

Court found NSA surveillance unconstitutional in 2011 - replax
http://blog.rongarret.info/2013/06/court-finds-nsa-surveillance.html

======
chris_mahan
A quote by Joseph Goebbels:

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually
come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State
can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military
consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to
use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of
the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State."

Who was Joseph Goebbels? Per Wikipedia: Paul Joseph Goebbels (29 October 1897
– 1 May 1945) was a German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi
Germany from 1933 to 1945. (see
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Goebbels](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Goebbels))

~~~
run4yourlives
Hacker News has officially jumped the shark when not only do we have 300
stories about the same (political) topic on the front page, we have a top
rated comment following Godwin's law.

Can I get an email or something when this site decides it wants to return to
technology and not be r/Politics?

~~~
drhayes9
I can't think of any single topic more important to the health of the Internet
as we know it then this, right now. Sorry to be harsh, but dismissing these
discussions as merely "politics" is short-sighted and naive.

~~~
run4yourlives
If you think this is anything different from what has been happening over the
last 30-40 years, (and probably longer than that) you are the one that is
naive, not me.

There is nothing new coming from this, other than the fact that people seem to
have had their bubbles of ignorance burst.

The internet is the same today as it was yesterday, because a large majority
of people simply don't care. You may find this disturbing, but it is
undeniable.

The circle jerk of the last few days has more properly resembled a university
politics class than it has technology and entrepreneurship. I'm not saying
politics isn't important though, I'm saying it is better discussed elsewhere.

There is nothing new or insightful being added at this point. It's all just
meaningless twaddle.

If you care, get off your ass and go join a campaign for a person that will
stop this stuff.

~~~
drhayes9
If you knew this was happening and had proof before two weeks ago then you've
got a great point.

This is different. Now there's _proof_. Leaked documents implicating the
largest consumer Internet companies that are recognizable names for every US
citizen. Now these large Internet companies have to stand in front of their
customers, their shareholders and say something about this. Now's our chance
to demand answers from them and from our government. Now there's money
involved; this strikes me as a very nice lever with which to move the world.

I agree, standing around saying, "Well, I know there's spying going on but, oh
well!" is not productive. My ass has been gotten off of for a very long time.

But thinking that nothing is different today is over-the-top cynical.

~~~
run4yourlives
_Now there 's proof._

So. Fucking. What.

Call me cynical, I don't care. I've grown out of my desire to completely
change the world. Right now I want a nice safe place for my family to be
allowed to go about its business. I have that now, like I had it yesterday,
and based on all available data I'll have that tomorrow. Yes, even with
someone possibly monitoring that I called Indonesia 10 times over the past 15
years.

Most western democracies have had this shit in place for years. Canada has
CSEC ([http://www.cse-cst.gc.ca/index-eng.html](http://www.cse-
cst.gc.ca/index-eng.html)). ECHELON has been around since the cold war
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON)).
France has internet monitoring. So does Australia.

In case you haven't noticed, none of the nonsense around constitutions, human
rights, legal decrees and such really matters. They're just guidelines, and
how we interpret the words can and does change every damn day. The same law
that upheld segregation is the same law that maintains that it is
unconstitutional. It's all just interpretation.

Get enough people to agree with your interpretation, and you can justify
anything. Good luck fighting against that.

~~~
jlgreco
The apathy of the otherwise good is a scourge seen across all of human
history. Knock yourself out, I hope you enjoy it.

------
ryguytilidie
One of the things I don't really understand about the way laws work here in
the US is when something like this happens. We will declare something
unconstitutional and then its like "okay lets form a committee to make sure it
doesn't happen again...whats that you say? What the NSA is doing is secret and
we can't monitor it? Okay, well then just go on with what you're doing, I
assume you're following the constitution now"

I mean, I feel like following the constitution is probably the most important
thing we can encourage, and its basically like "meh, lets hope they stop
violating the constitution". I simply do not get it. Priority #1 should be
making sure that the NSA is following the constitution. There is 0 point in
fighting foreign wars or anything like that until this is fixed. The NSA's
budget should be reduced to 0 until there is 100% proof this has stopped.

~~~
Cowen
There's nothing in the US legal code that creates consequences for disobeying
the judicial branch's judgement.

Obeying them is a strong suggestion, and disobeying could conceivably be used
as evidence in an impeachment trial, but that's about it.

This isn't a new issue either. It's over 150 years old. Andrew Jackson didn't
even get a slap on the wrist for not enforcing the Supreme Court's ruling in
Worcester v. Georgia.

