Slashdot Mirror
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.
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! --
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?
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.