Posted on 05/07/2015 8:00:11 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
A US appeals court just ruled that the NSA's dragnet on millions of Americans' phone calls is illegal, and Edward Snowden served as the catalyst for the decision.
"Americans first learned about the telephone metadata program that appellants now challenge on June 5, 2013, when the British newspaper The Guardian published a FISC order leaked by former government contractor Edward Snowden," the court notes.
The order directed Verizon to produce to the NSA “on an ongoing daily basis . . . all call detail records or ‘telephony metadata’ created by Verizon for communications (i) between the United States and abroad; or (ii) wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls.”
The US government justified the program by saying that it was covered under Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act, which was signed into law by President George W. Bush on October 26, 2001, in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11.
Section 215, known as the business records provision, authorized intelligence agencies to apply for information if "the records are relevant to an ongoing foreign intelligence investigation."
The appeals court ruled, however, that "the bulk telephone metadata program is not authorized by § 215."
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Whatever else you may think of the guy...Snowden’s revelations about the NSA program are bearing out to be true.
As regards this decision, anyone who has read the constitution knew this would have to be the case if the Constitution was going to be upheld.
The people are to be secure in their persons and their belongings (including data), unless there is probable cause, and a court ordered warrant regarding specifics of a search.
The NSA is capturing everyone’s data, by default, with no probable cause and no warrant and then storing it all in massive data banks in Virginia and Utah. That data is then categorized and mined by all sorts of agencies...again, all without any probable cause or specific warrant.
Of course it is unconstitutional and therefore illegal.
Someone has to bring to light the corruption and crap.
No checks and balances for some time, IMHO.
Re the courts ruling; like that is going to make a difference to this government.
So the officials who authorized this will be going to jail now, and Snowden can come home, right?
(chirp, chirp)
That would be the entire house and senate of 2001, and W. Ron Paul excepted.
Wrong, the court ruled that the program was NOT authorized under the Patriot Act. That's what makes it illegal.
About dang time too.
....unless it involves the 16th Amendment. NOTHING stands between the gov’t and ‘its’ $$. Not the 4th, 5th, 9th, 10th, 13th....
IOW, we should be SHOCKED, since the Constitution is barely hanging on by a thread.
Didn’t a different appeals court rule just the opposite the other day in a criminal case?
I’ll see if I can find the article.
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