ACLU Suing Obama Administration Over Phone Records Gathering

[warrprayer]

"
The American Civil Liberties Union and the New York Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the Obama administration, challenging the constitutionality of the phone surveillance program revealed by The Guardian.

The suit alleges that the program violates the First and Fourth amendments.

The suit takes issue with the so-called metadata that a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court compelled Verizon Wireless to hand over to the National Security Agency under Section 215 of the Patriot Act.

"The practice is akin to snatching every American’s address book—with annotations detailing whom we spoke to, when we talked, for how long, and from where," said the ACLU in the complaint. "It gives the government a comprehensive record of our associations and public movements, revealing a wealth of detail about our familial, political, professional, religious, and intimate associations."
"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/11/aclu-obama_n_3423378.html



"“The real hopeless victims of mental illness are to be found among those who appear to be most normal. "Many of them are normal because they are so well adjusted to our mode of existence, because their human voice has been silenced so early in their lives, that they do not even struggle or suffer or develop symptoms as the neurotic does." They are normal not in what may be called the absolute sense of the word; they are normal only in relation to a profoundly abnormal society. Their perfect adjustment to that abnormal society is a measure of their mental sickness. These millions of abnormally normal people, living without fuss in a society to which, if they were fully human beings, they ought not to be adjusted.”

Welcome to the Brave New World

[indepat]

1. Why's the ACLU all up in arms given we have been assured no 4th Amendment infringment

is present or even at issue. No siree!

[warrprayer]

3. I blink in disbelief

at some of the stuff apologizing for facism

[indepat]

4. Did you miss my implied sarcasm

thingy?

[warrprayer]

5. hey we're cool!

My comment was directed at those on here who seem to be oblivious to everything except blind loyalty. I didn't mean you.

[Logical]

27. LOL! I got the sarcasm! :-)

[xchrom]

2. Good. Nt

[William769]

6. Some here will say just another frivolous lawsuit.

I'll bet money on it.

[warrprayer]

11. I've never seen so much

... tap dancing in my life

[William769]

14. A classic!

To bad the newbies don't even come close. And thats a good thing!

[warrprayer]

17. you honor me

by posting on my thread!

[William769]

18. I honor anybody fighting the good fight.

[warrprayer]

23. we few

"We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day."

[xiamiam]

7. great..nt

[warrprayer]

8. 'Bama should have checked the oil pressure

[Fumesucker]

9. They never really loved Him

[QC]

15. They just want President Palin!

[warrprayer]

19. There, there

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022993905

[LittleBlue]

10. ACLU thrown under the bus in 3... 2... 1...

The Big Brother crowd won't tolerate it.

[warrprayer]

12. yup

[Poll_Blind]

13. Why the ACLU filed this lawsuit so quickly and why I've got a Boner of Liberty over it. Here's why:

From this article, posted a short time ago at the New York Times. Read this excerpt carefully:

A.C.L.U. Sues to Bar Dragnet Collection of Phone Records:

The A.C.L.U. has frequently assisted other plaintiffs in challenges against national security policies, but the government has generally persuaded courts to dismiss such lawsuits without any ruling on the legal merits after arguing that litigation over any classified program would reveal state secrets or that the plaintiffs could not prove they were personally affected and so lacked standing to sue.

This case may be different. The government has now declassified the existence of the program on domestic call record “metadata.” And the A.C.L.U. itself is a customer of Verizon Business Network Services — the subsidiary of Verizon Communications that was the recipient of a leaked secret court order for all its domestic calling records — which it says gives it direct standing to bring the lawsuit.

The call logging program is keeping a record of “metadata” from domestic phone calls, including which numbers were dialed and received, from which location, and the time and duration of the communication, officials have said.

If you've been reading about these lawsuits filed by the ACLU over the years, you'll no doubt be familiar (if you read the fine print) about how many of these are tossed by judges because the ACLU (or whatever complainant) did not have standing to bring the suit. This is so common it's not even funny.

With the admission that the government has been snarfing up essentially everything, that means the ACLU (along with just about any other American) has standing to bring the suit.

The thing with secret snooping like this is it's very difficult to prove standing, to prove that you were subject to this. The reason the ACLU filed this lawsuit so quickly is this could be enough of a crack in the door for them to wedge their shoe into.

This is, as they say, a big fucking deal.

Might not look that way at first, might look just run of the mill. But this one is different.

PB

[warrprayer]

16. Thank you very much

... for your insight. Interesting and informative post!

[Poll_Blind]

22. I am just watching a Glenn Greenwald interview and he brings up the same thing! Here:

2 minutes, 28 seconds in this video and then from the 3 minute mark exactly to 4:05.

Hot damn!

Apparently Snowden turned over some documents which included a list of who the US was targeting so those targeted individuals can continue with their lawsuits.

PB

[warrprayer]

26. WOOT

Here come da Judge!!!!

[think]

40. wow. wow. wow.

