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Obama to release FISA court opinion that ruled NSA surveillance unconstitutional
- Moral_ 13y agoCan anyone turn this lawyer speak into something the layman tech person can understand, please?
- voidlogic 13y agoYes please, what are the implications of this release?
- gyepi 13y agoHard to tell since the details have been kept secret, but the FOIA request is for any order or opinion of the court on whether any 702 minimization was done unreasonably or whether any any 702 authorities have been used to circumvent the "spirit of the" law, and also for any briefings supplied to congress. Since we now know that there is at least one such opinion, this will at least shine some sunlight on it so we can see the extent of the "circumventions" and how strongly the court dealt with it. If anything, it may show how firmly the court pursues its oversight responsibilities.
- DannyBee 13y agoThey will release a redacted version of the opinion in question, and a redacted version of exactly one paragraph from a classified whitepaper given to congress on it. In both cases, how redacted they will be is up in the air. They requested an extension until August 21st to do this (original deadline was August 12th). The EFF "reluctantly did not oppose this"
- jlgreco 13y ago> They requested an extension until August 21st to do this (original deadline was August 12th). I don't get it; how long could it possibly take to redact such documents? Is there somebody toiling 8 hours a day for 7 or 8 more days, scrambling to get this done in time? Or are they lazily just sticking it on the backburner of some intern?
- sp332 13y agoThere's probably some fighting going on about what exactly should be redacted or preserved.
- jlgreco 13y agoHmm, that makes sense. Not really knowing what sort of thing information is in court decisions, what is likely the sort of thing that will be redacted? Names of example programs/agents/terrorists I guess? I don't know if it would make sense for that sort of thing to be in the decision. Or are they likely going to redact more than just supporting information?
- andy_ppp 13y agoMuch like the secret court order, with secret bits being removed, you don't really ------------ ------- ------------ - ----. And lets face it - the ----.
- AUmrysh 13y agoThey're probably carefully going over the specific legal interpretation of every word, phrase, and sentence being released in order to cover their own asses legally and politically.
- gyepi 13y agoAccording to the document they've had to involve some senior people in deciding what to redact and there are only a few people in government with the expertise in the relevant issues. My guess is that the redaction involves at least two agencies (DOJ and NSA) and there's communication overhead.
- fragsworth 13y agoIt's really unfortunate that secret courts aren't unconstitutional. You would think that one should have been obvious.
- tehwalrus 13y agothe US can always pass a new amendment. (I mean, if you can persuade the legislature.)
- eggoa 13y agoArticle III of the constitution is amazingly brief. It doesn't even explicitly create the supreme court's power to determine constitutionality.
- dragonwriter 13y ago> It's really unfortunate that secret courts aren't unconstitutional. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review aren't secret courts. Their proceedings may be invariably be secret because of their subject matter, but the proceedings of regular federal courts may be, too. The difference is that the FISC and FISCR deal exclusively with issues that are handled in secret, but there is no principle that would prohibit them as "secret courts" that wouldn't also prohibit all sealed proceedings in the other federal courts.
- philsalesses 13y agoIt's not difficult language and I think what you really want to ask, without asking, is does anyone have a TLDR? At least that's what I'm asking because the PDF on my iPhone is on the fritz.
- darkchasma 13y agoYou feel it's not difficult language to non-lawyers, but you physically can't read the text because your phone is broken? How would you know?
- j_baker 13y ago"Ok. You win. Give us a few more days to redact the hell out of the opinion, and then we'll give it over to you."
- awicklander 13y agoLet me guess, this will be used as a way to legitimize the FISA court. Nothing to see here - move on. See, your rights are being protected.
- mpyne 13y agoThe FISA court that's been around since 1978? There's entire major commands of the military that have been created and then killed again in the time FISC has existed, seems pretty legit to me.
- mullingitover 13y agoIt's fascinating that the situation is such a mockery of the rule of law, yet it keeps on rolling. If the FISA decided that the NSA's activities were illegal, why would it keep rubber-stamping the warrants? It seems like at that point it should deny every single request going forward until the illegal activities have stopped. Is there a process for impeaching the FISA judges for malfeasance?
- ihsw 13y agoIt's a matter of official policy to include legal loopholes that enable the Federal government to assert its power rather than comply with the law.
- 001sky 13y agoThis would be an interesting fodder for case studies... Any empirical examples for benchmarking?
- jmduke 13y agoTake my advice with a grain of salt, but I think asking for legal analysis from Hacker News is like asking for technological analysis from Seeking Alpha.
- ionforce 13y agoI'm curious what you mean when you say "official policy". Did you mean, that's how the machine works, people will always find/create loopholes. Or did you mean there is a technical provision somewhere that somehow mandates the existence of such loopholes?
- moocowduckquack 13y agoCatch22
- inopinatus 13y ago"Bernard, the Official Secrets Act is not to protect secrets, it is to protect officials."[1] [1] Sir Humphrey Appleby, Jobs for the Boys (e/o "Yes Minister"), Jay A and Lynn J, BBC; first broadcast April 7, 1980.
- makerops 13y agoBuy stock in whatever company the DoJ buys their black markers from.
- famousactress 13y agoIf momentum builds behind an internet blackout a-la the SOPA protest, that'd be a clever way to do it.. write some js/css that black-marker-redacts the page contents.
- samstave 13y agoReddit already has that for spoiler alerts.
- akama 13y agoI believe it is just some subreddit css that implements that effect.
