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Federal Court Overturns Ruling That NSA Metadata Collection Was Illegal
New submitter captnjohnny1618 writes: NPR is reporting that an appeals court has overturned the decision that found the NSA's bulk data collection to be illegal. "Judges for the District of Columbia court of appeals found that the man who brought the case, conservative lawyer Larry Klayman, could not prove that his particular cellphone records had been swept up in NSA dragnets." The article clarifies that due to the recent passage of new laws governing how metadata is collected, this is of less significance than it would have otherwise been: "If you remember, after a fierce battle, both houses of Congress voted in favor of a law that lets phone companies keep that database, but still allows the government to query it for specific data. The three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia still decided to take on the case, because that new program doesn't begin until 180 days after the date that law was enacted (June 2, 2015.)" On top of that, the injunction from the earlier ruling never actually went into effect. Still, it seems like an important ruling to me: a government agency was willfully and directly violating the rights of the Americans (and international citizens as well) and now it's just going to get shrugged off?
Yes!
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
You can't prove that the illegal activity affect you, so it's not illegal?
What the actual fuck?
#nuketheusa
1. Can't prove that you were affected because you can't get the records.
2. Can't get the records because they're either "classified" or they just don't answer FOIA requests
3. Can't get them declassified or revealed because you need to go to court
4. Can't go to court because you don't have evidence you were affected.
5. GOTO 1
Is the problem merely him not being able to prove he has standing? Could be simply get them to admit he does with a FOIA or other action? The NSA would have a conflict of interest giving material to prove that they did or didn't do it. Is there a third party that can sort this out in their place? NIST? Hell, give it to NASA to give them some more money. They need it, and their sysadmins might be bored.
...that Obama can stop this with a simple phone call. And he can make sure it doesn't happen again with a stroke of his E.O. Pen.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
U.S. federal judges, you are fucking cowards with your bullshit deference to executive-branch "privilege". You let the administration use bullshit tactics to pervert justice, and you use that as an excuse to not protect citizens' fundamental, Constitutionally enumerated rights. You demand that citizens prove that which cannot be proven without committing a crime, but let the administration just bleat "executive privilege" or "state secrets" or "it's for the kids", and consider that doing your job.
Assholes.
Isn't the DC Court of Appeals sort of the equivalent of a State Supreme Court, with no jurisdiction outside DC? It get s a little confusing since it's still a federal court due to the nature of the District of Columbia, but I don't think this has any bearing on the 2nd Circuit ruling from a few months ago.
It's unlikely it ever ends up before SCOTUS since it was swept under the rug legislatively, but let's not misunderstand this as a sweeping judicial approval of the program.
This decision is probably going to be appealed to the supreme court now. That will be interesting. Of course the Supreme Court can deny cert, because the issue is/will be moot. However, there is an interesting exception to the moot principle. A ruling on this issue is necessary because the NSA or another three letter agency may repeat this at a later date, and there will be no effective remedy if this issue is not addressed now.
My two cents, but depends on the original party and their lawyer. They probably know this exception, and will want to explore it.
The appellate court explicitly did NOT "overturn" the district court's substantive finding that the program is unconstitutional. This ruling is procedural, and unrelated to the merits of the legal arguments about constitutionality of the NSA program. The court instead found that this particular plaintiff does not have standing to challenge the program in court. It's a very problematic ruling, raises a lot of issues, and in my opinion should be reversed - but it certainly does not overturn the lower court's finding that the program is unconstitutional as a matter of law.
I am a geek attorney, but not your geek attorney unless you've already retained me. This is not legal advice.
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Sounds like good, self-serving logic for the NSA.
If it looks like a duck (quack). If it acts like a duck (quack). You can trust your government, it is not a duck (quack).
Well, it's not 'just' shrugged off -- this is the great US legal system. If a Federal appeals court judge should shrug, it is because s/he shrugs with the shoulders of giants.
Since you couldn't have spoke truer, I'll shoot for a little bit shorter: BOUGHT AND SOLD.
blog
... the industries effected and the public at large assumed nothing less would happen. The Feds generally have an attitude that if they CAN do a thing technically that they can do it legally.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
This ruling is OK, because if the SJWs have taught me anything, it's that evil conservatives don't have rights because of their oppression of Womyn and Minorities*. In fact, as Hillary Clinton (Ackbar!) correctly pointed out yesterday, all conservatives are terrorists because they want to murder all women and are therefore ISIS, except that ISIS is a victim group because white males are the source of all violence everywhere.
Therefore conservatives don't have the right to privacy and they should be spied upon to prevent them from enslaving unsuspecting minorities.
When a technicality of law provides an otherwise guilty individual to walk, that really is justice. Because the very principles of justice are about keeping state power in check.
