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Court Rules NSA Phone Snooping Illegal -- After Seven-Year Delay (yahoo.com) 81

Posted by msmash from the breaking-news dept.
The National Security Agency program that swept up details on billions of Americans' phone calls was illegal and possibly unconstitutional, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday. From a report: However, the unanimous three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said the role the so-called telephone metadata program played in a criminal terror-fundraising case against four Somali immigrants was so minor that it did not undermine their convictions. The long-awaited decision is a victory for prosecutors, but some language in the court's opinion could be viewed as a rebuke of sorts to officials who defended the snooping by pointing to the case involving Basaaly Moalin and three other men found guilty by a San Diego jury in 2013 on charges of fundraising for Al-Shabaab. Judge Marsha Berzon's opinion, which contains a half-dozen references to the role of former NSA contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden in disclosing the NSA metadata program, concludes that the "bulk collection" of such data violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The call-tracking effort began without court authorization under President George W. Bush following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. A similar program was approved by the secretive FISA Court beginning in 2006 and renewed numerous times, but the 9th Circuit panel said those rulings were legally flawed.
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Court Rules NSA Phone Snooping Illegal -- After Seven-Year Delay More

Court Rules NSA Phone Snooping Illegal -- After Seven-Year Delay

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  • Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday September 02, 2020 @02:18PM (#60466724)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:"Possibly" unconstitutional? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Mostly a lurker ( 634878 ) on Wednesday September 02, 2020 @02:30PM (#60466772)

      Edward Snowden is a patriotic American, willing to make large sacrifices to protect his country from the unconstitutional actions of a secret police. It is high time his actions were properly acknowledged, and he be given a guarantee against prosecution for his heroic acts.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by OMBad ( 6965950 )
        That is probably why Trump is thinking of pardoning Snowden. But Trump bad and Bloomberg doesn't like the idea so let's just stick with "Orange Man Bad" to be safe.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by sjames ( 1099 )

          He's never shown any hesitation to use his pen before, why is he only "thinking about it". If he was serious he would have whipped that pen out and signed a preemptive pardon by now.

          • Re:"Possibly" unconstitutional? (Score:4, Insightful)

            by jacks smirking reven ( 909048 ) on Wednesday September 02, 2020 @03:05PM (#60466908)

            He likely only mentioned it because he heard it from someone else and it would possibly trigger "the libs" and the media. That's all he really cares about, the man has no base belief system.

            Has anyone asked him for his context on what Snowden actually did, what it meant and what the implications of what he leaked were and what his root reasoning is for supporting that point of view about the NSA and the Fourth Amendment? I think he has to answer all that in some detail before signing that pen, otherwise it's just empty politicking and seriously undercuts the significance of what that pardon would mean for Snowden and America in general.

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by Anonymous Coward

              Has anyone asked him for his context on anything at all?

              ftfy

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by irving47 ( 73147 )

              maybe, MAYBE he's more prone to pardoning Snowden for blowing the whistle on something he says he was victim of while campaigning, and after the election.

              • You know as petty and incoherent reasoning that is, at least it's something that follows a thread but I have never heard that point even articulated by anyone in the Administration and it raises even more concerns about how pardons are being handled.

                Overall I don't think Snowden should be pre-emptively pardoned in such a crass way. I think a President who does it should cleanly articulate their reasoning and show understanding of what and why he did and why it deserves a pardon, otherwise it undercuts and

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by guruevi ( 827432 )

            It takes a great deal of effort to do a pardon correctly, a bunch of background, you have to make sure cases like these aren't pending.

            If you issue a pardon, and then it comes out that other capital crimes were committed, it would be political suicide, also make sure that the pardon isn't too narrow so your political opponents can't go after their target with other charges.

            Trump has already pardoned several black people that were there for 'victimless' crimes, something Obama promised but never got around t

            • It takes a great deal of effort to do a pardon correctly

              There is no constitutional requirement to do it correctly. If Trump wants to pardon Snowden, he can just do it.

              and then it comes out that other capital crimes were committed

              A pardon can be narrowly defined and only apply to particular crimes committed during a particular timeframe.

          • He may want to wait to see how he is doing in the polls as the election gets closer.

            If Biden is ahead, Trump will want to stir up the pot any way he can. A pardon for Snowden would knock Biden off-message and dominate the news cycle for a few days.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by DarkOx ( 621550 )

              Nothing will make me happerier than seeing Biden/Harris go down in flames and Trump winning a second term.

