US judge rules NSA phone surveillance program is LEGAL

reply to post by Bedlam


And the FBI allows more and more people who are informants to commit crimes while working with the FBI every year.

www.huffingtonpost.com...

In a Jan. 14, 2013, letter to Justice Department officials, obtained by The Huffington Post through a Freedom of Information Act request, FBI officials disclosed that its 56 field offices authorized informants to break the law at least 5,939 times during the 2012 calendar year. USA Today reported earlier this year that the bureau allowed its informants to break the law 5,658 times in 2011.

The breakdown of how many crimes were authorized by each individual FBI field office were redacted from the 2012 report, which is known as the Otherwise Illegal Activity Report. The FBI's fellow federal law enforcement agencies -- the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives -- do not track how often their sources commit crimes.

Reminds me a that friend of the Boston Bomber in Orlando. FBI was following him and watching him. As he was arrested for beating up two guys in a parking lot and fled the FBI watched him. When local police caught up to him and arrested him he told the officer why did the FBI not arrest me they are right there they watched the whole time they know I did not start the fight. The cop noted in the report there was Two unmarked cars with police equipment inside the cars with people in the cars watching the arrest. Just another case of FBI working with terrorist and allowing them to commit crimes?

reply to post by Xcathdra

I believe the first time privacy was formally addressed in the US was in 1890. That's about a hundred years after the Constitution was pretty much a done deal. It got a better look in 1973, but nobody got serious about it until around 1995-1998.

You mentioned the 4th Amendment. There's no "search or seizure" going on here. It's "collection."

The other amendments mention are too much of a stretch for me to address. I challenge you to show me where the word "privacy" is mentioned in our Constitution ... or even the Federalist Papers FTM.

Xcathdra

nixie_nox
reply to post by iRoyalty

 

Where in the Constitution does it say you have a right to privacy?

The 4th Amendment.
The 5th Amendment.
The 6th Amendment.
The 8th Amendment.

edit on 27-12-2013 by Xcathdra because: (no reason given)

Yea, way to spell it out. *rolls eyes*

The 4th amendment is against illegal search and seizures done by police on a physical property. the NSA isn't searching anything on your property without yoru consent or a warrant, they are seizing property belonging to a phone company.

The 5th amendment has nothing to do with privacy, it is a right to a trial.

The 6th also has nothing to do with privacy. But In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district.

The 8th has to do with prohibiting the federal government from imposing excessive bail, excessive fines or cruel and unusual punishments, including torture. Not sure how you think this has to do with privacy.

Are you just pulling amendments out of your rear end???

Again, where in the Constitution does it say you have a right to privacy?

Snarl
reply to post by Xcathdra

 

I believe the first time privacy was formally addressed in the US was in 1890. That's about a hundred years after the Constitution was pretty much a done deal. It got a better look in 1973, but nobody got serious about it until around 1995-1998.

You mentioned the 4th Amendment. There's no "search or seizure" going on here. It's "collection."

The other amendments mention are too much of a stretch for me to address. I challenge you to show me where the word "privacy" is mentioned in our Constitution ... or even the Federalist Papers FTM.

The people who scream most about their "rights" and "freedoms" and protections, generally know the least about it.

People forget the most fundamental rule of all. Your rights end where another begins.

reply to post by Bedlam


Has "parallel construction" been talked about here? My bro briefly described it to me this xmas and it sounds like what you are saying. That some law enforcement agency is told the find a reason to get someone cause they already have the damaging info they want just need a reason to act on it

reply to post by nixie_nox

"They" could fix that by declaring their sovereignty. Lots of info on this site that explains exactly how to go about it ... and the repercussions. LINKY

nixie_nox
reply to post by iRoyalty

 

Where in the Constitution does it say you have a right to privacy?

Answer - LIBERTY .

Legal or not., there is one way to slow them down a whole lot. Stop buying products and using services from companies that are in bed with the NSA when possible. Multibillion dollar companies like Cisco (who put NSA back doors in their consumer line of network routers), IBM, AT&T, and Verizon are already banging on the NSA's door because they are taking heat from shareholders who are suffering significant drops in share value.

Also I suggest everybody call the FBI and lodge a complaint that the NSA is acting as a terrorist organization within the USA. The FBI defines animal rights groups as terrorist organizations and acts against them because "they have the potential to undermine the profits of meat companies in America." The NSA has definitely undermined the profits of major tech companies in America so the FBI should be getting right on that.

