US Judge Rules Against NSA In Phone Spying Case (reuters.com)

An anonymous reader writes with news that a federal judge ordered the NSA to immediately end its collection of call records associated with a California lawyer and his law firm. Reuters reports: "Opponents of mass surveillance cheered the ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon, who granted an injunction to bar the NSA from collecting the phone metadata of California attorney J.J. Little and his small legal practice. Unlike previous rulings against the NSA's program to vacuum up Americans' call data, which was exposed publicly by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden in 2013, Leon's opinion does not grant a stay, meaning it will take effect immediately."

Comments

How

[dnaumov]

Did he prove he has standing to sue? Isn't that what most (all?) other lawsuits failed to do resulting in dismissal?

Re:How

[Anonymous Coward]

Dont read TFA or anything:

A higher court previously rejected Klayman's challenge, saying he could not prove his phone was targeted by the NSA as Snowden's documents only revealed customers of Verizon Business Network Services, which is a subsidiary of Verizon Communications, such as Little, were implicated. Klayman added Little to his case to address the standing concern.

Re:How

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Did he prove he has standing to sue? Isn't that what most (all?) other lawsuits failed to do resulting in dismissal?

Just guessing:
  - He's a lawyer (part of the legal system itself), suing over the phone info on himself and his firm.
  - His, and his firm's, consultations with clients are privileged. So keeping records on who they talked to and when are a real infringement on a fundamental and recognized right. (It's not just "chilling" speech. Its chilling the right to an attorney.)
  - The Snowden revelations show that these records are being kept on him - because they're being kept on EVERYONE. So he cleared the other hurdle that the secrecy of agency operations (including the gag order provisions of National Security Letters) usually raised.

So it looks like he's got enough to avoid the "no standing" excuse for courts to drop the hot potato.

Re:How

[MobyDisk]

Just guessing:

Why bother to guess, when the answer is in the article, and someone already posted the correct answer?

Re:Talk about a narrow ruling.

[Anonymous Coward]

Judge: NSA is to halt data collection.
NSA: Make us. BTW about that conversation you had with (bleep) last week...

Ok, so when do they stop violating everyone else?

[Anonymous Coward]

My fourth amendment rights should matter too, not just a law firm's.

Implications

[alvieboy]

The decision is of little practical consequence because it is so narrow in scope in covering only Little and his firm.

I know nothing about US Law System, so I ask you: what are the implications of this ruling on other cases, either pending or new ? Does this mean there is no Jusrisprudence due to too focused scope of the ruling ? Can this federal ruling be appealed, and if so, to what extent ?

Alvie

Re:Implications

[Anonymous Coward]

The decision is of little practical consequence because it is so narrow in scope in covering only Little and his firm.

I know nothing about US Law System, so I ask you: what are the implications of this ruling on other cases, either pending or new ? Does this mean there is no Jusrisprudence due to too focused scope of the ruling ? Can this federal ruling be appealed, and if so, to what extent ?

Alvie

Anything and everything can be appealed, which is why the side with the deepest pockets usually wins. I'm sure the NSA will say things have stopped but given the interests of national security, no one will know for sure until the next Snowden.

Re:Implications

[Anonymous Coward]

I know nothing about US Law System

It's fundamentally broken, heavily (as in, without one or both of the following, you're fucked) biased towards participants with money and/or power, incorporates very little one could legitimately term "justice", treats blacks far more roughly than it treats whites, has no respect whatsoever for personal or consensual informed choice, doesn't actually have a sane, workable definition for "informed", and operates in constant and profound violation of the constitution from the lowest police officer to the highest supreme court judge. It currently has more people incarcerated than any other legal system on the planet. Both as a percentage of population, and as a total number. A very large number of those prisoners are victims of the legal system, rather than people who committed an act with a non-consenting (actual) victim. The police are corrupt; those who don't do criminal acts themselves indulge in a culture of "don't tell" so as to enable their fellow officers to continue abusing their authority. Never tell a US police officer of any stripe anything but "yes sir", "no sir", or "I'll have to have my lawyer answer that, sir." If you can't afford a lawyer, one with no time whatsoever for you will be appointed by the court which (eventually, after great inconvenience and pain on your part) will be one of the many contributing factors that will see to it that you are well and truly fucked. If you can afford a lawyer, the odds of them seeing you case through to a just conclusion depend on how much money you can provide them, how well they know the presiding judge, and how well the opposition is paid, or, in the case where the opposition is a government prosecutor, you have almost certainly already lost, however your lawyer may be able to reduce the impact of that loss to a simple drop to the country's lowest class of unemployables.

