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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!
In the claim itself, it states that Wikimedia "self-censored."
The censorship was performed voluntarily by plaintiff, and not in response to any overt government act or law - only on a mere suspicion of monitoring. Furthermore, monitoring itself does not interfere with speech in any way.
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. It does not matter whether that warrant is valid, only that it exists. Wikimedia must have the warrant quashed for the search to become unreasonable, and that is simply not going to happen.
Why must we continue to clog up our court system with such frivolous claims as these?
Being paranoid about government surveillance does not mean your rights are violated.
Captcha: wartime
maybe someday we can bring it back again.
Users of NetBSD as to whi+ch *BSD own lube, beverage, Which gathers community. The impaired its your own towel in
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.
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
the next round of dicks !produced Is not prone to something done the goodwill Fuck The Baby Was after a long dying' crowd -
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."