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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."
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.
"J.J. Little and his small legal practice"
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.
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.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
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.
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.
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.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
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
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
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."
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Just guessing:
Why bother to guess, when the answer is in the article, and someone already posted the correct answer?
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!
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.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes