SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the they-will-find-a-way-around-it dept.
A secretive US court has determined that some of the FBI's surveillance activities violated Americans' constitutional rights, newly unsealed documents reveal. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court ruled last year that the law enforcement agency improperly searched an NSA repository for information on Americans, according to the declassified documents.
The court found that the FBI intercepted emails without obtaining a warrant, a violation of Americans' Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure. The FBI appealed the decision to FISA, which affirmed the ruling and issued new querying procedures for the FBI.
Under a new requirement mandated by Congress in 2018, US agencies wishing to search the NSA repository for Americans' data must get court approval for rules covering how they intend to search the database. FBI searches of the database mustn't be overly broad, have an authorized purpose and a reasonable expectation of uncovering evidence of a crime.
The FISA court, under Judge James E. Boasberg, found tens of thousands of queries executed in 2017 and 2018 were unlikely to return evidence of a crime (PDF). In one case, the court found that a contractor ran queries on himself, his relatives and other FBI employees.
As a result, the court found the FBI's querying procedures were "not consistent with the requirements of the Fourth Amendment."
The American Civil Liberties Union applauded the ruling, saying that the government shouldn't be able to conduct electronic surveillance of Americans' communications without a warrant.
"Any surveillance legislation considered by Congress this year must include reforms that address the disturbing abuses detailed in these opinions," ACLU Senior Legislative Counsel Neema Singh Guliani said in a statement. "Congress and the courts now have even more reason to prohibit warrantless searches of our information, and to permanently close the door on any collection of information that is not to or from a surveillance target."
FISC - US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court
FISA - US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
Also at engadget and National Review.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 09 2019, @07:19PM (9 children)
FBI NSA CIA FISA GOP ABC ICE BTW WTF?! LOL
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 09 2019, @07:22PM (4 children)
TMI
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Alfred on Wednesday October 09 2019, @07:47PM (2 children)
(Score: 2, Funny) by Sourcery42 on Wednesday October 09 2019, @08:02PM
COOTYS RAT SEMEN?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 09 2019, @09:47PM
Decent movie. Great cast.
I think I need to watch it again. Thanks, Alfred!
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday October 09 2019, @08:13PM
It's TMTLA all the way down.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 09 2019, @08:52PM (3 children)
There are dozens, maybe even 100 LEAs (law enforcement agencies) in the US:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_law_enforcement_in_the_United_States [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday October 09 2019, @11:23PM (2 children)
You guys have an awful lot of secret police for a "free" society.
Maybe merge them into one and call them something like, oh, I dunno "General Protection Squadron".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 09 2019, @11:49PM
HFP (Homeland Freedom Protectors)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 10 2019, @01:39PM
FISC isn't secret police. It isn't even a court of law. It is a cool kids club trying to be a court of law. But since there are not secret courts of law in the United States (Article 1) FISC is by definition, not a court of law.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by jasassin on Wednesday October 09 2019, @07:53PM (11 children)
Unless there's something more than a slap on the wrist, I doubt this will change. Someone should be incarcerated.
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0x663EB663D1E7F223
(Score: 4, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday October 09 2019, @07:56PM (3 children)
Yup, start with the ATF (because it's the exact opposite of how awesome it should be with a name like that) and then work your way through all the TLAs.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Snotnose on Wednesday October 09 2019, @11:01PM (2 children)
Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms should be a convenience store, not a federal agency.
I came. I saw. I forgot why I came.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday October 10 2019, @03:09AM
For the right money, it probably is already.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Friday October 11 2019, @01:15AM
ffs sake, that is a 40 year old joke. Am I that old?
I came. I saw. I forgot why I came.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday October 09 2019, @08:06PM (1 child)
Incarceration is overkill - it should become a metastasized cancer of an investigation into the management structure that allowed it to happen, like DieselGate, and those responsible should be dishonorably discharged from government service (I know, that's not a thing, but, effectively...) I'm sure they'll land on their feet and make more money in the private sector, but at least they won't be using government resources to abuse the citizenry's constitutional rights anymore.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 09 2019, @08:22PM
(Dr. Evil laugh) Muwhahahaa.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Wednesday October 09 2019, @08:23PM (3 children)
That "someone" is at minimum the following:
*George W. Bush
*Barack Obama
*John Yoo
*John Ashcroft
*Every head of the NSA who failed to shut down the program
*Why not, let's get Clinton for signing off on the FISA court too.
