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Room 641A is in an AT&T facility in San Francisco, not Hanoi. The contents of the communications that have, according to the Klein testimony, been vacuumed up b

by declan 13y ago

Room 641A is in an AT&T facility in San Francisco, not Hanoi. The contents of the communications that have, according to the Klein testimony, been vacuumed up by the NSA in 641A are confidential communications made by Americans who have every reasonable expectation of privacy. I'm surprised you think, without citing any authority, that 641A and its ilk fail to implicate the Fourth Amendment. The 9th Circuit ruled in December 2011 that a lawsuit against the NSA over room 641A could continue, and it's currently underway in federal district court. There are also separate lawsuits underway against Verizon for the phone logs.

jmtame 13y ago
The lawsuit you're referring to is Jewel v. NSA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewel_v._NSA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewel_v._NSA) under Jeffrey White. I found it interesting that White initially shut down the ISP mirroring Wikileaks, and later reversed his decision less than a month later. From what I hear, it's very rare for federal judges to reverse their decisions. I think this has some potential.
mpyne 13y ago
Well, San Francisco is right on our Pacific Coast, no? That would seem the perfect spot to place something dumping foreign traffic en route to the U.S. before it becomes domestic (assuming the San Francisco facility is the first domestic terminus for those international fiber links). Obviously such links could include communications by Americans going overseas. This has always been an issue with law enforcement and national security investigations, intended to be solved by "minimization". This is a concession which has not been held to be illegal or Unconstitutional, to my knowledge. Mind, the way the NSA is using that law at 641A is something I would strike down as being prejudicial to 'reasonable expectation of privacy' overall, but then if it was up to me any "common carrier" would imply a 'reasonable expectation of privacy' by definition. So hopefully we'll see something concrete come out of the case against the NSA (assuming Congress fails to act first). But at it stands now I think even 641A might be meeting the letter of the law, via FISA (where all the gloves are off), but not the intent or spirit of the law.
- declan 13y ago
  It's remarkable that you think the NSA vacuuming up everything that flows through a domestic AT&T facility, per the Klein affidavit, merely "could" implicate Americans' private communications. Why not stipulate that it "will?" Also note that subsequent reporting has said that similar taps are in place at similar facilities, not just in San Francisco. You might be right that 641A has been blessed by the Sec. 702 amendments to FISA. But the immunization for providers is not absolute; if requests go beyond what the law clearly permits, they're still vulnerable. Look for more litigation on this point.

by declan 13y ago

jmtame 13y ago

The lawsuit you're referring to is Jewel v. NSA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewel_v._NSA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewel_v._NSA) under Jeffrey White. I found it interesting that White initially shut down the ISP mirroring Wikileaks, and later reversed his decision less than a month later. From what I hear, it's very rare for federal judges to reverse their decisions. I think this has some potential.

mpyne 13y ago

Well, San Francisco is right on our Pacific Coast, no? That would seem the perfect spot to place something dumping foreign traffic en route to the U.S. before it becomes domestic (assuming the San Francisco facility is the first domestic terminus for those international fiber links). Obviously such links could include communications by Americans going overseas. This has always been an issue with law enforcement and national security investigations, intended to be solved by "minimization". This is a concession which has not been held to be illegal or Unconstitutional, to my knowledge. Mind, the way the NSA is using that law at 641A is something I would strike down as being prejudicial to 'reasonable expectation of privacy' overall, but then if it was up to me any "common carrier" would imply a 'reasonable expectation of privacy' by definition. So hopefully we'll see something concrete come out of the case against the NSA (assuming Congress fails to act first). But at it stands now I think even 641A might be meeting the letter of the law, via FISA (where all the gloves are off), but not the intent or spirit of the law.

declan 13y ago
It's remarkable that you think the NSA vacuuming up everything that flows through a domestic AT&T facility, per the Klein affidavit, merely "could" implicate Americans' private communications. Why not stipulate that it "will?" Also note that subsequent reporting has said that similar taps are in place at similar facilities, not just in San Francisco. You might be right that 641A has been blessed by the Sec. 702 amendments to FISA. But the immunization for providers is not absolute; if requests go beyond what the law clearly permits, they're still vulnerable. Look for more litigation on this point.