Different Judge Now Rules NSA Metadata Collection Legal

[sarcasm time]
Oh well. Now I can call up the electric company and see all the usage records for my neighbors.
I'm pretty sure some of them view some pretty nasty porn, so Ill get their data logs from their ISP.

Maybe we'll start with this Judge's records of calls and Internet('freedom of access request' for his public/taxpayer provided usage should be easily available). He must have some skeletons in his closet and 'if he has nothing to hide, he'll never contest us seeing all his records that are available from his suppliers'.
[end sarcasm]

'discrimination in law' is a crime. For a corporation or the government to routinely collect peoples data and say "thats legal" to take/give/sell/buy, well then Joe Blow should be able to do the same.
Privacy for corporations but no privacy for Joe Blow. Non-discriminatory law collapsed long ago, for the commoners.

You know what would work for law enforcement? Get rid of all warrant and evidence handling rules. That would lead to many more convictions. Of course, it would lead to skyrocketing abuse, corruption, and conviction of innocent people as well. Not to mention the tons of Constitutional rights that would be trampled. But the only goal is "preventing crime/terrorism", right? We don't need that silly Constitution anymore.

This judge is in New York, where regulatory capture is the norm, not the exception.

It's not expected for him to rule in any way other than "GOVERNMENT IS GREAT".

More like - The Judge is in New York, every quote/reference is from 9/11 and has a personal bias in this case, and should be dismissed.

A judge must be impartial here to his/her personal opinion and base the facts on the law that exists -which is the 4th amendment. It will come down to the definition of 'unreasonable'.

"Of course, it would lead to skyrocketing abuse, corruption, and conviction of innocent people as well."

Well as long as it's for the Children it will be OK...

If it is found to be illegal can we finally go after those who created the program in 2001 - George W. Bush and the Republicans. Our electronic communications have been tapped by the feds since 2001...sadly it's taken over a decade for anyone to pay attention to it.

You know you are a democrat when you are this out of touch. These types of programs have gone on for years, after the twin tower attacks they've gone berserk with them.

I think the difference is ALL metadata vs. metadata of people for whom a warrant has been obtained. According to the FBI, the bulk collection was put in place after 9/11:

quote:

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Judge Pauley, whose courtroom is just blocks from where the World Trade Center towers stood, endorsed arguments made in recent months by senior government officials %u2014 including the former F.B.I. director Robert S. Mueller III %u2014 that the program might have caught the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers had it been in place before the attacks.

---

As long as they put Barry in the back seat with him. It's just as much his fault (maybe even more) as it is GW's fault. After all this is the kind of thing he said he was going to stop in his first term.

amen...all responsible for its creation/continuation should be held to account.

Except that it has changed since its incarnation which is why the architects are so upset. It was sold as something being used to target terror suspects only.

And THAT it does. Terror Suspect = Anyone who is not, now at this moment, a close, loyal friend and ally. You just need to get your definitions straight.

Suspect - Everyone is a suspect in this court, it appears.
Guilty until proven innocent.

Oh, I'm sure there's a very small "do not touch" list of upper echelon Party people and others... after all, they are very well aware of how much damage this thing could do to someone. The people calling the shots I'm sure are well protected.

The Patriot Act passed the US Senate 98-1 (Russ Feingold D-WI cast the lone nay vote), and had over 410 yea votes in the House.

Keep thinking it's all the GOP's fault though if that makes it easier for you....

+1

The law is bipartisan.

And the USSC will uphold it as constitutional.

you forgot the kneejerk part.

The law is, the implementation is not, there is a difference, and some of us know what that difference is.

Programs are proposed, those are presented to lawmakers, lawmakers craft bills (with help) in the hopes of eventually having the bills passed by congress and signed by the president which allow the proposed programs to move forward in expected and usually unexpected ways.

The op was pointing out the administration who implemented programs in such a way that was not legal which later on were given legal coverage by the doj and continued on by current administrations. This all outside and beyond the scope of congress critters who may or may not be informed of the detail workings of said programs.

They were just doing what the voters thought they wanted. Even with the blow up since Snowden if someone in Congress votes against the NSA the other party in their state will post ads that X supports all the bad people that hate the US. If the opposition wins you then have a Rep that supports almost anything the NSA can collect.

What do you expect these guys are nominated by people in power. Makes them NICE little puppets.

the NSA found a judge who would rule in their favor.

But what really gets to me more is how many people are shocked the NSA was doing this stuff. I have always been of the opinion that everybody spies on everybody including their own people and have been for as long as spying has been made so easy by technology.

Spying is at least as old as the basis for the Third Amendment to the U.S. Constitution; much older than contemporary tech.

"This blunt tool only works because it collects everything"

That is a really obvious and stupid statement, and hopefully isn't the grounds that this judge thinks it makes it legal!

How much pressure do you think this judge had applied on him/her to make this ruling?

I'm sure the NSA has lots of dirt on him that they picked up through their wiretaps, just to make sure he complied.

Exactly... whether it dirt (blackmail) or a more direct form (threat) - the result is the same. As these folks are in their ivory towers - refer to the movie 'The Skulls'. Information is power.

And hence he must have not studied constitutional law, or at the bare minimum has and believes that it doesn't apply. Heck if a third party (conspirator) collects it, well what do you know. An issue is IF the government compels that collection and now they are an agent of the government. This is obvious bs. And BTW the NSA is NOT supposed to spy on US citizens, that is the job of the FBI. A guess a refresher on their charters should be looked at. The Patriot Act pretty much tore up what was left of personal rights...Thanks Dick Chaney.

I have no illusions that until communications are fully encrypted and we have private networks, do we expect to have private conversations.

Or we can go back to what they did in movies like Goodfellas, pass messages through people and not use the phones. Even mob goons 50 years ago knew you couldn't trust ma bell. Are we surprised today when it is much easier?

