U.S. NSA domestic phone spying program illegal: appeals court

[DarknetMarkets]

(Reuters) – A U.S. spying program that collects data about millions of Americans’ phone calls is illegal, a federal appeals court ruled on Thursday, adding pressure on lawmakers to decide quickly whether to end or replace the program, which was intended to help fight terrorism.

While stopping short of declaring the program unconstitutional, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said Congress did not authorize the National Security Agency to collect Americans’ phone records in bulk.

The existence of the NSA’s collection of “bulk telephony metadata” was first disclosed in 2013 by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.


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U.S. NSA domestic phone spying program illegal: appeals court

[Chef Ramsay]

Great news but it's a stretch to think these guys won't find a way around it or take to the Supremes and pressure them into letting it be.

[harlenadler]

MYSTIC has been active since 2011 and was created in 2009, and it's still running. It's basically an NSA surveillance system capable of recording “100 percent” of a foreign country’s telephone calls, allowing them to rewind and review conversations as long as a month after they take place. The US Govt. will have the content as well as the duration of calls, but only for certain countries, like the Bahamas.
Proof: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-surveillance-program-reaches-into-the-past-to-retrieve-replay-phone-calls/2014/03/18/226d2646-ade9-11e3-a49e-76adc9210f19_story.html


Also, in the same vein, Section 215 of the Patriot Act allows the US to demand the call records of millions of innocent people. They can see exactly who you're texting with and who you're calling. They even collected the phone records of millions of US customers of Verizon under a top secret court order. Here's some more info on that:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/jun/06/verizon-telephone-data-court-order
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/01/section-215-patriot-act-expires-june-congress-ready


It doesn't matter if the Supreme Court finds these programs undemocratic and unconstitutional (and they are), because nothing is, and will be done to stop them unless there is a very strong reaction from American citizens the world over. Unfortunately, that's not happening.

[RodeoX]

It's clearly illegal. Which is why I do not cooperate and can even take measures to protect myself and others from the NSA. Their decision to do this is one of the stupidest mistakes in espionage. They have lost the support of America and deserve only our honeypots, roadblocks, and deception.

[BlitzandBitz]

Its illegal but who is going to stop them let alone they could always find a way around it.