You can always find a fox to guard the henhouse if you look hard enough.

Remember this new rule that is constantly bombarding us on tv..."You have the right to remain silent"...I see no right to be able to speak being pushed on us.

roadgravel

...but that no evidence exists that the spy agency abuses this program to spy on people without terroristic ties.

If that clause is meant to be the reason to allow it then it would seem to be deemed true based on withholding of evidence. How can we know what a secret organization is doing.

The next question is how do you define terrorist?

Rage against the Machine are listed as a terrorist organisation, all they do is say the government sucks

I would suggest we make a combined effort to make their jobs as difficult as possible. In our phone calls, in our sms & IM, etc.

We should BOMB them with stupidity. We should BOMB them with idle chit-chat & chatter. We should BOMB them with the very mundaneness of our lives.

EXPLODE your phone calls to your mother/father with hugs & kisses. EXPLODE with your communications the hope of living free, and well.

Don't let TERRORISTS in Washington dictate how you live. Don't let those TERRORISTS in your life, be it your kids, co-workers, spouses, etc get in your way. MURDER them with kindness.

(And for those that haven't got it yet, use keywords in your DAILY conversation till the whole program becomes obsolete.) Because we obviously can't afford justice anymore.

reply to post by nixie_nox


I'm not 100% on your constitution since I'm from across the pond.

However universal human rights dictate:

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

Also, if it's not the NSA who are in breech of the 4th then would it not be the phone companies?

iRoyalty
reply to post by nixie_nox

 

I'm not 100% on your constitution since I'm from across the pond.

However universal human rights dictate:

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

Also, if it's not the NSA who are in breech of the 4th then would it not be the phone companies?

Nope! Because the phone company is a private entity. It owns the lines you use, it owns the information you put over the lines. It is not YOUR information. You get to pay to use their phone. They get to do what they want from it.

There is where a lot of privacy issues are coming up with regards to private internet companies selling your information to get spammed.

There wasn't much in the ways of privacy written into the Constitution because during the days of the Founding Fathers, there wasn't much need for it. It is a modern problem.
They covered what they needed to which is illegal search and seizure from enforcement authorities. It would take 20 minutes just to explain a phone to them, much less an ipod.

But as I am always saying, I am not worried about the NSA, I am worried about the corporations. They make the NSA look like they are using two cans with a string to gather information compared to what the corporations are doing.

My bank asked me what my first car was. How does the bank know my first car from 25 years ago?

That doesn't mean that laws shouldn't be written. The Constitution was designed to be changed.

But patriots are always screaming about rights they don't actually have, instead of putting their energy into working on getting rights that we should have.

Judges in days gone by declared slavery legal too.

That didn't stop until enough people took the world into their own hands and acted directly. Time methinks to add a momentum to this 'don't spy on me' clarion call.

reply to post by nixie_nox


I agree, it just seems like with modern technology they have found a back door in constitutional rights. John Lennon brought down Nixon because he wiretapped them, I just find it scary that they do something insanely similar but through a clause.

There are two end games to this behaviour, up-rise followed by harsher laws and tyranny or up-rise and chaos. Neither sound good to me, I don't see any hope of reform in the near future.

This case was just my hope that things could change. If a judge makes a ruling on a case, it practically becomes law. However the government would never let the people have their way...

reply to post by iRoyalty


#ing stupid corrupt #, that is all that judge is.

nixie_nox
reply to post by iRoyalty

 

Where in the Constitution does it say you have a right to privacy?

Let the battle commence then, one judge says it is against the constitution, one judge says it is legal.
I guess then there is no tort as yet to prove a wrong, (in the case of the constitution) but there may be a case where dissemination of information is illegal, that makes both judges wrong!

Across the pond, dissemination of information is against the EU law, (human rights) so it would be right to sue the US by any EU country. It would then be prudent for the judge who wants to pursue this as being legal, to have a rethink, before all the foreign lawsuits start coming in and costing the US big money. He shudda kept his gub shut.

reply to post by smurfy


Indeed it is, the one good thing to come out of joining the EU! I'm so glad we didn't buy into their currency... damn that could have been awful!

Still I think we need to do something similar against the GCHQ, they have no were to hide from EU law ha ha ha! I wonder way Cameron wants to leave the EU pretty sharpish ayyyy?

nixie_nox
I am worried about the corporations.

And there you have it ... the source of nearly every problem on the planet today.

reply to post by iRoyalty


Judge Pauley huh.....noted