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Wikimedia Is Clear To Sue the NSA Over Its Use of Warrantless Surveillance Tools (engadget.com)
The Wikimedia Foundation has the right to sue the National Security Agency over its use of warrantless surveillance tools, a federal appeals court ruled. "A district judge shot down Wikimedia's case in 2015, saying the group hadn't proved the NSA was actually illegally spying on its communications," reports Engadget. "In this case, proof was a tall order, considering information about the targeted surveillance system, Upstream, remains classified." From the report: The appeals court today ruled Wikimedia presented sufficient evidence that the NSA was in fact monitoring its communications, even if inadvertently. The Upstream system regularly tracks the physical backbone of the internet -- the cables and routers that actually transmit our emoji. With the help of telecom providers, the NSA then intercepts specific messages that contain "selectors," email addresses or other contact information for international targets under U.S. surveillance. "To put it simply, Wikimedia has plausibly alleged that its communications travel all of the roads that a communication can take, and that the NSA seizes all of the communications along at least one of those roads," the appeals court writes. "Thus, at least at this stage of the litigation, Wikimedia has standing to sue for a violation of the Fourth Amendment. And, because Wikimedia has self-censored its speech and sometimes forgone electronic communications in response to Upstream surveillance, it also has standing to sue for a violation of the First Amendment."
That's funny!
Mostly true, but irrelevant argument. The Government doesn't need to even to answer a suit if they don't want. They can simply claim sovereign immunity.
maybe someday we can bring it back again.
Furthermore, monitoring itself does not interfere with speech in any way.
Excuse me?
I'll tell you what, create an account here on Slashdot using your real name - DOX yourself so we can be sure you who you say you are - and post what you honestly think of our government.
On the Fourth Amendment claim, the search must be unreasonable in order to be a violation. An unreasonable search is one that is not supported by a warrant. Contrary to the claim, the NSA has always had a warrant to conduct mass surveillance issued by the FISA court.
Did you miss the phrase "warrantless surveillance" in the summary?
The actual court ruling is here: https://www.aclu.org/legal-doc...
Thank you!
If we ever get a functioning justice system in this country, civil litigation of this sort would be redundant. Thanks to Edward Snowden, we know that the NSA employs people to commit billions of felonies every day. Until and unless they actually get punished for it, this shit will continue.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Too bad NSA don't actually answer to the american justice.
I'm sorry for you if it's only now that you realize that the amendments is just a piece of paper if people in power chose to ignore it.
Being paranoid about government surveillance does not mean your rights are violated.
With Snowden's and Shadow Brokers' revelations, being paranoid about government surveillance means you underestimate the extent of 4th Amendment violations less than the general population.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
(I would respond from my account TheCarp but logins are not working for me right now)
Actually "National Security" is, and always was, the frivolous claim.
Fact is, if they cared about national security, we wouldn't be doing so much covert meddling in the affairs of others. We wouldn't be sending in agents to spy on other people's elections or participating in assasinations, or sheltering terrorists like Luis Posada Carriles; just for an example.
OTOH creating a Stasi wet drea,m to monitor our own people.... is the opposite of national security....its betrayal; just like it was betrayal when they overthrew the democratically elected leader of Iran, just like i twas betrayal when we put Sadam in power. Everything they did to create groups like Al Queda was done with our money....it was ALL our BETRAYAL.
The National Security argument itself.....just one more betrayal.
Thank you!
Why? Just because they are going after just folks you are afraid of (maybe); doesn't make it right. When government abuses power - for whatever reason - it leads to tyranny.
And I don't know about you, but I'd rather deal with it in the bud before it gets so bad that we have to revolt and pick up weapons.
And I'd like to say this - the terrorist attacks recently are achieving their objective brilliantly. People are overreacting emotionally. I was extremely angered by Manchester - even as an American. I had horrible thoughts. VERY horrible. (My grandad was Waffen SS - it's in the genes).
But we need to keep cool heads. Go after the assholes. Just because a Steelers fan throws beer in your face doesn't mean we should kick the shit out of all Steelers fans.
Keep cool and let's not bite the bait. Because those assholes want us to overreact and it allows them to say, "Look! America and the West are THE Evil ones! Not us!""
"the cables and routers that actually transmit our emoji"
wtf
The fact that the system of checks and balances sometimes works ineffectively doesn't mean that the system of checks and balances doesn't work at all.
In fact, the courts do present a barrier to abuse of power on the part of executive agencies. Not a perfect system-- and the ability of agencies to withhold information what they are doing, for security reasons, is indeed a serious barrier to court oversight-- but nevertheless, it is not completely broken.
You would be better to direct your cynicism toward the people. A large portion of the population (very likely the majority of the population) wants greater surveillance of communications, and wants the agencies hunting terrorists to do so secretly: they want to catch and shut down the terrorists whatever it takes. This isn't a "failure" of democracy-- this is democracy. IF it's a failure, it's a failure of the restraints on democracy.
If you want to change that: figure out how to make people less scared. (Good luck with that.)
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
"An unreasonable search is one that is not supported by a warrant."
A warrant "...particularly describing the place to be searched..."
