NSA's Role In Terror Cases Concealed From Defense Lawyers 172
Rick Zeman writes "'Confidentiality is critical to national security.' So wrote the Justice Department in concealing the NSA's role in two wiretap cases. However, now that the NSA is under the gun, it's apparently not so critical, according to New York attorney Joshua Dratel: 'National security is about keeping illegal conduct concealed from the American public until you're forced to justify it because someone ratted you out.' The first he heard of the NSA's role in his client's case was 'when [FBI deputy director Sean] Joyce disclosed it on CSPAN to argue for the effectiveness of the NSA's spying.' Dratel challenged the legality of the spying in 2011, and asked a federal judge to order the government to produce the wiretap application the FBI gave the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to justify the surveillance. 'Disclosure of the FISA applications to defense counsel – who possess the requisite security clearance – is also necessary to an accurate determination of the legality of the FISA surveillance, as otherwise the defense will be completely in the dark with respect to the basis for the FISA surveillance,' wrote Dratel. According to Wired, 'The government fought the request in a 60-page reply brief (PDF), much of it redacted as classified in the public docket. The Justice Department argued that the defendants had no right to see any of the filings from the secret court, and instead the judge could review the filings alone in chambers."
Facebook (Score:2)
Re:Facebook (Score:5, Funny)
Star Chamber much? (Score:4, Insightful)
And by the way who the FUCK is overseeing the chain of evidence?
Re:Star Chamber much? (Score:4, Insightful)
And by the way who the FUCK is overseeing the chain of evidence?
Obviously a secret overseer.
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And by the way who the FUCK is overseeing the chain of evidence?
RTFA. The NSA data was not used as evidence in court. The NSA data was used to identify suspicious behavior, and establish probable cause, but all the evidence used to convict was collected by normal law enforcement. A chain of custody is not required for all evidence. It is only required for evidence used in court.
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Really? Up here in Canadaland, the evidence required to get a warrant(aka R&PG and/or probable cause) require a chain of evidence when presented in court, because the defense must have full disclosure.
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Really? Up here in Canadaland, the evidence required to get a warrant(aka R&PG and/or probable cause) require a chain of evidence when presented in court, because the defense must have full disclosure.
I believe it's the same in the US. Anything the Goverment uses to prosecute must be made available to the defense - classified or not.
Re:Star Chamber much? (Score:5, Insightful)
Court cases get thrown out every single day because of issues in establishing probable cause. It is one of the most common reasons for criminal cases to be dismissed in court. For the government to now claim that probable cause can be established without the defendant seeing the evidence is quite literally overturning centuries of jurisprudence.
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If the NSA evidence was improper (or false) then everything that follows from it is fruit of a poisonous tree.
So much for... (Score:5, Informative)
The right to face your accuser. In a regular court, all evidence being used against a person has to be in both the prosecutors and defenses possession. I watch enough Law and Order to know this :) (Also, my neighbours are lawyers)
Re:So much for... (Score:5, Informative)
In theory, the judge is supposed to take into account whether an assertion of the state-secrets privilege prejudices the outcome of the case, and if so, is supposed to take action accordingly in the interest of justice. For example, they could exclude evidence if the defendant isn't given the proper right to examine it; or they could dismiss charges entirely if the government's assertion of privilege makes a fair trial impossible.
In practice this does not seem to happen much.
Re:So much for... (Score:4, Informative)
Turning of the tables (Score:5, Insightful)
If prosecutor is allowed to present secret evidence to the judge, the defence lawyers should also have the right to present their own secret evidence that the prosecutor will not be able to see/hear. I wonder how fair they would find it...
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The defence lawyers have to ask the defendent (hmm, I'm not sure if he's technically a defendent) to guess what secret evidence might have been presented so that they can, say, present some evidence that he was at a certain place at a certain time in the hope that it invalidates some of the claims.
Dangerous, dangerous. What if the only way to "guess" about the evidence is to either be guilty, or be privy to the secret info?
If the government might have evidence that defendant was at place P at time T, and defence now shows that defendant was elsewhere E at time T, then the fact that defendant knows that T is material to the case might already show that he knows something which he couldn't if he were innocent. Nice Catch-22.