When the technicalities of law are used to prevent citizens from challenging state power, that is an absolute perversion of the spirit of the principle. That is NOT justice.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
a government agency was willfully and directly violating the rights of the Americans (and international citizens as well) and now it's just going to get shrugged off?
Apparently this person doesn't understand the process of appeals, and why it is important.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Ok, it's "illegal"
Now what? We all know absolutely nothing will come from this.
If you do something illegal, you'll get punished. But when a story like this comes out I can make a prediction. Nobody will ever get punished. We all know this.
If anyone knows how it felt for the general population in communist Russia or other repressive regimes, they all tell the same tale. They all say: "Of course it's bullshit! We're not stupid" In every repressive regime the population say the same because they are not stupid.
What is the difference?
They didn't have those laws.
We have those laws but they ignore them.
I don't know what the difference is between a repressive regime having no laws protecting us or a democracy ignoring basic laws.
Another standing based evasion of the 4th amendment. As long has you have to prove a negative you have personally been the victim of a clandestine program or any government program for that matter the Constitution might as well be toilette paper.
All they have to do is classify the records and its essentially game over.
What we need to do is push for legislation that lowers the bar for legal standing in cases against the government. It should be very low. Once the program is proven to exist it should be open to challenge on the complain it violates any other laws or violates anyone's Constitutional rights. The fact that its supposed to be a government by the people and for the people, means that we the people should have automatic standing anytime the government is violated laws or the Constitution we the people enacted. The grounds should be a failure to lawfully govern, the harm being undermining societies faith in law.
This is the only way we are going make any headway.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Free to be absolutely screwed over by the power elite.
What is this world coming to?
Only the fools think there is "freedom" here in the USA.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
In "American Civil Liberties Union v. National Security Agency" (2007), the United States Court of Appeals held that the plaintiffs did not have standing to bring the suit against the NSA, because they could not present evidence that they were the targets of the so-called "Terrorist Surveillance Program". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Whistleblower says NSA was wiretapping Obama since before he was a senator, so they pretty much have everything on him, or at least enough to let them do whatever the fsck they want.
Yea, thanks for the downmod. But it's just an extreme point of the stupidity. Prosecutors can't act unless they're the victim because they don't have standing. Murder victims can't act because they're not alive to have standing. Theft victims can't act because they like the property in dispute and hence don't have standing. Obviously, it's a procedural rule created by the Judiciary to deal with the nonsensical state if we just presume that standing requires proof of effectively ongoing harm because everything else is just supposition. So, if the courts can grant Judicial review of law, they should sure as fuck grant Judicial review of law that MAY have unconstitutional effect regardless of whether it has, is, or will be enacted.
Just going to go to the Supreme Court now like everything else. Stuff this big has been scaring the appeals courts for years so they just punt to SCOTUS by overturning the lower court's decision. I'll even make a prediction - 5 to 4 in favor of it being legal. Ho hum.
We The People should not let this escalate any further. What should we do next?
Did the investigators describe the place to be searched and the items to be seized? Did they swear to the court providing oath and/or affirmation?
If they can search EVERYTHING, then what stops them from just doing that for anything they want at any time they like?
It's illegal. Court ruling is not withstanding.
Sure it's illegal for the NSA to use it to force the judge to rule that way, but that has never stopped them in the past.
Subvert, destroy, confuse. Supposed to be the enemy, but used against the USA more than our real enemies.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
In other news, it has been found legal to kill people, because the people killed cannot prove who killed them.
It's "legal" because they have decided they (the government as a whole) are immune to any suit brought against them.
You cannot bring them to court because they have decided you do not have standing. You do not have standing because, even though you can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt what they are doing is breaking the law, you cannot prove that you, specifically, are harmed by it. If you're able to obtain evidence that indeed you were targeted and harmed by their wrongdoing, then you still don't have standing because they have decided that evidence is "classified" and therefor cannot be brought up in a court as evidence. Want to bring it to court to try and change any of that? Good luck, you don't have standing. Because they say so. That's why.
When things come to an armed revolution (which it certainly is beginning to look like that will be necessary eventually), they're going to cry they aren't at fault for creating this monster.
So we've exhausted the soap box, the ballot box, and the jury box. Only one box is left.
Given the fairly statist makeup of the supreme court I expect if this gets to them to have a similar ruling logic be damned. I still haven't' figured out logic behind the ACA ruling that first had to find that the penalty/tax was a penalty not a tax, and then in the same ruling, a mere few minutes later, find that it was instead a tax. That sort of incoherent ruling in my book means it is a bad ruling. I do understand the Roberts was the one who ruled differently on each part but he also wrote the majority opinion and yet doesn't seem to have the mental abilities to make a logical well reasoned argument.
