't dare fight an NSL. That's part of the reason why at least one court found them unconstitutional. At the same time, we've also been talking plenty about Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act, which allows the DOJ/FBI (often working for the NSA) to go to the FISA Court and get rubberstamped court orders demanding certain 'business records.' As Ed Snowden revealed, these records requests can be as broad as basically 'all details on all calls.' But, since the FISA Court reviewed it, people insist it's legal. And, of course, the FISA Court has the reputation as a rubberstamp for a reason — it almost never turns down a request. However, in the rare instances where it does, apparently, the DOJ doesn't really care, knowing that it can just issue an NSL instead and get the same information. At least that appears to be what the DOJ quietly admitted to doing in a now declassified Inspector General's report from 2008."
It's good we elected Obama who has made sure to bring us "Hope and Change". It's good to know we elected someone who has limited and stopped all the abuses from the Bush era. Just imagine if he had just lied to us and instead simple extended and expanded these abuses of his predecessors. Hopefully we will get a constitutional amendment passed so we can vote our Glorious Leader in for a third term.
Obama alone can't turn the entire government of the United States of America rogue
He has a lot of help from the inside --- people whose sole aim is to turn America into a police state
The bad news is, the government of the United States of America is out of control
The worse news is, we have NO ONE to reign in the government of the United States of America
And that is not enough, the ABSOLUTELY WORST NEWS is, too many of the American citizens have turned into sheeples, and never care how their government functions nor how bad it has turned into
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
I can't believe any FISA request was ever turned down. Basically, I thought the purpose of the FISA act was to suspend the constitution. What went wrong?
We have to throw all of them out. All of them. And repeat until they do what they should.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Pffft, hahahaha. You're better off with The Enquirer than those two. They're more likely to report you to the FBI than report on the NSL.
If you actually want to get coverage, try the likes of The Guardian. I recommend a massive shotgun approach instead if you want more protection; scan the letter, send a copy to as many "news" organizations as possible, and post it everywhere you can on the internet. WikiLeaks, 4chan, reddit, Fark, FurAffinity, Youtube, Redtube, Daily Kos, HuffPo, make your own website, create an entry on Wikipedia, put a torrent/magnet on as many of those sites as possible, etc. Make it so easy to get that no amount of takedown orders can scrub it from the internet. Put copies in every mailbox in the neighborhood, collect those return envelopes from credit card offers and send them copies, leave copies on the seats of buses, movie theaters, libraries, hand copies to the FBI agents/police who show up to arrest you. Encourage others on the internet to do the same. Attach as much information about yourself and the event surrounding the NSL as possible. If the NSL doesn't include your physical address, put that up there as well; the FBI will be more hesitant to act if they think a bunch of local dissatisfied citizens might be hanging around your place with cell cams.
Before you pull the trigger give the original NSL to someone you trust and have them keep it somewhere safe, to be offered up if any of those news places actually want to verify it.
This won't keep you from getting arrested, but it will make a lot of people inquire as to your well-being and where you are in the justice system; depending on the reasons for the NSL, various groups might take up the cause to get you your freedom.
I think that the problem is far worse then people not knowing or caring. It seems like the overwhelming majority are strict authoritarians who almost demand that the government is involved in everyone else's life every waking second.
The 'I have nothing to hide' crowd are the most unamerican, morally bankrupt, cowardly scumbags on earth, and they vastly outnumber the rest.
Put it to you this way; if a thousand teenagers can rush and overwhelm a mall, then the NSA isn't all powerful.
Did you seriously just try to use the existence of flash mobs as an argument that the NSA surveillance state is inept?
I don't even...