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Ironically, we've seen it coming for quite some time.
Re:So much for... (Score:5, Interesting)
You are facing your accuser. You just don't have the security clearance to view the evidence. And because such evidence will raise nasty questions about how it was collected. Like what's happening now...
There is a quote out of SW EP1 that rings so true in government when anything goes south on them: "I will make it legal" - Darth Sidious
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You just don't have the security clearance to view the evidence. And because such evidence will raise nasty questions about how it was collected.
Well, not all the evidence anyway. The fact that some evidence exists at all reveals important things about how it was uncovered.
For the purposes of illustration, suppose the US was able to listen in on a North Korean spy that had just delivered a load of man portable anti-aircraft missiles to an al Qaida cell*. If the al Qaida leader had told the North Korean spy that he had a plan to shoot down a passenger jet at San Francisco airport, and the spy reported that back to headquarters, the US could interce
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For the purposes of illustration, suppose the US was able to listen in on a North Korean spy that had just delivered a load of man portable anti-aircraft missiles to an al Qaida cell*. If the al Qaida leader had told the North Korean spy that he had a plan to shoot down a passenger jet at San Francisco airport, and the spy reported that back to headquarters, the US could intercept that message and know about it. There might be enough information in the spy's report (to whom the missiles were delivered, where, when, what they would be used for) to lead to an arrest of the terrorist. But if the source of the information leading to the arrest was made public, then North Korea would know that it didn't have secure communications with its spies in the field, and would change its codes and/or communication procedures. If it did that, the US would lose its ability to conduct surveillance of the spies of a hostile nation, which would be a pretty important thing to lose. There can be plenty of conundrums that arise from this sort of thing.
It is a problem, but even arresting the guy would could have the same impact. It's not as if his chums will assume that the SEALs came on account of those outstanding speeding tickets. Of course I understand that merely arresting the guy won't necessarily tip them off to the source.
I see a bigger problem in the form of evidence being kept secret and used against someone in a trial. That's a bigger risk, as at that point we may as well employ the Star Chamber for "terrorism".
I'm fine with evidence being kept
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I see a bigger problem in the form of evidence being kept secret and used against someone in a trial. That's a bigger risk, as at that point we may as well employ the Star Chamber for "terrorism".
It is problematic for trials and other court proceedings. I have seen cases reported in which a defense attorney was given a security clearance to review the evidence and work the issues it creates. Of course that attorney is limited in what he or she can tell the defendant. And not every attorney is trustworthy in handing national security related matters.
Conviction of disbarred lawyer Lynne Stewart upheld for smuggling messages to jailed terrorist [nydailynews.com]
It would be way better if al Qaida would simply stop att
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I accept your premise, but I reject that North Korea changing their codes and our agencies having a harder time listening in being worth giving up our Constitution for. A few downed planes a year isn't worth giving up our freedoms for.
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I reject the assertion that the Constitution is being given up even if there are some difficult corner cases.
Down enough planes and much of the public will abandon air travel, with all of the consequences that will entail, including massive price increases for remaining travel which will cause more people to leave it.
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Sure, but we wouldn't have a few downed planes/year, and we've been dealing with hijackings and accidental crashes for decades before 9/11 without people giving up air travel. It was the combination of 9/11 being out-sized and the governmental and media promotion of fear surrounding the event in the name of power and ratings that really screwed us. Seriously, terrorism should be much less on your mind than your diet and exercise.
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You're a coward who believes that safety is more important than freedom, but it's not. Why don't you and your ilk go ruin another country?
I assume you misspelled elk as ilk since you're having a cow over nonsense.
As if getting molested at airports
Silly hyperbole. A pat down, when they occur, is not "getting molested." It's been happening on and off since the '60s or '70s and the rash of hijackings by the Palestinians and those desiring unplanned Cuban vacations.
shoved off to free speech zones are
That's been going on since the Clinton administration, at least. I don't think its a good idea, but the courts haven't seen fit to ban it. Also note that sort of thing is used at either particular events, or far mo
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Then you fundamentally misunderstand al Qaida's goals.