              That said not sure how pardoning Snowden knocks Biden off message specifically. Interested to hear your reasoning on that actually.

              I also don't think it will dominate the news cycle. The public has moved on from Snowden, this court ruling was not even a front page event. I am not convinced the big news outlets will talk Snowden at all unless they can put some anti-trump angle on it.

          • I would guess there are a ton of defense and intel community people that would quit if Trump pardoned Ed. Of course Trump acts bulletproof and pretends he can replace anyone at a moment's notice, but I expect even Trump knows this is not true, so he hasn't pulled the trigger on a Snowden pardon yet.
        • Not if one of the strings attached is him lying about the russians meddling in the election.
      • Trump was recently talking about pardoning Snowden. That would be a ruse to lure him back to the US, where they won't prosecute him, but they'll take care of him another way.

    • For anyone wondering what "ruled it might be unconstitutional" means:

      Historically, there was a principle that the government could get business records from businesses, such as the phone company, without it being a search under the fourth amendment as applied to the customers. This case reverses* that for widespread or long-lasting collection of mobile phone records. Therefore a person has 4th amendment standing to challenge such data collection, as it is a search under the fourth amendment.

      The court then

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DarkOx ( 621550 )

      "Secure in your person and effects" - I think there is a legitimate space to debate as it if your phone call records are an effect, they are certainly not a paper. They are not specifically your "property" I don't say this to advocate a specific position on the matter but merely to point out that reasonable people might come to different conclusions as to if slurping phone meta-data constitutes a 'search' without a little jurisprudence on the matter, which we at last have at at least an appellate court leve

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Courts are too slow (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MobyDisk ( 75490 ) on Wednesday September 02, 2020 @02:26PM (#60466760) Homepage

    This wiretapping started 2 administrations ago! The telecom companies were granted immunity from prosecution over their involvement in this almost 20 years ago! How insane is it that the courts finally now told us that it was illegal -- almost 2 decades after Congress admitted it was illegal and quickly shoveled dirt over top of the law to pretend it didn't happen. Dang....

    The good news about this is now Edward Snowden can come back to the US without fear of prosecution, because he is officially a whistelblower. Right??? (No, I'm not THAT naive....)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by martinX ( 672498 )

      almost 2 decades after Congress admitted it was illegal and quickly shoveled dirt over top of the law to pretend it didn't happen. Dang....

      I thought members of Congress represented the interests of the people who voted them in.

      • That would be the corporate overlords with their speechdollarvotes.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by MobyDisk ( 75490 )

        I think what happens now is the members of congress tell the people of their party what to believe, rather than the other way around. People are so loyal to their party that whatever the elected representatives does is what the party members say they wanted. If tomorrow, Donald Trump supported the ACA and wanted an open border with Mexico, the Republicans would support those things with great fervor.

    • Nope, he didn't follow any of the bonafide standards that real whistleblowers need to follow. At a minimum he could have gone directly to the office of any senator and brought his concerns to them. He never even tried. You cannot reasonably tell me that there wasn't a single senator that wasn't sympathetic to his political views.

      He endangered the lives and welfare of a whole lot of people. He never made a sincere effort to blow the whistle on anything. You can call him many things, however whistleblower isn

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by t14m4t ( 205907 )

      That's how the courts are supposed to work. The purpose of the president as a singular authority is to be able to work quickly as needed. Congress is intentionally structured as a committee (albeit a large one) to foster discussion, knowing that anything that happens in Congress will take longer.

      The preferred method to fix anything is through Congress, or through Executive Action if there's a crisis requiring speedy action. The courts should only act when the other two are not correcting something, and the

  • Well, since a court of law has ruled that it's.... xxxrrrrhehe... maybe unconstitutional..... hehrrrrrrrgghhh..... we'll immediately stop....... hrrhrhhhrrr...... our collections.... hahahahahahahah.

    No point in even trying for a straight face.
    • It is a non trivial number of the people convicted on counter terrorism intelligence material gathered during snooping have been sent packing. That any of it made it to courts who remain blissfully unaware how it was captured.

      There is little point in taking National intelligence materials from signals to a US court of law at this point, the questions for discovery by a piss poor defender are a published playbook and just burn resources for years.

      The justice departments IGs fully admit FISA and Patr

  • Yep, they're scared now. All the taps have been shut off

  • got a pat on the hand.

  • The Constitution is just a piece of paper (Score:3)

    by penguinoid ( 724646 ) on Wednesday September 02, 2020 @03:34PM (#60467028) Homepage Journal

    Ever notice how there's no punishment for violating the Constitution?

