
EFF Asks Court to Undo Damage Done to First Amendment in Flawed NSL Ruling - DiabloD3
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/10/eff-asks-court-fix-damage-done-first-amendment-law-flawed-national-security-letter
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mtgx
Bush, Obama, and now Trump have been increasingly adding new judges that have
a tendency to be pro-surveillance. I think this situation is only going to get
worse in a "boiling the frog" kind of manner, where judges effectively argue
that in most practical situations rights such as those given by the 4th
amendment are not applied, except in very specific and hard to pinpoint
situations.

They're already doing this with online data, which seems to have very little
4th amendment protections.

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sova
How are gag orders like this even allowed in our country? What is the point of
a gag order that restricts talking about "The FBI wanted customer records"
other than "the government might be up to no good and wishes to cover their
tracks as early as possible?"

I would like to see any intelligent person make the argument that the gag
order is a necessary part of due process. Revolting.

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bmelton
> I would like to see any intelligent person make the argument that the gag
> order is a necessary part of due process.

I can't personally fathom an argument that justifies it as necessary to _due
process_ , but I can sort of imagine a hand-wavy explanation as to how it's
necessary to security against terorrism / drug dealers / pedophiles / for the
children / whatever the cause du jour is at the moment.

I'm of the relatively staunch belief that this is what happens when people run
around making claims about how 'no right is absolute' over whatever policies
they don't like at the time, in the hopes of those rights being abridged to
whatever degree they prefer. As much as the 'slippery slope' argument gets
deployed against a perceived over-broad expression of civil liberties, the
inverse is at least as true -- every time we diminish the absolutism of a
civil right we don't like, we make vulnerable the rights that we do.

When we try to put limits on speech, because somebody somewhere is saying
something potentially harmful, or allow for exceptions to due process for
"really bad people", we poke holes in the fabric of judicial scrutiny that
makes all rights viable.

~~~
sova
Very well said. I wish more people held this valuable understanding.

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SEJeff
Token reminder, consider donating to the EFF, a registered nonprofit as they
help maintain our freedom / privacy online:

[https://supporters.eff.org/donate](https://supporters.eff.org/donate)

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rkangel
Can someone with some legal knowledge explain what the process is for a legal
precedent to be undone? What does a 'petition' to rehear a case actually mean?
Is that a thing that might feasibly happen?

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brightball
I've always wondered about this too. What happens when precedent is set either
by faulty cases or people with agendas?

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ensignavenger
The supreme court can overturn precedent. They are not bound to follow the
precedent of previous supreme court rulings. They don't do this lightly or
particularly often, though.

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Pinckney
How do appeals work with circuit splits? Suppose I lose a case, appeal to the
supreme court, and am rejected. Years later, a different case in a different
circuit reaches a contradictory conclusion, but the losing side declines to
appeal. Can I now re-appeal to the supreme court in light of the split, or am
I SOL?

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schoen
You need to have a current case in order to appeal it. (Indeed, you need to
have had a sufficiently recent adverse decision of an appropriate kind _in
your case_ in order to appeal it.)

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aey
i feel like donating to the eff is my duty as a software engineer. plus they
will send you a sweet hoodie

~~~
sova
That hoodie is boss! As a computer scientist and creative type, I gotta say
they did a really great job with the design. If you can afford to give enough
to get one, please do! :)
[https://supporters.eff.org/files/fist_back_200px_0.jpg](https://supporters.eff.org/files/fist_back_200px_0.jpg)

~~~
sova
By the way! You can get a hoodie by contributing $250.00 all at once, or doing
a $25 monthly contribution.

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gm-conspiracy
Also see:

[https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/stare_decisis](https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/stare_decisis)

