Federal Judge Orders Halt to NSA Wiretapping

[Xiahou]

How do the plaintiffs not have adequate standing? They are American citizens with the inalienable right to privacy, and the executive order/law they challenged was infringing upon that right. So how do they lack adequate standing? Bogus, man.

Because they had absolutely no reason to think that they were ever eavesdropped on- and if they were, how did it damage them? It didnt afaik.

[Celtic_Guardian]

I doubt this decision will stand unfortunatley.......... Bush's old boys club for a supreme court will allow Bush to reign freely........... so anyone know any good towns in out great northern neighbor

[Kanamori]

Because they had absolutely no reason to think that they were ever eavesdropped on- and if they were, how did it damage them? It didnt afaik.

I don't know about you, but someone watching people weirds me out, government official or otherwise. The damage is in the fact that their will to keep their lives private was violated w/o that violation being warranted. People who nose their way into my business bother the heck out of me.

[Xiahou]

People who nose their way into my business bother the heck out of me.

Well, good luck proving standing in a court of law on those grounds. Maybe you'd get lucky and get this judge.
"Yes your honor, I'd like to sue my neighbor for maybe spying on me. No, I don't have any idea if they did or didn't- but I'd like to sue them anyhow."

There's very little doubt that the 6th Circuit will overturn this- no matter what anyone thinks on its actual legality.

[Kanamori]

I wasn't commenting on who would win the case or why. I was saying that easdroping is a harm itself; its harm is not based on how embarassing something is. It was more a comment that nosey people are jack*****.

[KafirChobee]

The truely scary thing is (in a recent CNN poll) that 54% of Americans see nothing wrong with unwarrented wire taps. There in lies the problem, that they do not fully comprehend the probability of abuse that such actions by an unobserved group would allow.

Personally, i have no doubt that once the oversight committees are allowed to review the unwarranted taps they will find that most of them were used against members of the opposition's political party and interests (peace movement members, NAACP, pro-UN types, anti-Bush agenda people in general) were all being listened in on. That the taps in fact had little to nothing to do with terrorists, but instead to get away with what Nixon was unable to ('cause he got caught).

Still, the taps remain in place - as the administration and unJustice Department challenge the ruling and pray that in November the Dems don't gain a majority in the House or Senate. They hope to delay the next ruling until after the elections .... atleast. That will allow them to continue to monitor their political opponents, and clean-up, centralize and destroy all the negative evidence that will come out if the Dems get lucky.

Those that still believe that one political party is somehow more competent than the other at conducting the safety for the nation, should at some time consider that there are 10-20 times as many terrorists today than prior to our invasion of Iraq. And that now they have more secure bases to work from than ever before, many in that new democracy we created - Iraq.

[orangat]

Because they had absolutely no reason to think that they were ever eavesdropped on- and if they were, how did it damage them? It didnt afaik.

So your logic is what the little old lady doesn't know, won't hurt her?

[Xiahou]

So your logic is what the little old lady doesn't know, won't hurt her?

In law, standing or locus standi is the ability of a party to demonstrate to the court sufficient connection to and harm from the law or action challenged. In the United States, for example, a person cannot bring a suit challenging the constitutionality of a law unless the plaintiff can demonstrate that the plaintiff is (or will be) harmed by the law. Otherwise, the court will rule that the plaintiff "lacks standing" to bring the suit, and will dismiss the case without considering the merits of the claim of unconstitutionality. In order to sue to have a court declare a law unconstitutional, there must be a valid reason for whoever is suing to be there. To put it simply, the party suing has to have something to lose if the law is left on the books. The party suing must have something to lose in order to sue unless they have automatic standing by action of law.

link
Clear enough? It's not my logic- it's the judicial system.

[orangat]

link
Clear enough? It's not my logic- it's the judicial system.

ah
So its just a procedural objection then. You don't see unauthorised phone taps being itself wrong or do you?

[Redleg]

ah
So its just a procedural objection then. You don't see unauthorised phone taps being itself wrong or do you?

Ah but that is the issue - is the phone taps unauthorized or are they unconstitutional.

If the wire tap follows the procedures of the law and the requirements and meets the specifications of the law as monitored by the FISA court then the wire-tap is not un-authorized. In fact under the current laws those wire-taps are within the statues of the law.

If it violates this process then the wiretap is indeed unauthorized and can be unconstitutional.

From reading this thread I wonder if some are confusing unauthorized with un-constitutional.

For the warrantless wiretaps to be unauthorized, the agency must have violated the process as stipulated in the law as it was designed. Evidence does indeed point to a conculsion that the government has not been following the procedure and the requirements under FISA.

Now if the arguement is that such a law is unconstitutional - then one must demonstrate that the law is unconstutional. All laws are prone to abuse by the authorities, but that does not make the law unconstitutional.

[drone]

The Senate Judiciary Committee has just passed this gem:
http://blog.wired.com/27BStroke6/s2453.pdf
sponsored by Sen. Specter, which is changing the scope of the FISA act and legalizing warrantless wiretaps.

From Wired:
http://www.wired.com/news/technology...?tw=wn_index_1

I'll see if I can come up with a better source.

I encourage all US .Orgsters to contact their senators ASAP and express their concerns about this. If they are one of the lucky third up for re-election, you may want to mention that Nov. 7th is fast approaching.

So much for that wacky Fourth Amendment.

[Vladimir]

Why are Americans so afraid that the government is going to be listening to their international calls with terrorists? Oversight for this program has existed forever and no one can show a case where it was done without cause.