Now you know everything you need to know. You're welcome.

Re:Implications

[DarkOx]

There is there is no Jusrisprudence because it is a district court ruling. Those are basically the lowest level federal courts, that hear most cases. Until there is at least an appellate court ruling their decisions don't usually create case law that impacts other courts.

What is interesting is there is no stay granted. Which does mean the NSA must comply with the judgement right away or they may be found to be in contempt. One wonders if the NSA has the technical capability to do so without shutting down large portions of their surveillance. Usually in cases where there is likely to be an appeal and there implementation of the ruling will be large or complex a stay is issued until the appeal can be heard.

IANAL but I think one could be held in contempt for not complying with a judges order even if an appeal is later successful because the issue is the non compliance not the order.

To me the interesting issues here are:
1) How will the NSA demonstrate to the court that it has complied?
2) If the NSA refuses and the judge finds them in contempt what can / he will he do to a three letter agency

Re:Implications

[Ungrounded Lightning]

This is the "first crack in the wall" case. It brings all the guns possible to bear on the spooks.

If you can't get a win in the legal system when Attorney-client privilege and the right to legal council are at stake, and the investigative agencies are spying on lawyer/client communication and the research the lawyers do to support their court arguments, you might as well throw in the towel.

If you DO get a win, you've established that there are situations where the spying can be blocked. Then it's in the interest of all concerned, including the courts, to map out WHEN you can block them and when you can't. So there are a burst of little cases and the courts actually take them up. This fills in the "more populated areas of the map."

Re:Implications

[david_thornley]

I'm not really arguing with your summary, but that's criminal law, not civil law. This is a civil case.

How this works is that the plaintiff files suit against the defendant, and asks the court to do something, typically to award the plaintiff money or to grant an injunction that will prevent the defendant from doing something. To determine the facts (if in doubt) there will be a jury, instructed to make decisions based on the preponderance of the evidence rather than the "beyond a reasonable doubt" criminal justice standard. The legal aspects are a combination of black-letter law (what Congress and state legislatures enact) and case law (which is a record of previous related court decisions, referred to as precedents). This is one thing that makes it difficult to be certain of the law in such cases: you have to know all the applicable precedents as well as the law as printed.

Precedents can be persuasive or binding. If a superior court (in the Federal court system, we have district courts, appellate or circuit courts, and the Supreme Court, in increasing order of superiority) has established a precedent, that's considered a binding precedent, and the court either needs to go by it or explain why it doesn't apply in this case. If the judge is in a court that has had no superior courts rule on something, it's still called a precedent but isn't binding.

Anyway, both sides get a chance to persuade the judge and maybe the jury of their view of things. There will be a verdict, and then the parties can either accept it or appeal it to a higher court, if they're not already at the Supreme Court. There are cases that are going to be appealed until the appeal is denied or the Supremes rule on it.

There's various legal maneuvers that go on in a civil trial. One is discovery, where one side asks for certain information from the other side. It can't be unduly onerous, there's no penalty for having erased the information in the normal course of business, and the judge will be responsible for making sure no secrets are revealed that shouldn't be. Either side can request delays for various purposes, and the defendant can ask for a change of venue, meaning the defendant proposes another court for the trial. The system is set up so the defendant can't just delay proceedings indefinitely. (The SCO vs. IBM trial went on for years and years because SCO, the plaintiff, was trying to drag out the trial as long as possible, and the system wasn't set up to deal well with that.)

compliance

[BradMajors]

However, I think it will be unlikely that the NSA will comply with the order, and that no one will be able to determine if NSA complied with the order, and if it was found NSA did not comply with the order no one would be punished.

Re:compliance

[zlives]

clearly you know nothing... the director of the NSA can and will be asked to give a sworn testimony to the congress in which he will verify that... there is nothing to see here, move along citizen.

