
EFF sues the NSA Over Illegal Surveillance - grey-area
https://www.eff.org/node/75009
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philfreo
The EFF is doing some great work... here's a reminder to setup a monthly
donation, even if small, to help them keep it up.

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

~~~
gnosis
And if you can't afford to donate money, maybe you could donate some of your
skills and time, or help spread the word about the good work they're doing.

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mythz
Happy to see the EFF leading this initiative for change, one of the few
companies I would trust to do all they can and not to be commercially
influenced or leveraged into accommodating the wishes of the NSA/US Govt.

I've always thought the EFF was driven by tin-foiled paranoia, but recent
events are now showing that our worst big-brother fears that were initially
inconceivable, are now from the limited info we're allowed to know, closer to
reality.

The secret courts where "justice" and misinterpretations of the constitution
are decided behind closed doors and suppressed, puts in-place about the most
corrupt framework I can think of.

This is not the country I want to participate in, so I'm doing my bit and have
just shown my support by donating to their cause:
[https://supporters.eff.org/donate](https://supporters.eff.org/donate)

~~~
Helianthus
>I've always thought the EFF was driven by tin-foiled paranoia

Somehow this surprises me. Is it just me, or have EFF always been the Good
Guys?

~~~
akama
I may have disagreements with their policy at times, but both the ACLU and the
EFF seem to do an amazing amount of good work. I'm surprised that people
perceive the EFF that way.

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Osiris
I'm curious how this will turn out. It's obvious that the State will try to
assert state secrets, but we've already seen another court say that now that
the information is public, they can no longer assert that privilege.

When Snowden first came out, I was skeptical that the information leaked would
actually cause any real change to occur within governmental institutions. If
lawsuits like this continue to pop up, we may begin to see the courts
restraining the executive in a significant way.

A big problem here is that people in the executive firmly believe that these
programs deter terrorism in the same way they believed that torture would
provide actionable intelligence. They need to stop and re-evaluate whether
other tactics may be as or more effective than blanket surveillance.

~~~
ihsw
It's not about terrorism anymore, but instead these broad-sweeping and
baseless spying programs are integrated in their regular intelligence
briefings regardless of whether they're terrorism-related.

I wouldn't be surprised if they can cut a significant amount of their
intelligence infrastructure because of the operational efficiency, I'd even go
a step further and say that the DHS has been coaxing all of the state local
law enforcement to pool all of their data centrally to the NSA -- so now all
levels of law enforcement rely entirely on the NSA's data processing
capabilities.

The amount of data-gathering by the local and state law enforcement agencies
is massive and they likely have very little/no infrastructure to handle this
data, so they'd pass it off to the federal government.

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jlgaddis
I have never been disappointed to see how my contributions to the EFF are
being spent. I have just renewed my membership for the second time in less
than a month and am thankful that I am fortunate enough to do so.

I understand that not everyone who wants to contribute is able to do so,
financially. If that's you, please review the EFF's list of "Ways You Can Help
EFF" (without spending a dime):
[https://www.eff.org/helpout](https://www.eff.org/helpout)

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rayiner
They're playing this smart. Among the plaintiffs are three religious groups
and three gun-related organizations.

The standing issue is going to be a little challenging for Count I (1st
amendment). The EFF's argument is basically that these organizations'
expression has been chilled by the general knowledge that their communications
are being collected. Laird v. Tatum seems like challenging precedent to
overcome:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laird_v._Tatum](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laird_v._Tatum)
(Court held that the fear that the army might cause some harm in the future
with information collected pursuant to surveillance was an insufficiently
concrete injury to support standing).

The Due Process claim is iffy because it does not seem that any plaintiff has
actually been prosecuted pursuant to a vague legal interpretation. If some
poor sap got prosecuted in a case involving that legal interpretation, that
would be a much better basis for a lawsuit.

I hope they make some progress with this, but I'm not optimistic because of
the standing issues.

 _As an aside:_

I personally don't think litigation is the best way to approach privacy
issues. I strongly recommend watching this documentary on Prohibition:
[http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Ken_Burns_Prohibition/7019...](http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Ken_Burns_Prohibition/70199184?locale=en-
US). Carefully pay attention to the section describing the Anti-Saloon league,
and specifically this guy:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayne_Wheeler](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayne_Wheeler).

