

Privacy Group to Ask Supreme Court to Stop N.S.A.’s Phone Spying Program - salimmadjd
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/08/us/privacy-group-to-ask-supreme-court-to-stop-nsas-phone-spying-program.html

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uptown
"All of the current 11 judges, who serve seven-year terms, were appointed to
the special court by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. ..."

So they're asking the Supreme Court to stop the spying program facilitated by
the secret court, which is staffed by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

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eevilspock
I'm not a fan of Roberts, but so what?

Staffing the court is apparently part of his duty as Chief Justice, and as
such does pose a conflict of interest with this case. Carrying out his job
does not imply any point of view regarding the constitutionality or ethics of
the spying program. He doesn't get to refuse to appoint judges as the law
requires whatever his opinion. He only gets to judge things that are
officially challenged in his court, and even then only after reviewing
evidence and arguments from both sides.

~~~
uptown
Just doing his job, right? Are you seriously trying to imply that the Chief
Justice of the Supreme Court, literally THE authority on interpreting the
Constitution, as an American, has no connections and is powerless to influence
the world in any way outside of the court cases placed before him? Think of it
this way - if he felt what he was being asked to do was a violation of the
Constitution, wouldn't his participation make him a co-conspirator to that
crime?

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DigitalSea
As people who have been filing F.O.I.A requests for any personal information
the NSA may have gained access to and stored without their permission will
tell you: you won't succeed. I think the N.S.A spying program is here to stay,
people eventually will give up complaining about it and move on with their
lives which is what the Government is betting on will happen.

Considering the amount of money that has been undoubtedly spent on this spy
program while the unemployment rate rises, taxes are increased, food and fuel
keep on getting more expensive I doubt the Government will just give up
control that easily especially when you're talking of potentially billions
already being spent on this state of the art spying program.

All asking the Supreme court to prevent the N.S.A spying on phone calls will
result in is getting yourself added to a priority N.S.A watchlist.

~~~
mtgx
For the "home of the brave" Americans sure don't sound a lot like it. People
have fought a lot worse in the past, and Americans seem to be like "meh, I'm
too bored to fight this". Good job, America.

But you're forgetting one thing. This is _not_ "how things will be", if you
let it happen. Oh no. This is just but the very beginning. If you let it
happen to you, things will become 10x, 100x worse in the future. And then even
you, individually, will feel the oppression of the government. But let's see
how you'll fight it then, without violence. At least right now there may be a
chance to do it without any violence - you know, if you weren't too "bored"
with it.

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DigitalSea
I guess I am basing my logic off of the occupy protests. The occupy protests
got a lot of attention and even though they're still going on in some places,
you don't really hear about them any more (not even on conspiracy theory
peddling sites like Above Top Secret). The goal was to draw attention to big
banks abusing their power and not changing their ways, a couple of years on
and all of that protesting only briefly brought attention to the big banking
system, but nothing changed. Some people moved money to credit unions, but the
big banks like BoA are still around, the protests achieved nothing.

In many ways there are similarities between the occupy situation and the N.S.A
secret spying program only people are protesting online and bugging their
representatives most of which didn't even know about the program until it was
publicly leaked.

I am a firm believer in standing up for something, especially when it's the
Government wronging it's citizens, but I think this whole situation goes
deeper than any public opinion truly can penetrate and change. I think the
power in this situation like lays with other countries acting on what has been
revealed, but most are too afraid to stand up to the US. It's times like these
you realise why the US has one of the worlds best funded military regimes in
the world because when SHTF who is truly going to stand up to the bigger
military entity?

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Ankaios
Thank you, EPIC.

In vacuuming up and blindly storing all of the descriptive data about phone
calls, I am impressed that the NSA and its superiors may have managed to carry
out "unreasonable seizure" without "unreasonable search."

I'd be even more impressed to see an injunction against it.

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beedogs
I shudder to think of what sort of horrible, wrongheaded response we'll get
out of this from Antonin Scalia.

~~~
salk
Don't be so quick to judge. He wrote a pretty good dissent on DNA collection.

[http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/12-207_d18e.pdf](http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/12-207_d18e.pdf)

[http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-06-13/opinions/39952...](http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-06-13/opinions/39952025_1_dna-
sample-dna-collection-dna-test)

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perlpimp
From what i understand there is no actual documentation of Verizon handing
over the records. And all employees are gaged and not allowed to reveal that
this happend.

From discussion absent are the possible punishments if one disobeys FISA court
order. What ground does it stand on?

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contingencies
This is it, people. The last gasp of privacy.

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ihsw
Nonsense. Even after this seemingly decapitation of the concept of privacy,
there is still minutiae and trivialities about privacy. For example, should
all personal information be stored in a common encryption format mandated by
the state?

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seferphier
I am really curious how this would turn out.

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TruthElixirX
Maybe if people stop begging the government this wouldn't happen in the first
place.

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jayfuerstenberg
Technology, not policy, has always been what limits the degree of government
surveillance.

Concerned private citizens need to start using technology too. They need to
learn about encryption and products to protect their privacy.

Of course voice yourself to your government but don't expect them to roll over
and say "Okay, we'll stop".

