Snowden has been vindicated and he is a hero

[hueymahl]

152. Some posters are consistently anti-freedom and pro authoritarianism

Many posters have no problem with a steady drumbeat by the government seeking more intrusive intelligence gathering in the name of "national security." I am not calling these misguided posters names (other than just now calling them misguided), just pointing out the positions they take are authoritarian in nature. And registering my surprise, shock, anger and disappointment that fellow democrats would take that kind of position, a position 100% opposite of the vast majority of Democrats and the ACLU.

BTW, thank you for raising your hand so we all know where you stand.

One more thing, you throw in some "facts" in your response to me, claiming, falsely, that the ruling "does not rule that the collection is illegal." That could not be farther from the truth. Here is the exact ruling:

http://pdfserver.amlaw.com/nlj/NSA_ca2_20150507.pdf

And the summary holding:

This appeal concerns the legality of the bulk telephone metadata collection
program (the “telephone metadata program”), under which the National Security
Agency (“NSA”) collects in bulk “on an ongoing daily basis” the metadata
associated with telephone calls made by and to Americans, and aggregates those
metadata into a repository or data bank that can later be queried.  Appellants
challenge the program on statutory and constitutional grounds.  Because we find
that the program exceeds the scope of what Congress has authorized, we vacate
the decision below dismissing the complaint without reaching appellants’
constitutional arguments.

The court goes on to say that the government has been acting illegally under the authorization given to them by the statute:

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.  Just as “the grand jury’s
subpoena power is not unlimited,” United States v. Calandra, 414 U.S. 338, 346
(1974), § 215’s power cannot be interpreted in a way that defies any meaningful
limit.  Put another way, we agree with appellants that the government’s
argument is “irreconcilable with the statute’s plain text.”

There were a bunch of other defenses shot down by the court (thank you ACLU). Here is the final holding:

For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that the district court erred in
ruling that § 215 authorizes the telephone metadata collection program, and
instead hold that the telephone metadata program exceeds the scope of what
Congress has authorized and therefore violates § 215.

So yes, what they have been doing is illegal. Nice try though.