~~~
saraid216
> This isn't a new issue either.

Actually, it's one of the fundamental checks and balances. The judiciary has
no executive power. The reason a conviction in court sucks for the defendant
is because the _executive branch_ actors enforce that conviction by taking the
convict to jail.

~~~
javajosh
Ultimate authority rests with the executive because they have the guns.

~~~
saraid216
The executive has the guns because _that 's how it was designed_.

------
ck2
The saddest part is not a single candidate from either major party is going to
reject this a couple years from now.

They might even take it a step further with drones.

 _you have to know everything in order to be completely safe_

    
    
        - Erich Mielke, head of the Stasi, East Germany

~~~
jacoblyles
The Pauls, and other reps supported by Campaign for Liberty (Justin Amash).

~~~
cantankerous
And most hard line, true progressives. I think many folks have a hard time
stomaching the Pauls and their cohorts on a variety of other issues.
Unfortunate for the Pauls (and Amash), but true.

That said this is a good opportunity for both ends of the spectrum to work
together.

~~~
jacoblyles
Enough people can stomach them in their districts to elect them.

Progressives would turn a lot of stomachs off the blue coastal areas. This
site has an overrepresentation from California and Europe, which skews our
perception.

------
pdubs
It's not as malicious as Ron makes it out to be.

Here's Groklaw's bit on it:
[http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20130610101148583](http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20130610101148583)

>The opinion Movant seeks cannot be released by the Government not only
because it is classified but also because it is under this Court’s seal. As
Judge Bates has explained, “[t]he FISC is a unique court,” whereas “[o]ther
courts operate primarily in public, with secrecy the exception; the FISC
operates primarily in secret, with public access the exception.” In re
Release, 526 F. Supp. 2d at 487-88. The FISC maintains this operational
secrecy because, unlike any other court, its “entire docket relates to the
collection of foreign intelligence by the federal government.” Id. at 487.

It's secret simply by the nature of the court, not by specific executive
instruction.

~~~
wavefunction
The court is not secret, nor are its decisions intended to be permanently
secret.

The idea behind seeking temporarily secret court-orders was that they would
effect ongoing investigations, but that the court-orders would become public
when the charges were brought.

An example is obtaining a wire-tap order for an individual. If it were
automatically public, the individual might be watching the public record and
see that they were being wire-tapped and make the wire-tap meaningless.

Now we have a situation where the decisions remain in secret for perpetuity?
It's simple bullshit and an attempt to "route around" the Constitutional
protections.

~~~
nikcub
The broader metadata requests had a declassification date of 2038 - they must
have argued that it isn't tied to any one case, and that it could _always_
threaten an ongoing case if made public.

It is interesting that yet again we end up in a preposterous situation, where
you can suck in all call data and not tell anyone, due to a long chain of
small concessions (patriot act, fisa review, 'business records' condition,
etc.)

------
beefman
This looks like blogspam to me

[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/06/government-says-
secret...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/06/government-says-secret-court-
opinion-law-underlying-prism-program-needs-stay)

~~~
lisper
FWIW, I didn't submit this item.

------
ck2
Joe Biden (2006) _I don 't have to listen to your phone calls to know what
you're doing. If I know every single phone call you made, I'm able to
determine every single person you talked to; I can get a pattern about your
life that is very, very intrusive._

Video:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5863823](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5863823)

------
jacoblyles
If the Supreme Court makes a ruling and nobody follows it, does it really have
any power?

If the legislature makes 10% as many rules as the executive, who really
legislates?

If branches of the executive insist on their "independence" from elected
officials, is the US really a Democratic Republic?

What kind of country do we live in, really?

[http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-05-24/opinions/39495...](http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-05-24/opinions/39495251_1_federal-
agencies-federal-government-fourth-branch)

------
pattisapu
Nothing in the filing cited here even implies that any court found anything
unconstitutional whatsoever.

This seems to be an instance of the old "telephone game" of blogs citing other
blogs, in an admittedly emotional issue, although as far as I can tell the
actual court activity here involves the rather technical issue of unsealing
court records, not the merits of any constitutional matters.

------
pvnick
Wonderful, just more ammunition to use on my Restore the Fourth rally event
page

~~~
bmelton
Link?

