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Calling this ruling a "big win" is rather hyperbolic. As the article admits, the scope is extremely narrow and applies to only one law firm, as well as the fact

Calling this ruling a "big win" is rather hyperbolic. As the article admits, the scope is extremely narrow and applies to only one law firm, as well as the fact that the program will (supposedly) changed in the coming months. Besides, a federal judge already found the program itself unconstitutional and we can all see how much that changed things. Laws can change, as can public opinion. In the grand scheme of things, I can't tell how this changes anything at all.

giaour 11y ago
As the article points out, having to exclude communications for that one law firm night very well require sitting the whole thing down. Also, there's now a precedent for others to sue and get their communications excluded.
- olympus 11y ago
  From previous experience, having to exclude communications from a single entity (or single type of entity) is not going to shut anything down. Case in point: It is unconstitutional to conduct surveillance on US citizens without a warrant. Therefore the NSA's massive collection machine must exclude every single American, right? Wrong. What they did instead was implement a filter where the accuracy of excluding a US citizen is greater than 50%. So if your exclusion rate is only 60% you "accidentally" catch 40% of US citizens in your surveillance net, but you have met the requirements. Similarly in this case if surveillance must exclude communications from a single law firm then they only have to implement a filter where they are more likely to exclude the communications than they are to catch them. "Accidentally" catching their communications would still be allowed since the filter would be meeting the requirements.
ChuckMcM 11y ago
In the context of the larger conversation around what the NSA can and cannot do, it is fairly huge because one part of the government is on the record of restraining another part. This is how the Supreme Court tells the NSA that they better clean up their act or the judicial branch will start unilaterally taking away powers they think they have but don't. It is also another brick in the wall which shows the government defense of its actions and that Snowden was a traitor (as opposed to a whistle blower) no doubt hinge on the assertion that what the NSA was doing (and was disclosed by Snowden) was legal. That is the bigger conversation that is going on here and so one which Snowden is quite invested. If he ever hopes to return to the US, he has to make an iron clad case that he was a "whistle blower" [1] and not just violating his security clearance. To do that, as I understand it, he needs to prove three things. 1) The activity he was reporting was illegal (as opposed to just something he felt was immoral), 2) that reporting it through channels was likely to be unsuccessful in actually revealing the information, and 3) that was not enriched as a result of his actions. When you try to make that case against the worlds most powerful intelligence agency you cannot do so with simple evidentiary rules. So I see a number of cases and efforts which are putting into the judicial record decisions like this one where the NSA's activity is called out as illegal before Snowden steps foot back on US soil and gets arrested for treason. [1] Important note, I'm not a lawyer, 99% of the whistleblower information is about securities fraud or OSHA safety issues, not constitutional violators. It's not entirely clear that there is a whistleblower type protection for what Snowden did.
- swombat 11y ago
  I read the whole judgement and it felt very positive to me. It seems like the effect that "separation of powers" should have - namely that the executive now has the choice only to either comply or to enter into a protracted battle with the judiciary, where they're going to piss off every judge all the way up to the Supreme Court. I would hope that if the executive ignored the decision of this judge, for example, the net effect would be to turn the whole judiciary against them on this matter. Eventually the executive ends up faced with a choice to either drop the pretence of democracy (as democracy is not in line with the actions they claim to need to do) or to change their ways. One can hope...

giaour 11y ago

As the article points out, having to exclude communications for that one law firm night very well require sitting the whole thing down. Also, there's now a precedent for others to sue and get their communications excluded.

olympus 11y ago
From previous experience, having to exclude communications from a single entity (or single type of entity) is not going to shut anything down. Case in point: It is unconstitutional to conduct surveillance on US citizens without a warrant. Therefore the NSA's massive collection machine must exclude every single American, right? Wrong. What they did instead was implement a filter where the accuracy of excluding a US citizen is greater than 50%. So if your exclusion rate is only 60% you "accidentally" catch 40% of US citizens in your surveillance net, but you have met the requirements. Similarly in this case if surveillance must exclude communications from a single law firm then they only have to implement a filter where they are more likely to exclude the communications than they are to catch them. "Accidentally" catching their communications would still be allowed since the filter would be meeting the requirements.

ChuckMcM 11y ago

In the context of the larger conversation around what the NSA can and cannot do, it is fairly huge because one part of the government is on the record of restraining another part. This is how the Supreme Court tells the NSA that they better clean up their act or the judicial branch will start unilaterally taking away powers they think they have but don't. It is also another brick in the wall which shows the government defense of its actions and that Snowden was a traitor (as opposed to a whistle blower) no doubt hinge on the assertion that what the NSA was doing (and was disclosed by Snowden) was legal. That is the bigger conversation that is going on here and so one which Snowden is quite invested. If he ever hopes to return to the US, he has to make an iron clad case that he was a "whistle blower" [1] and not just violating his security clearance. To do that, as I understand it, he needs to prove three things. 1) The activity he was reporting was illegal (as opposed to just something he felt was immoral), 2) that reporting it through channels was likely to be unsuccessful in actually revealing the information, and 3) that was not enriched as a result of his actions. When you try to make that case against the worlds most powerful intelligence agency you cannot do so with simple evidentiary rules. So I see a number of cases and efforts which are putting into the judicial record decisions like this one where the NSA's activity is called out as illegal before Snowden steps foot back on US soil and gets arrested for treason. [1] Important note, I'm not a lawyer, 99% of the whistleblower information is about securities fraud or OSHA safety issues, not constitutional violators. It's not entirely clear that there is a whistleblower type protection for what Snowden did.

swombat 11y ago
I read the whole judgement and it felt very positive to me. It seems like the effect that "separation of powers" should have - namely that the executive now has the choice only to either comply or to enter into a protracted battle with the judiciary, where they're going to piss off every judge all the way up to the Supreme Court. I would hope that if the executive ignored the decision of this judge, for example, the net effect would be to turn the whole judiciary against them on this matter. Eventually the executive ends up faced with a choice to either drop the pretence of democracy (as democracy is not in line with the actions they claim to need to do) or to change their ways. One can hope...