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US federal judge rules NSA phone program likely unconstitutional

I don't agree with Snowden stealing secrets and offering them to save his own ass.
 
To me it come down to this. Would the typical American be o.k. with the notion that the police, whenever they wanted, could enter their home with a skeleton key, rumage around its contents and then leave without the home owner knowing it was happening? Of course not. Yet that is effectively what our government has the capacity to do and is trying to argue it can do legally.
 
At the same time, would the average American agree that you could invade other peoples' privacy if it kept them safe?
 
Meh. If you're drawing an analogy of the NSA trying to keep pace/stay atop the global cyberintelligence race to the use of skeleton keys, you're probably past the point of being "reasonable," too.

The government is going to use those skeleton keys from here on out whether we want them to or not. Might be framed to the public as curtailed in some official or legislative capacity, but it's not going back in the bottle. Doesn't mean we can't have an intelligent discussion about what that means for our society and the world at large as we move forward into the information age. But what's a reasonable expectation of privacy is changing and will continue to change whether we like it or not.
 
It isn't only about reasonable expectations of privacy but also about the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. And we absolutely can take a stand against our own government spying on us. We are supposed to be our own government.
 
Could you argue that you've voluntarily put information out for public consumption so it's not technically a search and seizure? (I'm not a lawyer)
 
ONW said:
Could you argue that you've voluntarily put information out for public consumption so it's not technically a search and seizure? (I'm not a lawyer)
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Don't bother him with the fact that the public has already personally authorized phone companies, ISPs and search engines to sell or give away this information to whomever they so choose.
 
RJKarl said:
Don't bother him with the fact that the public has already personally authorized phone companies, ISPs and search engines to sell or give away this information to whomever they so choose.
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Point me to where I gave anyone the rights to sell the specific details of who, what, when, where I call, email, etc attached to my legal name. Sure, I give Google the right to show me ads from a company based on things I search for or to share my email address with companies so they can market to me based on my browsing history, but that's not the same as giving Google the right to attach a name, CC#, etc to the info and tell a Company that Mr. J emailed Ms. B 23 times over the course of 7 days and the exact timestamps, locations, etc that those emails were sent from while also searching for hotels in the mountains for a romantic getaway, so that the Company can use that info to blackmail Mr. J into buying Mrs. J a hugely expensive gift lest they tell Mrs. J about the affair with Ms. B.

If the government just wants to know that someone searches for hotels in the mountains so they can market their own romantic getaway in a luxury suite at Guantanamo to a random email address, then, by all means, sell them the info.
 
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DeacMan said:
It isn't only about reasonable expectations of privacy but also about the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. And we absolutely can take a stand against our own government spying on us. We are supposed to be our own government.
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Cool, good luck with that one. After the popular uprising, the government will totally scoop up all this new tech, pack it in a crate, and wheel it off to be lost in some gigantic warehouse.

 
NSA does not deny spying on members of Congress
Bernie Sanders wanted to know.
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today asked the National Security Agency director whether the agency has monitored the phone calls, emails and Internet traffic of members of Congress and other elected officials.

“Has the NSA spied, or is the NSA currently spying, on members of Congress or other American elected officials?” Sanders asked in a letter to Gen. Keith Alexander, the NSA director. “Spying” would include gathering metadata on calls made from official or personal phones, content from websites visited or emails sent, or collecting any other data from a third party not made available to the general public in the regular course of business?”
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BobStackFan4Life said:
NSA does not deny spying on members of Congress
Bernie Sanders wanted to know.
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Metadata alone is enough to develop a means of blackmailing most every member of Congress... at which point, the NSA has no worries about oversight. So fucking dangerous, this path we're on.
 
Not to mention the fact that any American citizen is a potential member of Congress.
 