Terrorism from Al Qaida and company will probably be around for at least another 10-40 years. There isn't much getting around that, they have a vote. They are pursuing their own goals, and there isn't really anything we can do to make them happy other than convert to Islam, implement Sharia law in place of the Constitution, and join them. Their goal is world conquest for the glory of Islam, and reestablishing the Caliphate dissolved in 1923, even if i
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A small number of extremists believe those things, but without a fertile environment for attracting more extremists, they would quickly die out. If the US spent all the money wasted by invading Iraq on helping Afghanistan, we'd be in a much better standing in the world, and there'd be much fewer terrorists in the future.
Re:So much for... (Score:4, Insightful)
For the purposes of illustration, suppose the US was able to listen in on a North Korean spy that had just delivered a load of man portable anti-aircraft missiles to an al Qaida cell*. If the al Qaida leader had told the North Korean spy that he had a plan to shoot down a passenger jet at San Francisco airport, and the spy reported that back to headquarters, the US could intercept that message and know about it. There might be enough information in the spy's report (to whom the missiles were delivered, where, when, what they would be used for) to lead to an arrest of the terrorist.
Sheesh, this isn't a problem. Its just NOT. Regular police deal with it ALL the time.
Suppose run of the mill police informant witnesses a crime, but if he testifies in court it blows his cover and the powers that be know that the inside information & access he has is worth far more than the arrest of one person, so they don't use it. But they still know who committed the crime and will keep an eye on him and try to find another chain of evidence with which to go after him. Or go after him for something else... for a famous example: tax evasion.
NSA secret evidence is really no different at all. And it should be treated the same. As far as the civil court system is concerned, if it "too classified" to be presented in court and made available to the defendant, then it is not admissible in court and can't be used to convict. If the NSA's access to North Korean terrorist communications is to valuable to compromise, then so be it, don't use it to arrest the guy. Find some other way. If he goes free, for a while, until they can find something else that's the price of keeping the access to the terrorist communications network. I can live with that.
You can't have both. And you shouldn't want both. Otherwise, we're a short hop away from witch hunts. The police informant with high level gang access can decide you slighted him at the bar the other day, and reports he saw you arguing and then beating on a now deceased hooker. You get arrested, and at trial, they tell you a secret witness saw you attack her. Good luck.
Substitute NSA agent for police informant? What's the difference? Secret evidence is bad. If that's all you have, and you want it to remain a secret, you shouldn't be able to use it in court.
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The trolling gets ever sadder, especially the "MyCleanPC" posts you're making now:
That's when it happened: I found MyCleanPC! I installed MyCleanPC right on the client's PC, ran a scan, and it immediately got rid of all the viruses without a single problem. MyCleanPC accomplished in record time what I was unable to accomplish after a full week. Wow! Such a thing!
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Well, the lives of every American are probably more important than their right to due process. The dead have no such guarantee.
Not according to Patrick Henry, and the many patriots that agreed with his stance.
Re:So much for... (Score:5, Interesting)
There are plenty cans of worms to open over this.
Bank Robbery Suspect Wants NSA Surveillance Records for Defense [breitbart.com]
Re:So much for... (Score:5, Funny)
In a regular court, all evidence being used against a person has to be in both the prosecutors and defenses possession.
Well, that shit-cans my defense plans:
Mom: "You never call me on the phone!"
Me: "Sure I do! Just ask the NSA!"
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The right to face your accuser. In a regular court, all evidence being used against a person has to be in both the prosecutors and defenses possession. I watch enough Law and Order to know this :) (Also, my neighbours are lawyers)
...and probably terrorists. What kind of pinko, socialist, anti-American nonsense is this? How dare you suggest that some lofty notion like liberty or privacy supersedes our government's need to protect us from "teh evil-dooers'?
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The phrase is "bad guys." Because that's how high-ranking law enforcement and military officials are supposed to talk nowadays -- like preschoolers. I can't figure out whether that indicates their own intelligence and maturity, or their opinion of the public's.
Re:So much for... (Score:5, Insightful)
What the "national security" cloak is really about is controlling the evidence. It's easy to claim you're stopping terrorism when you control all the evidence that shows whether there was any terrorist threat in the first place. When the government goes to the bother of having a trial -- and that will be increasingly rarely -- they can bring out their best stuff and prevent the defense from ever seeing anything remotely exculpatory. When we get to the point where the government fabricates a key piece of evidence now and then, how will the court know? Who's to say that is not happening routinely?
