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Judge Tosses Wikimedia's Anti-NSA Lawsuit Because Wikipedia Isn't Big Enough (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader writes: A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by the Wikimedia Foundation, Amnesty International, and others against the NSA and other U.S. intelligence agencies for their surveillance of internet communications. The judge used some odd reasoning in his ruling to absolve the NSA of any constitutional violations. He said that since the plaintiffs couldn't prove that all upstream internet communications were monitored, they didn't have standing to challenge whatever communications were monitored. This is curious, given that tech companies are known to be under gag orders preventing them from discussing certain types of government data collection. The judge also made a strange argument about Wikipedia's size: "For one thing, plaintiffs insist that Wikipedia's over one trillion annual Internet communications is significant in volume. But plaintiffs provide no context for assessing the significance of this figure. One trillion is plainly a large number, but size is always relative. For example, one trillion dollars are of enormous value, whereas one trillion grains of sand are but a small patch of beach."
Seriously, forget the courts. They're completely in the pockets of the politicians and Big Money. Lois Lerner just got off Scot free, and I'm willing to bet money that Clinton will as well. If you want justice in this day and age and you aren't a 1%'er, you'd better dish it out yourself or organize with others, because that's the only way it's going to happen.
In the meantime, encrypt everything you possibly can. Destroy any data you no longer need. Don't keep logs on anything any longer than YOU need to. Make everything as difficult as possible for the establishment.
My guess is for whatever reason, the judge did not want to rule against the NSA. So just used whatever barely coherent reason seemed remotely plausible.
As a federal judge, you're not going to ever get in trouble for protecting the NSA regardless of the gaping holes in your ruling.
Really? Sounds like this judge had his/her verdict in mind before anyone stepped into the courtroom.
Nah, his verdict was probably given to him by the NSA shortly after realizing exactly how much internet monitoring they do.
Dereliction of duty.
HIs job is to enforce the constitution, not to invent asinine excuses for letting the government violate our rights.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
So this is what passes for the third box in defense of liberty these days?
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
Not even the point. But getting an order to KILL SOMEONE, while not being in any shape or condition, not having any training or other qualification to execute such an order, can only mean one of two things: Either I am supposed to get killed in the process or they need a patsy.
My chances for survival are actually higher when I publish the letter.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Nah, his verdict was probably given to him by the NSA shortly after realizing exactly how much internet monitoring they do.
This, or perhaps the judge in question was just too much of a coward to rule against a government organization that could destroy his entire life.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
A market-based "solution" to health care has been a GOP idea since Republicans first proposed it in '92, as an alternative to the Clinton plan. This results in awkward questions for partisan tribalists on both sides of the aisle:
Yes, yes I do. Did you think it was a BFD when Karl Rove was also hiding communications behind private email servers, when it was "their guys" in office?
They didn't, you brain dead partisan tribalist, you. Both liberal and conservative groups were scrutinized by the IRS, and the only one to actually be denied tax-exempt status was a liberal one.
Why don't you move out to a deserted island, along with the Obamabots and Hillbots, and fight out your double-standards and hypocrisy to leave the rest of us alone, eh?
Which can still be a tiny amount on a decent sized beach beach.
Assume each truck is 10m x 10m x 10m, that's 1000m^3 per truck or 150000m^3 total.
Now you're looking at probably 50m+ of sand from the grass/concrete/stones to the furthest most people will be swimming (I've seen some much further when the tide is out).
The sand can easily be 1m+ deep.
So that'd only require a 3km long beach to use up the 150 dump trucks. And that's assuming huge trucks, I'd guess 5x5x5 would be closer, meaning a 375m long beach. Tiny.