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I don't think Terry is applicable. Terry has to do with stopping a person based on some suspicion that that person might be committing a crime. You're quite rig

I don't think Terry is applicable. Terry has to do with stopping a person based on some suspicion that that person might be committing a crime. You're quite right to point out that the suspicion required is minimal, and that it's easy to manipulate. However, the type of search that can be conducted through a Terry stop is limited to fairly strict justifications--the officers can really only conduct searches to protect themselves (i.e. to see if you have a weapon) or evidence (to prevent you from destroying it). But what's going on here is massive, indiscriminate collection of information on people whom the government has no reason whatsoever to suspect of any crime. Not only that, the officer safety and evidence preservation justifications don't apply either. NSA surveillance isn't really comparable to conducting a Terry stop on the entire nation.

mrobot 13y ago
Then what do they mean here, in this hearing, when they make such a big deal out of how Terry applies? 21:07, 23:04, 37:00 of first session link (morning session) http://www.c-span.org/Events/Civil-Liberties-Board-Reviews-Surveillance-Programs/10737442462/ http://www.c-span.org/Events/Civil-Liberties-Board-Reviews-S... My interpretation was that this was the justification for three-hop data imports based on phone selectors. Which, to me, is interpreting RAS as allowing for stopping and frisking an entire network of people to discover previously unknown operatives, based on suspicion of just one. If you try to imagine how that would look in real life, it's a bit scary. Actually, racial terry stops lean toward doing just that.