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Surveillance Court: NSA Can Resume Bulk Surveillance
An anonymous reader writes: We all celebrated back in May when a federal court ruled the NSA's phone surveillance illegal, and again at the beginning of June, when the Patriot Act expired, ending authorization for that surveillance. Unfortunately, the NY Times now reports on a ruling from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which concluded that the NSA may temporarily resume bulk collection of metadata about U.S. citizens's phone calls. From the article: "In a 26-page opinion (PDF) made public on Tuesday, Judge Michael W. Mosman of the surveillance court rejected the challenge by FreedomWorks, which was represented by a former Virginia attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli, a Republican. And Judge Mosman said that the Second Circuit was wrong, too. 'Second Circuit rulings are not binding' on the surveillance court, he wrote, 'and this court respectfully disagrees with that court's analysis, especially in view of the intervening enactment of the U.S.A. Freedom Act.' When the Second Circuit issued its ruling that the program was illegal, it did not issue any injunction ordering the program halted, saying that it would be prudent to see what Congress did as Section 215 neared its June 1 expiration."
Unfortunately, I am too poor to make the trip to Washington D.C. to help replace the government. I am also unarmed. My vote is weightless, as it cannot fall on either side of the fence given. I hear so much grumbling in the wind. I have heard it since the '70s. 40+ years later, NOTHING. Riots where people destroy their own neighborhoods is not what I want to sign up for. Seems if say, like 60,000,000 of us show up in Washington D.C. then maybe we can rip out the old fence and put up a new one with sides that mean something. Slavery is alive and well in the USA. We are slaves to our own greed. And selfishness. And fear. And hate. And Government. And the Government Minded. But I believe these are treasonous words in this police state, and I fear I may end up in Gitmo. SO... I retract all that was previously stated and label this for "entertainment purposes only".
"One Court to Rule them ALL?"
And here we were thinking the Supreme Court was maybe throwing a bit too much weight around making laws up.
I guess SCOTUS is just not secret enough, and FISA is.....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
The straw was back in elementary school when I learned that Christopher Columbus discovered America......with people on it. Then the second straw was The War on Drugs with a soon to follow third straw, which was the PMRC. As I got older I learned that there was a whole fucking hayfield of straw. -- One nation under God. Please change that. Not really interested in getting Sodomized by the Lord. If He decides to come back from his fishing trip and sees this shitty country acting like drunk whores, then that is exactly what we deserve. -- Warm beer fucking sucks ass.
Surely it wouldn't be beyond the collective wit of the internet to set up a parallel surveillance system targeting judges, politicians and others involved in dismantling these freedoms. After a couple of months of having their every private movement made public I suspect they'd change their outlook.
Quite a while back I posted a comment suggesting a smartphone application that allows people to take a snapshot of a government official/bureaucrat/judge/LEO/agent as well as officials/employees of NSA/NRO/CIA/etc private contractors and upload it and location/time and other relevant data to a website in a non-5-eyes nation where facial recognition and data-mining software could analyze it and make that information and analysis publicly available. Track all their travel, associations, purchases, everything possible.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
I doubt there will be outright rebellion at this point, but a lot of lesser rebellions will take place. Even some corporations are deliberately messing with the NSA these days. Respect for federal authorities and police at all levels is falling fast. No armed insurrection or anything, just a bunch of "We destroy all records every 24 hours", "Gee officer, I didn't see anything", "Smile for the camera officers", and "the next version will feature built in encryption".