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posted by martyb on Wednesday December 05 2018, @12:14PM   Printer-friendly

A federal appeals court in New York will hear oral argument on Tuesday in the ACLU's lawsuit fighting for the public's right to know the legal justifications for government spying.

The Freedom of Information Act suit seeks the release of secret memos written by government lawyers that provided the foundation for the warrantless surveillance of Americans' international communications. In essence, these memos serve as the law that governs the executive branch. By withholding them, the government is flouting a core principle of democratic society: The law must be public.

The memos cover the government's legal interpretations of Executive Order 12333 [(EO 12333)], which was issued by President Ronald Reagan in 1981. It's the primary authority under which the NSA [(National Security Agency)] conducts surveillance, and it encompasses an array of warrantless, high-tech spying programs. While much of this spying occurs outside the United States and is ostensibly directed at foreigners, it nonetheless vacuums up vast quantities of Americans' communications. That's because in today's interconnected world, communications are frequently sent, routed, or stored abroad — where they may be collected, often in bulk, in the course of the NSA's spying activities.

For example, the NSA has relied on EO 12333 to collect nearly 5 billion records per day on the locations of cell phones, as well as hundreds of millions of contact lists and address books from email and messaging accounts. It also intercepted private data from Google and Yahoo user accounts as that information traveled between those companies' data centers located abroad.

https://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/privacy-and-surveillance/government-trying-keep-key-nsa-spying-rules-secret

Related: DOJ Made Secret Arguments to Break Crypto, Now ACLU Wants to Make Them Public


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by takyon on Wednesday December 05 2018, @01:06PM (10 children)

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Wednesday December 05 2018, @01:06PM (#770050) Journal

    Gotta love a "free" country.

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  • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday December 05 2018, @03:39PM

    by fustakrakich (6150) on Wednesday December 05 2018, @03:39PM (#770115) Journal

    We're not blaming the government, are we? Because, I mean, you know...

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 05 2018, @06:04PM (8 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 05 2018, @06:04PM (#770189)

    Who else is better?

    • (Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday December 05 2018, @06:19PM (7 children)

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Wednesday December 05 2018, @06:19PM (#770200) Journal

      This suggests that the EU is making laws in a secretive process [euobserver.com], but it probably isn't as outright bad as the U.S. secret justifications for surveillance. Maybe Canada is doing better. I wouldn't look to Australia given their recent activities. You can toss South America, Africa, Russia + Eastern Europe, Asia, etc. right in the bin.

      In the meantime, it makes sense to focus on the "moral leader" of the "free world", and the "world's policeman", where the power of Silicon Valley and thus the internet is concentrated. U.S. surveillance affects the whole planet.

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      • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday December 05 2018, @06:53PM (6 children)

        by bob_super (1357) on Wednesday December 05 2018, @06:53PM (#770224)

        > You can toss South America, Africa, Russia + Eastern Europe, Asia, etc. right in the bin.

        Why ? To satisfy your sense of superiority ? "Hey let's just put Japan, Buthan, Singapore, Irak, Benin, Tunisia, Azerbaijan, Jamaica, Costa Rica, Paraguay and Mauritius in one big category, because they must all be worse than us, since we know we are the best."
        Not saying that they are all, or even most of them, clean. But that was a bit of an excessive generalization, don't you think ?

        It turns out that many countries don't have the time or need to bother with secret lawmaking. Either because there is no pretense of democracy, or because the cops and courts don't need secret laws to crack down on "unpleasant" people, or because their government is actually not doing evil stuff (not the same as being competent, by the way).

        Oh, and you forgot Iceland, Switzerland, the European micro-states, and Norway...

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 05 2018, @07:04PM (5 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 05 2018, @07:04PM (#770232)

          There is a substantive difference between not doing something bad because there is no motive or that they can't afford the means, and actually having formal legal protections to prevent it from being done. If you've got evidence that any of those places have got effective laws on the books preventing this kind of abuse, lets hear it. Otherwise its pretty safe to assume that if that shit ain't happening there its not because they are constrained by the will of the people.

          • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday December 05 2018, @07:55PM (4 children)

            by bob_super (1357) on Wednesday December 05 2018, @07:55PM (#770250)

            Logic failure.
            The original assertion was that 3 continents' worth of countries can just be assumed to be worse than The Democratic West.
            I'm pretty sure the onus is on that poster to prove that all those countries are actually actively acting worse than the US (secret laws being the topic), not on the person questioning the over-broad assertion to prove that all of them don't.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 05 2018, @08:04PM (3 children)

              by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 05 2018, @08:04PM (#770256)

              Reality failure.
              This is an informal discussion board. Not a philosophical treatise of formal logic.

              Your demand that the OP make a thorough accounting of every single other country's legal system, isn't just unreasonable, its designed to shut down the discussion without actually engaging with it. If it is so important to you, all you have to do is find one counter example. That's a LOT less work than what you are demanding of others. But you won't do it for exactly the same reason no one would indulge your demands either.

              • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday December 05 2018, @09:00PM (2 children)

                by bob_super (1357) on Wednesday December 05 2018, @09:00PM (#770277)

                I'm reacting to some guy dismissing three quarters of the world out of some sense of superiority.
                "Those continents just don't matter, those people couldn't possibly get it right if we don't"

                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 05 2018, @09:09PM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 05 2018, @09:09PM (#770279)

                  Yes, its clear you decided to interpret his words that way and were reacting to that interpretation.

                  On the other hand I presented a more reasonable way to interpret his words.

                  Up to you which version you prefer.

                • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday December 05 2018, @11:43PM

                  by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday December 05 2018, @11:43PM (#770335) Journal

                  I'm reacting

                  Exactly. You're reacting not thinking. Shouldn't be hard with that many countries to find someone, right? Unless, of course, they're not there.