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US Appeals Court Says NSA Phone Surveillance Is Not Authorized By Congress
New submitter IronOxen writes: A panel of three federal judges for the second circuit overturned an earlier ruling. The court has ruled that the bulk collection of telephone metadata is unlawful, in a landmark decision that clears the way for a full legal challenge against the National Security Agency: "'We hold that the text of section 215 cannot bear the weight the government asks us to assign to it, and that it does not authorize the telephone metadata program,' concluded their judgement." That's not exactly saying that such bulk collection is unconscionable or per se unconstitutional, but it's a major step toward respecting privacy as a default.
We have indeed tasked loyal people with a job. You misunderstand that job. The job is to keep us as safe as possible within the restrictions on methods that liberty requires.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
It means that they personally are at fault, rather than that Congress overstepped it's authority.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Amendment IV
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.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
Just because it's illegal or not authorized doesn't mean that they will stop. They'll simply continue and do their best to keep it hush hush
Senator Rand Paul, a Republican presidential candidate who has made opposition to overbroad surveillance central to his platform, tweeted: “The phone records of law abiding citizens are none of the NSA’s business! Pleased with the ruling this morning.”
How fast would his attitude towards surveillance change if were elected president?
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
When that next truck bomb detonates at a sporting event or mall, or when that next muslim fan goes on an indiscriminate killing spree through a church, know in your heart that you have allowed that to happen.
I'll enjoy my freedom, thankyouverymuch, even if it does come with an 0.001% chance of dying by terrorist.
The terrorists did less damage to our way of life than this kind of government spying on its own citizens.
know in your heart that you have allowed that to happen.
Show me some data showing this surveillance has worked and I might agree with you.
Other wise, if you give an ape a gun sooner or later someone gets shot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
The reason there are people who want to use asymmetric warfare (terrorism) is because they are outmatched. We, the USA, were the ones who threw the first punch with our occupation of Muslim countries. We can rationalize it all we want that we are fighting for "freedom", helping the oppressed or whatever the delusional shit we tell ourselves for our ridiculous foreign policy. It's all lies. We are occupying other countries and their people do NOT like it. what is so hard to understand?!
If we were TRULY fighting for those things, then we must invade Saudi Arabia, Israel, N.Korea, China, Somalia, etc ......
And if we were fighting for freedom, then why did we oust Saddam from Kuwait and reinstate a monarchy? That makes no sense.
The US' foreign policies are hypocritical and the rest of thee World knows it and sees it. Unfortunately, we Americans have been brainwashed by our propaganda - corporate for profit propaganda - because it's what we want to hear. When the fact is we're two faced bullies.
It would be nice, but don't count on it. The political machine is very angry at him and wants him made an example of.
Except there's no proof that these tools are actually effective, and there are plenty of arguments made by experts that they cannot possibly be effective (too many false positives ties up scarce investigative resources). So I reject your whole premise.
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
It didn't stop the Boston bombing, and the government knew the perpetrators, and the same with the attempted attack the other day in Texas. Too much data is just as bad, or worse, than not enough. Hindsight is always 20/20, and in almost every attack we find that the intel was there to stop it, but wasn't acted upon. So, we're just as screwed with it as without it.
Lets see how well did the spy on everyone program work when two "nice" muslim guys from Phoenix, one of which was already being watched for terrorist ties, drove to Dallas and attempted to shoot up the event that offended them. If our government can't stop terrorists they know are terrorists through all the domestic spying why do some think they are safer by having the government spy on them?
The terrorists did less damage to our way of life than this kind of government spying on its own citizens.
Yup. Terrorism between 1970-2007: 1 in 3,500,00 chance of being killed by a terrorist. In 2007 alone you had a 1 in 22,000 chance of being murdered in the US.
Someone mod this up.
First time I've seen anyone asking the obvious question: if the guy was being watched by the FBI for the last N years, how did he ever get close enough to the event to start shooting it up? Could have turned out a lot worse.
How many of our taxpayer dollars were wasted watching this guy to no useful end? How many are spent on even more useless activities?
I disagree. They are not tasked with keeping us safe; they are tasked with safeguarding our liberties.
.... keeping in mind that what liberty requires in regard to restrictions may be different than what the mob believes.
I would argue that infringing on the privacy of the people to keep them (questionably) safe(r) is just exchanging one loss of liberty for another.
How about we disregard what EVERYONE thinks and go by what the law says. How's that 4th amendment go again?
You're missing the point... The mass surveillance makes it harder to keep track of actual threats and if the FBI did not spend all their time training fake terrorist to create fake victories they could start looking at real terrorist.
yes but how does the war machine make money off of that?
Seriously, the worst part is that it's doesn't achieve it's stated objectives.
Intel gathered in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan and some other rogue states like Bahrain, yields actionable intel.
Intel gathered in the US has somewhere around 99 percent false leads that hide the 1 percent we would have found if we only used the above intel instead, and then used specific warrant leads.
That to me is the take home from this Illegal and Unconstitutional NSA data collection program.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --