FISC Opinion Holding NSA Surveillance UNCONSTITUTIONAL (October 3, 2011)

[Catherina]

EFF prevailed in court; govt to release today 2011 FISC order finding part of NSA program unconstitutional. The ODNI will declassify three FISC court decisions today.

The first one is already up

Entire ruling here: October 3, 2011 FISC Opinion Holding NSA Surveillance Unconstitutional

NSA acknowledged to FISC that "'upstream collection' of Internet communications includes the acquisition of entire transaction(s)." Whoops!


Small extract: the court was "troubled" about "substantial misrepresentation" and "repeated inaccurate statements made in the government's submissions"



I'm still reading.

[RobertEarl]

1. OMG

Do you realize what this does to the egos of all those who have been telling us to bend over and take it because we were wrong?

Damn i feel sorry for them. They have been proven wrong again and proven they just don't get this constitutional stuff. Well, we're here to keep them straight, aren't we? Tough work, but we good libearls have to keep on if we want to remain free.

[KittyWampus]

5. This is from when Bush was POTUS. You are trying too hard.

[RobertEarl]

7. Its ok, Kitty

We will do our best to protect you. First thing we do is tell you the truth. Like this spying is not constitutional, just like the court has told you.

It's hard work but we keep working at it. I think the real problem with some here is they have tried too hard to deny the facts. There's a plate full in the OP. Eat it.

[KittyWampus]

8. You need to read the dates. And stop trying to get DU'ers to agree with Teabaggers.

So apparently your "DU time out" wasn't permanent.

[RobertEarl]

14. Now that is just nasty

You attacking me for standing up for my freedom? I've seen you do others the same way. Oh well, you are inconsequential. People like Catherina are important, tho.

[Catherina]

20. p 48: NSA's warrantless Internet surveillance via UPSTREAM "circumvented the spirit" of the law

FISA court opinion: NSA's warrantless Internet surveillance via UPSTREAM "circumvented the spirit" of the law. P48



and there's more coming. FISC p.17: collection violated criminal law; the FISC says they'll address that in a separate order.

[RobertEarl]

21. Thanks Catherina

People like you give me hope.

And there is more coming. Much more.

[Catherina]

26. Thanks. You too. And this is only about UPSTREAM that accounts for 9% of their internet collection

Page 29: NSA acquires over 250 million communications each year on domestic soil without warrants under FISA amendments act, directly from the internet service providers. UPSTREAM is only 9% of the total internet communications they acquire.

And they wanted everyone to move on, nothing to see here, Snowden is lying. Piss on that.

[dkf]

2. Good grief the court is complaining about being misled by the government.

Wow. Evidence of lying to those who are supposed to oversee the program.

On edit: No wonder they didn't want to release it. It's beyond finding unconstitutional behavior, but also a finding of a history of abuse.

[Catherina]

3. All the court rulings need to be declassified, not just the ones EFF sues for and Clapper choses n/t

[dkf]

6. Of course...but this is especially damning.

[Catherina]

10. I know. This 2011 ruling mostly covers 2008-2011 when Bush was gone n/t

[KittyWampus]

12. Bush was gone in 2008?

[dkf]

16. Lol...grasping at straws.

Wow you are really steeped in this campaign...

[deurbano]

29. On President Obama's watch: 11 months of '09; 12 mo of '10; 10 mo of '11 before FISA court ruling.

[dkf]

15. Hmm didn't even consider that.

Boy were we sold a bill of goods.

[KittyWampus]

4. Should be quick reading with all the stuff blacked out. Some pages are almost

entirely hidden.

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. Any bets on new talking points? And wsj, 75% of web us web

[msanthrope]

13. What? nt

[dkf]

19. New Revelations Detail How The NSA Scans 75% Of The Internet Through Telco Partnerships

http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/20/new-revelations-detail-how-the-nsa-scans-75-of-the-internet-through-telco-partnerships/

[mwooldri]

42. So that's how they know what I watch online!

Netflix, YouTube make up an awful lot of Internet traffic in the evening. Since they're getting 75% and it is alleged that Netflix and YouTube make up nearly 50% of overall internet traffic.... just how many times do they watch those crazy animal videos?

[dkf]

45. Yes they are keeping track of what you watch.

I was surprised to see Netflix on the list of corps with NSA "partnerships".

[Catherina]

34. A guess

They'll have to do with minimization how this was just *unwitting* collection and NSA wasn't doing minimizing its UPSTREAM domestic acquisitions aggressively enough for 3 years but they *fixed* it with the court's help and got all *legal* again.

[cthulu2016]

11. The habit of lying to the court noted there started under BUSH

It merely continued from 2009-2011... but it started under BUSH!!1!

[think4yourself]

18. And they hid all of it

until today.

[Catherina]

28. It looks like they even tried to hide it from the court.

The Court authorized Sec. 702 surveillance for more than three years before it fully understood what the NSA was doing with it

[Catherina]

23. This should humiliate people making fact-free claims that all of the NSA surveillance is "legal"

but it won't. This court ruling reinforces what Binney and Drake warned us.

[geek tragedy]

17. The NSA undoubtedly misbehaved and warrants increased supervision as a result.

However, this doesn't exactly show a security state run amok with no internal controls or mechanisms, and it shows the FISA court actually doing its job.

[kelliekat44]

22. Stop. You will be accused of "trying too hard." nt

[RobertEarl]

24. Snowden lit the fire!

Wyden stoked it and Greenwald keeps feeding it. Even the RW is upset. We're on a roll.

The egos of those who have been fighting this truth must be hurting these days. We all feel for them. Now they just need to be good schoolkids and be quiet as we keep the truth fires burning. Don't you think, geek?

[geek tragedy]

25. Light the fires, but don't burn down the house nt

[stupidicus]

39. indeed, and the quarters are always cramped and lonely

for the legend in their own behind

[mindwalker_i]

31. There seems to be a lot of evidence

that the FISA court dows not normally do it's job, and this thing has gone way too far. The fact that this document was withheld for so long is highly suggestive of a cover-up - of illegal acts against us, the U.S. citizens. I don't see the government willingly giving up this ability, regardless of court orders, and fear that the house may need to be burned down to fix it.

[geek tragedy]

33. "the house may need to be burned down to fix it. "

Oh?

[Hydra]

27. K&R for later reading

I liked this part though:

"...may contain data that is wholly unrelated to the tasked selector, including the full content of discrete communications that are not to, from, or about the facility tasked for collection."

[liberal_at_heart]

30. K&R

[PowerToThePeople]

32. REC. Very nice to see this. EFF fights the good fight

https://www.eff.org/work

[Cryptoad]

35. The whole documents

Makes yall look very foolish!

http://www.dni.gov/files/documents/Semiannual%20Assessment%20of%20Compliance%20with%20procedures%20and%20guidelines%20issued%20pursuant%20to%20Sect%20702%20of%20FISA.pdf

[KauaiK]

36. Who or what CAN stop NSA?

If FISA holds the NSA data gathering unconstitutional; if the patriot act and other laws are repealed, WHO or WHAT CAN stop the NSA? How can this sophisticated complex be dismantled?

[Fire Walk With Me]

37. K&R!

[Catherina]

38. FISC rejected NSA's description of collection of wholly domestic transactions as "unintentional"

[Rex]

40. How many people are on the FISC? I need to know how many seats

under the bus to pencil them in for! You know Catherina, with all these facts coming to light, you would think even the densest thinker would give some pause to cheering on the govt.

Sadly I feel a lot more are going to be under the bus before this is all said and done.

[Catherina]

43. 11

Ten of the court’s 11 judges — all assigned by Chief Justice Roberts — were appointed to the bench by Republican presidents; six once worked for the federal government. Since the chief justice began making assignments in 2005, 86 percent of his choices have been Republican appointees, and 50 percent have been former executive branch officials.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/26/us/politics/robertss-picks-reshaping-secret-surveillance-court.html?pagewanted=all

Let me know before they get thrown under the bus so the rest of us know we can finally get out from under it lol.

[Rex]

44. We are on our fifth bus! Gonna have to raise donations

to get any more!

[Catherina]

46. Lol!

Just watch out for my elbow. Andrew Sullivan accidentally stepped on it when he was unceremoniously tossed under my bus the other day.

[Rex]

47. Yeah sorry about that we are so over capacity

that Matt was drinking some soda out of a coffee container, before he realized it's prior use as an ashtray. Got barf all over Maddow and you know how that chain reaction barf thingy goes...

[Catherina]

50. Due to the caliber of the company under the bus

I wouldn't want to be anywhere else right now.

Hell would not be hell if you are there,
and without you,
heaven would be too unbearable to bear

[Rex]

57. It is a party under the bus!!!

[Cryptoad]

41. OOOps,,,,,,,,,

this is not what the Paulist say is happening!
ummmmmm

[Recursion]

48. Sounds like the oversight works, then

Good. Another reason that the post-FISA situation is much, much better than the unsupervised stuff that was going on in 2006.

[Catherina]

49. Court ruling from 2011 found government 'disclosed substantial misrepresentation' of data collection

NSA illegally collected thousands of emails before Fisa court halted program

Declassified court ruling from 2011 found government 'disclosed substantial misrepresentation' of data collection program

Spencer Ackerman in Washington
theguardian.com, Wednesday 21 August 2013 22.27 BST

...

In his 86-page opinion, declassified on Wednesday, Judge John Bates wrote that the government informed the court that the "volume and nature of the information it has been collecting is fundamentally different from what the court had been led to believe".

The ruling is one of three documents released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and comes amid growing public and congressional concern over the scope of NSA surveillance programs.

...

"If you have a webmail email account, like Gmail or Hotmail, you know that if you open up your email program, you will get a screenshot of some number of emails that are sitting in your inbox, the official said.

"Those are all transmitted across the internet as one communication. For technological reasons, the NSA was not capable of breaking those down, and still is not capable, of breaking those down into their individual [email] components."

If one of those emails contained a reference to a foreign person believed to be outside the US – in the subject line, the sender or the recipient, for instance – then the NSA would collect the entire screenshot "that's popping up on your screen at the time," the official continued.

...

(Of the 56,000) Somewhere between "2,000-10,000" of those involved multiple communications acquired in single collections, such as the e-mail inbox screenshots. Approximately 46,000 involved collections of single emails or other internet communications.

...

The exact total remained a mystery to the court. "The actual number of wholly domestic communications acquired may still be higher," Bates wrote.

...

Senator Ron Wyden, a member of the intelligence committee, refers to the NSA's still-current authorities to query those databases for US person information as a "backdoor search" loophole.

...

But the interception of email mailbox "screenshots" that can contain wholly domestic communications apparently continues.

...

Wyden said the disclosed Fisa Court ruling – which he first revealed existed last year – pointed to the need to close the "backdoor search" loophole.

...

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/21/nsa-illegally-collected-thousands-emails-court

[limpyhobbler]

51. Wyden statement on this declassification: The problem still isn't fixed

Wyden Statement on Declassification of FISA Court Ruling on 4th Amendment Violations
Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) issued the following statement regarding the declassification of a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court ruling stating that the NSA’s collection procedures had violated the 4th Amendment to the Constitution and the spirit of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

“While the declassification of the FISA court’s ruling on the constitutionality of Section 702 collection procedures is an important addition to the public discussion being held on government surveillance authorities, its declassification is long overdue. And while the NSA eventually made changes to its minimization procedures in response to this ruling, the very collection it describes was a serious violation of the 4th Amendment and demonstrates even more clearly the need to close the back-door searches loophole that allows for the communications of Americans to be searched without a warrant if they are swept up under procedures that were intended to target foreigners.

Moreover, the ruling states that the NSA has knowingly acquired tens of thousands of wholly domestic communications under section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, even though this law was specifically written to prohibit the warrantless acquisition of wholly domestic communications. The FISA Court has noted that this collection violates the spirit of the law, but the government has failed to address this concern in the two years since this ruling was issued. This ruling makes it clear that FISA Section 702, as written, is insufficient to adequately protect the civil liberties and privacy rights of law-abiding Americans and should be reformed.”

http://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-statement-on-declassification-of-fisa-court-ruling-on-4th-amendment-violations

[Catherina]

52. Thanks for finding that and posting that here. Thanks to Wyden for spelling it out clearly

There's the forest. All that other bullshit is a few leaves on a lone tree.

FISC p.16 on 215: govt so "frequently and systemically violated" privacy rules the "regime has never functioned effectively."

[limpyhobbler]

54. Well he's in a position to know.

So I tend to believe him on these matters.

[Catherina]

53. ACLU:NSA misrepresented its spying to secret FISA court to Congress & the public

NSA misrepresented its spying to secret FISA court just as it misrepresented them to Congress & the public

NSA Misled Surveillance Court Multiple Times, Secret Opinions Show

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 21, 2013

CONTACT: [e-mail]

NEW YORK – The NSA misrepresented its surveillance activities to the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on at least three occasions, according to opinions newly released by the government. The court found some aspects of the NSA’s spying program unconstitutional, then authorized changes that permitted the government to still collect Americans’ internet communications without warrants. Jameel Jaffer, American Civil Liberties Union deputy legal director, had this reaction:

“These opinions indicate that the NSA misrepresented its activities to the court just as it misrepresented them to Congress and the public, and they provide further evidence that current oversight mechanisms are far too feeble. More fundamentally, the documents serve as a reminder of how incredibly permissive our surveillance laws are, allowing the NSA to conduct wholesale surveillance of Americans’ communications under the banner of foreign intelligence collection. This kind of surveillance is unconstitutional, and Americans should make it very clear to their representatives that they will not tolerate it.”

A chart showing NSA and FISA court documents that have been made public recently through both press leaks and government releases are at:
aclu.org/nsa-documents-released-public-june-2013

A summary of the congressional bills prompted by these disclosures is at:
aclu.org/blog/national-security/nsa-legislation-leaks-began

https://www.aclu.org/national-security/nsa-misled-surveillance-court-multiple-times-secret-opinions-show

[DirkGently]

55. "frequently and systematically violated."

[sabrina 1]

56. EFF is a fantastic Organization.

'has never functioned effectively'.

Not for the American people's security.

But it has poured billions into the coffers of Private Security Corporations and that is the main goal of all these policies, money, power, big business.