US judge rules NSA phone surveillance program is LEGAL

she said...there is no evidence that the information is being used for anything but terrorists...how would she know?...did she send in investigators?.....did she have an audit done?....did she subpoena all the recordings and have them analyzed?....she does not have a clue to how much this damages the relationship between the government and the people it is suppose to represent...I guess the NSA is going to become our new and improved version of the Nazi SS

nixie_nox


The 4th amendment is against illegal search and seizures done by police on a physical property. the NSA isn't searching anything on your property without yoru consent or a warrant, they are seizing property belonging to a phone company.

i cannot seem to locate where the 4th Amendment mentions this guarantee only on *PHYSICAL PROPERTY*.

can you?

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

iRoyalty
reply to post by smurfy

 

Indeed it is, the one good thing to come out of joining the EU! I'm so glad we didn't buy into their currency... damn that could have been awful!

Still I think we need to do something similar against the GCHQ, they have no were to hide from EU law ha ha ha! I wonder way Cameron wants to leave the EU pretty sharpish ayyyy?

There's more, the judge is plain lying, or stupid or both. He cites only accidental?? violations and the complexity of the computer programme for any intrusions. However it has already been revealed that agents, in at least a dozen?? cases, used the programme to spy on the girlfriends etc.

edition.cnn.com...

With difficulty I found the CNN stock on youtube, or at least part of it, and I can tell you keywords and phrases are definitely being blocked ad hoc.

reply to post by iRoyalty



What I think...







This !!


Is this !!







Move along nothing to see Here...

reply to post by iRoyalty




I knew they would continue this crap.....I knew it. Bottom line is we do not live in a republic ruled by law anymore. We live under an oligarchy ruled by the progressive elite.





Look at what they control as of today......Courts,Schools,Health Services,Banking,Stock market,Military,Police,Utilities,Agriculture,Safety Standards,Telecommunication,Internet,Auto Industry.....I am sure there is more.




Kinda scary.......I have to give it to them they are very,very smart.

Thanks for the update! They could have been kind and defeated this case a little SOONER ...but better now than waiting even longer to drag this sucker out.

This was never going to be settled or decided with ANY meaning below the Super Court anyway. As the article says, the ACLU now moves to the 2nd Court of Appeals.....and when they lose there (which they will), it will THEN move upward (depending on precise circumstance for sequence) to the Supreme Court.

It'd be SO much nicer if these intermediate steps could be skipped in the interest of time and hassle for issues which are blatantly obvious as being above the pay grade of a district or appellate Judge to have final say on.

One day closer to the final battle before the Supremes.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


Funny how John Roberts from the Super Court is the one who has appointed several of the FISA court judges who rubber stamped it all to begin with.


John Roberts Appoints Judges to More Than the FISA Court
www.brookings.edu...

en.wikipedia.org...

Appointment process[edit]
The court's judges are appointed solely by the Supreme Court Chief Justice without confirmation or oversight by the U.S. Congress.[23] This gives the chief justice the ability to appoint like-minded judges and create a court without diversity. "The judges are hand-picked by someone who, through his votes on the Supreme Court, we have come to learn has a particular view on civil liberties and law enforcement", Theodore Ruger, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, said with respect to Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts. "The way the FISA is set up, it gives him unchecked authority to put judges on the court who feel the same way he does."[23] And Stephen Vladeck, a law professor at American University's Washington College of Law, added, "Since FISA was enacted in 1978, we've had three chief justices, and they have all been conservative Republicans, so I think one can worry that there is insufficient diversity".[24]
There are some reform proposals. Senator Richard Blumenthal from Connecticut proposed that each of the chief judges of the 12 major appeals courts select a district judge for the surveillance court; the chief justice would still pick the review panel that hears rare appeals of the court's decisions, but six other Supreme Court justices would have to sign off. Another proposal authored by Representative Adam Schiff of California would give the president the power to nominate judges for the court, subject to Senate approval, while Representative Steve Cohen proposed that Congressional leaders pick eight of the court's members.[25]

nixie_nox
reply to post by iRoyalty

 

Where in the Constitution does it say you have a right to privacy?

I am a firm believer that a man only has those rights which he will secure for himself.