Re: compliance

[Anonymous Coward]

Organization vs. populace
USA: 2.7 million federal non-military employees (+contractors) vs. 321 million residents (+illegal immigrants); ratio: roughly 1:119
R.C.C.: 393 thousand priests (and higher) vs. 1.2 billion members; ratio: roughly 1:3125

Re:compliance

[bill_mcgonigle]

So, how are you all on Slashdot enjoying that "big government" you wanted so much?

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.

- H. L. Mencken, 1916

[a century later and no lessons were learned - ed.]

Re:compliance

[Princeofcups]

However, I think it will be unlikely that the NSA will comply with the order, and that no one will be able to determine if NSA complied with the order, and if it was found NSA did not comply with the order no one would be punished.

Judges no longer have any authority. The law of the land is only so much confetti. Benjamin Franklin's experiment is in its death throws.

Re:compliance

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why it's an interesting case. The legal system has its own ability to compel. As such, it has the ability to protect itself and the class of communications it has that are privileged.

Sure the people who think that the fourth amendment is an obstacle rather than a law may ignore it but... if any judge elsewhere in the system ever gets wind of it, even years from now, the 'what part of the court order did you not understand?' will get trotted out. Judges tend not to like willful disregard of court orders. This will be part of the process that ends up drawing up the jurisprudence.

What also needs to go onto paper is how to deal with parallel construction.

Re: compliance

[Pikoro]

Wow! I didn't expect that!

I see what you did there

[Fwipp]

"J.J. Little and his small legal practice"

Re:Big government desire fallacy

[hackwrench]

People want certain elements of government expanded and other elements of government removed. If that means the result happens to be a government that is "big" then the opinion is usually so be it, but "bigness" is usually considered a side effect that is harmless with regards to the features desired.

Why he had standing

[MobyDisk]

What prevents these rulings from happening is usually standing. That is, the plaintiff must have evidence that the NSA was surveilling them in order for the case to go to court at all. In this case, Snowden's documents specifically showed that Verizon customers were being monitored. The original plaintiff added J. J. Little to the case for the specific reason. But it did them little good because the ruling can then only apply to Verizon customers.

I wonder if they could then make this a class action by enjoining all Verizon customers into the suit.

Re:Why he had standing

[Coren22]

Correction, it is Verizon Business, not Verizon in general.

yayyy

[zlives]

a "small" victory for the "Little" people

Re:Ok, so when do they stop violating everyone els

[Coren22]

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

1. Are you sure no warrant was issued?
2. Are you sure that the government feels it is unreasonable?

My understanding is that there was a warrant issued by the FISA court, which is the federal court assigned to the NSA.

Do the easy one first ...

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Does every American need to file suit to shut it down completely?

Rule of thumb for getting things to happen via the courts:

  1) Find a slam-dunk case to establish a precedent. You're putting the first crack in the wall, establishing that there's something there.

  2) Do (typically a small number of) additional cases to establish the extent of the precedent's application. Now that something is established, the courts switch from stonewall to map-it-out mode.

Prosecutors do this sort of stuff all the time. (That's why things like restricting freedom of the press and speech generally starts with going after child molesters and child pornography purveyors.)

But it works both ways. Here we have a case where government investigative agencies are going after the communications between lawyers and clients. That's a fundamental part of the legal system, so the actions of the spooks are likely to be as repellent to the judges at all levels as child molesters are to juries.

If the rulings on this case put the first crack in the wall, it should take no more than a handful more to get solid rules established about what the spooks can't do, and how to figure out when they did it and spank them.

After that, as with other rights, we'll be on the usual treadmill: The bad behavior will be reduced a lot; violations will occur, become more common, and eventually institutionalized - when not caught and fought; and intermittent suits will be needed now and then to trim it back and/or map out additional hands-off boundaries.

Re:Do the easy one first ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with your analysis but I don't believe this will slow the illegal collection of data by the NSA (and others).
Even given that the conversation with your lawyer is protected you still have to prove that:
    - It was done to you/your client.
Which is a pretty damn difficult when you are dealing with agencies that have no issues at all with falsifying and manufacturing evidence. Not to mention parallel construction.

U.S. Judge Missiing...

[Anonymous Coward]

U.S. judge suspected of terrorism went missing today. Circumstances are unclear. Senor officials at the NSA said; we certainly haven't seen him.

