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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsIn Secret, Court Vastly Broadens Powers of N.S.A.
I know: It's no big deal. It's legal. It's to keep us safe You have less privacy from big corporations. ya da ya da ya da.
In more than a dozen classified rulings, the nations surveillance court has created a secret body of law giving the National Security Agency the power to amass vast collections of data on Americans while pursuing not only terrorism suspects, but also people possibly involved in nuclear proliferation, espionage and cyberattacks, officials say.
The rulings, some nearly 100 pages long, reveal that the court has taken on a much more expansive role by regularly assessing broad constitutional questions and establishing important judicial precedents, with almost no public scrutiny, according to current and former officials familiar with the courts classified decisions.
The 11-member Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, known as the FISA court, was once mostly focused on approving case-by-case wiretapping orders. But since major changes in legislation and greater judicial oversight of intelligence operations were instituted six years ago, it has quietly become almost a parallel Supreme Court, serving as the ultimate arbiter on surveillance issues and delivering opinions that will most likely shape intelligence practices for years to come, the officials said.
Last month, a former National Security Agency contractor, Edward J. Snowden, leaked a classified order from the FISA court, which authorized the collection of all phone-tracing data from Verizon business customers. But the courts still-secret decisions go far beyond any single surveillance order, the officials said.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/07/us/in-secret-court-vastly-broadens-powers-of-nsa.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hpw
sibelian
(7,804 posts)K+R
cali
(114,904 posts)It makes clear that what's been going on is just massive. And the secrecy should concern everyone.
MNBrewer
(8,462 posts)"Are the phone records of millions of Americans being compiled in a secret government database? A court order disclosed by the British newspaper The Guardian newspaper on June 5 seems to point in that direction.
The order, signed by Judge Roger Vinson of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in April, directs Verizon to turn over phone records daily to the National Security Agency. (Vinson is a Florida federal court judge who ruled the health care law unconstitutional in 2011.)
The basis for the order: section 215 of the Patriot Act, the law that gave the government new powers after the terrorist attacks of 9/11.
News reports on the disclosure so far show President Barack Obamas administration isnt disputing the existence of the order. Civil libertarians have long warned the government was likely gathering phone records of Americans for a massive database, including under the administration of President George W. Bush."
kentuck
(111,110 posts)They cannot find where the billionaires are hiding trillions of dollars in offshore accounts? Or they just don't want to?
Pholus
(4,062 posts)Are companies concerned at too much data collection.
Wow. It is wacky world here. Corporations defending me from my government.
I would try to plead the for my rights myself....but I am not allowed to do so. It is a secret court you see.
What madness causes my party go along with this?
sibelian
(7,804 posts)Kick
Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)Thomas Jefferson to Richard Price, January 8, 1789