The Fourth Amendment is written in such a way as to preclude a court from issuing any sort of "general" warrant. Searching the records of millions of people or collecting vast amounts of internet traffic is not a "particular" place to be searched.
"It does not matter whether that warrant is valid, only that it exists."
You could argue that an invalid warrant means the NSA personnel were acting in good faith and should thus not be subject to disciplinary action or criminal charge, but it doesn't make their activity legal. Yes, any warrant allegedly permitting this sweeping surveillance activity would be central to the case.
We need to bring these important claims to court because the courts have never issued a ruling on the Constitutionality of the NSA surveillance programs. Thus far, the government has successfully argued that the programs cannot be challenged in court because the plaintiffs don't have legal standing. Sounds like that argument didn't work this time.
The "warrantless surveillance" is coming from the claimant, but absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. That Wikimedia cannot see the warrant does not mean the warrant doesn't exist. The warrant, like the surveillance program, is classified.
Well, that is all well and nice. It could say anything at this point. Unless it is not followed up and there is no accountability, it is as meaningless as a mom yelling at her kids at Wallmart.
These people have been caught with the hand in the cookie jar several times already and all they say is "So fucking what?" On the one side you have the companies. On the other the government and the people are between a rock and a hard place.
People have died to take back their liberties, but now "Give me liberty or give me death" just looks nice on a license plate. Also note: the longer you play nice, the bloodier it gets at the end and the longer it takes time to settle down.
I just hope that I am not here anymore when The peoples revolution starts, because now it is not if, but when.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
The secret FISA court even recognized that they were just being used. http://circa.com/politics/bara... "The normally supportive court censured administration officials, saying the failure to disclose the extent of the violations earlier amounted to an “institutional lack of candor” and that the improper searches constituted a “very serious Fourth Amendment issue,” according to a recently unsealed court document dated April 26, 2017. The admitted violations undercut one of the primary defenses that the intelligence community and Obama officials have used in recent weeks to justify their snooping into incidental NSA intercepts about Americans."
Wikimedia shouldn't be involved in any US political affairs. It will limit the credibility and growth of wikipedia as a whole if they take political positions.
And there we have it - the TRUTH of the MATTER - TOO many people are willing - even eager - to sacrifice their rights in order to obtain 'protection' from the savages at the gate (actually, the savages that have already broken down the gate) who are dead-set on destroying our domestic freedoms.
Yep. However, like everything else, it's a trade off. Patrick Henry was very noble saying "give me liberty or give me death," but, in fact, if you're dead you don't have any liberty.
Had a few, and don't remember the exact quote - but - - - those that are willing to give up their liberties for the sake of 'safety' / 'security', will have, and deserve, neither ! ! !
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
--Ben Franklin.
(often misquoted. Reference: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/... )
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
No. Have you not been paying attention? Citizens United is just a stupid description, it is more corporations united, and money has a louder voice in our oligarchy, that is by no means a democracy.
Although I'm not a great fan of the Citizens United ruling, that decision doesn't mean we're "not a democracy". It means that corporations (and more generally, people controlling money) are not restricted from using that money to promulgate their views, and hence direct public opinion.
But "democracy" doesn't mean "citizens voting intelligently." It merely means "citizens voting."
Technically we would not be a democracy, anyways. We are supposed to be a republic.
There are many varieties of democracy. The two are not exclusive; that's why it would be called a "democratic republic".
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
If he were German, he would have written über.
"uber" and "über" are not the same. "Über" is a German word meaning "above," cognate to the English word "over." "Uber" is a taxi company that screws its employees by calling them "independent contractors."
They get around this by not really needing a warrant (technically). A lot of the internet traffic goes through computers they control, meaning its technically a publicly owned intersection. They're argument in this will be that they aren't performing anything beyond what a beat cop does on a walk-through patrol of a neighborhood in observing the ongoings in the public space.
Does that mean this shit is ok? Hell no. However, it isn't as cut and dry as people want it to be.
The main issue isn't the lack of a warrant, its the lack of observed privacy. Where do you define your private space to be in the digital domain? Your own personal computer files stored locally, sure. But once you get onto the internet, now you are utilizing a lot of publicly funded infrastructure. How do we clearly define this differently than if we are traveling in a car on a public road, visible to all? Your car is maintained as a semi-private space. However, the privacy ends if something illegal is observable through a window. One could argue that unencrypted packets running on a public network through a packet sniffer operated by a policing agency isn't a whole lot different.
The only way to truly mitigate this sort of issue is to have privacy clearly spelled out in our constitution. And good luck with that too. I can definitely see politically motivated millenials getting this sort of thing into place. However, the current high school seniors do not even know a world where privacy is valued. So if its going to happen, it'll need to happen in the next 15 years.
Searching the records of millions of people or collecting vast amounts of internet traffic is not a "particular" place to be searched.
And if the warrant says "All interesting pieces of data crossing this particular fibre optic at the far end, and
then containing a long list of entries that look like: #XX-1234-(CIRCUIT ID) At facility (Street Address of Telecom facility), Cabinet number, Rack 4, Port XX,YY" ?
Everything passing through a specific piece of fibre optic cable is a particular place to search.
Secret laws, secret courts, tyranny.