C'mon people. If it's technologically feasible the government is into it. The constitution is for debate on Sunday morning talk shows by the guys with the little round glasses.

"Thanks Dick Chaney."

Don't forget to thank Barry too. He has had how many years to put a stop to this?

Barry did back up slightly he brought the FISA court into the mix. Dick Chaney did not want any oversight.

His problem is he promised to put a stop to this kind of stuff not slighly modify it and keep it going.

It is much easier on both sides. With copper you could put a tap on a single line. As you pointed out messages were passed by hand. The Government could stake out a location and track anyone coming in and out. Today someone could run a worldwide organization from anywhere with a internet connection. They never have to meet anyone in person. Bin Laden used the old method of using messengers which was his undoing. He may have been found quicker if he had use electronic messages.
The other thing that has changed is fiber/IP which is all or nothing technology. You have access to everything going down the pipe and have to sort out the one stream you have a warrant. Or don't have a warrant.
What it boils down too is how the people in positions of power use the info. Do they act like J Edger Hoover and blackmail everybody or Senator Mccarthy of the Red Scare fame. They were supported until they went to far and somebody had the backbone to stand up to them and their supporters. Be careful who you vote for the person that sounds like they are the biggest patriot may me the first person to shred the Constitution to hang on to power.

I don't remember the exception in the Constitution that says it's ok as long as it's done to everyone equally.

the election of judges to office by the public who has to suffer their short sighted BS.

So a judge rules on what is popular rather than what the law says. After all, he needs to get re-elected so his constituents are more important than the law.

Only in America would anyone even think of electing judges.

Popular? Or perhaps he was "persuaded" it was important for "National Security." They showed him the file of dirt they have on him, most likely.

Next time a pervert installs cameras in public restrooms and is caught, they can cite this ruling and say that since they didn't watch the video, it doesn't matter.

and since the pervert didn't know the person/people being recorded the video is anonymized too.

The dystopian fantasies of yesteryear are now a reality. We’ve allowed the coming of an age where the civil liberties our forefathers fought so hard for are being eroded by the day. Freedom of Press, Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Assembly are mere ghostly images of their original intent. We’ve woken up to an Orwellian Society of Fear where anyone is at the mercy of being labeled a terrorist for standing up for rights we took for granted just over a decade ago. Read about how we’re waging war against ourselves at »dregstudiosart.blogspot. ··· ars.html

trust in the government at an all time low

makes the Orwellian imagination look quite dull and outdated: »en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orwellian
new chapters will be written about this era under a different name

And it will read that it was not an oppressive government, but our own desires that have done us in. From our smartphones to our cars that will call for help to our gaming console that watch us in our living rooms. We bought big brother. We demanded it when we could have said no to it all.

while people have a hand in surrendering more and more information which predates the war on terror (1990s), it's the actions of the government from the mid 1990s & beyond (more specifically, the federal branches' clandestine agencies & their 3rd party contractors) that will lament it's affect on society through abuses & misuse.

This judge has no idea what the government is really doing, or he does because of secret information he did not disclose and he is corrupt; but we know that the NSA spy program is being done in a much different way, most of it warrantless and without court oversight. We know the NSA collects the contents of calls, not just metadata as other whistleblowers like Russell Tice and William Binney disclosed (and even Tim Clemente at the FBI admitted to using, all information from the past is available). This judge ruled that this one part of the NSA data collection program may be legal, but his decision appears to be based on misinformation provided about these programs by the government in their self-report and the limited claims brought by the lawyers in the case. He did not unfortunately look at the black ops side to these programs, or information provided by other NSA disclosures that say most of this was not done for national security or against terrorist groups of people. According to Russell Tice, NSA targets people like lawyers, judges (judge alito, US Supreme Court), activists, financial institutions, generals (Petraeus), admirals, and Senators (Feinstein) and would be Senators like Barack Obama (before he was elected).

They are using this surveillance to control society and gain access to all information illegally and in secret. This case was totally brought improperly because it doesn't challenge this or mention it, so the judge that said this was ok approved it based on the limited scope of the claims. The lawyers bringing these cases against the NSA are doing so blindly, trying the cases with no understanding themselves of what is really going on while providing erroneous arguments and data about the problem in their lawsuits. Therefore the judge ruled on misinformation and the case is basically moot, and has no meaning if people want to bring a new suit making stronger more informed claims.

More details about this, links to NSA articles, videos and more about this: »www.oregonstatehospital. ··· ebl.html

Did Judge Leon actually argue that James Madison would not have approved of telephone medadata collection? Seriously?

I understand that the US has gotten its hands dirty with the politics of other nations where it really should have just kept its distance, but how much of a democracy are we now?
Seems the govt is collecting everything... making George Orwell's 1984 a reality. Til date it was being denied, now that the leaks have made it a reality, a judge goes as far as declaring the collection of information as "legal". What sort of a governement is this? It certainly is not a democracy. Because if it was, the elected officials would do as the people who they represent say. What I don't understand is that a nation that is so obsessed with privacy, how do we let our officials get away with such abuse and adulteration of the law. The land of the free has become the land of Big Brother.

simply because the SCOTUS doesn't dare cross them. Anyway it doesn't matter what the courts say - NSA and the other government spooks will continue to do just as they please. Judges voting against the NSA risk bad things happening to them and their families.

So as long as the government hires a third party, the Bill of Rights can be thrown out. I guess it won't be long until some military personnel move into my house without permission. It will just have to be arranged by a third party. Maybe Obama can hire dome mercenaries to force me into the religion of his choice.

I bet he was paid over a million by the NSA to rule in the NSA favor. I still don't trust the GOV in both cases. WE THE PEOPLE need to fight back against these rouge goons!