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Has there been a clear acknowledgement from a court that these programs violated the 4th amendment? Because I'm pretty sure that government's position is that P

Has there been a clear acknowledgement from a court that these programs violated the 4th amendment? Because I'm pretty sure that government's position is that PRISM was fully authorized under the law with the direct approval of a FISA Court.

mikeash 13y ago
I honestly don't much care what the courts say on this. My own personal opinion is that the 4th amendment is clear enough, and that "spy on everybody all the time" is not allowed, not even with a court order. If approval of a court were enough to allow this kind of thing, then why do police bother with specific warrants like "search address X for evidence of crime Y"? They could just get a single warrant that says "search everything for everything" and be done. I fully expect this program to be upheld by the courts if it ever gets that far, but that's because I think the courts are largely corrupt, not because I think it's actually being done in a legal and constitutional manner.
- elmuchoprez 13y ago
  Here's an analogy I've heard that makes some sense: The government has been tracking postal letters and packages for decades. They don't open your letters (that we know of), but they certainly look at the to and from addresses and keep track of who is sending what. Do you think this is a violation of your fourth amendment rights? Do you have a reasonable expectation to privacy for something you write on the outside of an envelope and drop in a public receptacle? The government is essentially claiming that they're doing the same thing with phone and email records. They're keeping track of who is communicating with who, but not monitoring the contents of the communication for US citizens. (And yeah, whether they are actually monitoring the contents of the communications is now up for debate, but the government's position is still that they don't monitor contents).
  - john_b 13y ago
    This analogy has some flaws. For one, if you write an encrypted letter, the government (at least not to my knowledge) doesn't claim the right to keep it indefinitely just in case you're using it to communicate with your terrorist buddies. You can send letters without return addresses. You don't have to use the recipient's real name when sending a letter. Writing something on the outside of the letter makes it publicly visible, and thus carries no expectation of privacy. Writing an email to your friend is the electronic equivalent of a private one on one conversation, and thus carries an expectation of privacy. If you had wanted the government to know about it, you would have CC'd the NSA. I can see why the government would take this position, as it portrays them in a more favorable light, but it's misdirection more than explanation.
    - mpyne 13y ago
      We're talking about phone metadata in this thread, not emails. None of your points seem to pertain to that. It's hard enough to figure out the truth of an issue as it is, without switching the issue in the middle of the discussion.
  - mikeash 13y ago
    Do you have information on this postal tracking program? Obviously the USPS has to know the destination (and purported source), but I wasn't aware of any program to save that information and aggregate it. I'd certainly call the existence of such a program a violation of the 4th amendment, if it's real.

mikeash 13y ago

I honestly don't much care what the courts say on this. My own personal opinion is that the 4th amendment is clear enough, and that "spy on everybody all the time" is not allowed, not even with a court order. If approval of a court were enough to allow this kind of thing, then why do police bother with specific warrants like "search address X for evidence of crime Y"? They could just get a single warrant that says "search everything for everything" and be done. I fully expect this program to be upheld by the courts if it ever gets that far, but that's because I think the courts are largely corrupt, not because I think it's actually being done in a legal and constitutional manner.

elmuchoprez 13y ago
Here's an analogy I've heard that makes some sense: The government has been tracking postal letters and packages for decades. They don't open your letters (that we know of), but they certainly look at the to and from addresses and keep track of who is sending what. Do you think this is a violation of your fourth amendment rights? Do you have a reasonable expectation to privacy for something you write on the outside of an envelope and drop in a public receptacle? The government is essentially claiming that they're doing the same thing with phone and email records. They're keeping track of who is communicating with who, but not monitoring the contents of the communication for US citizens. (And yeah, whether they are actually monitoring the contents of the communications is now up for debate, but the government's position is still that they don't monitor contents).
- john_b 13y ago
  This analogy has some flaws. For one, if you write an encrypted letter, the government (at least not to my knowledge) doesn't claim the right to keep it indefinitely just in case you're using it to communicate with your terrorist buddies. You can send letters without return addresses. You don't have to use the recipient's real name when sending a letter. Writing something on the outside of the letter makes it publicly visible, and thus carries no expectation of privacy. Writing an email to your friend is the electronic equivalent of a private one on one conversation, and thus carries an expectation of privacy. If you had wanted the government to know about it, you would have CC'd the NSA. I can see why the government would take this position, as it portrays them in a more favorable light, but it's misdirection more than explanation.
  - mpyne 13y ago
    We're talking about phone metadata in this thread, not emails. None of your points seem to pertain to that. It's hard enough to figure out the truth of an issue as it is, without switching the issue in the middle of the discussion.
- mikeash 13y ago
  Do you have information on this postal tracking program? Obviously the USPS has to know the destination (and purported source), but I wasn't aware of any program to save that information and aggregate it. I'd certainly call the existence of such a program a violation of the 4th amendment, if it's real.