Why the courts admit secret evidence totally escapes me. Quite possibly, that's a worse breach of personal freedom than the surveillance itself, because without secret evidence the surveillance couldn't be (legally) used against citizens.
Federal Judges (Score:4, Interesting)
This is the absolute worst, heart-breaking part of this slow imposition of the police state. Sure, you expect the spooks (spies) to want ever more data and unchecked power, and sure, you sadly expect elected officials to either be fascists (R) or cowards (D), but goddamnit Judges! Federal Judges are supposed to be the bulwark against blatant abuses of the Peoples constitutional rights, especially by the government!
For them to have just rolled over and rubber-stamped every FISA fishing expedition and allowing the DOJ to conduct Kafkaesque Star Chamber inquisitions is sickening and unforgiveable. Either they are as cowardous as the Ds, or they themselves have been blackmailed by data from PRISM, et al.
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Did you stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night too?
The media's logic. (Score:5, Interesting)
I felt I needed a dose of stupidity, so I tuned into one of the news channels to see what they were saying about this case. After they were done with their character assassination of Edward Snowden (as if it has anything to do with the NSA's spying), they decided to apply some brilliant logic to the situation: Since Snowden is so clearly a dirty traitor and can't be trusted, we should all trust the guys from the NSA to do what's right. Evidently, if one person cannot be trusted, you must trust the secretive guy who is in direct opposition to the other guy...
And this comes from the people who claim to want small government. Yeah, okay. Small government... unless we think something will help stop the terrorists, and in that case, the government should do whatever it wants and violate the constitution as it wants!
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I felt I needed a dose of stupidity, so I tuned into one of the news channels to see what they were saying about this case. After they were done with their character assassination of Edward Snowden (as if it has anything to do with the NSA's spying), they decided to apply some brilliant logic to the situation: Since Snowden is so clearly a dirty traitor and can't be trusted, we should all trust the guys from the NSA to do what's right. Evidently, if one person cannot be trusted, you must trust the secretive guy who is in direct opposition to the other guy...
And this comes from the people who claim to want small government. Yeah, okay. Small government... unless we think something will help stop the terrorists, and in that case, the government should do whatever it wants and violate the constitution as it wants!
The US (and many other nations like France and the UK) have done this for ages. The enemy of your enemy. Remember the Iran-Iraq war in the 80s? Afghanistan - Russia back then as well? This created the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan that turned evil later on. It's stupid opportunistic policy, it's a problem for later. When news channels broadcast this kind of logic, it's only because many people want to hear this. These are the news channels that don't bring news, but that feed the fear, by request of the
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It's stupid opportunistic policy, it's a problem for later.
Yeah, stupid like a fox. Guess what? If you solve all the problems now you'll have no wars to profit from later.
Secret courts and the right to know ... (Score:5, Interesting)
So you lose the right to know your accuser, the basis on which you're accused, and the ability to see the evidence against you.
But you have to trust us, if he wasn't a bad person we wouldn't be watching him. We're just not allowed to tell you why.
This is getting pretty scary, and it seems like it undermines some pretty basic rights of the accused. Because apparently you could be tried and convicted without ever being told what for.
The US (and sadly by extension most every other country) is ceasing to be free, and starting to get to the level of the of Soviets in terms of being able to do anything in terms of state security.
Sad. This freedom thing has been a nice experiment, but not we're moving towards the global police state -- or at least a globe filled with a bunch of different police states.
Re:Secret courts and the right to know ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone need to read (or reread) Kafka's "The Trial" *now*.
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Here's a handy link to the Gutenberg Project version of The Trial by Kafka:
http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/7849/pg7849.html [gutenberg.org]
I've never read it, at least until now.
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Did Kafka not believe in paragraphs, or is that an artifact of the archival process?
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Also, here's the more handy link to the book page itself [gutenberg.org], which lets us choose what format we want to read it in, and provides other useful information and links.
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What's lacking here is branding awareness and a lack of a clear plan of execution. Watching this unfold in the media is torture. We need a catchy new name to get the public behind this fast-track form of getting the obviously guilty terrorists brought before the law.
