NSA bulk data collection violates constitutional rights, ACLU argues

[unhappycamper]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/22/nsa-bulk-data-collection-constitutional-rights-aclu



NSA bulk data collection violates constitutional rights, ACLU argues
Dominic Rushe in New York
theguardian.com, Friday 22 November 2013 12.02 EST

Civil liberties campaigners told a New York court on Friday that the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of all US phone records violates the constitutional rights to freedom of association and privacy.

The American Civil Liberties Union called for the NSA's program, first revealed by the Guardian in June, to be ended, arguing that it breached the first and fourth amendments as well as exceeding the authority Congress gave to the government through the Patriot Act.

“This kind of dragnet surveillance is precisely what the fourth amendment was meant to prohibit,” ACLU deputy legal director Jameel Jaffer, said before the hearing. “The constitution does not permit the NSA to place hundreds of millions of innocent people under permanent surveillance because of the possibility that information about some tiny subset of them will become useful to an investigation in the future.”

~snip~

Shareholder pressure groups are now calling for the telecom companies to release more details of the type and volume of information they give to the NSA. Activists including Trillium Asset Management of Boston and the $161bn New York State Common Retirement Fund have filed motions calling for AT&T and Verizon to release reports on the "metrics and discussion regarding requests for customer information by US and foreign governments."

[NaturalHigh]

1. I helped my daughter write an essay on this.

I don't understand how anyone could argue that this sort of surveillance is not a violation of constitutional rights.