Has anyone considered that this whole PRISM dragnet is just PROPOGANDA aimed at making the masses think that the government sees all and knows all?? I mean, I'm no expert in meta-data or Cray computing, but I am an expert on common sense. Let's run some numbers and see if any of this poppycock passes the sniff test:


Depending on what sources one uses, there are anywhere from 1 BILLION to 3 BILLION phone calls connected per day in the United States. Let's take the middle ground and settle on 2 BILLION.

Depending on what sources one uses, on an average day there are 12.4 BILLION text messages sent each day in the United States. (I used CNN for this number and it was conservative compared to lesser known links)

Depending on what sources one uses, on an average day (2010) there are 50 BILLION emails received in the United States per day.

Taking just those three figures that's roughly 65 BILLION communications sent/received PER DAY in the United States alone. Now, let's put to bed the notion that terrorists are somehow stupid enough to use any words like BOMB, TERROR ATTACK, SUICIDE VEST, etc. in any communication. This means that all of these communications have to be gone through by a human being. This just isn't possible by any stretch of the imagination.
The above figures don't even include such means of communication such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, BBS boards, mail, FEDEX, UPS.

BUT... PRISM claims to have the ability to intercept ALL communications worldwide and interperet them right? That makes even less sense when you run the world wide numbers:

Worldwide:
294 BILLION emails sent per day.
50,400 HOURS per day of YouTube video uploaded.
3 BILLION photos uploaded per day on FaceBook.
NSA claims 5 BILLION phone calls intercepted worldwide per day.
Grabstats.com estimates that 350 BILLION texts sent per day worldwide.

Let's just stop there and forget Worldwide ground mail deliveries (which is almost a trillion parcels per day), Craigslist type sites, internet forums and chat rooms, and the BIGGEST stumbling block for them....the DEEP WEB which consists of .onion sites and bbs's which CANNOT be intercepted and is the ONLY place REAL terrorists communicate.

Worldwide using just the stats I provided, the NSA would have to disseminate 50 thousand hrs of video, and 650 BILLION communications by email,text,phone...PER DAY. That is just asinine and has zero basis in reality and it can be proven scientifically using the famous principle Occams Razor, which states all things being equal, the simplest answer tends to be the right one:

So, what's more believable?

That some government agency comprised of roughly 30,000 employees collects 650 BILLION electronic communications and 50k hours of video per day and has the ability to analyze every bit of it in the name of security.

OR

This is all propaganda in which the government is trying to scare it's citizens into thinking that it's impossible to dissent because they know everything about what you and your neighbors are doing at all times?

The answer is obvious to me. This is the same government that can't even get a website running, can't get water to LA for three days after a hurricane, can't stop illegals from receiving 50 billion dollars in tax returns they weren't supposed to get. It's the same government that claims Benghazi was caused by a YT video, had no idea that two Chechnyans were planning to bomb Boston, no idea that the embassies in Kenya and Tansania were going to be bombed a few months ago...this list goes on and on.

Yet they want you to believe in PRISM like they wanted the world to believe there was an actual STAR WARS program. Like they wanted the Germans to believe on D-Day that we were going to attack elsewhere by placing thousands of balloon tanks/airplanes in another area. Like they wanted the world to believe there were WMD's in Iraq. It's the same story with different actors and I see right through it.

This is a direct result of the Smith-Mundt act being included into NDAA 2013. It allows the CIA to start propagandizing people in AMERICA. That is exactly what's happening here. I'm willing to bet that there aren't even enough motherboards on the planet which would allow for the country-wide surveillance NSA claims...let alone worldwide. They want you scared. They want you to think that Big Brother actually exists, so you won't dare share your thoughts of dissent to anyone who may believe you. Yes...there is a war on for your mind and the government is losing, so they want to make you think that you'll end up on some "list" if you communicate your thoughts to others.