    • Re:The Constitution is just a piece of paper (Score:4, Insightful)

      by CaptainLugnuts ( 2594663 ) on Wednesday September 02, 2020 @03:58PM (#60467116)

      What I always wanted is that as an elected politician, if you vote for something that's ruled unconstitutional by the court system (and not overturned) that you are no longer eligible to run for any elected office.
      I think that would clean up most of the detritus hanging around the government.

      • Likely that would be abused, imagine being able to kick out basically the entire majority party out of both Senate and House in one day. I vaguely suspect that the founding fathers expected voters to eject or at least stop electing enemies of the US.

        • Likely that would be abused, imagine being able to kick out basically the entire majority party out of both Senate and House in one day. I vaguely suspect that the founding fathers expected voters to eject or at least stop electing enemies of the US.

          You act like this is a bad thing.
          As a federal elected official you swear to uphold the Constitution. If you've broken that oath, why should you be able to be elected to office ever again?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by MobyDisk ( 75490 )

        I think the founders expected the electorate to do that. No rule needed. And of course, who would enforce the rule but the electorate anyway!

        • They did not intend the common person to directly elect the President. Alexander Hamilton was more concerned that the right people be picking the President. The Founders did not trust the commoner.

          In Federalist Paper no. 68,

          It was equally desirable, that the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice. A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by MobyDisk ( 75490 )

            They did not intend the common person to directly elect the President. Alexander Hamilton was more concerned that the right people be picking the President. The Founders did not trust the commoner.

            That was Hamilton's view, but Jefferson disagreed. Don't attribute one member's views to the entire group. This philosophical debate has continued for 200 years, and the US constitution, as they created it, was a compromise between both views.

            Going back to Penguinoid 's observation and CaptainLugnuts's response, it is ultimately the voters who must hold their government accountable for complying with the constitution. No government office alone can do it: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by chill ( 34294 )

              Not much of a compromise on that part. The President has never been elected by the people in our entire time as a nation (and before). That's the job of the Electoral College. THOSE people are appointed by the State legislatures, for the most part.

              It wasn't until 1913, with the passage of the 17th Amendment, that we were even allowed to vote for Senators.

              Even the way Article 2 is written, he is "President of the United States of America", not "President of the People of the United States". He was/is chief e

    • Where did you read unconstitutional in this? The prosecution even won their case. Then there's the "could be ... of sorts" rebuke. Strong language there. It's just the /. summary though, but what did you read?

      "the role the so-called telephone metadata program played in a criminal terror-fundraising case against four Somali immigrants was so minor that it did not undermine their convictions. The long-awaited decision is a victory for prosecutors, but some language in the court's opinion could be viewed a

  • You sure I should delete ALL the records?

    OK, DELETE ALL ...deleting all, stand by for 768234 years, 11 months, 3 days, 2 hours, 11 minutes and 45 seconds.

  • ... the NSA cares one way or the other what courts say. Their 'customers' for the information they collect are not the court or prosecutors. Much of it can never be used directly in a trial. It's up to the police agencies and prosecutors to do the necessary parallel construction to justify their targeting of certain suspects and applications for search warrants.

  • Phone metadata is akin to sitting by the side of the road and only looking for red cars. You won't know if the car is red unless you look at all the cars.

    If it legal to randomly type in car tags to check for issues, its legal to check metadata to see where the call is going. If its going to a country with ties to terrorism, then get the warrant to unmask the callers.

    What part of this is is unreasonable???? (Seriously?)

    • The part where a government thug is using database of highly sensitive personal information in a fishing expedition.

      If they MET any of the usual standards, even reasonable suspicion, that'd be something else. But that's not what you said...

      • What part of your phone number is highly sensitive personal information?

        I guess I must be a master spy because I know of this ULTRA TOP SECRET SIOP:ESI book that has the names, address, and phone number of almost every person in a city. Listed alphabetically, by last name.

        You also know that I can buy a cell phone AP for less than $1500 and simply drive around scooping up your subscriber data and even spoof calls.

        You put a personal NSA tracking/recording device in your pocket but worry about phon
  • Start your lawsuits!

    • ... order that new boat you've been thinking about. This one will run and run, and probably be paid for by the tax payer.

      • ...are good for the economy! With 3:1 ratio of lawyers to engineers graduation rate, let's keep the economy striving, and get a new yaht (sorry, skewed THOUGHT-METADATA analysis) in the process, while bankrupting a few agencies in the process.
  • There are no secrets.

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