I want to say Trump also, but there's different procedures for sitting presidents.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Wednesday October 09 2019, @08:25PM
Oops, it was carter and not clinton. Braino
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 09 2019, @10:55PM
I want to say Trump also, but there's different procedures for sitting presidents.
You mean the one who caused this investigation?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 09 2019, @11:10PM
Make him stand up?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 09 2019, @09:28PM
Yeah, and the NSA database itself should be declared unconstitutional, not just the FBI's use of it.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Wednesday October 09 2019, @08:33PM (3 children)
While it is just shocking that anyone in the government would misuse the vast amount of data that the government collects on innocent citizens not even suspected of a crime, I'm sure that all of the other queries of this database are completely above reproach.
Shirley, this is an isolated incident.
And this data collection is somehow constitutional through some song and dance, even though on its face, it is not constitutional.
(and I did not use any <no-sarcasm> tags)
Young people won't believe you if you say you used to get Netflix by US Postal Mail.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Username on Wednesday October 09 2019, @10:34PM (1 child)
Yeah, I read that as Federal Government finds use of a Federal Government database by the Federal Government violates the fourth amendment. So how is this database legal? Why would the government collect information it cannot use?
(Score: 2) by Common Joe on Thursday October 10 2019, @08:01AM
I remember reading articles before SoylentNews existed where enforcement agencies were blatantly violating the fourth amendment. The 100 Mile Border Zone comes to mind. (Click here [aclu.org] for the up to date version and here [wired.com] for an article from Wired from 2008.) When it was suggested to take border zone to court (where I knew it would drag on for a year or two minimum), I knew we were in trouble.
Without wide berth rulings, going to court isn't going to fix this problem anymore. And yet, here we are, dicking around in court with a very small, narrow ruling about one government agency utilizing another's database... and a fully fledged 100 mile border zone that isn't going away any time soon. In a few years, sharing big data between the three letter agencies will be an everyday affair.
I suspect these little rulings are to give hope to people like us (those who use more than three brain cells) so we stay in line, but in reality there is no hope. This stuff will continue to get worse without real change. It's why Hong Kong is going nuts right now. They knew when a small sliver of hope was given (the proverbial olive branch), that was just a distraction to placate them.
That, my friend, is why the "database is legal". It actually isn't (because it's very clearly spelled out in the 4th amendment), but little things like the Constitution will be ignored. This kind of thing used to frighten me. It now only frustrates me, but it doesn't frighten me anymore. What keeps me up at night now is what comes next.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday October 10 2019, @12:47AM
And don't call Trump Shirley, or he'll make another call to Ukraine/China
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 10 2019, @02:07AM
electronic surveillance of Americans' communications without a warrant."
YEAH! That is what ISP's are for! /sarc
(Score: 2) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Thursday October 10 2019, @01:43PM
Sounds like a very solid justification for universal basic income, the entire population is dancing like the 3 stooges for the entertainment of the aristocracy while they pay us less and themselves more, freely epsteining.
A better case for income redistibution and a debt jubilee I could not think of if I tried, but here our incompetent rulers place it right in our lap.
Everyone in the entire population had their fundamenetal rights violated and is due compensation that the wealthy classes could not afford in their wildest dreams, so let's be fair and take half of accumulated wealth and build some cool shit, fix things up a bit, start paying people what they are worth.
I know, I know, I'm dreaming and that's illegal now.
"As far as I can see, real rebels risk disapproval." - DFW
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 10 2019, @01:54PM
Which tells you how utterly out of touch the ACLU is.
The whole thing is a gambit. The way you know this is a gambit, is that it is coming out as a FISC thing, and not from the Federal courts themselves. FISC is a tribunal of existing court judges. They had the option of not doing this as FISC.
FISC has no domestic jurisdiction. The game here is to get a bunch of lefties to sue creating civil precedent that FISC is actually a court of law.
Of course it isn't under article 1. So they are looking to create a civil statutory basis that can be used to declare FISC a lawful institution. (there are no secret courts in the U.S. If FISC is secret, it is by definition NOT a court of law in the United States)
The game here is this: The mafia stole your money, and then gave you back ten cents on the dollar, but only if you say "thank you". The point is to get you to regard the extortion as normal.