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White House Asks FISA Court To Ignore 2nd Circuit's Decision On Bulk Surveillance

Posted by Soulskill on from the putting-wrong-what-once-went-right dept.

schwit1 sends news that the Obama Administration has made a legal request to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court to ignore a ruling from the Second Circuit Court of Appeals making bulk surveillance illegal. The government says it's doing so to create an "orderly transition" between now and the beginning of USA Freedom Act provisions in six months. Their legal argument is that the Circuit Court's rulings are only binding for lower courts — the FISA court is secretive and separated from the normal legal process, so it doesn't necessarily fit in the normal court hierarchy.

ACLU deputy legal director Jameel Jaffer said, "While the FISA court isn’t formally bound by the second circuit’s ruling, it will certainly have to grapple with the second circuit’s interpretation of the ‘relevance’ requirement. The [court] will also have to consider whether Congress effectively adopted the second circuit’s interpretation of the relevance requirement when it passed the USA Freedom Act." The issue is further complicated because the Circuit Court did not actually issue an injunction against bulk surveillance, deferring instead to the congressional debate already underway about the Patriot Act and USA Freedom Act.

11 of 165 comments (clear)

  1. To all you Obama supporters by DoofusOfDeath · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Go Fuck. Yourselves.

    1. Re:To all you Obama supporters by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Oh, was a magical third Bush term going to make this any better? Or a McCain or Romney administration? Why don't you address the actual problem instead of a symptom: our entire federal political machine. It only makes you look like a child when you just blame individuals in a system so hopelessly corrupt that the only presidential candidates presented in a general election anymore are already sold to the highest donors.

      Disclosure: I think Obama has been a massive failure.

    2. Re:To all you Obama supporters by Grog6 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It seems we already are; with no reach-around...

      He ran on the proviso that all the illegal BS we were doing would be shut down. (as well as the billion-dollar-a-day wars we were fighting...)

      Instead, it's way beyond what was left to him by Bush.

      Now he's Asking a Secret Court to allow the Government to Break a Lawful Ruling that basically Affirmed that the Program was Unconstitutional.

      WTF?

      --
      Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
    3. Re:To all you Obama supporters by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Oh, was a magical third Bush term going to make this any better? Or a McCain or Romney administration?

      Considering that R-Money recognized the difference between a state-run healthcare law and a federal-run healthcare law as a constitutional issue, I think he would have done much better in respecting the balance of power, rather than Barrack "Fuck the Constitution, Fuck the legislature, Fuck the courts, I'm in charge here, eat my shit in the form of Executive Orders" Obama.

    4. Re:To all you Obama supporters by ckatko · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Dude, you realize half the people that voted for Obama did so to keep Sarah Palin out of office? What alternative did you think we had? A race between Obama VS a clone of George Washington, and we chose Obama because he's black?

    5. Re:To all you Obama supporters by sycodon · · Score: 1, Insightful

      I guess you haven't been paying fucking attention

      God Damned Face Painting Homer.

      --
      When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
  2. How can these judge assholes accept this? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    How can a judge accept the president asking him to ignore the law?
    Why isn't this guy in prison yet?

  3. Just because a lawyer asks you to do something by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Doesn't mean it's right.

    Or legal.

    --
    -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
  4. Re:Technically, they are correct. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Genuinely curious here, what place do secret courts operated by secret police and underground judges have in a free, democratic society? Why are the Schutzstaffel enforcing secret laws in the "Land of the Free" and who gave them the right to trump everyone else's rights?

  5. Re:Bend the Constitution for a while, please? by Livius · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Is it really as dire as a civil war?

    The 1% are trying to reduce the 99% to serfs. And succeeding.

    What would you call it?

  6. Re:Bend the Constitution for a while, please? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Enslavement.

    It's only a civil war once the slaves-to-be start fighting back.