How about the Stars and Stripes Chamber?
Re:Secret courts and the right to know ... (Score:5, Insightful)
And then deny the people who they claim to have evidence against access to that, while telling the actual trial judge to trust them.
I also know that these guys will decide all sorts of shit is legal in their closed rooms that no reasonable person would agree with. You know, like Alberto Gonazles saying there was no actual right to habeus corpus. These guys can always find one or two people on their side to come up with legal opinions which ignore the laws and obligations of government. Those opinions are frequently blatantly illegal, but as long as someone on staff said it was OK, they do it.
These guys are far more interested in expediency and paranoia than any laws.
Those branches have demonstrated time and time again they can't be trusted. And the more they do shit like this, the more obvious it is that they aren't trustworthy.
So now we have citizens who can't see the evidence against them or defend against it, based on the assertions of organizations who refuse to be named or involved. And I simply don't believe you can trust these people are complying with the law unless there's far more transparent oversight of them.
Because right now, it sounds like they could pretty much cook up anything in the back room, and just say "trust us judge".
You may want to live in that world, but I'm not particularly happy about it.
If someone is now finding that their own defense lawyer has no access to the evidence against them, then I would call that a kangaroo court like you'd see in a banana republic, not a fair process in a democratic country. And if you're not actively keeping your country free, you're watching it slide into an over-reaching state.
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If you want to know what the FISA Rubber Court is about:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/19/fisa-court-oversight-process-secrecy [guardian.co.uk]
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A key paragraph in the article being this one:
Under the FAA, which was just renewed last December for another five years, no warrants are needed for the NSA to eavesdrop on a wide array of calls, emails and online chats involving US citizens. Individualized warrants are required only when the target of the surveillance is a US person or the call is entirely domestic. But even under the law, no individualized warrant is needed to listen in on the calls or read the emails of Americans when they communicate with a foreign national whom the NSA has targeted for surveillance.
If they are targeting a foreign national and listening to their communications, they don't need a warrant if you, an American, calls that person. It would be like the FBI conducting surveillance of a mob run business and having a warrant to tap its lines. It wouldn't need to get a warrant for each different caller so that it could listen to the conversation. That doesn't make a lot of sense, which is why Greenwald is up in arms about it.
And then there is this
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Actually, by definition, didn't the amendments come after the original document?
Those amendments aren't written in a priority list, they're in the order people realized they needed to be added.
They're called amendments because they were added later .. in fact, 1-10 were some 4 years later, with the rest coming in over time.
The 1st doesn't trump
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Actually be definition the amendments are in a sort of priority list, at least in the sense that later amendments trump earlier ones and the original constitution. Doesn't matter with the original 10 as none conflict but for example (I'm not American so don't remember the actual numbers) you can have an amendment prohibiting alcohol, then a later one repealing the first one. You could also have a new amendment that changes one of the earlier ones, eg an amendment that allowed government to legislate against
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No, it's way too early to use the 2nd. Besides, you'd just be gunned down by many more people with many more guns.
Now is the time to organize at the grass-roots level, work with your neighbors and others in your community and vote the bastards out.
Oh, and when ever anyone brings up terror, point out that they must be really scared of cars, since they kill far more people than terrorists ever will.
NSA is the least of the problems... (Score:5, Insightful)
Congress should be impeaching the President, and then in an act of real patriotism impeach themselves.
99% of Congress went along with Bush's illegal anticonstitutional plan, and then went along a second time to Obama's tune.
Fucking traitors that they are.
Re:NSA is the least of the problems... (Score:5, Insightful)
They won't because they are all politicians. If they were in the Oval Office and had the choice to give up some of their power, they'd balk as well. (Maybe one or two would do it, but they are the exception and would be quickly attacked by the other politicians as being "soft on terrorism.")
I blame the american people (Score:3, Insightful)
Why? Because they let it happen.
You don't give a toss about your own constitution, if you did, you would have done something by now.
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I blame the american people
I blame both.
Re:I blame the american people (Score:5, Insightful)
As long as they can get their weekly does of the Kardashians, Americans just don't give a shit about their freedoms anymore.
Fat, dumb, and happy. That's how the emperor of Rome did it, and that's how our government is doing it now.