Thank you!

[warrprayer]

20. ....

[dgibby]

38. I'm a Verizon customer.

I'd be more than happy to join the ACLU in this. Ever since I joined Verizon, I've gotten multiple calls from numbers I don't recognize and places where I know no one. This has been going on since I first turned the phone on. I never answer the calls, but it galls me to think my data is being tracked and my phone # is associated with these calls that I have no control over.

[sabrina 1]

45. Excellent, let's see what our courts do with this lawsuit. Also, every Verizon (and we don't know

yet what other telephone corps are part of this dragnet of spying), has standing to sue the Government. As a Verizon customer I will be happy to join a class action suit.

The irony is they CHANGED FISA to stop the law suits that started after Bush was caught violating the law, to get him and the telecoms off the hook. But they didn't think of everything.

[ucrdem]

21. Everybody has a price I guess.

Hope they got a receipt because criminals don't always pay their pledges.

[Dragonfli]

41. You actually believe "somebody" bought off the ACLU? Who? How much? When?

[warrprayer]

50. noone bought off the ACLU

That is the belief of the poster, I guess.

[sabrina 1]

46. Not everyone, just those big Private Security Corps that somehow have taken over our government

and the time may finally have come when they are about to be stopped. Too bad Congress didn't do the job they swore to do when they were elected. Now it is up to the people to put an end to these for-profit, war-profiteers who have undermined the very foundation of what makes this country a democracy. I'm waiting for the class action suit for Verizon customers. As I'm sure millions of other people are who believe that the 4th Amendment, NOT the cobbled together 'bill' to save Bush after he broke the law, IS the law of the land.

Time to make another donation to the ACLU and every other Civil Liberties Org who I'm sure, will be standing up now for the US Constitution. Too bad our elected officials didn't have the guts to do it themselves, as they swore to do.

[Babel_17]

24. EFF Launches "Stop Watching Us"

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2013/6/11/16049/6379

and

Google Seeks Permission to Publish Number of NSA Requests

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2013/6/11/154814/462

Here's the stand-alone links:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/06/86-civil-liberties-groups-and-internet-companies-demand-end-nsa-spying


http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2013/06/asking-us-government-to-allow-google-to.html

I post this here because I think a major tipping point has arrived. The ACLU is the anchor to ground the issue. It now isn't going to go away overnight and other players can now speak freely.

It's time for long conversations by the big cheeses and with no exclusions of the credible experts known for tough questions.

[warrprayer]

29. ^^^^

Let's see if the rule of law still means anything in this Country.

[xtraxritical]

43. Sure it does, if you got the big bucks.

[struggle4progress]

25. Uh ... good fuggin luck! The courts have been extraordinarily deferential to the Executive

on alleged "national security" issues

And since here we have a program that apparently involves both congressional "oversight" (through the rubberstamp Intelligence Committees)and judicial "oversight" (through the rubberstamp FISA courts), the chances of a judicial intervention are approximately zip-zilch-cipher-nada -- which means the case will be tossed, strengthening the unfortunate and growing body of law that finds all such activity acceptable

The bottom line is simply this: the current state of affairs can only be modified by creating a new legislative consensus and writing new laws

[warrprayer]

28. ...

tell it to the Turks


http://l3.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/7is1XSWe1mB9ydAcRVIWLw--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTQwOTtweW9mZj0wO3E9ODU7dz02MzA-/

[ucrdem]

30. An NGO playing politics, I am shocked

to find that gambling is going on in here. Everybody out at once.

[warrprayer]

31. this

https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/1006245632/hE9FEE240/

[ucrdem]

32. LOL, that too. I was thinking of this one:

[warrprayer]

33. great classic

[ucrdem]

34. Save to the journal.

[warrprayer]

35. shaken, not stirred

[ucrdem]

37. I have a feeling we're dealing with something like this.

RNC Theatre Presents. Better than TV on a good day and always a fresh twist.

[Poll_Blind]

36. ...

PB

[jberryhill]

39. It doesn't hurt to try

...and pursuing an action this way is considerably more constructive than other reactions.

[cantbeserious]

42. I Salute The ACLU, Senator Sanders, Representative Grayson For Standing Up To The Surveillance State

eom

[sabrina 1]

47. Don't forget Wyden and Udall who tried to warn us what they were up to. They couldn't because

of their positions but I'm sure they are relieved to see that now we know what they were trying to tell us. There are still some real Democrats around and we need so many more.

[cantbeserious]

48. Yes - Apologies For Leaving Others Unrecognized

eom

[CrazyJudy]

44. Must be some Bush appointed holdovers running the ACLU.... n/t

[sabrina 1]

49. Lol, you mean like Ari Fleischer, Clapper, Peter King? Wait, they ARE Bush guys but they

are on the other side of this. I would freak out if I ever found those guys on my side of anything. Thankfully the ACLU is on my side of this issue.