Secret Court Upholds Phone Data Collection

cold fjord writes "The Houston Chronicle reports, 'A newly declassified opinion from the government's secret surveillance court says no company that has received an order to turn over bulk telephone records has challenged the directive. The opinion by Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court Judge Claire Eagan, made public Tuesday, spells out her reasons for reauthorizing the phone records collection "of specified telephone service providers" for three months. ... 'Indeed, no recipient of any Section 215 order has challenged the legality of such an order, despite the explicit statutory mechanism for doing so.'" Relatedly, the UN Human Rights Council is discussing the surveillance situation.

No Surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

We are cattle. When they want us for dinner they will come calling.

Our government is so far out of hand that I don't recognize it anymore.

Re:Yahoo

[ebrandsberg]

Phone records. I don't think Yahoo or Google is a phone company in the sense AT&T, Verizon, Sprint or T-Mobile are. As others have pointed out, there is no reason for them to challenge these orders, as they a) get paid for the costs of complying (from what I understand), b) the orders themselves are classified, so no real risk (until now) of people knowing what is going on and c) it would cost them money to challenge. The entire system is stacked against privacy.

Re:Can You Blame Them?

[Anonymous Coward]

And he is a hero for standing up to that. And let that be a lesson to everybody, that it's still not okay to just go along with government illegal activity, but instead one must remember they are a bunch of gangsters, that are violating the law, all in the NAME of the law.

They play their games, and we play ours. If government does not stand behind the law, then they do not have the weight of law, and we the people have no obligation to it either.

Re:No Surprise

[mjr167]

So if they won't win, you don't have to worry about them getting elected :) and you still get to send a FUCK YOU to the main parties... If enough people start voting for the crazies, then maybe the main parties will change their ways to woo you back.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sort of. The United States Government has been taken over by the New World Order, over many decades. They truely represent the filthy rich olagarchy with goals to establish a one world governmnet, a one world money system and all under the control of a few. They are doing this now, because the economy is collapsing to the point they are unable to stop it, and it provides the most oportune time.

In order to make that happen, they need to convert America into a fascist police state, along with most other countries. And a constant state of war is part of that plan. They don't even bother to hide it anymore.