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US Appeals Court Upholds Nondisclosure Rules For Surveillance Orders (reuters.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: A U.S. federal appeals court on Monday upheld nondisclosure rules that allow the FBI to secretly issue surveillance orders for customer data to communications firms, a ruling that dealt a blow to privacy advocates. A unanimous three-judge panel on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco sided with a lower court ruling in finding that rules permitting the FBI to send national security letters under gag orders are appropriate and do not violate the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution's free speech protections. Content distribution firm CloudFlare and phone network operator CREDO Mobile had sued the government in order to notify customers of five national security letters received between 2011 and 2013.
The link seems to go to an article on net neutrality. Correct link is here: http://www.reuters.com/article...
Just a note that this is still (as upheld by the Canadian Supreme Court and the EU) a violation of their citizens rights to privacy worldwide.
Besides, everyone knows the US is the sick man of NATO. Can't even afford healthcare for their citizens. Sad.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
And some other sources reporting the story:
the hill http://thehill.com/policy/nati...
zdnet http://www.zdnet.com/article/u...
Yahoo https://finance.yahoo.com/news...
This is about gag orders from the period 2011 - 2013. People should at least have the right to know they have been investigated after some amount of time, way shorter than then the up-to 6 years in these cases.
Nobody is arguing you should inform people at the time of the investigation itself.
I don't know why yo say that ....
When it comes to trampling our Fourth Amendment rights, the government comes first when it comes to the courts. The TSA can do whatever they want and we have no recourse.
And when it comes to government power, THE power to have is information and getting it by any means.
We may have the right to bear arms, but the government knows who has what - mostly. We may have the right to free speech, but the government can find out easily who says what.
The Boston bombers did what they did, but they were sure found fast - weren't they?
Pre-Crime is coming soon and Im afraid that we're all gonna be alive to see it.
Never mind me! Look! Two gay guys getting married in the ladies room and getting an abortion with their AR-15 with a 50 round drum by their sides!!
National security letters serve the same functions as a warrant but do not require judicial(disinterested party) oversight. A gag order is too large a step to permit one branch/agency to decide.
Beyond that problem, my other problem is non-disclosure forever. I understand the need for non-disclosure, it makes no sense to tell the person you're investigating that you're investigating them. But the gag should be of limited duration. Something like 6 months. Just to limit abuse. I believe that warrants have to be made available for public inquiry after some amount of time. It just makes sense to help hold the police accountable.
Remember, Congress has stated that a term mandated by the Constitution has being only for a "limited period" is perfectly acceptable to set at "forever minus a day"; given such abuse of discretion I'm just shocked, shocked I say that the 9th Circuit decided once again the Constitution means the opposite of what it says. Because its a "living document", and living things can change their mind, right?
It seems the 5th amendment would be much more applicable.
Legally you never could.
THE 9th is the most often overturned appeals court of any, so maybe there is hope for a Supreme Court overrule.
They are 3rd on the list of most frequently overturned decisions, not first. Please do a little fact checking before you post.
Source: http://www.politifact.com/pund...
You make a case for why the first amendment is a bad idea and ought to be repealed. I understand. Gun control advocates make a pretty good case for why the right to bear arms should be infringed. I'm sure people in law ernforcement can give some excellent reasons why the 4-6 amendments really ought to go, as they're making their jobs harder and you less safe.
For every amendment in the Bill of Rights, I bet you can make some pretty damn good arguments for why we would be better off without that amendment limiting the power of government. Think of the tax money we're wasting on military bases when we could just force homeowners to quarter soldiers.
Yet, for whatever reason, these damn amendments, which limit the power of our government (WTF, how can that possibly be a good idea if you're trying to make a good government), are still on the books! Why haven't we repealed the Bill of Rights yet? Wouldn't it be easier and more efficient, if we could eliminate all these things which waste the courts' time? Wouldn't this case have been handled much more quickly, if the appeals could have just explained, "The government can do anything it wants, so therefore of course this law is legal"?
