Appeals Court rules against NSA Phone program

[KevinNYC]

AP: First court case at the appellate level. (http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/us-appeals-court-nsa-phone-record-collection-excessive-30870603)


US Appeals Court: NSA Phone Record Collection Is Excessive

he bulk collection of Americans' phone records by the government exceeds what Congress has allowed, a federal appeals court said Thursday as it asked Congress to step in and decide how best to balance national security and privacy interests.

A three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan permitted the National Security Agency program to continue temporarily as it exists, but all but pleaded for Congress to better define where the boundaries exist.

"In light of the asserted national security interests at stake, we deem it prudent to pause to allow an opportunity for debate in Congress that may (or may not) profoundly alter the legal landscape," said the opinion written by Circuit Judge Gerald Lynch.

"If Congress decides to authorize the collection of the data desired by the government under conditions identical to those now in place, the program will continue in the future under that authorization," the ruling said. "If Congress decides to institute a substantially modified program, the constitutional issues will certainly differ considerably from those currently raised."

[KevinNYC]

Court did not take up the question if the program is illegal, they just say that it's not supported by the legal justification for it. Tells Congress if they want to to continue they have to explicitly authorize it. (http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2015/05/07/404898259/federal-court-bulk-collection-of-phone-metadata-is-illegal) So they are not saying this is against the Constitution, but goes beyond what the current law allows.


The National Security Agency's practice of collecting data about Americans' telephone calls in bulk goes beyond what Congress intended when it wrote Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act, a federal appeals court ruled on Thursday.

The three-judge panel was asked to consider whether the program violated the Constitution. Instead, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel punted on the constitutional claim, deciding the program was simply not authorized by federal law.

One of the big reasons it is hard to discern congressional intent in this case, the court wrote, is that the bulk collection program has been shrouded in secrecy. So it cannot "reasonably be said" that Congress OK'd "a program of which many members of Congress — and all members of the public — were not aware."

The court concludes that it has no qualms about taking this step because if Congress wants to "authorize such a far‐reaching and unprecedented program, it has every opportunity to do so, and to do so unambiguously."

According to The New York Times, this is "the first time a higher-level court in the regular judicial system has reviewed the program, which since 2006 has repeatedly been approved in secret by a national security court."

[KevinNYC]

Doesn't seem that they addressed internet metadata collection.

[KevinNYC]

Did folks stop worrying about this?

Also just came across this.

[QUOTE]CIA's Ex-No. 2 Says ISIS

[Akrazotile]

:djparty

[Akrazotile]

Did folks stop worrying about this?

Also just came across this.



Of course they did.

The President is a democrat now. If the sheeple in the Democratic base oppose him on war and spying and deficits, they figure it'll lead to the Republicans taking back control and snatching gay marriage away!!!!!

When a Republican is president, the huge issues that super pacifist progressive tolerant sensitive libs just will not put up with or accept are war, drones, spying, deficits.

When a Democrat is president, it's ok if he does all those things. The real problem is the stupid Republicans not wanting abortion rights and student loan relief, aarrrrgghghhhg!!!!! :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

[fiddy]

Did folks stop worrying about this?

Also just came across this.
They still spy on you regarless.

[falc39]

Did folks stop worrying about this?

Also just came across this.

Not really stopped, this is good, but doesn't guarantee surveillance will be stopped in the near future. Thinking more big picture. Will have to wait and see.

As for the allegations, don't know how anyone can take those seriously. Let's just forget all the foreign policy blunders and politics of the region and somehow shift significant blame to Snowden for the rise of ISIS. Encryption has existed for a long time too, common knowledge to hackers all over the world and even petty criminals.

[JerrySeinfeld]

Did folks stop worrying about this?

Also just came across this.

:facepalm

if they didn't want snowden to leak what they were doing, they shouldn't have been doing all of this bad shit in the first place

[IcanzIIravor]

Doesn't seem that they addressed internet metadata collection.

I would guess additional lawsuits will force the courts to take up the metadata matter as well. Sad thing is people are growing complacent to this type of stuff.

The Patriot Act should have never been passed and signed and it definitely needs to be sent to the scrap heap of history along with the other laws passed people aren't familiar with.

[KevinNYC]

Remember the time America told its people how bad the Soviets, Germans, North Koreans, Chinese etc were for spying on their people :oldlol: :oldlol: :oldlol:

Now their government is spying on them way more than the Soviets or Chinese ever did (And do now) yet they dont complain at all. They even sign up to things like Facebook and tell their government where theyre going for dinner tonight, who they associate with, write status about their thoughts etc. :oldlol:

Except for all the stuff Snowden stole and the journalists published, they still have not found a single American actually interfered with.

Their bombshell revelation was they found 5 "Muslims" who were spied on and they claimed they were only spied on because they were Muslim. (One, actually was an atheist.) However, they admitted they had no idea why they were spied on. They just found a list of surveillance targets and picked out 5 prominent names. And when others looked into the names, they found each had some legitimate foreign intelligence concern such as one of the guys had a business partner who turned out to be a terrorist.

Given that what the court ruled on yesterday is not even the wiretaps and doesn't reveal the content of phone and that the metadata of 99.9 of Americans is not even searched, it's pretty ludicrous to claim the NSA in more invasive than governments like China's that will block your Skype chats or Russia that will block you from viewing a dissident's blog (http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/access-to-major-opposition-sites-navalnys-blog-blocked/496148.html), let alone true totalitarian systems like the old East Germany.

The number of people actually targeted for surveillance by the NSA is a tiny fraction of a single percent.
http://www.dni.gov/files/icotr/2014_transparency_chart_1.png

[KevinNYC]

How do you honestly believe this dribble youre speaking? Nearly every American has a smart phone thats tracked by satellite. Nearly every American has a social media account like Facebook that pretty much gives the governement all the information they need.

How can you honestly think that some East Germans with a pad and pencil in the 60s had a better spy network than the GREASTEST and most technologically advanced country in the history of the world. Do you liberals seriously have no common sense and knowledge? Seriously bro......

A. You're speaking of capability. Not actions. In 1994, almost a million Rwandans were killed in about 100 days. A swifter genocide than under the Nazis. What super technologically advanced weapon did they use? Most of the killings were done by machete.


B. Yes, the US government has the ability to capture the geolocation of a US persons cell phone IF THEY ARE A TARGET for surveillance. And that would be the FBI, not NSA involved and that is completely different from the mass collection of metadata in this court case. In fact the metadata collected does not include geolocation.

C. What's Facebook got to do with it? Shit posted on Facebook can be monitored by your little brother.

[24-Inch_Chrome]

Maksimilian is one of Putin's state sponsored trolls. We've been over this already.