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FISA Court Rejects Catch-22 Secrecy Argument in FOIA Case
- csense 13y agoIgnorance of the law is no excuse. This is obviously a problem for people who wish to be law-abiding citizens if the laws themselves are secret. Having too many laws for a single individual to keep track of can be nearly as good as having secret laws, when it comes to keeping people ignorant of the law, and thus making it easy for the government to persecute anyone they don't like by prosecuting them. I read once about a defense attorney who played a game while riding along with a police officer. They would follow a car, and the policeman would win if he could point out a legitimate reason for which he could make a traffic stop, if he was so inclined. The officer won every time, usually within a few blocks. I saw a video [1] which noted that possession of a lobster can be illegal: "It doesn't matter if he's dead or alive. It doesn't matter if you killed it or it died of natural causes. It doesn't even matter if you acted in self defense! Did you know that? Did you know it could be a federal offense to be in possession of a lobster? Raise your hand if you did not know that. [audience raises hands] There's the problem!" I don't think this situation is due to a conspiracy to take away our freedoms, on the principle that we needn't ascribe malicious intent when mere laziness and incompetence will suffice. Basically the law is a codebase with lots of sometimes-circular dependencies, which isn't refactored nearly aggressively enough, so the cruft accumulates. Taking into account that in the US the "initial commit" is hundreds of years old [3], there are ~50 forks, and it's still a fast-moving target, it's not surprising that the sheer amount of complexity is more than any one person can appreciate; even after decades of study and practice, AFAIK even the best professional lawyers are basically ignorant of the law in other specializations, and even within their own specialization they sometimes need teams of lawyers and paralegals poring over legal texts to find out exactly what the law says about their particular case. [1] The quote occurs at about 6:55 [2] in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc [2] The entire video is witty and informative, and it's something that everyone should watch at least once. [3] Maybe it's more like thousands of years old -- if you go back through English law, there are probably things that go back to the Norman conquest in 1066, or Roman Britain even earlier.
- mpyne 13y agoAs well the FISA court should reject that argument.
- fnordfnordfnord 13y agoIt's a surprise because it's one of the few times the FISC has said no to the gov't.
- mpyne 13y agoWell, except for that one time when the court said a part of the law is unconstitutional and the government refused to mention the specifics of that ruling. ;)
- adventured 13y agoThe EFF has been carrying an immense amount of weight throughout all of this. I'm not sure I can name another organization that has done so much. Their budget desperately needs to be expanded dramatically.
- tghw 13y agoWe can help them do exactly that: https://supporters.eff.org/donate https://supporters.eff.org/donate
- jevinskie 13y agoI donated money and bought some stickers on Friday. They can definitely use our help! The EFF also helps us in our fight for jailbreaking rights.
- rdhyee 13y agoI think the ACLU is also an important organization in the fight to rein in NSA overreach. http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security-technology-and-liberty/aclu-files-lawsuit-challenging-nsas-patriot-act-phone http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security-technology-and-li...
- culturestate 13y agoPublic Knowledge [ http://publicknowledge.org http://publicknowledge.org ] is shoulder to shoulder with the EFF. PK does the actual boots-on-the-ground lobbying in Washington that the EFF refuses to get involved in.
- nakedrobot2 13y agoDone :-) $65. I only wish they still had that awesome NSA tshirt! https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/10/effs-new-nsa-spying-shirts https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/10/effs-new-nsa-spying-sh...
- rayiner 13y ago"In fact, it took EFF longer to figure out how to physically file a motion with the FISC than it did for the FISC to dispatch with the DOJ's arguments."
- joshfraser 13y ago"Secret court" and "secret law" What an absurd concept and a sad place for the US to be.
- uptown 13y agoSo the fight is for public disclosure of a decision of which the outcome is already known?
- asperous 13y agoWithout releasing the decision there is no real proof I don't think.
- coreyja 13y agoI believe the decision was know as in we know that they ruled some parts of the law were unconstitutional. But if I understand correctly, it wasn't released what parts of the law were unconstitutional or why they were unconstitutional. This was for public disclosure of that information.
- mtgx 13y agoThere can't be a democracy with "secret laws". I hope people will see that through whatever excuses the administration will try to launch next.
- zmmmmm 13y agoThis is good to hear, but you have to really worry that there are people in the government who argued against it. If the CIA wanted to do some useful domestic spying it would be far more beneficial to do their operations on these people. They are clearly a larger threat to democracy than any mere terrorist could ever be, and they are already INSIDE the system.
- vaadu 13y agoThe ABA ought to threaten disbarment of any government lawyer that argues something so unamerican.
- acqq 13y agoThe relevant quote from the book written by Joseph Heller: "The girls were crying. 'Did we do anything wrong?' they said. The men said no and pushed them away out the door with the ends of their clubs. 'Then why are you chasing us out?' the girls said. 'Catch-22,' the men said. 'What right do you have?' the girls said. 'Catch-22,' the men said. All they kept saying was 'Catch-22, Catch-22.' What does it mean, Catch-22? What is Catch-22?" "Didn't they show it to you?" Yossarian demanded, stamping about in anger and distress. "Didn't you even make them read it?" "They don't have to show us Catch-22," the old woman answered. "The law says they don't have to." "What law says they don't have to?" "Catch-22."
- toufka 13y agoIt's great that Snowden is a pivotal character in that story too!
- acqq 13y agoHowever Snowden of the book unfortunatelly for him contributes the content of his dismembered guts: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yossarian#Snowden http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yossarian#Snowden Captain Korn gives to General Dreedle is that Snowden died in one uniform, and his remains were soaked into Yossarian's, and all of Yossarian's other articles of clothing were in the laundry. General Dreedle says "That sounds like a lot of crap to me." Yossarian replies, "It is a lot of crap, sir."