All I can think of, is that some weirdos in the past placed these seemingly-arbitrary limits on the powers of government, because they had a totally different idea of what makes sense. Were they trying to optimize some other value? Could it be that they thought there might be more important things than worrying about whether or not a suspected criminal might find out that someone suspects? I can't imagine what.
It's all so mysterious! As Yangs, I think we ought to just stick to memorizing our holy words, and get rid of all these silly constraints on effective governance.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
They're simply talking about the well known revision to the 1st amendment, which reads as follows:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances, except when a gag order is issued related to terrorism or protecting the children."
That must be it.
So, what happens if you try? Have people been compelled to issue fake canaries?
If it had happened, you'd think there's eventually be an incident where someone just says "fuck it" and violates the gag, and yes, got punished (or skipped out of the country and then leaked it). But the word would still be out. Yet I haven't heard of it ever really happening yet.
Anyone know? We all have opinions, of course, but does anyone know of even an anecdote, either way?
A unanimous three-judge panel on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco sided with a lower court ruling in finding that rules permitting the FBI to send national security letters under gag orders are appropriate and do not violate the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution's free speech protections
Well, they're wrong.
It more like protection during a fishing expedition or the hunch phase of a legal investigation.
Everything has to be protected until a friendly court can retroactively rubber stamp an investigation later on.
How is the need for an investigation going to be proved? Well what was gathered under the gag order will show any court that further investigation was needed and the gag order was correct.
If people get a legal document from a court they might secure funds to gets real lawyer, remove evidence, escape or change habits.
With a gag everything can be looked at with out alerting interesting people and then presented to a court.
Once all evidence is gathered and safe then the formalities of a court can be engaged.
Too many people in the telco systems, courts, human rights groups, legal system, private sector, gov, mil, banks, media or local police might be in a cult, sympathetic to or share the same faith. Once altered supporters start to find lawyers and hire outside experts, want to see actual evidence, then go to the press and talk about investigative methods.
A gag stops news about an investigation spreading beyond a limited number of experts needed to extract information and secure systems or documents.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Re "Anyone in government listening to history?"
The tools of trade i.e. the server is been used as a Star Chamber to extract information?
With no courts or warrants?
Thats totally legal in the US system. Once the information is collected and the person arrested they will be informed of what crime they have committed.
A lawyer will be able to read any logs or documents before the trial. Any hired expert will given full access to information collected during the later legal search.
The gag just protects methods that allowed for that first actual search warrant.
How would parallel construction get results if a court was needed to even start an investigation?
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
"Why would you tell an innocent person that you're monitoring them? They'll simply go underground until you stop watching, then they'll go back to their innocent activity. Plus you'll miss out on the opportunity to identify their friends. It's completely reasonable to maintain a level of secrecy about active mass surveillance. Non-disclosure rules make a lot of sense. Innocent people are already encrypting their communications, so why give then additional unnecessary advantages over law enforcement?"
What was that? The FBI only investigates guilty people? Well, then we can just forgo the judicial system entirely! While we're at it, why are we dicking around with monitoring criminals and not straight punishing them? To catch their conspirators? Why, words like make it sound like the FBI is not omniscient and therefore doesn't know all the criminals. That obviously can't be true with all the mass surveillance, right? I mean, we're giving up all our freedoms because we're getting a guarantee that the FBI is going to successfully find and punish all the criminals--even if it might end up causing a virtual tyrannical dystopia.
Seriously, given the level of incompetency and/or unknowning that's prevalent in law enforcement--no offense to them, it's the human condition--, any sort of "gag" order should be of very limited scope, very limited time, and for a very specific reason. You know, like a search warrant. That's, actually, what NSLs effectively are designed to circumvent. The fact that an Appeals Court is so willing to hand over Judiciary powers to the Executive Branch is pathetic, stupid, and insane.
Mod parent up.
If old Surveillance Orders are not released then voters do not have the information to decide if they are happy with how these have been used by the FBI -- who, I am told, operate on behalf of citizens of the USA, in their best interests and with their complete approval.