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In reply to the discussion: Strange how the same people running around calling everyone Authoritarians [View all]muriel_volestrangler
(101,159 posts)98. "In Jewel v. NSA, EFF is suing the NSA and other government agencies on behalf of AT&T customers"
In Jewel v. NSA, EFF is suing the NSA and other government agencies on behalf of AT&T customers to stop the illegal unconstitutional and ongoing dragnet surveillance of their communications and communications records.
Filed in 2008, Jewel v. NSA is aimed at ending the NSAs dragnet surveillance of millions of ordinary Americans and holding accountable the government officials who illegally authorized it. Evidence in the case includes undisputed documents provided by former AT&T telecommunications technician Mark Klein showing AT&T has routed copies of Internet traffic to a secret room in San Francisco controlled by the NSA.
It also includes declarations from three NSA whistleblowers along with a mountain of other evidence, including secret government documents recently published in the Guardian and Washington Post that confirm our allegations. Two of the most critical documents directly reference the upstream collection of communications from fiber optic cables and the domestic telephone records collection program, which was subsequently confirmed by the government in June, 2013.
In addition to suing the government agencies involved in the domestic dragnet, Jewel v. NSA also targets the individuals responsible for creating authorizing and implementing the illegal program including DNI Keith Alexander and former Vice President Dick Cheney, Cheneys former chief of staff David Addington, former Attorney General and White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, and other individuals who ordered or participated in the warrantless domestic surveillance.
https://www.eff.org/cases/jewel
Filed in 2008, Jewel v. NSA is aimed at ending the NSAs dragnet surveillance of millions of ordinary Americans and holding accountable the government officials who illegally authorized it. Evidence in the case includes undisputed documents provided by former AT&T telecommunications technician Mark Klein showing AT&T has routed copies of Internet traffic to a secret room in San Francisco controlled by the NSA.
It also includes declarations from three NSA whistleblowers along with a mountain of other evidence, including secret government documents recently published in the Guardian and Washington Post that confirm our allegations. Two of the most critical documents directly reference the upstream collection of communications from fiber optic cables and the domestic telephone records collection program, which was subsequently confirmed by the government in June, 2013.
In addition to suing the government agencies involved in the domestic dragnet, Jewel v. NSA also targets the individuals responsible for creating authorizing and implementing the illegal program including DNI Keith Alexander and former Vice President Dick Cheney, Cheneys former chief of staff David Addington, former Attorney General and White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, and other individuals who ordered or participated in the warrantless domestic surveillance.
https://www.eff.org/cases/jewel
Amnesty International tried to sue, but the Supreme Court (5-4, the 5 being Kennedy, Alito, Roberts, Scalia and Thomas) said they had no standing.
Pushing a highly secret government program of global wiretapping a broad step away from ever having its constitutionality judged in an open court, the Supreme Court on Tuesday shut down a lawsuit by lawyers, journalists, and others who fear that their electronic exchanges with overseas contacts are being monitored by federal listeners.
...
Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., who wrote the majority opinion, concluded that the challengers lawsuit was based upon a chain of contingencies that would have to fall into place before their communications might be at risk of eavesdropping. They had not shown, the opinion concluded, that harms to them were certainly impending a rigorous standard for testing the right to sue.
The decision fit into two ongoing patterns established by the modern Court: a narrowing of the scope of the right to sue in federal court as a general proposition, and a stream of decisions insulating highly secret government war programs from judicial review in the regular federal court system.
The Alito opinion expressed a high degree of confidence that a special court, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, will guard against abuses of the new surveillance program that was freed of a number of restraints that existed under a law first passed in 1978. That surveillance court operates in total secrecy, within the Justice Department building in downtown Washington, and almost never has turned down completely government requests for foreign intelligence surveillance. It has sometimes modified those requests, however.
http://www.scotusblog.com/?p=160071
...
Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., who wrote the majority opinion, concluded that the challengers lawsuit was based upon a chain of contingencies that would have to fall into place before their communications might be at risk of eavesdropping. They had not shown, the opinion concluded, that harms to them were certainly impending a rigorous standard for testing the right to sue.
The decision fit into two ongoing patterns established by the modern Court: a narrowing of the scope of the right to sue in federal court as a general proposition, and a stream of decisions insulating highly secret government war programs from judicial review in the regular federal court system.
The Alito opinion expressed a high degree of confidence that a special court, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, will guard against abuses of the new surveillance program that was freed of a number of restraints that existed under a law first passed in 1978. That surveillance court operates in total secrecy, within the Justice Department building in downtown Washington, and almost never has turned down completely government requests for foreign intelligence surveillance. It has sometimes modified those requests, however.
http://www.scotusblog.com/?p=160071
We can now see it's extremely likely that Amnesty International contacts with people outside the USA are extensively monitored, so it's ridiculous to claim they don't have standing. But what do you expect from those 5 SC justices?
Anyway, we can see that your assertion "No one is suing the NSA for violations" is false.
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Strange how the same people running around calling everyone Authoritarians [View all]
JaneyVee
Aug 2013
OP
But they don't announce when, so you can't safely take advantage of the fact.
Jackpine Radical
Aug 2013
#135
If we had had more panic and outrage about this program and if we had asked more questions
JDPriestly
Aug 2013
#79
Isn't funny how certain posters who have an entire forum to theirselves...
last1standing
Aug 2013
#205
No, correcting grammar is what snarky people do when they don't have anything of substance to say.
