Slashdot Mirror
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".