The NSA watches you poop.

NSA phone surveillance program likely unconstitutional, federal judge rules | World news | theguardian.com

. Dragnet 'likely' in breach of fourth amendment
. Judge describes scope of program as 'Orwellian'
. Ruling relates to collection of Americans' metadata
. Read the full rulinghere

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Mehh...

Is anyone who has ever been involved in the intelligence field automatically disqualified? Bro, that is a fuckload of people. I didn't see the CBS piece so I can't really judge it, but just working in the DNI doesn't mean shit. If anything wouldn't you want someone with the background to understand what is happening to be doing this piece? Or would you rather have a fanaskin clone just tripping over his own dick at every opportunity?

Well yeah, but like I said, I haven't seen the piece. They were showing clips on CNN today I think but it was nothing shocking. Basically they boiled the whole thing down to the controversy over proposed amnesty.

Big Phoenix_sl said:

lol "likely"

Pathetic how much of a rubberstamp the judicial branch has become to the executive and legislative.

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It sounds like you've made some incorrect assumptions here.

The court decided whether to grant a preliminary injunction, so the issue before it at the time was whether the phone surveillance program was likely unconstitutional, and nothing else. A preliminary injunction is a device used to stop an alleged wrong from occurring while the legality of the alleged wrong is litigated and determined. The court orders a party to stop the allegedly wrong action while the litigation is pending. Litigation often takes years. The law recognizes that will lead to situations where someone has to suffer a wrong for years before a court finally says, yes, that is wrong, stop. At the same time, the law recognizes the burden and possible unfairness in ordering someone to stop doing something before the legality of the action has been fully litigated. To balance these issues, the standard for obtaining a preliminary injunction is relatively high. The party seeking the injunction must show that it will likely win on the merits.

In this case (these cases really), the people suing to stop the NSA program sought a preliminary injunction. The court had to decide if they would likely win at the end of the day -- whether the program was likely unconstitutional. The court decided the program was likely unconstitutional and granted the preliminary injunction. At the same time, the court stayed the preliminary injunction (meaning it does not go into effect) pending the appeal of its decision. The decision will certainly be appealed, because the judge declined to follow relevant SCOTUS precedent. Indeed, the whole interesting portion of the decision is the judge explaining why he won't follow a 1979 SCOTUS decision regarding phone surveillance.

All that said, (putting aside feelings about lower court judges distinguishing/choosing not to follow/skirting SCOTUS precedent), it's still pretty cool. This is a GOP appointed judge, and, as SCOTUSblog points out, he was one of the strongest defenders of the governments right to detain terror suspect's at Guantanamo Bay, and even issued a decision denying detainees the right to challenge their detainment (this decision was later overturned by SCOTUS).

More here:

Judge: NSA phone sweep likely invalid : SCOTUSblog

Judge Leon Enjoins NSA Telephony Metadata Program in Larry Klayman Lawsuit | The Volokh ConspiracyThe Volokh Conspiracy

Big Phoenix_sl said:

Hepting v. ATT - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Judicial branch has zero problem with letting the Executive branch run hog wild with power.

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I'm not sure what you mean with this link. But's its not the cases from today. Note the second paragraph in the wiki: "The case is separate from, but related to, the NSA warrantless surveillance controversy, in which the federal government agency bypassed the courts to monitor U.S. phone calls without warrants. Hepting v. AT&T does not include the federal government as a party."

Oh, I see what you're getting at now, though I think it's not quite so black and white. Yeah, the government ultimately won there, though not on the merits, and the lower court refused to dismiss. In today's case the government lost. But as I indicated, it won before that judge on the issue of Guantanamo detainees challenging their detainment. But when at issue made it to SCOTUS, the government lost. In particular I feel the judiciary has been too deferential when it comes to the fourth amendment, but that may be changing a bit, we'll see.

True that. He'd probably have an aneurysm mid-interview.

So in other words: it's still about getting a leg up on Russia and China.