BobStackFan4Life said:
And of course there's this:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/11/nsa-americans-personal-data-israel-documents
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"The disclosure that the NSA agreed to provide raw intelligence data to a foreign country contrasts with assurances from the Obama administration that there are rigorous safeguards to protect the privacy of US citizens caught in the dragnet. The intelligence community calls this process "minimization", but the memorandum makes clear that the information shared with the Israelis would be in its pre-minimized state.

The deal was reached in principle in March 2009, according to the undated memorandum, which lays out the ground rules for the intelligence sharing."
 
Why you gotta be lying Chuck Schumer.
It seems every week a new member of Congress goes on a Sunday talk show and incorrectly states that if Edward Snowden came back to the United States to stand trial, he would be able to tell his side of the story to a jury and argue he is a whistleblower. This is factually not true, and it's time for members of the media to start pushing back at those who suggest it is.

This week it was Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on ABC's "This Week."
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Mr. Schumer said...[Snowden] should return to stand trial and face the consequences of his actions. Such a trial, the senator said, could be enlightening for the country.

...

He said it was unclear how much the broad metadata gleaned by the National Security Agency had helped the fight against terrorists; how much damage Mr. Snowden had, in fact, done to intelligence efforts; and precisely how the data were used.

“All of this could come out in a trial; it would be beneficial for the country to have the discussion,” Mr. Schumer said. “So, running away, being helped by Russia and China, is not in the tradition of a true civil disobedience practitioner.”
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In reality, none of that information would be heard by a jury, if prior Espionage Act cases against leakers are any guide. Judges have ruled evidence of showing intent to inform the public, benefits of the leaks, and lack of damage to national security is inadmissible. We made this point just two weeks ago, but it seems worth repeating since it seems as though members of Congress opining on Snowden's legal options do not know how the law works. Here are how four of the most recent Espionage Act leak cases have turned out:

John Kiriakou, the former CIA officer who was the first to go on-the-record with the media about waterboarding, pled guilty in his Espionage Act case last year partially because a judge ruled he couldn’t tell the jury about his lack of intent to harm the United States.

In the ongoing leak trial of former State Department official Stephen Kim, the judge recently ruled that the prosecution “need not show that the information he allegedly leaked could damage U.S. national security or benefit a foreign power, even potentially.” (emphasis added)
In the Espionage Act case against NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake (which later fell apart), the government filed two separate motions to make sure the words "whistleblowing" or "overclassification" would never be uttered at trial.

In Chelsea Manning's trial this summer, Manning's defense wanted to argue she intended to inform the public, that the military was afflicted with a deep and unnecessary addiction to overclassification, and that the government’s own internal assessments showed she caused no real damage to U.S. interests. All this information was ruled inadmissible until sentencing. Manning was sentenced to thirty-five years in jail—longer than most actual spies under the Espionage Act.

At this point, it's time for the media to start pushing back on government officials suggesting Snowden should tell his story to a jury, when caselaw says he would be barred from doing so. The New York Times is aware of this fact, as they mentioned it in another article published Sunday about the chances of Snowden receiving clemency. But in their story about Schumer's comments, they let his false statement go uncorrected.
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https://pressfreedomfoundation.org/blog/2014/01/sen-schumer-wrong-snowden-would-be-barred-arguing-his-case-trial
 
The reality is if Snowden gets clemency or a pardon or a plea bargain without any jail time, it will be open season on all our national intelligence. He will set a precedent to give anyone who steals and disseminates national security data a pass.

Even Ellsburg stood trial. You can't compare the two when Snowden refuses to take responsibility for his actions.
 
RJKarl said:
The reality is if Snowden gets clemency or a pardon or a plea bargain without any jail time, it will be open season on all our national intelligence. He will set a precedent to give anyone who steals and disseminates national security data a pass
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But, I thought you said Snowden is living the good life because of all of the information he's given to the Russians and Chinese? Seems like living it up on Putin's dime would be far more of a draw to "selling secrets" (in quotes because you've yet to provide any evidence that he has) than just not getting jail time.
 
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