Judge Says NSA Phone Surveillance Is Legal

[GoldenWings91]

The National Security Agency's bulk collection of data from phone companies is legal, a federal judge has ruled, dismissing a significant court challenge to the practice and setting the stage for a bigger legal battle over secret surveillance programs.

U.S. District Judge WIlliam H. Pauley III in Manhattan sided with the government in his decision Friday, calling the collection program a "vital tool" to combat terrorism and deeming it "the Government's counter-punch."

The ruling stands in conflict with a decision issued earlier this month in a separate case by a federal judge in the District of Columbia who said the program "almost certainly" violated the Constitution.

The New York case was brought in June by the American Civil Liberties Union, which claimed that the NSA was violating the group's constitutional rights by collecting metadata from the ACLU's phone calls. It was among the first big legal challenges against the NSA program after it was disclosed in June.

The group sought a court order declaring that the mass call logging violated federal law governing foreign intelligence surveillance as well as constitutional free speech and search-and-seizure protections.

Judge Pauley disagreed. "The right to be free from searches and seizures is fundamental, but not absolute," he wrote.

"Every day, people voluntarily surrender personal and seemingly-private information to trans-national corporations, which exploit that data for profit. Few think twice about it, even though it is far more intrusive that bulk telephony metadata collection."

During arguments last month, Judge Pauley appeared receptive to the idea that Americans enjoyed some level of privacy in their phone records. But in his ruling, the judge said he found no evidence that the government used any of the bulk metadata for any purpose other than investigating and disrupting terrorist attacks.

"No doubt, the bulk telephony metadata collection program vacuums up information about virtually every telephone call to, from, or within the United States. That is by design, as it allows the NSA to detect relationships so attenuated and ephemeral they would otherwise escape notice," he wrote.

"As the September 11th attacks demonstrate, the cost of missing such a thread can be horrific."

The ACLU said on Friday that it was "extremely disappointed" with the decision. "We intend to appeal and look forward to making our case in the Second Circuit."

A spokeswoman for the NSA deferred comment on the case to the Justice Department, which said it was "pleased" with the decision.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304483804579284373529865520

[Wilikon]

"The right to be free from search and seizures is fundamental, but not absolute"

 

[CSInvestments]

I think most people saw this coming.

[conspirosphere.tk]

what would you expect in the land of gratuitous anal rape:

http://www.copblock.org/40618/another-isolated-example-of-a-body-cavity-search/

http://blog.simplejustice.us/2013/12/20/a-new-low-vaginal-probes-at-the-border/

[Lethn]

"The right to be free from search and seizures is fundamental, but not absolute"

 

I know this is supposed to be a serious issue but that face next to that comment just made me laugh that's exactly the face everybody else who reads that is probably making.

[Carlton Banks]

Do something.

Use ZRTP. Route it over a VPN.

If I can't get people to use ZRTP (and that's a very small number of people), then I just don't do candid phone calls with those people. Mostly I'm making arrangements and suchlike, and I'd prefer to do that over ZRTP too, but I'm already sending out a pretty strong message to people I know that I'm taking phone conversations only over secure lines. I'm also trying to explain to people the benefit of VPN routing, but it's difficult enough convincing them about ZRTP.

If they won't give us rights, take the right.

[FCTaiChi]

So they take it to a jurisdiction they find favorable, can't there be a precedence war where ACLU and others do the same? 

Good point Carlton, I'll look into it

[bullioncopper]

I think we see the problem spelled out in the judges ruling.  Private enterprise has seduced American's to willing give up privacy.  Every month Facebook slowly peels back the layers of privacy, just slow enough that their is no revolt.  The ACLU and Americans need to push to pass laws to make it illegal for private enterprise to profit off our private data, sure we may have to pay a monthly fee but at least billions of dollars won't be spent studying our data only to market to us.  The government is simply buying this data from private corporations that we have freely given our data too.  We are all scared of a microchip being implanted under our skin. Since we refused to accept this, the government helped Apple develop and push the smart phone into society.  If you think about it, we all are willing carring the microchip day to day religiously in the form of a smart phone.  It is basically a graphical user interface for databases that we type into and gets sent to commercial and government databases at the same time. 

[nastybit]

Also here: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/27/judge-rules-nsa-phone-data-collection-legal

"Every day, people voluntarily surrender personal and seemingly-private information to trans-national corporations, which exploit that data for profit. Few think twice about it, even though it is far more intrusive that bulk telephony metadata collection."

