Posted on 12/16/2013 11:28:36 AM PST by ColdOne
A federal judge ruled Monday that the National Security Agency program which collects information on nearly all telephone calls made to, from or within the United States is likely to be unconstitutional.
U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon found that the program appears to run afoul of the Fourth Amendment prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures. He also said the Justice Department had failed to demonstrate that collecting the so-called metadata had helped to head off terrorist attacks.
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
- If I liked going on a $100 million dollar vacation to Africa
- I will also now go on a 17-day vacation in Hawaii
-
- I have lots of dumb honkies in Washington state getting double-debited for their healthcare because they gave me their bank info…….
- Somebody has to pay for all the poor oppressed minorities and crooked multi-millionaire politicians
- Sign up now young white Americans - you can trust me!
What do you expect him to do about it?
You think judges should have enforcement powers?
How much of this data made it into the democrats’ campaign database last year??
Holder will have lots of help from republicans. Including at least one Tea Party republican named Rubio.
This was going on under Bush. In fact, wasn’t it set up under Bush?
We’ve got to get it through our heads that they’re all against us.
obama said they’ve gathered information that stopped at least 50 terrorist attacks. The judge said there is not one piece of evidence confirming any attack was ever thwarted.
What ISN’T unconstitutional, from BO and from the left of BOTH major U.S. political parties as well as from pro-left Independent politicians?
Chalk one up for Larry Klayman.
The precedent as to what constitutes a phone call is still point to point switching, not coincidentally representing the intent of both callers and no one else. Accordingly, it still takes a physical tap contrary to that intent to access that data over lines that the provider owns. That contract is for carriage of data owned by the customer and no one else (that is, unless you regard conversation as public property, which would make you a socialist).
Even worse, when you hit the send button on your email application, that message will also be sent unencrypted through the cheapest network available, possibly including server / data centers in mainland China, where I can assure they could care less about the 4th Amendment.
What is "possible" is not what is likely or reasonably expected. Not only that, but it is entirely within the capability of the providers to provide secure communications on all but EM transmissions (I used to make high speed switches for exactly such systems). I understand as well as anyone that a phone call is multiplexed onto a fiber carrying a million other transmissions. I also understand that the telecom could easily monitor what was being taken off by an agency with said physical tap exercising an authorized warrant assuring that the content of the communications of all other customers' remains inviolate. It's all a matter of will and cost. Effectively, you are arguing that I have no reasonable expectation of the exercise of such a will because of that cost. Well, you can bet that if the telecom was liable for that security they would find a way to effect it. Guess who illegally indemnifies them making a mockery of "equal protection"? And please, the cost at the margins would be pennies.
As far as commercial telecom is concerned, unless you pay extra for additional security - to paraphrase the judge in the NSA ruling - you have arbitrarliy ceded your right to privacy every time you talk into your phone, or hit the send button on your email server.
The judge is legislating from the bench. He has no Constitutional power to make that determination. Simply because such negligence is ubiquitous because of said tacit indemnification does not mean that rights have not been violated. Your argument is akin to justifying our unconstitutional regulatory monstrosity simply because they have been getting away with it for a long time. A plain reading of the Constitution and the arguments of its drafters indicates otherwise.
It's not just that the NSA can get to it - anybody can get to it that has the motivation and means to do so.
First of all, the NSA is not "everybody." The NSA is the Federal government, which is Constitutionally precluded from taking possession of my communications. The government is exercising police powers to gain that access to those fiber optic trunks, which is otherwise very difficult to gain, never mind the sophistication to decode and record data acquired at that rate. What the government lacks is a lookup table with which to facilitate searching that data. Once they've got it, there is NOTHING stopping them from searching anything they want without restriction.
You shrug, saying "anybody can do it." It's a cop-out. "Anybody" can't. Governments can, but the Feds, whose very existence is authorized by the Constitution alone, may not, without a warrant detailing the specifics of what they are after, and then only with Congressional oversight. Deal with it.
The Utah Data Center should be disabled and shut down. There are far better and more effective ways to secure this country against terrorists than instituting the power to violate the rights of citizens at a whim. If nothing else the abuses of the IRS should demonstrate the criticality of this decision, for without it, there will be no way for the people to organize means to enforce their will. And that sir is the last resort.
Understatement of the year by another idiot in a blackrobe.
Who do we owe this debt for putting the Kenyan faggot in office? The old media and Hollywood—until the general public recognizes these facts nothing will change.
- The citizens are getting very angry out there -
- Their fine local hospitals are being knocked off their healthcare facility list for being “”inefficient and too costly” -
- The quiet honest citizens are suddenly getting tense and testy and impatient….
- Meanwhile the Obamas are spending $4 million of your tax-bucks on a 17 day Hawaiian “vaca”
- That is only $235,294.18 a day…….. Suckers!
Take it to the Supreme Court. I’m sure they’ll rule their snooping as a tax on privacy, and therefore Constitutional...
NSA was started under Truman 1951. Increased incrementally.
when did that start !
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