U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon's ruling found that an NSA program that was approved by the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court likely violates the Fourth Amendment prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures -- and that the court precedent used in the past to justify the program is out of date.
"The almost-Orwellian technology that enables the Government to store and analyze the phone metadata of every telephone user in the United States is unlike anything that could have been conceived in 1979," Leon wrote in his opinion.
The ruling came in response to two lawsuits originally brought in June by the conservative legal activist Larry Klayman and four other plaintiffs against government agencies and officials, as well as telecom and internet companies. In his ruling, Leon wrote that the bulk collection and analysis of phone records "almost certainly does violate a reasonable expectation of privacy.
"It's one thing to say that people expect phone companies to occasionally provide information to law enforcement; it is quite another to suggest that our citizens expect all phone companies to operate what is effectively a joint intelligence-gathering operation with the Government," Leon wrote.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/federal-judge-nsa-metadata-program-is-likely-unconstitutional
The folks over at Spooks, Inc. (The NSA), must be crapping in their collective skivvies at this point. Yesterday we heard from anonymous inside sources that they were considering extending an offer of amnesty to Double-Naught Spy Edward Snowden, if only he would, pretty please, give back the blueprints for the Spook's Death Star infrastructure.
And now today comes news that a federal judge who was appointed by George W. Bush, is pretty much validating what the inimitable Mr. Snowden has been contending was the motive for his double-naught actions from the beginning - namely that what the NSA has been doing in the name of "national security" is a blatant transgression against U.S. constitutional law, and that the American people deserved to have such issues adjudicated in the public courts.
Far be it for The Gadfly to claim he knows what was going on in Judge Richard Leon's mind that influenced his decision, but for a federal judge to invoke the term "Orwellian" in his opinion smacking down the NSA - it is nothing short of breathtaking - especially considering the generally accepted meaning of the term:
"Orwellian" is an adjective describing the situation, idea, or societal condition that George Orwell identified as being destructive to the welfare of a free and open society. It connotes an attitude and a brutal policy of draconian control by propaganda, surveillance, misinformation, denial of truth, and manipulation of the past, including the "unperson" — a person whose past existence is expunged from the public record and memory, practiced by modern repressive governments. Often, this includes the circumstances depicted in his novels, particularly Nineteen Eighty-Four.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orwellian
Frankly - that is about as forceful a legal bitch slap as one can get folks.
Nonetheless, if anything at this point, the inimitable Mr. Snowden might be thinking that he has the upper hand in this epic struggle with his former employer. However, The Gadfly would caution Mr. Snowden that he is still embroiled in a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse with people who don't take kindly to, or treat kindly, those who would upset their cloak & dagger equilibrium, and whether he would acknowledge it or not, he is still the mouse in this game and the cat's hunger is nowhere near having been satiated. The Gadfly would argue in fact, that the cat is now more resolved than ever to pounce on the unsuspecting mouse and devour him in a fell swoop should a reasonable opportunity present itself.
Ahh -- but such is the sensational and perilous life of a Double-Naught Spy -- no?:
----TFG
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