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US federal judge rules NSA phone program likely unconstitutional

BobStackFan4Life

BobStackFan4Life

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“Plaintiffs have a very significant expectation of privacy in an aggregated collection of their telephone metadata covering the last five years, and the NSA’s Bulk Telephony Metadata Program significantly intrudes on that expectation,” wrote Leon, an appointee of President George W. Bush. “I have significant doubts about the efficacy of the metadata collection program as a means of conducting time-sensitive investigations in cases involving imminent threats of terrorism.”

“I cannot imagine a more ‘indiscriminate’ and ‘arbitrary invasion’ than this systematic and high-tech collection and retention of personal data on virtually every single citizen for purposes of querying it and analyzing it without judicial approval,” Leon added.
:thumbsup:
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/12/national-security-agency-phones-judge-101203.html#ixzz2nfKdHPbE
 
U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon found that the program appears to run afoul of the Fourth Amendment prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures. He also said the Justice Department had failed to demonstrate that collecting the so-called metadata had helped to head off terrorist attacks.
 
When a judge makes a ruling that something is "likely," isn't that like demanding someone "should" buy you a beer?
 
great, now the terrorists will have free reign to troll my games of Call of Duty

thanks, obama
 
Snowden on today's ruling:
“I acted on my belief that the N.S.A.'s mass surveillance programs would not withstand a constitutional challenge, and that the American public deserved a chance to see these issues determined by open courts,” Mr. Snowden said. “Today, a secret program authorized by a secret court was, when exposed to the light of day, found to violate Americans’ rights. It is the first of many.”
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The judge:
In a 68-page ruling, Judge Richard J. Leon of the District of Columbia called the program’s technology “almost Orwellian” and suggested that James Madison, the author of the Constitution, would be “aghast” to learn that the government was encroaching on liberty in such a way.

“I cannot imagine a more ‘indiscriminate’ and ‘arbitrary’ invasion than this systematic and high-tech collection and retention of personal data on virtually every single citizen for purposes of querying and analyzing it without prior judicial approval,” Judge Leon wrote. “Surely, such a program infringes on ‘that degree of privacy’ that the founders enshrined in the Fourth Amendment.”
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Judge Leon left little doubt about his view.

“The question that I will ultimately have to answer when I reach the merits of this case someday is whether people have a reasonable expectation of privacy that is violated when the government, without any basis whatsoever to suspect them of any wrongdoing, collects and stores for five years their telephony metadata for purposes of subjecting it to high-tech querying and analysis without any case-by-case judicial approval,” he wrote. “For the many reasons set forth above, it is significantly likely that on that day, I will answer that question in plaintiffs’ favor.”
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Judge Leon also emphasized that he was unpersuaded by the government’s claims that the program served the public interest, pointedly noting that it failed to cite “a single instance in which analysis of the N.S.A.'s bulk metadata collection actually stopped an imminent attack, or otherwise aided the government in achieving any objective that was time-sensitive.”
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http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/17/us/politics/federal-judge-rules-against-nsa-phone-data-program.html?_r=1&
 
Snowden giving information to our enemies on how we carry our intelligence is not vindicated by this ruling.
 
It's not a lie. Just because you don't want it to be true doesn't make it a lie. The details he gave and the knowledge that so many people have access gives openings to our enemies.

You just don't want to see that part.
 
RJKarl said:
It's not a lie. Just because you don't want it to be true doesn't make it a lie. The details he gave and the knowledge that so many people have access gives openings to our enemies.

You just don't want to see that part.
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How do you know any of this, beyond what government mouthpieces have told the press?
 
Snowden, himself, told the world how many people had access to privileged data. He told the world over a million people had access to information like where our stations were and who are our assets.

He said it and did so proudly.

You are being very naive if you don't think the Chinese, Russians, Iranians, Iraqis, Brits, Israelis haven't tried to find other people who s such access. It would be irresponsible for them not to try to do this.
 
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It's pretty clear that Snowden's leaks make the U.S. less safe and worse off diplomatically. That's not really even debatable.

What's debatable is whether what he did was justified given the way the NSA may be breaking the law and in the overall context of privacy rights.
 
He could have done what you describe in the second paragraph without doing what you described in the first.

Had he done so, there's no question he would be a hero.

Like many things, it's not black and white.
 
RJKarl said:
He could have done what you describe in the second paragraph without doing what you described in the first.
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Did what in the second statement? This doesn't make sense.

RJKarl said:
Like many things, it's not black and white.
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Agreed. That's why there's a debate.

RJKarl said:
Had he done so, there's no question he would be a hero.
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I'm not sure Snowden has the capacity to have done what he did with any finesse. Also he was justifiably paranoid about reprisal from the federal government.
 
As to the first part- he could have taken taken a tiny amount of specific data to show how the NSA was spying illegally on US citizens and told Congress (in closed session) about other issues.

"I'm not sure Snowden has the capacity to have done what he did with any finesse. Also he was justifiably paranoid about reprisal from the federal government."

Along these lines, I think I have posted that I believe Snowden was used as a pawn/sucker by Julian Assange or his people. It takes a lot of planning and a bunch of people to arrange Snowden's exit from Hawai'i and Hong Kong.

It's been reported that Assange was involved. I really think Snowden was in way over his head. Assange doesn't care what happens to Snowden as long as Assange gets what he wants.

This has many more layers than "idealistic 20 something steals documents to protect the privacy of American citizens".
 
RJKarl said:
As to the first part- he could have taken taken a tiny amount of specific data to show how the NSA was spying illegally on US citizens and told Congress (in closed session) about other issues.
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More ideal, for sure. But the odds of him pulling off that scenario independently would have been extremely, extremely slim.

Again, most of the disagreement on the boards about this comes down to whether the end justifies the means. Trying to force RSF or the conservatives on the boards to admit that Snowden did damage to U.S. interests abroad is sort of beside the point, just as much as they're spinning their wheels to get you to admit that you'd never defend a GOP administration for doing the same stuff.
 
o/u on new NSA threads bobstackfan will start before the end of the year - 3.5
 
We harmed ourselves diplomatically when we started spying on our allies. it was not Snowdens revelation that harmed us diplomatically it was our action. Snowden just revealed who we are.
 
Wrangor said:
We harmed ourselves diplomatically when we started spying on our allies. it was not Snowdens revelation that harmed us diplomatically it was our action. Snowden just revealed who we are.
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Except that this isn't new and allies have been spying on each other since the dawn of man.
 
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