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I wish I could get a dose of Kardashian or three.
At the same time even!
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You might get a dose from Kardashian ... she's like the town bicycle.
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Actually it's dose and stop snooping on my TV watching habits! NFW would I touch a Kardashian with a 10 foot pole either, too much fat. Also, I happen to take my freedoms seriously and yes, sometimes I do wish that everybody who had a vote actually cared and studied the issues. From Gerrymandering to people who go across state lines and vote twice we have a system that works but has some very serious flaws and any attempts at changing that result in court challenges and calls that somebody is disenfranc
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As long as they can get their weekly does of the Kardashians, Americans just don't give a shit about their freedoms anymore.
Fat, dumb, and happy. That's how the emperor of Rome did it, and that's how our government is doing it now.
We already know that part. Is there nothing more to say? Add something to the conversation, don't stop with the trite half-witticism. How do we jar them out of their complacence? Or if we believe they are beyond redemption, how should that affect we who can see?
How do you explain
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Start making lists of names. Don't just say "they" are doing this. Name names, together with what it is they've done that's blatantly unconstitutional. Who is the FISA court judge? What's his name? Who are the prosecutors using this NSA evidence? What are their names? Hell, include their business addresses and phone numbers, while you're at it.
See how THEY like being on a list, eh?
Only if you do it, be sure you host it outside the US, only log into it via a chain of random proxies, and purge your cac
Re:I blame the american people (Score:5, Insightful)
No individual let this happen.
The problem with the US as a whole is that everyone votes along party lines, versus voting for a candidate (regardless of their party affiliation) that best matches their individual ideals.
At the same time, we have politicians making bold promises, and then failing on actually keeping any of those promises. The President for example promised a more open government, and an end to the surveillance programs that Bush started. Absolutely none of that has come about. He may have started, and possibly intended to keep those lofty goals, but in the end, he just failed.
It is like that for every single politician out there. I'm not even going to get into the fact that they are all bought and paid for by one special interest group or another.
What we need is to clean house, we need people who don't want the jobs as politicians, they will be the ones who will perform the best. Pick a teacher, pick a garbage man, pick anyone but those who are actively looking to be a politician. I look at the current crop of Congress critters and Senators, and I am not sure what they stand for, they certainly don't stand for the little guys within their respective states..
Meh.. I am done,.. This turned into a rant that I was hoping to avoid.
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Unfortunately, at this point, the system is self-sustaining. Republicans and Democrats redraw voting districts to ensure that their party wins as many as possible. Both parties actively keep third parties off the ballot and out of public debates whenever possible to make those candidates look like fringe offerings that have no chance of winning. They also each demonize the other party to scare people into thinking that not voting for A means that B will win and BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN!!!!! (Part of the b
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No individual let this happen.
Every individual let this happen.
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I blame me. And you. They said, "if you see something, say something."
Well, I'm seeing things.
I'm seeing my government spying on me. I'm saying "I object."
I'm seeing my government grope old ladies, small children and grown men before they can travel. I'm saying "I object."
I'm seeing my government lock up non-violent drug users. I'm saying "I object."
I'm seeing my government torture and imprison human beings, foreign and domestic. I'm saying "I object."
I'm seeing my government enslave a generation to debt to
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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The war on terror isn't even a real war. No war was declared by Congress. It refused to lest all the insurance policies after 9/11 not have to pay up because policies always exempt acts of war.
I wouldn't be surprised if they've been updated to include acts of terrorism.
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> There was no Congressional authorization for Libya.
Eh? What is this then?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization_for_Use_of_Military_Force_Against_Terrorists [wikipedia.org]
3 Questions that should be asked (Score:2)
hear that splash? (Score:2)
It's yet another civil right plopping down into the toilet.
Where is the right to face one's accuser? (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't that a bedrock principle of our justice system? What would you do if you were on a jury where the prosecutor was allowed to talk about evidence and not even the defendant's attorney was allowed to to see the order that showed it was legally obtained?
Should the jury at that point disregard the evidence because they can presume it was illegally obtained?