- asperous 13y agoBest I can do for hacker news. You'll have to copy it into your browser's javascript console, or prepend javascript: and save it as a bookmarklet. Array.prototype.slice.call(document.getElementsByTagName('font')).forEach(function(i){i.innerHTML = i.innerHTML.split(' ').reduce(function(acc, cv, i, a) {if (i % 5 == 0) return acc + '<span style="background-color: black;">' + cv + ' </span>'; else return acc + cv + ' '; }, '');})
- jivatmanx 13y agoAt a point in our nation's early history, we decided to trust Constitutional interpretation to the Supreme Court. There were cons to that decision - the Constitution is our social contract and thus it's interpretation is ultimately up to the people - but on the whole I think it was a good one. But, if for whatever reason, this Judicial review cannot occur - whether that be willful avoidance by the DEA for "Parallel Construction", or various activities related to the FISA Star Chamber - that's a problem that needs to be solved, lest the constitution lack any enforcement ability whatsoever.
- samstave 13y agoWell, when the NSA is spying on and potentially blackmailing the Supreme Court itself, then it really doesn't matter. Watch this vid with Siebel Edmund's where she says that the NSA has basically just extended to a massive degree the level of blackmail that intelligence has used since the days of Hoover. The 4th branch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pc3esnkqM7E&feature=share https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pc3esnkqM7E&feature=share
- SimHacker 13y agoThe correct assumption is the more some politician supports the NSA, the dirtier stuff they have to blackmail them with. I wonder what Pelosi's secret is?
- rustynails 13y agoWatch this video at around 22 minutes, http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/kill-the-messenger/ http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/kill-the-messenger/ Dear Mr Obama - please explain why we are REPEATING the same thing. Shame on you if you fool us once, shame on us if you fool us again... I was shocked when I watched this video. It's all happening again...
- FedRegister 13y agoThe people are trusted with the interpretation of Constitutionality and government legitimacy through Article I, Section 2, Paragraph 1, Article I, Section 3, Paragraph I (as amended), Article III, Section 2, Paragraph 3 of the US Constitution, Article VI of the Constitution, The First, Second, Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Amendments to the Constitution.
- mrt0mat0 13y agoI think we're going to get a bit of data, and say, good job guys, we did it! ... and nothing changes.
- Sauer_Kraut 13y agoAs I referenced in another thread, Obama himself voted for the FISA amendment[1]. How clearer must it get that people working for companies like AT&T and Booz Allen are complicit in receiving monetary remuneration for collaborating with various arms of the government in circumventing/intel laundering/routing around the laws and regulations said arms of the government were to be checking each other against? Must there need be more details of local law enforcement letting Steven Seagal maraud around in federally sourced tanks? Booz Allen assisting local law enforcement in copyright prosecutions? Drone managing SAIC running private monitoring centers with federal fusion center support? AT&T workers NOT going along with what management puts forward, revealing secret closets instead. Or services shutting down to prevent such hardware from ever being installed? The US government, all branches, are corrupt by being complicit in each others deeds. Together along with employees within corporations that collaborate with the US government, law is being undone or outright ignored. Refuse, resist. [1] H.R. 6304 (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 ) Obama (D-IL), Yea: http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=110&session=2&vote=00167 http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_c...
- droopybuns 13y agoI think you should eat brussel sprouts. My opinion entitles me to publicly deride you for failing to meet your moral imperatives. To do anything else makes you complicit in the great evil intrinsic to non-brussel sprout consumption. I am a one dimensional human being who can easily assess the complexities in your life, so we're cool with this broad statement, right? There's clearly no other reasons you could be avoiding brussel sprout consumption.
- Sauer_Kraut 13y agoWhat moral imperatives were implied?
- droopybuns 13y agoI'm sorry- perhaps I misunderstood. I thought you were suggesting that anyone who works for these companies MUST somehow be complicit in these encroachments by the government. If that's not the case, I think you're cool on not eating your brussel sprouts.
- kyro 13y agoIs there some sort of bat signal we can use to get grellas to this thread?
- mark_l_watson 13y agoI donated money to Obama's 2008 campaign and voted for him twice. I am very disappointed with him. Now, my honest opinion is that at worst he sometimes flat out lies, or at least cleverly tries to confuse people. He says that he had an orderly plan for reviewing privacy issues, all the while, I think that his administration has consistently been trying to keep things hushed up.
- JPKab 13y agoMark, I agree. I think that the situation is this: politicians, in the short term, view the security side of the security vs. freedom debate as the best option. If you can stop a terrorist attack from occurring by infringing freedom, then do it. An attack will make you look much worse than a few intelligent people being upset about privacy invasion. That, sadly, is the unfortunate incentive happening here. I think this short term benefit of always choosing security over freedom has always been too tempting for politicans and leaders not to do it. The founders recognized this, which is why the 4th Amendment, along with the rest of the Constitution, is supposed to be enforced by the separate branch of government that is the Judicial Branch. But you know what? The Judicial Branch hasn't kept up with the Executive at all. The Executive Branch has huge agencies within it. The Judicial Branch is just a few judges and their staff. Why isn't there a Judicial Branch agency that safeguards the Constitution from the other two branches?? Why couldn't this agency have a bunch of people with Top Secret clearances working for it who answer to nobody but the Supreme Court and can be contacted by Edward Snowden type whistle-blowers whenever someone feels the folks they work for are undermining the Constitution? We need a Constitution Protection Agency that is part of the Judicial Branch. Their entire job should be going after the bastards in the other two branches who go against the constitution.
- javajosh 13y agoThis is actually really, really great news, and I'm really impressed that we're changing direction so quickly. This is a huge bureaucracy, and softening even this much in a few short months is an amazing thing. I see this as a very hopeful sign that we'll get back on track - just more slowly than anyone (including myself) would like it to go. But it's a nation of almost 400 million people and crazy complex body of law to deal with: nothing changes on a dime.
- MrHater 13y agoTime to do the Obama Shake: http://i.minus.com/iwOSyasN8lziO.gif http://i.minus.com/iwOSyasN8lziO.gif