If anyone here can put forth any logical argument against, I'm willing to listen with an open mind. Until then, I'm calling Shenanigans on the whole idea of PRISM actually being feesible in any reality besides some JJ Abrams flick.

reply to post by Miniscuzz


Can't quote all that, but thanks for your dissertation. However I don't believe a word of it.
BTW, 30,000 might just be a mite low, since NCTC say they own all the alphabets, and that's a lot of people. Even the idea of "the last decade" is dodgy since the NSA end of it has been going since 1998...a lot of water and events under the bridge there don't you think? Still there's nothing wrong with a little lateral thinking though.

iRoyalty

How did the Land of the Free get to this?

That your first mistake thinking it is the land of the free

By the way the judges reason of it "not being abused" is insane.

Ok maybe it havent been.

But what if in the future it is? It could be done way to easly NO one or group of people should have this amount of control. It will end in something bad, it always does be it 1 year from now or 20.

reply to post by iRoyalty

that no evidence exists that the spy agency abuses this program to spy on people without terroristic ties.

That's because the evidence is not open for scrutiny in court or public. The US is a democracy is a façade now. Its only a skip away from Nazi Germany.

Breaking into the backdoor of a persons computer through a Microsoft-Nsa trap door without your consent is no different than illegal break and entry into a house.

You americans should start voting intelligently at Polls and not vote for either of the two party. not unless your do want to live in Orwellian, which is a choice you may want or desire after centuries of being too free.

SubTruth
reply to post by iRoyalty

 

I knew they would continue this crap.....I knew it. Bottom line is we do not live in a republic ruled by law anymore. We live under an oligarchy ruled by the progressive elite.





Look at what they control as of today......Courts,Schools,Health Services,Banking,Stock market,Military,Police,Utilities,Agriculture,Safety Standards,Telecommunication,Internet,Auto Industry.....I am sure there is more.




Kinda scary.......I have to give it to them they are very,very smart.

edit on 27-12-2013 by SubTruth because: (no reason given)

edit on 27-12-2013 by SubTruth because: (no reason given)

A very honest post my friend, but you are smart too, you have sussed what is going on.

nixie_nox
reply to post by iRoyalty

 

Where in the Constitution does it say you have a right to privacy?

While there is no express right to privacy within the Constitution, there are implied rights to privacy.

1A--privacy of beliefs.
3A--privacy of the home against the quartering of soldiers.
4A--privacy of the individual and possessions against unreasonable search and seizure.
5A--protections against self incrimination, including privacy of personal information.
14A--due process clause.

And last but not least, the good ole 9th Amendment which clearly states that the enumeration of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage other rights retained by the people. This is the "catch-all" to prevent the abuse of rights simply because they were not expressly outlined. There was a great deal of debate at the time of the Bill of Rights being written where opponents to the idea, including Madison who wrote them, was concerned that if a right was NOT listed within the Constitution, then it would allow for an abuse of a right that was missed by the Bill of Rights. Ergo, the 9th Amendment was born.

In Griswold v. Connecticut, it was the majority opinion (7-2) that, although privacy is not explicitly mentioned within the Bill of Rights, it was found in the penumbras and emanations of other rights and the author of that majority opinion, SC Justice Douglas had a few things that could definitely apply to what we are confronted with today.

In NAACP v. Alabama, 357 U.S. 449, 462 we protected the "freedom to associate and privacy in one's associations," noting that freedom of association was a peripheral First Amendment right. Disclosure of membership lists of a constitutionally valid association, we held, was invalid as entailing the likelihood of a substantial restraint upon the exercise by petitioner's members of their right to freedom of association.

Metadata is used to form associations between individuals so that's interesting, isn't it?

In Schware v. Board of Bar Examiners, 353 U.S. 232, we held it not permissible to bar a lawyer from practice because he had once been a member of the Communist Party. The man's "association with that Party" was not shown to be "anything more than a political faith in a political party" (id. at 244), and was not action of a kind proving bad moral character. Id. at 245-246.

Okay. So here we have associations with unsavory subjects from a certain time period and the majority opinion in Griswold v. Connecticut was that association with even a political party was not "proving a bad moral character". Association with something unsavory does not equal bad moral character; yet, the NSA surveillance is intended to build associations amongst the metadata collected including associations with unsavory groups. Hmmmmm.... He goes on:

The right of "association," like the right of belief (Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624), is more than the right to attend a meeting; it includes the right to express one's attitudes or philosophies by membership in a group or by affiliation with it or by other lawful means. Association in that context is a form of expression of opinion, and, while it is not expressly included in the First Amendment, its existence is necessary in making the express guarantees fully meaningful.

