Tag: National Security Agency

Appeals Court: NSA Surveillance Program Illegal

By Paul Gable

The US 2nd District Court of Appeals ruled this week the bulk collection of telephone data by the NSA (National Security Agency) is unlawful.

This decision not only overturned an earlier decision by a US District Court, but also demonstrates how out of touch the Obama White House is with what is legal in surveillance programs as is Sen. Lindsey Graham.

The ruling gives credence to a 2014 independent report from the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board that called the collection program illegal and said it should be ended.

The report said the bulk telephone records program lacked a viable legal foundation with “serious threats to privacy and civil liberties” with only “limited value.” The report also called for NSA to purge its files of these records.

The appeals court said the NSA collection exceeded the provisions of Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which is up for reauthorization before it runs out at the end of this month.

However, the court did not rule an end to the NSA domestic collection program, preferring instead to allow Congress an opportunity to make changes in the program.

Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is pushing to reauthorize Section 215.

But, the court, in its decision, concluded, ““We hold that the text of section 215 cannot bear the weight the government asks us to assign to it, and that it does not authorize the telephone metadata program. We conclude that to allow the government to collect phone records only because they may become relevant to a possible authorized investigation in the future fails even the permissive ‘relevance’ test.”

If Congress reauthorizes the Patriot Act provisions, we could see harsher court rulings result.

Frankly, it’s time someone reigned in Congress and its stomping all over the civil rights of American citizens. This ruling, at least, allows us to conclude that the 4th Amendment to the US Constitution is not dead.

“Those who surrender freedom for security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.” Benjamin Franklin

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National Security Agency Spying and the Constitution

Seven months after the Edward Snowden leaks about National Security Agency spying started becoming public, President Barack Obama is now saying some changes in programs may have to be made.

A Blue Ribbon panel appointed by the president, Review Group on Intelligence and Communication Technologies, recently published a 309 page report.

One of the conclusions in that report were that the NSA program of vacuuming information about phone calls and other electronic transmissions within, into and out of the U.S. was, from all available evidence, worthless as a tool to fight terrorism.

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Secrecy, Intimidation and the Obama Administration

A recent report by the Committee to Protect Journalists says the Obama administration is the most aggressive administration to pursue leaks to journalists since the Nixon administration’s plumbers unit during the Watergate investigation.

This from a president that promised more openness in government while he was running for election in 2008.

Information provided from the Obama administration generally falls into the category of that which makes the administration look good.

Otherwise, it’s overclassify information, nearly unprecedented attempts to control leaks and significant surveillance on journalists to attempt to intimidate them and learn the identity of their sources.

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Sen. Lindsey Graham and Stupid Speak

I know Sen. Lindsey Graham is in re-election mode, but is it really necessary for him to attempt to redefine “stupid” in political speak?

After telling us he was “glad” the National Security Agency was collecting phone records on millions of American citizens and advocating raining cruise missiles down on Syria, Graham’s latest oral gem calls for a U.S. boycott of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia if the Russian government does not deny former NSA contractor Edward Snowden asylum.

Snowden’s the guy who told The Guardian newspaper about the NSA spying efforts on American citizens.

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Big Brother 30 Years Beyond 1984

George Orwell’s “Big Brother” is alive and well in the U.S. government 30 years beyond 1984, but I’m not sure even Orwell ever anticipated the level of the current actions.

Another attack, by “Big Brother”, on U.S. citizens’ right to privacy and guarantees of freedom from illegal search and seizure was reported by the “Guardian” and “Washington Times” newspapers recently regarding requests for cell phone records from Verizon.

Those revelations were bad enough, but we later learned, from “The Hill”, that senators knew about these vast phone sweeping operations by the National Security Agency, which have been going on since 2007.

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