~~~
mtgx
[http://www.reddit.com/r/restorethefourth](http://www.reddit.com/r/restorethefourth)

[http://www.reddit.com/r/rtforganizers](http://www.reddit.com/r/rtforganizers)

------
IAmAI343
The only real way I see of swinging the power back to the people is to use
encryption in all our personal communications, that includes e-mail, voice,
video. Unfortunately there is a very real possibility that the government has
access to the CA keys so that it would render any encryption useless.

However, it seems that a new type of quantum key distribution system [1] may
allow us citizens to share the keys such that not even the government may be
able to get them. I don't really know much about this but it does seem
promising. It may be the only way to ensure that only those that we choose can
see our data. I would not be surprised though if the government tried to pass
laws to make such technology illegal. Just like it tried to make military
grade encryption illegal by claiming it was a munitions weapon.[2]

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_key_distribution](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_key_distribution)

[2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Good_Privacy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Good_Privacy)

~~~
sk5t
A hostile entity owning the public CAs doesn't render "any" encryption useless
--just PKI that trusts those common CAs. We could revert to the PGP signing
parties of the 90s, or a variety of other key exchange protocols... just no
more relying on a certificate because Thawte, Verisign, or (ha!) Comodo say
it's good.

------
at-fates-hands
Obama speech from August 1, 2007:

[http://www.cfr.org/us-election-2008/obamas-speech-woodrow-
wi...](http://www.cfr.org/us-election-2008/obamas-speech-woodrow-wilson-
center/p13974)

"This Administration also puts forward a false choice between the liberties we
cherish and the security we demand. I will provide our intelligence and law
enforcement agencies with the tools they need to track and take out the
terrorists without undermining our Constitution and our freedom.

That means no more illegal wire-tapping of American citizens. No more national
security letters to spy on citizens who are not suspected of a crime. No more
tracking citizens who do nothing more than protest a misguided war. No more
ignoring the law when it is inconvenient. That is not who we are. And it is
not what is necessary to defeat the terrorists. The FISA court works. The
separation of powers works. Our Constitution

works. We will again set an example for the world that the law is not subject
to the whims of stubborn rulers, and that justice is not arbitrary.

This Administration acts like violating civil liberties is the way to enhance
our security. It is not. There are no short-cuts to protecting America, and
that is why the fifth part of my strategy is doing the hard and patient work
to secure a more resilient homeland."

I'm still wondering when this idea of defending the people against this type
of thing went out the window. . .

~~~
drawkbox
If there was a reason to impeach a president this might be it.

Nixon was impeached for spying on a few competitors but eerily similarly using
the FBI, CIA and IRS to spy on competitors and was statesman enough to resign.

Bill Clinton for being too good and making people pry into his personal life.

So far this trumps both combined.

Granted this is the first time technology has allowed this amount of spying
and illegal search and seizure of papers so timing would put any president
there.

I am scared at what will happen 2-3 presidents from now if the executive
branch overreach continues, the exact thing Obama was complaining about in
2008. Considering he was not for it before he became president.

------
Spooky23
What I find scary is that if the government can keep the secret rulings of the
secret court secret at will, what is the point of bypassing even the nominal
oversight that the secret court provides?

------
switch33
Ha ha, precedence. Now the other court rulings should rule with similar
rulings! :D

------
joering2
I am having very hard time seeing the difference between going door to door
just to find something, or going from computer to computer / account to
account, just in case, to find something. Sure, the meaning of transportation
changes, but just because you have a way to do something, it doesnt mean you
should do it.

Whether its door to door unreasonable search (hello first amendment), or
account to account unreasonable search, its still the same thing! And no court
in their sound mind should find it different.

------
Tangaroa
I submitted a better link yesterday:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5859658](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5859658)

It is "better", in that:

1\. It goes to the original source, not a blog post giving a five-line summary
of another blog post.

2\. It is relevant to the acts of which the NSA was recently accused
(specifically, the collection of Verizon metadata) and not about some other
vague undefined activity that the NSA has already been forced to stop doing.

3\. It discusses in detail the Constitutional issues involved and the history
of related court rulings.

4\. It is the actual US Supreme Court ruling on the subject.

------
godgod
This is a criminal government!

------
ttrreeww
Does anyone care about the constitution anymore?

~~~
godgod
Obama does. He uses it as toilet paper.