Re:Ok, so when do they stop violating everyone els

[Anonymous Coward]

My fourth amendment rights should matter too, not just a law firm's.

No no. You are little people. Only big people's rights matter. Big people are either rich or connected to the rich (like lawyers and politicians). This judgement solves this perfectly.

Think of this: Whenever Bill is travelling far away and can't get home for the night, instead of just calling Melinda he'll also conference in his lawyer. That way their phone sex will be guaranteed fully private.

thanks AC!

[Anonymous Coward]

Whenever Bill is travelling far away and can't get home for the night, instead of just calling Melinda he'll also conference in his lawyer. That way their phone sex will be guaranteed fully private.

not enough brain bleach in the world

Re:Talk about a narrow ruling.

[Pseudonymous Powers]

Does every American need to file suit to shut it down completely?

Sorry, it's established precedent that individual Americans do not have the standing to bring legal proceedings against the NSA and other intelligence agencies for these so-called "blatant" and "ongoing" "violations" of the "Constitution". And of course civil liberties groups don't have standing either, since they're made up of individual Americans, and a million times zero is still zero. Too bad, so sad.

Don't worry, though--there's plenty of Congressional oversight of these agencies. The oversight process works like this: One: A whistleblower and/or the news media reveals evidence of wrongdoing. Two: Congress holds a hearing and calls in various top-level officials of the relevant agencies. Three: Congresspeople ask these officials tough and pointed questions about the legality and Constitutionality of various agency programs. Four: The officials lie about it, and also point out that terrorists and child molesters exist. Five: The news media and your Uncle Mark point out these transparent lies. Six: The officials are not terminated, nor do they suffer any other consequences for lying to Congress. Seven: Democracy is saved!

Because I like to be fair to readers of my posts.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Why bother to guess, when the answer is in the article, and someone already posted the correct answer?

Because this time I didn't have enough time before a hard deadline, but thought some people might value my opinion anyhow. If I checked those items first, and the posting was still appropriate, I would not have had the time to compose and post it.

So I put the caveat right at the top:
  - If a reader only wants something researched, he is free to stop right there and move on to another posting.
  - If a reader values both my researched and my off-the-top-of-the-head postings, he knows this was the latter, and should check before trusting it.

Now I COULD have just posted it WITHOUT the caveat - as many posters do. Let me know if that's what you prefer. B-)

Re:Coren22 likes failing security & coding

[Coren22]

APK, why do you try to act like you are an independent person? No one believes this isn't you posting, as the language and style is the same.

My "sig stupidity" is visible to all users, anyone can see it, they just need to create an account. Also, why would I pick on anyone that has an account as they are willing to have adult conversations and not act like incessant trolls.

The only mistake I ever made was trying to engage you in intelligent conversation to attempt to improve your offerings. As you have no interest in listening to anything critical of yourself or your work, even when accurate, you are apparently also incapable of holding an intelligent conversation without insulting multiple times per post and going way off subject.

I found this AC post pretty funny, because the Psychiatric diagnostic codes pretty well fit your behavior, you really should get those issues looked at by a professional, they can have lifelong consequences.

http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

Re:I can't see it & you know it - b.s.!

[Coren22]

It would be great if you actually had any mistakes I have made, instead of the same tired arguments I already replied to.

I am not playing sidewalk shrink, but you calling me retarded is somehow not? I pointed to a post that suggested possible answers to your unusual behavior, but I am acting a shrink?

You claim I have libeled you, where have I done so, and what makes you think it is libel?

Yes, I am a MCSE, and working on my CISSP, but that is ok if you don't believe me, my managers have a copy of my MCSE number, so I don't have to worry about it too much. Since you care so much about credentials, where are yours? Where is your security certification? Where is your degree in computer security? Where is any kind of indication that you actually work in the security industry rather than make programs that collate other people's work?

Re:Ok, so when do they stop violating everyone els

[david_thornley]

Read the Fourth Amendment text about warrants. A general warrant would be unconstitutional. Was there any probable cause to keep track of the communications of this particular law office?

I don't know the exact pretext the NSA uses. Either they consider such a blanket search reasonable, or they consider it not a search unless and until some human access the records or some action is taken on them.