N.S.A. Phone Data Collection Is Illegal, A.C.L.U. Says - NYT

[WillyT]

N.S.A. Phone Data Collection Is Illegal, A.C.L.U. Says
By SCOTT SHANE - NYT
August 26, 2013

<snip>

WASHINGTON — In a detailed legal attack on the National Security Agency’s collection of Americans’ phone call data, the American Civil Liberties Union argued in court papers filed Monday that the sweeping data gathering violates the Constitution and should be halted.

The A.C.L.U. cited the writings of George Orwell and the comprehensive East German surveillance portrayed in the film “The Lives of Others” in warning of the dangers of large-scale government intrusion into private lives. The new motion, elaborating on the A.C.L.U.’s arguments against the data collection, came in a federal lawsuit challenging the N.S.A. program that the group filed in June.

Intelligence officials have emphasized that the N.S.A. database does not contain the contents of any Americans’ calls, but only the so-called metadata — the numbers called and the time and duration of each call. They say the database is searched only based on “reasonable, articulable suspicion” of terrorism and is valuable for tracking terror plots.

By midnight Monday, the Justice Department was expected to ask the judge in the case, William H. Pauley III of the Southern District of New York, to dismiss it. The department declined to comment on the A.C.L.U.’s filing.

In a declaration in support of the A.C.L.U., Edward W. Felten, a professor of computer science and public affairs at Princeton, said that by gathering data on the three billion calls made each day in the United States, the N.S.A. was creating a database that could reveal some of the most intimate secrets of American citizens.

“Calling patterns can reveal when we are awake and asleep, our religion, if a person regularly makes no calls on the Sabbath or makes a large number of calls on Christmas Day, our work habits and our social aptitude, the number of friends we have, and even our civil and political affiliations,” Mr. Felten wrote.

He pointed out that calls to certain numbers — a government fraud hot line, say, or a sexual assault hot line — or a text message that automatically donates to Planned Parenthood can reveal intimate details. He also said sophisticated data analysis, using software that can instantly trace chains of social connections, can make metadata even more revealing than the calls’ contents.

<snip>

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/27/us/nsa-phone-data-collection-is-illegal-aclu-says.html?_r=0

[Luminous Animal]

1. Good luck to them.

[cantbeserious]

2. Violating The 4th Amendment - Isn't It Obvious That The Government Is Breaking Its Own Laws

eom

[jeff47]

6. Not according to the SCOTUS

They ruled in 1979 that call metadata was run-of-the-mill business records that belong to the phone company. So no warrant was required to collect it.

[nashville_brook]

9. creating profiles based on phone, data, surfing, email is quite different

[jeff47]

10. Based on what law?

It's legal for the government to collect your phone bill, your electric bill, your cable bill, dig through your trash, follow you everywhere you drive and interview every person you speak to. Without a warrant.

"Building a profile" as you describe is completely legal.

As an added bonus, nobody has actually leaked any evidence of a program to collect anything on US persons beyond phone metadata. Instead, tons of people are talking about programs like PRISM and skipping over the documents that show steps to keep it from targeting US persons.

[DirkGently]

11. Except we already know the NSA misled courts & violated the 4th.

Even the super-helpful FISA court has ruled the NSA didn't observe its supposed safeguards, because of its tricksy interpretation of the laws supposedly preventing unlawful domestic surveillance. A ruling which this very administration argued for years should not even be available to the public.

This "it's all metadata, and metadata is okay" is a dodge, period.

https://www.eff.org/document/october-3-2011-fisc-opinion-holding-nsa-surveillance-unconstitutional

WASHINGTON — A federal judge sharply rebuked the National Security Agency in 2011 for repeatedly misleading the court that oversees its surveillance on domestic soil, including a program that is collecting tens of thousands of domestic e-mails and other Internet communications of Americans each year, according to a secret ruling made public on Wednesday.

The 85-page ruling by Judge John D. Bates, then serving as chief judge on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, involved an N.S.A. program that systematically searches the contents of Americans’ international Internet communications, without a warrant, in a hunt for discussions about foreigners who have been targeted for surveillance.

The Justice Department had told Judge Bates that N.S.A. officials had discovered that the program had also been gathering domestic messages for three years. Judge Bates found that the agency had violated the Constitution and declared the problems part of a pattern of misrepresentation by agency officials in submissions to the secret court.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/22/us/2011-ruling-found-an-nsa-program-unconstitutional.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

[jeff47]

15. You're claiming they violated safeguards that didn't exist yet.

That's the other prong of the terrible coverage: To claim the NSA violated 2009 safeguards with actions taken in 2006.