So here's where we get the "if you're not doing anything wrong, then you have nothing to worry about." However, the right of association and the privacy of those associations as expressed in Douglas' opinion are quite clear in that who one associates with is private and is not the government or any other body's business unless there is something illegal going on. However, something illegal must be going on because, if there isn't, then you start hitting the 5th and 14th Amendments and due process. To do otherwise is essentially examining and potentially punishing for "thought crime".

The Fourth and Fifth Amendments were described in Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616, 630, as protection against all governmental invasions "of the sanctity of a man's home and the privacies of life."

Sanctity of a man's home and the privacies of life. Heavy words that could be very easily applied to NSA surveillance of metadata from both cellphone and internet interactions because if you're not doing anything wrong, then they shouldn't be doing it and nor should the companies that are compiling that information either. If a phone company requires a warrant to release information to a police officer for an investigation, then a cell phone company should require the same and a broadly scoped warrant to collect all information is unacceptable and unconstitutional through stare decisis.

But greatest of all would be that 9th Amendment. In his concurring opinion, SC Justice Goldberg had this to say:

The Amendment is almost entirely the work of James Madison. It was introduced in Congress by him, and passed the House and Senate with little or no debate and virtually no change in language. It was proffered to quiet expressed fears that a bill of specifically enumerated rights [n3] could not be sufficiently broad to cover all essential [p489] rights, and that the specific mention of certain rights would be interpreted as a denial that others were protected.

That's precisely what you're doing now, isn't it? What Madison so greatly feared...

Griswold v. Connecticut

reply to post by WhiteAlice


Whitealice, my friend....you have set the bar so high for political discourse with this post that I don't think anyone here, short of Jean Paul Zeudeaux, could reach it. Even if i did butcher the spelling of his name (and I can spell his real name without error just fine).

You nailed it. With a huge, golden hammer.

Sremmos80
reply to post by Bedlam

 

Has "parallel construction" been talked about here? My bro briefly described it to me this xmas and it sounds like what you are saying. That some law enforcement agency is told the find a reason to get someone cause they already have the damaging info they want just need a reason to act on it

Tha...tha..tha...that's it, my friend. Once you know who the bad guys are and where, and what they'll be up to, it's a piece of CAKE to put together some evidence and sucker a judge into a legit wiretap or whatever. Or "stumble upon the operation" or however you want to do it. The NSA does this a LOT, they can't readily just show up in court and testify, but it's considered ok to push a LEO group into the solution in the right cases. Note that this generally requires something extraordinary.

Snarl

nixie_nox
I am worried about the corporations.

And there you have it ... the source of nearly every problem on the planet today.

I don't get why those against Big Government or not also against Big Corporations.
Excessive Power in the hands of any human beings never ends well for the majority.
Especially when they have co-opted the government to serve them.

Lobbying and the buying of politicians is destroying this country.
Let the Bankers and Big Corporations get a Bull Horn and hit the pavement and protest like every other citizen does that try and effect change.

I can't help but wonder when you all will wake up and realize that the NSA itself is not the problem... They for the most part only collect the data.... The problems come in when the agencies use that data, FBI, CIA, DoD, etc all under the directives of their higher ups... Appointees and hand picked officials who's loyalty may be influenced.

The data collection and screening for suspicious activity alone isn't a problem for me, but when a corrupt administration, and agencies can use collected information to target any individual... Then we have a huge problem.

Having files on people provides a unique and dangerous, unstoppable power to a select few.

reply to post by WhiteAlice


You should read up on the Dick Cheney and David Addington ideas on the Constitutional rights of the President trumps the citizens rights. So it is there constitutional right to spy on you. Nixon? They almost all came from his administration. So they just wanted to change a few laws here and there so it would be legal and not impeachable. But that is questionable in it self. Why make that deal with Nancy Pelosi and Apples Steve Job if it was not impeachable? She made at least thirty million I know of from that private little meeting with Bush after she marched down the street after being elected to do just that impeach him.

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