Time to offend someone
Sigh, another POS activist judge.
As a non-american (yes we do exist) I find all this very very funny, The Govt has been caught with evidence breaking your laws, yet can't be prosecuted because the info was stolen (never mind that there was no other way to get the information) I have heard all my life about the freedom in the US yet the moment you have to stand up for it, you all run and hide.
What a bunch of cowards.
I read in forums and newspapers about how it's this person's fault and that person's fault, It's your fault unless you say no in force and don't back down it will never stop, until then enjoy what you have created for yourself and your children, for me it has only a little impact and I can quite happily pretend that the US doesn't exist anymore, just like you and your democracy.
the UN gave the USA a failing grade for surveillance abuses, because for one they're not in compliance with human rights or UN rules, and the worst failure was the United States failure to provide victims of surveillance abuse a remedy.
this case is a fine example for why this pussy ass country is shit. they just said to the American people, "you cannot bring a lawsuit for abuse, because the NSA can keep all their actions secret from you, abuse you, and this court will not require them to provide the facts or submit to a weapons/system inspection to determine the facts. therefore, you cannot prove you're a victim specifically to this court, even though whistleblowers and documents prove every single American's data is being bulk collected through fiber taps and agreements with providers."
the courts are protecting the military/executive branch/law enforcement abuse in this country, and denying the victims, the American people remedies.
here's a video that backs it up - every single person is a target and their data is being sucked up and kept, per NSA whistleblower William Binney. And this data is being collected illegally, with no warrants. furthermore a lot of its being done in the black world, not authorized by any laws.
http://www.oregonstatehospital...
http://www.drrobertduncan.com/
here's the UN report card failing the United States. http://www.oregonstatehospital...
Here's a video covering the issue: http://www.oregonstatehospital...
Thanks shitty ass court system of America!
http://www.obamasweapon.com/
Ah, and the runaround continues. So the entire purpose of the program is to hoover up all communications and look for links to terrorists, presumably it would have just forgot about this particular lawyer, but actually "knowing" that your records were collected is impossible since subpoenaing the government agency(ies) in question for records would go absolutely no where because of "national security". Summary, to sue you have to prove standing, and proving standing is impossible since the records are kept by government agencies which operate outside of the law. "Bastion of freedom" indeed.
Now it is up to the people to decide if this is the government they'll accept. It's not just *just* the citizens, but the military, police, and so on which have to make that decision. Unfortunately nobody has done so. Overthrowing a non-democratic government which can't follow its own constitution can't be illegal under the constitution because its not being uphold. Only under a dictatorship can it be illegal.
I can get in trouble." Or not, legally. (Morally is another matter.) After all, when's the last time a "Mandatory Reporter" was punished for failing to report?
But you can be liable for filing a "false report".
Still, it seems like an important ruling to me: a government agency was willfully and directly violating the rights of the Americans (and international citizens as well) and now it's just going to get shrugged off?
Of course, that is what happens when you have a corrupt judge.
The courts already decided decades ago that it's not a violation when you collect the metadata of one individual. If you repeat that 300 million times, it's still not a violation.
international citizens
International citizens have rights in US courts?
I would say a guilty government has a DUTY to self incriminate
A guilty government will never give a hoot on what the citizens feel or say
The only duty that guilty government has is to perpetual itself indefinitely - of course, to the detriment of the citizens
The guilty government of the Untied States of America has full control over the budget (aka, money printing machine), the judicial system (straight up to the SCOTUS), the criminal system (like the ATF / FBI stormtroopers who murdered the children in Waco Texas, for example), the military (all the way up to the use of nuclear weapons), the politicians (from local straight up tot he fed) and the mindset of the citizenry (turn them into sheep and they will forever remain sheep)
Captha - soprano
(*ducks*)
Couldn't prove it? Was the lawyer allowed the things that were requested in discovery? Did the lawyer even know what to ask for? Your data is being harvested by several different mechanisms not limited to your mobile devices and your not so mobile devices. Windows has been harvesting some data, however with the advent of windows 10 (which is was being pushed as free....yah!!...oh wait.) Google Windows 10 Eula and you'll find several concerns there. From my understanding they'll be doing behavior analysis and a bunch more. Let's add it up.
Amazon electronic books, they can nuke a copy you've paid for.
Windows 10 we're going to harvest a lot of data about you.
TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms) already pull in a ton of data and it is at their discretion how long they keep it. Furthermore they can go back and review it and take action. If they black bag you good luck, no one can do anything for you.
Legal system, government is all driven by dollars. Corporations have a great deal of influence.
If those of us who are savvy with technology we're smart we'd be working on creating mechanisms to protect ideas and free speech. We're already heading toward 1984 and V and have been little by little.