Just Saying
Aug 2013
#173
The only thing I don't understand is why the DLCers object to the word "authoritarian"
BlueStreak
Aug 2013
#206
I also need to ask you, what do you think would be effective ways to deal with the problem
JDPriestly
Aug 2013
#81
Very good. I agree and I want to emphasize that many of us feel that this is way bigger than the
Ed Suspicious
Aug 2013
#88
If democrats force democratic candidates to stick to a progressive platform it just sort of takes
Ed Suspicious
Aug 2013
#115
So if "democrats force democratic candidates to stick to a progressive platform"...
KharmaTrain
Aug 2013
#121
Part of the genius of the crimes of the NSA and the FISA court are that their deliberations
JDPriestly
Aug 2013
#226
None of the people you complain about are putting up photo spreads of Guy Fawkes
Fumesucker
Aug 2013
#9
Yeah, I bet he orders up a random drone strike to take the edge off after a hard day in Congress
Fumesucker
Aug 2013
#28
would you still feel the same if a republican were president right now?
liberal_at_heart
Aug 2013
#52
The hate teachers on this site have done a great job turning this once intelligent forum into
lumpy
Aug 2013
#75
Holy crap. I was just reading that and saw the note about alerting but figured no one could have
Number23
Aug 2013
#187
All flaws are on one side, the other side has all warrant to do and say anything in any way
Bluenorthwest
Aug 2013
#114
I never tell anybody how to vote or what to think. I simply state how I feel and vote.
liberal_at_heart
Aug 2013
#21
+1000. I'm afraid the OP is just factually wrong. Besides that lawsuit, the ACLU also is suing
quinnox
Aug 2013
#25
no more compromise. no more grand bargains. Now is the time to fight for the 99%.
liberal_at_heart
Aug 2013
#27
"our country's demise"? this is why all the derision--it's not just the blatant denial,
MisterP
Aug 2013
#30
One has to wonder what the OP knows about things like The Gulf of Tonkin or Kent State...
cherokeeprogressive
Aug 2013
#53
Not to mention the Red Scare and the McCarthy era. All Right Wing in origin.
Spitfire of ATJ
Aug 2013
#55
Uh, 58,000 Americans died in Vietnam. Along with one or two million Vietnamese.
Comrade Grumpy
Aug 2013
#64
I shan't. Nor shall I forget that The President LIED us into that war.
cherokeeprogressive
Aug 2013
#74
Not really, it is clear that the OP is lacking in historical context going back at least to McCarthy
Bluenorthwest
Aug 2013
#117
You bash us for mocking you then say we're running around with our hair on fire.
last1standing
Aug 2013
#38
Thanks, JaneyVee. Yes, there do seem to be a number of bullies among the "anti-authoritarians" here.
pnwmom
Aug 2013
#42
Who needs FEMA camps when the U.S. already has the biggest prison system in the world?
backscatter712
Aug 2013
#69
Look the other way. The party will protect you. Until they're no longer in power that is...
cherokeeprogressive
Aug 2013
#72
Why are you turning your lack of concern for our democracy and constitution into an attack
cui bono
Aug 2013
#94
"In Jewel v. NSA, EFF is suing the NSA and other government agencies on behalf of AT&T customers"
muriel_volestrangler
Aug 2013
#98
If it walks like a duck, swims like a duck, has feathers and quacks like a duck
hobbit709
Aug 2013
#104
"mocked, shamed, insulted, and called names" like "randroid racist Obama haters"?
Warren Stupidity
Aug 2013
#105
Really? Over simplified? Nope. I won't give an inch on the 4th Amendment. nt
snappyturtle
Aug 2013
#230
I'm really sick of the sermons about other people's errors and sins. I don't care what the 'side' is
Bluenorthwest
Aug 2013
#120
Just because you want Corporations/Government to have strict oversight and control over everyone's
Zorra
Aug 2013
#127
Can the OP support this 'same people' assertion by giving mulitple examples of such or is this
Bluenorthwest
Aug 2013
#130
So let's open the discussion on whether or not we should investigate the NSA and Booz-Allen.
rhett o rick
Aug 2013
#141
Authoritarians love their authoritarian leaders like Clapper, Alexander, Mueller, and Comey. nm
rhett o rick
Aug 2013
#186
You made an OP complaining about insults, and then you insult people in the same OP?
ZombieHorde
Aug 2013
#142
Not sure about in general, but on DU it is the "centrists" who are smug, condescending and arrogant.
redgreenandblue
Aug 2013
#153
They want to hobble law enforcement and MAKE US LESS SAFE! ...from pot smokers.
Warren DeMontague
Aug 2013
#154
R#59 & K for, WOW!1 Am re-posting O.P. with highlighting!1 & I for one am willing to WORSHIPJaneyVee
UTUSN
Aug 2013
#158
They dont even bother to look up the definition of authoritarian before they use the
rhett o rick
Aug 2013
#220
People have long ago made up their mind how to deal with those who disagree with them
davidpdx
Aug 2013
#233
I stopped posting in any "hair on fire" threads... I wish they would go start a new website.
DontTreadOnMe
Aug 2013
#251