Don't you accept terms and conditions in US giving the right to use and transmit your data to 3rd party companies?
And they played yet again the 9/11 card, oh man

[Spendulus]

....
And they played yet again the 9/11 card, oh man

Oh, hey.  That 9/11 card.  Yeah.

Play it again, Sam.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vThuwa5RZU

Round up the usual suspects.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXuBnz6vtuI

[Carlton Banks]

So they take it to a jurisdiction they find favorable, can't there be a precedence war where ACLU and others do the same? 

Good point Carlton, I'll look into it

I've been kind of surprised that VoIP gateways haven't started to take BTC (if anyone knows of a VoIP provider that does, start talking!).

But I think the market's a little opaque or under-developed, mostly because old-style (PSTN) telephone service are doing all they can to make it difficult (I'm looking at mobile service companies mostly here). Sure, there's Google Talk or Skype, but I think we know who else is privy to the encryption keys used on their services (if it's free, you're the product).

There's also RedPhone, but it's Android only, and it's proprietary to itself (even though it appears to implement ZRTP or something similar, can't find the specific details). So like with Skype, it only works between RedPhone users, a closed system.

Take it into your own hands, and you're swimming in a soup of technical standards, but it's getting easier to make it work. It's now possible to get a SIP client (which is kind of the VoIP "html" standard) on every platform/OS, including iOS. Kind of important with telecommunications really, as you can't expect everyone to be running the same OS, and yet you don't want to be in a position where you can't make a simple call because of incompatible standards.

[bryant.coleman]

Actually what do you expect of US judges? They are appointed by people like Obama and Billary. And they will show their true colours on time. The first US judge whose name comes to my mind is Barbara Walther.... who took away some 300+ children from their parents after a falsified call was made by a racist named Rozita Swinton.

[hilariousandco]

Also here: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/27/judge-rules-nsa-phone-data-collection-legal

"Every day, people voluntarily surrender personal and seemingly-private information to trans-national corporations, which exploit that data for profit. Few think twice about it, even though it is far more intrusive that bulk telephony metadata collection."

Key word voluntarily. We have a right to decide what info we may or may not give out. Absolutely pathetic.

[quone17]

Also here: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/27/judge-rules-nsa-phone-data-collection-legal

"Every day, people voluntarily surrender personal and seemingly-private information to trans-national corporations, which exploit that data for profit. Few think twice about it, even though it is far more intrusive that bulk telephony metadata collection."

Key word voluntarily. We have a right to decide what info we may or may not give out. Absolutely pathetic.

Good point.  Man I started reading 1984 the other day and the similarities are shocking, even in the first few pages.  No one has any guts to do anything, they'll just keep voting in the same old people.

[hilariousandco]

Also here: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/27/judge-rules-nsa-phone-data-collection-legal

"Every day, people voluntarily surrender personal and seemingly-private information to trans-national corporations, which exploit that data for profit. Few think twice about it, even though it is far more intrusive that bulk telephony metadata collection."

Key word voluntarily. We have a right to decide what info we may or may not give out. Absolutely pathetic.

Good point.  Man I started reading 1984 the other day and the similarities are shocking, even in the first few pages.  No one has any guts to do anything, they'll just keep voting in the same old people.

Yup, scary indeed. The reality is much worse now. We have technology Orwell couldn’t even envision in his nightmares. I need to read 1984 again.

[Hideyoshi]

"Every day, people voluntarily surrender personal and seemingly-private information to trans-national corporations, which exploit that data for profit. Few think twice about it, even though it is far more intrusive that bulk telephony metadata collection."

Corporations do not make things illegal, and do not put people in jail. Big difference. Corporations also care about what customers think. Government agencies do not, since they are not elected. I am wondering if Anonymous, or some group similar, has already dox'ed all of the information of that judge. If not, I hope they do. It would be good for him to see why privacy is important.

[U1TRA_L0RD]

Ok, so they shouldnt be whining and complaining when anonymous is taking down NSA servers. What happen to listening to the people, this country is feeling more like china and iraq.

[U1TRA_L0RD]

Bunch of repulsive freaks.

[battlescars]

Bro, this is ridiculous, we are going down the shitter its so obvious, people are rioting in the world about the wrong stuff, we need to focus
on our priorities here and riot on important matters. I dont know what to say i am so sad when i read stuff like this.
Who is this dumbass judge anyways. shame.

[U1TRA_L0RD]

Yes, Soon there will be riots in america when the governemnt proposes another stupid thing. Civil war.