"Without Edward Snowden, Our System Could Have Failed"

[deurbano]

http://time.com/3851823/without-edward-snowden-our-system-could-have-failed/
TIME
by Ronald Goldfarb May 8, 2015

Ronald Goldfarb is a veteran Washington, DC attorney, literary agent and author of After Snowden: Privacy, Secrecy, and Security in the Information Age. He served in the Justice Department in the Robert F. Kennedy administration.

<<....In a 97-page unanimous opinion in a case entitled ACLU v. Clapper, et. al., the prestigious 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City reversed an earlier trial court ruling, and held that s. 215’s bulk telephone data program is subject to judicial review. In the core of this opinion, Judge Gerard Lynch wrote that “the program exceeds the scope of what Congress has authorized.”...

...The circuit court ruled that the government’s position—that its standard for collecting metadata conforms with prevailing search and seizure law—was wrong. “Unprecedented and unwarranted” were the words used. The court found that the “sheer volume of information sought is staggering,” and that the amount and nature of the data collected was qualitatively too broad and vague, neither within proper bounds nor limited to data required for fighting the war on terror. The government’s procedures, the court ruled, are “inconsistent with the very concept of an investigation”, lacking specificity, relevance, time limitations.

The court concluded that “to allow the government to collect phone records only because they may be relevant to a possible authorized investigation in the future “is impermissible, irreconcilable with the statute.” Congress can’t be deemed to have approved a program of which many members were unaware, and which was “shrouded in secrecy,” the court added, agreeing with critics that congressional oversight of national security surveillance procedures since 9/11 has been lacking. In an observation critical of the process of congressional oversight in national security matters, the court remarked that suggesting legislative approval of the questionable practices “would ignore reality.”...


...Edward Snowden must be smiling today as he remains in his prolonged exile in Russia. All the reforms of the excesses of data surveillance he revealed indicate that his disclosures have had the impact that motivated him. Top UN officials have questioned the practices of member states which violate core privacy rights; reformative laws are pending in Congress; a White House panel has called for 46 reforms of prevailing practices; Congressional oversight of national security procedures has been questioned by prestigious experts in the field. None of this would have happened if Snowden had not committed his audacious act of civil disobedience. His influence has been historic. His answer on German TV to those who argue that Snowden is a traitor: “If I am a traitor, who did I betray? I gave all my information to the American public.” And to the world, as it turned out.

Our country sometimes acts precipitously in times of great provocation, as it did with Japanese-Americans after Pearl Harbor, for example; but in time we make amends for these excesses. Some of our actions after 9/11, extreme rendition, for example, and excessive surveillance techniques now under consideration in Congress and the federal courts, may result in reform of illegal procedures Mr. Snowden exposed. Good signs that our tripartite system works.>>

[BillZBubb]

1. Correction: Our system DID FAIL.

Snowden proved it despite the lies of people like Clapper.

[Jesus Malverde]

2. Canary in the coal mine.

A true patriot and now a dissident in exile.

The biggest overlooked fact about the whole snowden scandal is that we outsourced our crown jewels of intelligence to the for profit corporation that was his employer.

My guess is that this private corporation continues to have access to the largest data collection of personal data in the world.

If snowden had access so did his bosses all the way up the corporate chain.

http://www.boozallen.com

[dixiegrrrrl]

3. I urge folks to see Citizenfour, the Oscar winning documentary about him.

by Laura Poitras
and if you know too little about her, here is some info:
Poitras has received numerous awards for her work, including the 2014 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for Citizenfour, about Edward Snowden. while My Country, My Country received a nomination in the same category in 2007.
She won the 2013 George Polk Award for "national security reporting" related to the NSA disclosures.

The NSA reporting by Poitras, Glenn Greenwald, Ewen MacAskill, and Barton Gellman contributed to the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service awarded jointly to The Guardian and The Washington Post.

She is a 2012 MacArthur Fellow, and one of the initial supporters of the Freedom of the Press Foundation.

[grasswire]

4. hooray! nt

[G_j]

5. K&R!!