A secret US tribunal ruled late Monday that the National Security Agency is free to continue its bulk telephone metadata surveillance program—the same spying that Congress voted to terminate weeks ago.
Congress disavowed the program NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden exposed when passing the USA Freedom Act, which President Barack Obama signed June 2. The act, however, allowed for the program to be extended for six months to allow "for an orderly transition" to a less-invasive telephone metadata spying program.
For that to happen, the Obama administration needed the blessing of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA Court). The government just revealed the order.
In setting aside an appellate court's ruling that the program was illegal, the FISA Court ruled that "Congress deliberately carved out a 180-day period following the date of enactment in which such collection was specially authorized. For this reason, the Court approves the application (PDF) in this case."
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anal Pumpernickel on Thursday July 02 2015, @12:54AM
Instead of the NSA violating the Constitution by collecting the data itself, for its own purposes, all it needs to is ask the corporations, that are now required to collect the data, to turn over the data when properly asked in the context of due process
A commonly repeated myth is that if the government asks corporations to do X (where X is some task that it itself wants done and would do if no restrictions were present), then suddenly it's constitutional; that's false. Corporations become a de facto agent of the government in those situations, so they're bound by the same rules. Otherwise, the constitution would be useless, which clearly wasn't the intent. And that last part is a joke. The FISA court rubberstamped a grand majority of data requests, so you can't think there will be actual due process involved.
The "freedom" act is a joke; it fixes nothing, and perhaps makes things worse by giving the appearance that things were fixed.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Thursday July 02 2015, @01:28AM
Perhaps that is better :)
That was one of the reasons why I will punch Obama in the face if I see him on the street (which is never of course). That cock monkey lied out his ass when he said he would take AT&T and telecom executives to task over this stuff. At the end of the day they submitted to unconstitutional demands from law enforcement, and *nobody* faced justice, or even stern words.
Obama let happen exactly what you're saying shouldn't happen. We had a Presidential candidate promise to enforce the rules if he got elected, and instead, he made it even worse over the next 8 years. When you can't even get a Presidential candidate, who becomes elected, to enforce the Constitution and his campaign promises, you know you are fucked proper. They sat that moronic asshole down in the first week of his administration and he immediately towed the 'party' line like a little toady. Went from a President who was all talk, all moron, no substance... to pretty much the same :)
It was at that point it was made abundantly clear to me that the rule of law was non-existent in telecoms and the intelligence agencies. It's them literally doing whatever the fuck they feel like, and damn all of our civil rights while they do it.
Let's check the SCORECARD of the public will:
1 - Beat down the Patriot Act with massive public outcry for it to be so, and a Senator performing filibusters talking about our Constitutional rights........ repealed almost immediately with hidden language and started right back up with a slightly different playing field, but the same game.
2 - Obtained Net Neutrality at great effort......... FCC will now be defunded by appropriations bills that are being helped written by Comcast and industry.
Yep. Representative Democracy. Text book Representative Democracy at work. Fine job our elected officials are doing with listening to the people.
I feel so free.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.