Further, people are using evidence that they were caught as proof they can get away with anything.

[DirkGently]

27. No. This is a 2011 court ruling finding actual 4th Amendment violations.

It's not "coverage."

The court is not taking the NSA to task for violating protections that didn't exist yet. That's not a thing that courts do.

It found that the NSA's own procedures for minimizing improper domestic surveillance, as reported in 2011, did not meet Constitutional muster.

[nashville_brook]

30. "That's not a thing that courts do," indeed.

It's almost as if civics isn't offered in high school anymore.

Sad. I remember having global studies in the 9th grade...in public school...in FLORIDA!!!

This is what happens when Lynne Cheney is allowed on the National Endowment for the Humanities.

[cantbeserious]

12. SCOTUS Also Selected Bush Over Gore - Infallible They Are Not

eom

[jeff47]

16. Infallible has nothing to do with it.

The debate is what's legal and what's not. And the SCOTUS is the top authority on that, even when they're wrong.

[cantbeserious]

17. I Do Not Debate Authoritarians - The Thinking Is Too Rigid And Inflexible - Have A Nice Day

eom

[jeff47]

18. It has nothing to do with "authoritarian". It's what's in the Constitution.

But getting to write that smug post was really nice, huh?

[cantbeserious]

20. There Is A Difference Between The Spirit And Letter Of Laws

eom

[jeff47]

23. And that still doesn't change that the Constitution makes the SCOTUS the end-of-the-line

for interpreting laws.

[cantbeserious]

24. And That Still Does Not Make Them Infallible

eom

[DirkGently]

28. But your entire premise re: "SCOTUS" is utter bullshit.

None of this has to do with the overall legality of the concept of collecting metadata as determined in 1979 or at any other time.

You are pretending that in 1979, somehow it was determined that whatever the NSA does is per se legal, and that is not the case at all.

NSA has been found, among many other problems, to have misinterpreted the laws restricting the domestic communications it is permitted to intercept, unsurprisingly, in its own favor, meaning that it has collected more than it is permitted by "SCOTUS" or anyone else.

[snappyturtle]

3. It was amazing what I learned from just looking at Sprint data on

calls coming in and going out on my EX husband's phone....just sayin'.

[davidn3600]

4. Yeah but Sprint can't send SWAT teams to your house and haul your ass to jail

I think you can agree there is a much greater danger of the government having access to your whole life than some company you pay for a service (a service you can terminate at any time).

[snappyturtle]

7. OH....you took it wrong. YES, you're right. I was just saying

that a lot can be learned from data without listening to
conversations. Some seem to have no problem with data
collection...because, "who could learn anything from that"!
type of attitude. Well, I learned a LOT! Sorry...I should have
been more clear.

[MotherPetrie]

5. K&R

[forestpath]

8. K&R

[AzDar]

13. K & R

[struggle4progress]

14. I'd like to think they could win in Court on it, but our Judiciary is so much more

rightwing, than it was when I first started paying any attention decades ago, that I'm really rather skeptical about the prospects. I'd like to give a nonpartisan explanation, but the recent history really involves Republicans during the Clinton and Obama years doing everything possible to block Democratic Judicial appointments. And it's a difficult issue to use in public conversations, since lots of people really don't care much who gets appointed

[Octafish]

19. What are they afraid of?

We need to give up our Rights in order to fight the NAZIs! Er. I mean, Communism! Oops. Try again. Terrorism! Yeah, that's the ticket.

Of course, by "fight" and "rights" I mean the right of the Military-Industrial-Intelligence Wall Street War Mongering Money Trumps Peace traitors to make a buck.

[randome]

21. You do know the NSA has many more responsibilities than looking for terrorists, right?

[hr][font color="blue"][center]Don't ever underestimate the long-term effects of a good night's sleep.[/center][/font][hr]

[Octafish]

22. Tell me about it.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=3580255&mesg_id=3583500

[Harmony Blue]

25. I stand with the ACLU on this issue

[sabrina 1]

26. Yes, it is illegal. All the excuses and apologetics won't make it legal.

Thank the gods for our Civil Liberties Organizations and for those Democrats who have never sacrificed their principles regardless of who is in power.

[DirkGently]

29. Some really bizarre spinning going on in this thread.

Someone's panicking again, apparently.

Could be the "Love INT" stuff that's coming out now, where analysts spied on their exes has spurred a new flurry of defensiveness.

[Savannahmann]

31. Which is why I donate to them.

They fight for my rights.