When you think about it, the 18th amendment is a marvel. Prior to the 18th
amendment, the federal government derived 30-40% of its revenues from liquor
taxes. The beer barons had paid off plenty of political types. The nation was
full of Irish and German immigrants who loved to drink. Yet, in 1919, the
Anti-Saloon league and associated lobbyists got the 18th amendment passed to
ban liquor. It was an incredible political maneuver.

They didn't accomplish this via litigation. They accomplished it via single-
minded politics: Wayne Wheeler would lend the League's support to anyone who
was in favor of Prohibition, regardless of their stances on other issues. He
drew on the Protestant community, anti-Catholic sentiment, and the womens'
vote (the suffrage movement in the U.S. was heavily driven by the desire of
womens' groups to ban alcohol). They had a singular, clear, if ambitious, end-
goal: the banning of alcohol.

If people are interested in electronic privacy, I think there is a lot to be
learned from the success and methods of the Anti-Saloon league.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
"If people are interested in electronic privacy, I think there is a lot to be
learned from the success and methods of the Anti-Saloon league."

I agree, but I would add that the key difference here is that the Anti-Saloon
League had a clear, concise, understandable goal. Privacy and anonymity
advocates are all over the place.

~~~
rayiner
> Privacy and anonymity advocates are all over the place.

They are not only all over the place, but they're often idealists who are
unwilling to put aside their other political viewpoints to focus on the issue
of privacy. This dooms them to political impotency and irrelevancy.

Which is why I'm so encouraged by the EFF's bringing religious organizations
and gun associations on board. There are some very powerful organizations (the
anti-abortion lobby, religious organizations, gun rights folks) who have a lot
to lose from government surveillance, and also can be scared into action by
the idea of someone like Obama snooping on their communications. I think it
would be politically foolish not to capitalize on that state of affairs.

~~~
tracker1
For that matter, the pro-abortion^wpro-life movement could be in here as well,
do we really want everyone to know that the GF you had on the side was
emailing to/from an abortion clinic?

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beedogs
I'm sure the EFF will now be branded a terrorist organization by people who
don't deserve to call themselves Americans.

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vijayboyapati
The state as an institution is the final arbiter in judgments against itself.
So it often surprises me that folks think they can achieve any kind of success
against the state by litigating in this way. The grade school civics class
that Americans are taught as children that there are separate branches of
government competing with each other and keeping each other in check is an
incredible caricature of what actually happens. These "branches" of government
are all part of the same institution - the state - and the only competing they
do is which of them can arrogate as much power to themselves as possible at
the expense of the population, not at the expense of each other.

~~~
gilrain
You're probably right to be skeptical, but the hope is that the hunger to
power and greed will in part help us out here.

Very simplistically, the power of the judicial branch of government is
diminished by the executive branch flaunting their control. Hopefully they
will want to recover some of that power by reigning in the executive branch.

However, of course, if all the branches are benefiting too much from the
military-industrial complex, then the system could easily fall apart.

~~~
dllthomas
Hopefully, any of the justices use Verizon.

~~~
jld
It's likely. Verizon provides landline services for the entire Washington DC
area.

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busticated
I know this isn't exactly adding to the discourse but... YAY! Thanks EFF.

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coldcode
I wonder how much better this would be for an NSL receiver to publicly
challenge it; at least they would have standing to contest the whole idea of a
secret request.

~~~
declan
It's happening. My article from May disclosed that Google is litigating two
NSL cases against the Justice Department:
[http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57587005-38/justice-
depart...](http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57587005-38/justice-department-
tries-to-force-google-to-hand-over-user-data/)

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brokenparser
Clickable link to PDF:

[https://www.eff.org/sites/default/files/filenode/firstunitar...](https://www.eff.org/sites/default/files/filenode/firstunitarianvnsa-
final.pdf)

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Mustafabei
Guys, pardon my ignorance as I do not have extensive knowledge on US law, I
could not see EFF among the plaintiffs. Are they referred to under another
name?

~~~
adsche
This article on the EFF page[1] states that EFF represents them.

[1] [https://www.eff.org/cases/first-unitarian-church-los-
angeles...](https://www.eff.org/cases/first-unitarian-church-los-angeles-v-
nsa)

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crockstar
I'd personally be surprised if a court even agreed to hear this.