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Jury nullification should be taught in high school civics class.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification [wikipedia.org]
Re:Where is the right to face one's accuser? (Score:5, Interesting)
In 1982, during the Falklands War, the British Royal Navy sank an Argentine Cruiser – the "ARA General Belgrano". Three years later in 1985, civil servant (government employee) named Clive Ponting leaked two government documents concerning the sinking of the cruiser to a Member of Parliament (Tam Dalyell) and was subsequently charged with breaching section 2 of the Official Secrets Act 1911. The prosecution in the case demanded that the jury convict Ponting as he had clearly contravened the Act by leaking official information about the sinking of the Belgrano during the Falklands War. His main defence, that it was in the public interest that this information be made available, was rejected on the grounds that "the public interest is what the government of the day says it is", but the jury nevertheless acquitted him, much to the consternation of the Government. He had argued that he had acted out of "his duty to the interests of the state"; the judge had argued that civil servants owed their duty to the government.
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Dude, that is the scariest thing I've heard in years.
WTF is freedom if not the ability to decide for yourself where your duty lies?
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Dude, that is the scariest thing I've heard in years.
WTF is freedom if not the ability to decide for yourself where your duty lies?
Yeah, I guess the Brits had forgotten the Nuremburg trials which invalidated the "just following orders" defense...which is the flip side of the owing your unflagging duty to the governement du jour.
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When the government properly recognizes that ITS duty is to the people, then I can see this as being true. However, all too often, governments (even democratically elected ones) seem to think that their duty is to themselves/their party and the people are just an inconvenient speed-bump that you need to deal with every few years to gain re-election.
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About 20% of the US population would be totally and rightfully pissed about such a situation. Another 30-40% wouldn't care. And the rest would be drooling to get on that jury so they could convict and throw away the key.
Read this and weep, because it is true : (Score:5, Insightful)
"The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."
- Hermann Goering
so now they're subverting the right to fair trial? (Score:5, Insightful)
withholding evidence from the defense because it's classified? That's akin to a show trial.
60-page reply brief (Score:2)
Free after Tocqueville (Score:3)
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Yes, because Communist barbarism is vastly superior.
Re:America needs COMMUNISM (Score:4, Insightful)
Communist barbarism, Capitalism barbarism ... both the Soviets and America have demonstrated that eventually you get fucked by either system of government, and both systems will conspire to take away your rights if they find it expedient.
If you think glorious Capitalism is sparing you from any of this stuff, you are somewhat clueless.
Unjust societies come in all colors and stripes, and America is already an unjust society, moving towards even more state control over the individual.
Capitalism is a system of defining who owns what, but it doesn't make any guarantees about what you get to do with the rest of it. In its current form, corporate profits are more important than human rights.
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Communist barbarism, Capitalism barbarism ... both the Soviets and America have demonstrated that eventually you get fucked by either system of government
Capitalism is not a system of government. It is an economic strategy. Autocratic and democratic governments alike can make use of capitalism.
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moving towards even more state control over the individual
I was with you right up until there.
Who's the person or organization that oppresses you the most times each week? It's probably not the cops, because chances are you don't interact with cops on a regular basis. It's probably not the NSA, although they're reading your stuff and possibly listening to your phone calls and all sorts of other bad stuff. It's probably not the FBI, who you almost definitely don't interact with. Nope, it's probably your boss and the organization he or she represents that makes coer
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Kim Jung Il would like a word with you. I mean, it is called "Democratic People's Republic of Korea".
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It is the pervasion of this insane idea is why we have a government that allowed to charge off into a future defined by a very false "safety" that was purchased with the d
Re:The government has its rights (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, fuck the fascist USA with their terror squads, secret death camps for civilians, mass murders of citizens and what-not. Fucking come on.
The first step in curing a disease is acknowledging its symptoms.
Chanting U-S-A, U-S-A, U-S-A won't get you nearer to the solution.
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>Yeah, fuck the fascist USA with their terror squads,
We have those, they're called special forces and they will kill people in autonomic countries without permission of the government of said countries. We don't deny this, we're proud of them.
>secret death camps for civilians,
The US has acknowledged innocent civilians being held in Guantanamo. Even though we know they are innocent, various legal and political issues keep us from releasing them. People do die and commit suicide in that hellhole.
