home

Federal Judge Finds NSA Surveillance Legal

By Jeralyn, Section Civil Liberties
Posted on Fri Dec 27, 2013 at 07:50:39 PM EST
Tags: NSA Warrantless Surveillance (all tags)
Share This: Digg! StumbleUpon del.icio.us reddit reddit

Yin and Yang. Last week, federal Judge Richard J. Leon in Washington ruled the NSA's collection of mass telephone metadata was “almost Orwellian” and probably unconstitutional."

Today, Judge William H. Pauley III in New York rules the opposite way, finding the NSA program legal under Section 215 of the Patriot Act and the Fourth Amendment.

Today's opinion is here.

The ACLU says on to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

< AQAP Sweats the Small Stuff | Adam Lanza Motive Still Unknown >

  • The Online Magazine with Liberal coverage of crime-related political and injustice news

  • Contribute To TalkLeft


    • Display: Sort:
    Federal Judge Finds NSA Surveillance Legal | 4 comments (4 topical)

    Readers Must Login or Create an Account to Comment

    To uphold this surveillance... (none / 0) (#1)
    by Dadler on Sat Dec 28, 2013 at 11:00:43 AM EST
    ...as done here, you have to twist yourself into faux patriotic knots. And that he claims it is legal under the Fourth Amendment, well, this "jurist" has declared himself willfully mentally disabled. Par for the course in America today, tho. And inexcusably so. Although, yes, I must admit, the willfully mentally disabled run the entire country.

    Case Law (5.00 / 1) (#2)
    by squeaky on Sat Dec 28, 2013 at 11:36:49 AM EST
    The ruling rests on a prior case... NYT (hat tip jbindc)

    The main dispute between the judges was over how to interpret a 1979 Supreme Court decision, Smith v. Maryland, in which the court said a robbery suspect had no reasonable expectation that his right to privacy extended to the numbers dialed from his phone. "Smith's bedrock holding is that an individual has no legitimate expectation of privacy in information provided to third parties," Judge Pauley wrote.

    But Judge Leon said that advances in technology and suggestions in concurring opinions in later Supreme Court decisions had undermined the Smith ruling. The government's ability to construct a mosaic of information from countless records, he said, called for a new analysis of how to apply the Fourth Amendment's prohibition of unreasonable government searches.

    Parent

    Link (5.00 / 1) (#3)
    by squeaky on Sat Dec 28, 2013 at 11:37:43 AM EST
    NYT

    Parent
    What about (none / 0) (#4)
    by Mikado Cat on Sat Dec 28, 2013 at 02:18:12 PM EST
    probable cause and due process?

    This is a lousy thing to throw on the courts to decide, its a mess created by congress that needs to be cleaned up by congress.

    Parent

    Federal Judge Finds NSA Surveillance Legal | 4 comments (4 topical)

    Readers Must Login or Create an Account to Comment