

Court Opinion Finding NSA Surveillance Unconstitutional to be released - peterkelly
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/eff-victory-results-expected-release-secret-court-opinion-finding-nsa-surveillance

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pvnick
Awesome! I've been looking forward to this for a long time. I don't have much
to add to the discussion other than to express my cautious joy that this is
coming to light (I'm nervous at the extent to which the opinion will be
redacted).

Btw, is anybody else recently becoming optimistic that we could actually see
some real reform? I see an administration and agency caught off-guard,
completely in the dark as to the full extent of the coming revelations, and a
bureaucracy comfortable operating in secret exposed into the light. I see the
tide truly shifting, both in public opinion as well as in congress. I think
some very powerful people are now very rightfully scared.

~~~
bratsche
I find myself usually disappointed by the vast majority of what Congress and
the White House say and do, so I'm still finding it difficult to be
optimistic.

I was, however, pleasantly surprised by how close the vote to defund the NSA's
operations came. I think that may have been the point where this issue because
more serious.

~~~
jlgreco
As somebody on HN pointed out before, so long as they know something will pass
or fail regardless, whips will give more leeway to party members so they can
vote however makes them look good. If there were real danger of a vote going
the wrong way, they would tighten up their ship.

A close vote seems good, but in reality it isn't _necessarily_ as close as it
looked.

~~~
gnaritas
While this is true, it presumes an accurate whip count and we've seen recent
examples of the republicans getting it wrong and failing to pass their own
bills when they thought it was a lock. They don't always know if something
will pass or fail, but they usually do.

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jlgreco
_" President Obama has repeatedly said he welcomes a debate on the NSA’s
surveillance"_

 _" For almost two years, EFF has been fighting the government in federal
court to force the public release of an 86-page opinion of the secret Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC)."_

Ugh. Just ugh.

~~~
Vivtek
"I welcome a debate - just not right now. Ideally, I welcome it after I'm out
of office, because believe you me, it's going to be torches-and-pitchforks
time when this shit hits the fan. But in the meantime, it sounds a lot better
if I welcome that debate."

~~~
Vivtek
Come to think of it - I just now realized why Hillary Clinton is not planning
on running this year. Interesting. I'm guessing they're going to hand off this
particular political grenade back to the Republicans, just like the
Republicans stayed away from the election in droves last year.

~~~
anigbrowl
Running for what? We don't even have mid-term elections until next year, and
those are only for Congress.

~~~
Vivtek
Ugh. "Campaigning this year for the 2016 presidential elections" \- why does
everybody in this community so very love to pick nits?

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rcavezza
I just want to make sure I have this correct.

1.) Two years ago, a secret court ruled that this NSA surveillance is
unconstitutional.

2.) The NSA made this decision secret and never released the ruling.

3.) The NSA continued its surveillance program that was ruled illegal by a
court.

Is this really what happened?

~~~
adestefan
Or they changed the program to actually make it Constitutional.

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betterunix
Oh, is Obama finally beginning to understand that when he promised to create
the most transparent administration in US history, people actually expected
him to do so?

~~~
Joeri
In Obama's defense, you've never been as informed about all the sneaky stuff
the government is up to as right now.

~~~
LoganCale
Which has nothing to do with Obama and he would stop it if he could.

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rosser
I'm tempted to start taking odds on the redacted:non-redacted ratio in the
released document.

~~~
x0054
My guess is 20% reducted. But you have to remember, you can change the meaning
of a sentence by removing just one word, or even a comma. The problem is, we
will never know if we get the true meaning of the document.

As an aside, if there ever will be the next Edward Snowden, I think he or she
should collect all the phone records, email records, and other data for every
person in congress. Release that data, and we will quickly see some change.

~~~
jlgreco
Leak internal communications generated in response to the previous leak.
Repeat recursively until you find the attractor.

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UVB-76
Here's the document: [https://www.eff.org/document/october-3-2011-fisc-
opinion-hol...](https://www.eff.org/document/october-3-2011-fisc-opinion-
holding-nsa-surveillance-unconstitutional)

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devx
With 90 percent of it redacted? Hopefully it won't be.

Also, if we finally have proof for such extensive unconstitutionality - can we
start _impeaching_ members of the government already, starting from the high-
est level and down?

Oh, and donate to support EFF in more such future efforts:

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

~~~
betterunix
Why wait? James Clapper _lied to Congress_ \-- that's perjury, obstruction of
Congress, and making false statements. We should also be talking about an
investigation into the Obama administration, to determine if Clapper was
acting alone or if he was part of a larger conspiracy.

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albeertoni
A small step toward some sort of transparency, I hope!