>mas
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Hmm, 6000 or so American dead as a result of 9/11, including the soldiers who dies in the resulting wars. Plus 90000 permanently injured.
Since 9/11, we've also had about 420,000 traffic fatalities.
In other words, the deaths/injuries as a result of 9/11 were a minor blip compared to the deaths/injuries from driving to/from work every d
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>Since 9/11, we've also had about 420,000 traffic fatalities.
So spending 1 TRILLION+ on a war when we could have spent it on infrastructure and public safety is a good idea? I'm guessing you reap the benefits of government defense contracts.
Way to make his point for him.
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Hmm, interesting that you draw that conclusion. But no, I'm not even working for a company that does government contracts anymore.
Note, by the by, that $1 trillion dollars (even if you do it in caps) isn't really all that much money, spread over ten years. Not if you're the US government anyway.
Try not to let yourself be fool
Re:If people don't take their privacy seriously (Score:4, Insightful)
Then why shouldn't the government have complete access to your data?
For the same reason that (some) people being exhibitionists shouldn't allow the government or some business to secretly install video cameras in my bathroom. And then when they are discovered have some idiot say (and be taken seriously) that everyone knows that you should sweep your bathroom for cameras and anyone who doesn't has no expectation of privacy.
As the technological means of snooping improve at a pace consistent with Moore's Law, and the "internet of things" increases the physical space that is internet connected, the expense and technological difficulty of maintaining any privacy will become prohibitive for any person who wishes to communicate at all.
Accepting the argument that nobody has any justifiable expectations of privacy under any conditions where a better informed person might not have an expectation of privacy is the sure path to nobody having any privacy anywhere.
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Then why shouldn't the government have complete access to your data? Honestly, we use Google, Facebook, ect... they all have detailed records of our activities and identities that they aggregate and sell for profit. Yet no one protests, as they enjoy the bread and circuses of free Facebook or YouTube. If people started to take their privacy seriously, to attribute a value to their individuality, then maybe we'd get somewhere. The internet is a cesspool, assume everyone is watching. If you don't want your secrets known, protect yourself. We are still in the stoneages of Internet development, imagine what it will be like in 20 years! Wake up people! Take responsibility! If the NSA doesn't get you, Chinese/Iranian/Russian/ect... hackers will.
Actually, in some ways, the most offensive thing about the whole NSA thing is that it's a one-way street. Most of us are resigned to life in a fishbowl at this stage, but they want to be outside the bowl. What's good for us ought to be good for them, within reason. Especially for a nation founded on the concept that ideas and information should flow freely. In large part because the previous government wasn't always so accommodating.
I don't really agree that "teh terrists" knowing how they can be monitored
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Yet no one protests... If people started to take their privacy seriously, to attribute a value to their individuality, then maybe we'd get somewhere.
Protest, anger, and reservations don't occur until AFTER it becomes clear that you have been harmed. Afterall, if you aren't being harmed, it is hard to say that abuse is occuring.
It's not so much that people are enjoying the 'bread and circuses', but that human nature is to trust, until the trust is abused. While you may be right in your statement that trust is misplaced, you will find that it is very difficult to convince people NOT to trust by default.
I consider it something like trusting a Barber to g
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The reason is that people CHOOSE to share their lives via Facebook/Twitter/etc. I choose what I post on Twitter and other social networks and what I don't. If I text my wife something, I don't share that text (or the contents thereof) with everyone. I consider that private information. Were I to commit (or be suspected of committing) a crime, I wouldn't be surprised if the police got a warrant to look through my texts/call records. However, when a federal organization to look through my stuff just on t
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Neither Google nor Facebook have the ability to confiscate everything I own and throw me in jail, possibly using lethal force if I resist.
The government does.
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Then why shouldn't the government have complete access to your data? Honestly, we use Google, Facebook, ect... they all have detailed records of our activities and identities that they aggregate and sell for profit.
Not really. They have access to a lot of data and activity that I either don't care about or would just as soon let them use as going through the various other ways of performing online activities while keeping it secret. It's convenient. But I have control over what data of mine they have access to and what they don't. Less control than, say, Verizon has, but I don't expect they're opening encrypted packets to get a look at my browsing habits.
I expect most people do the same. If I want to do something