General Discussion

Bonobo

(29,257 posts) Tue Aug 13, 2013, 09:29 PM Aug 2013

How NSA surveillance endangers the Fourth Amendment

Sorry, this may not be of interest to those posters furiously dragging the internet for personal attacks on the whisteleblower, Snowden, who brought this to the public's attention so I apologize for the "dry" nature of this OP.
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http://news.yahoo.com/nsa-surveillance-endangers-fourth-amendment-100208289.html

Jonathan Hafetz from Seton Hall Law School, in a commentary, says the NSA’s surveillance programs undermine Fourth Amendment protections and they could affect the conduct of ordinary citizens.

The New York Times has reported that the National Security Agency (NSA) is combing through vast amounts of Americans’ email and text communications into and out of the country. This latest revelation—part of the continuing fallout from the disclosures of government documents by former NSA contractor Edward J. Snowden—underscores the frayed fabric of the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment and the threat to the values it protects.
We already knew that the government was sweeping up international communications of American citizens under the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 (FAA). While the FAA authorizes the government to target foreigners abroad, it also permits the government to collect Americans’ communications with those foreign targets, as well as to retain and disseminate that information to other government agencies and foreign governments.

The Times story, however, makes clear that the NSA is also acquiring—without a warrant—the communications of any foreigner “about the target,” once a target has been identified, thus sweeping in an even wider range of communications by U.S. citizens than previously believed.

The Fourth Amendment provides a bulwark against this type of dragnet surveillance. Before searching Americans’ private communications, the Fourth Amendment requires that the government demonstrate probable cause or individualized suspicion.

The NSA’s widespread, suspicionless surveillance of Americans’ private communications will not only impact the work of journalists, lawyers, and others who frequently communicate with people abroad. It will also affect the conduct of ordinary citizens, now fearful of visiting a controversial website or discussing a particular topic via email.