Appeals Court Revives Lawsuit Challenging NSA Surveillance

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/03/warrantless-eavesdropping/

 

Second bite at the rotten apple.

 

@SteveTX. That's for sure.

http://www.aclu.org/files/pdfs/safefree/faa_complaint_20080710.pdf

 

Nix, what is your opinion regarding the "retroactive immunity" granted by the US against telecoms regarding civil and criminal culpability and remuneration? Is this an ex post facto law or does it not count in that regard?

 

LOL..that was funny but could not be more true.

 

That's a good question and I would like to know too. I was so frustrated and ~ Snipped as per TOS ~ about that.

 

This is an especially pernicious case, from beginning to end. In order to understand how and why retroactive immunity was granted to the telecommunications providers in the first place, it is necessary to start with Mike McConnell, a retired vice admiral and former NSA director. His resume then included a stint as director of defense programs at Booz Allen Hamilton. Tim Shorrock wrote this about him in 2007:

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/01/08/mcconnell/index.html

When McConnell became DNI in 2007, he was instrumental in the implementation of the retroactive immunity provisions, despite his ties to the very industry he sought to protect:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.c...&gl=us&client=firefox-a&source=www.google.com

Background aside, the granting of retroactive immunity does not automatically equate to an unconstitutional ex post facto legal maneuver. Clearly, in this case, the bigger issue has been standing. It is difficult to prove that one has been targeted for unconstitutional surveillance if evidence of the program itself does not officially exist, which is the case, for all intents, if the program is protected as a state secret. Without standing, there is no viable plaintiff, and the court cannot even reach any of the substantive issues. The case then becomes a Kafkaesque exercise of circular denial. In this case out of Manhattan, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the lower court's ruling, and ruled that the plaintiffs have a reasonable fear of being monitored. So this particular case against NSA will proceed, for now.

 

This shouldn't even be a civil case, but a criminal investigation. As Nix mentioned, the ace in the hole the government always has to circumvent any type of oversight is the "state secrets" clause. This pretty much grants them immunity to any type of oversight by the courts and they have invoked it quite often in the last decade.

 

Yes, and this isn't just any agency invoking state secrets. This is NSA, where mea culpa something looks like this:

Keith Alexander

Ah, yes. That’s worrisome...those mistakes...when and if they happen, with the vulnerabilities in code. And that thing that happens on the network when that happens.

And, of course, Alexander is dual-hatted as both NSA Director and Commander, USCYBERCOM. So that self-reporting? He might have meant that literally