VICTORY: Federal Appeals Court Reinstates Lawsuit

This is case that everyone should be following. After all it is your life that's being surveilled.

RICHMOND, Va. — Ruling that the existence of the government’s mass internet surveillance program would violate the First and Fourth Amendments, a federal appeals court has given the green light to a lawsuit challenging the government’s domestic and international spying program. The lawsuit—brought by a coalition of educational, legal, human rights and media organizations, including The Rutherford Institute, the ACLU, the Wikipedia Foundation, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers—was dismissed by a federal district court in Maryland, which ruled that the groups do not have standing to sue the National Security Agency (NSA), the U.S. Department of Justice and their directors. On appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed the lower court’s ruling in part, reinstating the lawsuit with Wikimedia as a party. A dissenting opinion filed in the case argued that all the plaintiffs have standing and should be allowed to proceed as parties to the lawsuit.

www.rutherford.org...[ /url]


[url]http://rutherford.org/files_images/general/15-2560_Wikimedia_Opinion.pdf

It's a start- but we're far from any sort of victory.

First and foremost, we need transparency. We the people don't even know how closely we're being watched- the government has the authority to simply not tell us.

Gentlemen, this all we have.

There is very little freedom left.

Buck

P.S. I hate this forum link sequence.

We are losing due process rights all over the place. Apathy and mindlessly consenting to agreement terms are quite rapidly eroding the Constitution.

It's truly astonishing the rights we take for granted.

Hell, people have the unlimited right to contract and very..VERY few even know how to contract at all.

Yet we somehow feel empowered by "keeping an eye" on these sort of things. Wow.

That frankly doesn't cut it anymore. Folks NEED to read before agreeing to and/or signing anything, and break out Black's Law dictionary when in doubt.

If Obama did it then it was SURELY what the good guys do to their own citizens.

He who walketh without scandal, and talketh without ever once telling a single lie, He is our Holy messiah forever, and ever, and ever.
Yea.

I knew that this sort of technology would be abused, from the first I heard of it. A network that ties together everyone on the planet? Sending private [ they naively believe ] messages to each other, commenting on politics and publishing their opinions for all to see?
Oh, the government would never take advantage of that.
I decided very early on, to never say anything on the internet, that I would not shout in front of the local police station. Government does not have the right read private mail or in any way monitor private communications, without due process.
But, they were doing it in secret for years and I honestly have no hope that a court order will even slow them down. They believe they have the ultimate power to do as they like.

originally posted by: DAVID64
I knew that this sort of technology would be abused, from the first I heard of it. A network that ties together everyone on the planet? Sending private [ they naively believe ] messages to each other, commenting on politics and publishing their opinions for all to see?
Oh, the government would never take advantage of that.

I decided very early on, to never say anything on the internet, that I would not shout in front of the local police station. Government does not have the right read private mail or in any way monitor private communications, without due process.
But, they were doing it in secret for years and I honestly have no hope that a court order will even slow them down. They believe they have the ultimate power to do as they like.

And to this, I say,
the only answer is to get rid of the government.
It's no longer working for us, and that's a problem.