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Edward Snowden AP/Press Association Images

The NSA's massive collection of people's phone records is illegal

A US appeals court made the judgement today.

Updated 7.45pm

A US APPEALS court ruled earlier today that the National Security Agency’s massive collection of phone records of Americans is illegal, saying it exceeds the scope of what US Congress authorised.

The laws used as a basis for the bulk data collection “have never been interpreted to authorise anything approaching the breadth of the sweeping surveillance at issue here,” said the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in a 97-page opinion.

Surveillance

The ruling came in a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union against the NSA and FBI, following disclosures about the vast surveillance programs in documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

The “metadata” collected from millions of phone calls includes the numbers called, times and other information but not the content of conversations. Still, civil liberties advocates argue the program is a massive intrusion on privacy with only minimal help in the anti-terrorism effort.

The court stopped short of ruling on the constitutional issues of the bulk collection of phone metadata, but said the government went far beyond what Congress intended in Section 215 of the Patriot Act, a law aimed at allowing authorities to thwart terrorism.

“There is no evidence that Congress intended for those statutes to authorise the bulk collection of every American’s toll billing or educational records and to aggregate them into a database,” the appellate panel said in the opinion.

The interpretation that the government asks us to adopt defies any limiting principle. If the government is correct, it could use (Section)  215 to collect and store in bulk any other existing metadata available anywhere in the private sector, including metadata associated with financial records, medical records, and electronic communications (including email and social media information) relating to all Americans.

The court declined to issue an injunction to halt the program, saying it would make little sense since the law is set to expire on June 1.

Lawmakers are currently debating whether to reform the law or extend it.

The court said that “in light of the asserted national security interests at stake, we deem it prudent to pause to allow an opportunity for debate in Congress that may (or may not) profoundly alter the legal landscape.”

- © AFP, 2015

Read: British spy agency might be able to tell when you say ‘craic’ or ‘Dublin’ on the phone>

Read: Edward Snowden says the US government has access to your nude photos>

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    Mute Monty Wuggy
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    May 7th 2015, 3:49 PM

    Another vindication of Snowden’s whistleblowing. Contrary to what some claim Snowden was extremely judicious with the classified material he took. He didn’t arbitrarily disclose all documents, possibly jeopardising the security of personnel in the process, he went to reputable journalists who scrupulously examined each document and determined which ones were in the public interest.
    Snowden has informed the world of massive illegally and intrusive surveillance and exemplifies heroic whistleblowing.
    Which is truly patriotic? Docilely following legally dubious instructions from your superiors or acting in accordance with your conscience and exposing unconstitutional acts?

    Daniel Elsberg on Snowden’s service to his country:

    “Snowden was the one person in the f**** NSA who did what he absolutely should have done, how many people should’ve done what he did! We all took the same oath to protect and defend the Constitution. There are people who violate it all the time. There are people who are against it, like Cheney, Bush and Obama. But when it comes to upholding that oath, no one in the U.S. military services, including the commander in chief, has fulfilled her oath to defend and support the Constitution like Chelsea Manning. And no one in the executive branch, or in any branch, has fulfilled the oath to uphold and protect the Constitution as well as Snowden”

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    Mute cosmological
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    May 7th 2015, 3:58 PM

    A faultless summation Monty.

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    Mute Kevin Higgins
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    May 7th 2015, 4:47 PM

    I wish that comment could be made into an opinion piece on this website. Bravo!

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    Mute thejynxeffect
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    May 7th 2015, 6:04 PM

    The Nazi’s were big into collecting everyone’s data using IBM’s Hollerith tabulating machines. Then they killed the Jews. Now the NSA is collecting far more information, they are more intrusive and perverse. What do people think they’re going to do with all this information in the near future? Many say history repeats itself, if so, the next 20 years is gonna be gruesome

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    Mute cosmological
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    May 7th 2015, 3:50 PM

    The tragedy is the UK and Irish press (sad to say), hardly bother to cover the massive implications of all this.

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    Mute Hermes
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    May 7th 2015, 3:56 PM

    Conspiracy theory used to suggest that the media was infiltrated by the C.I.A. , and then that book by the German Journalist came out …
    It is what people don’t talk about that reveals as much about them as what they actually write .

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    Mute Glen
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    May 7th 2015, 4:07 PM

    The media get most of their stories from Reuters and the AP which is owned by Reuters. It’s then copy and pasted without research and given to us as fact. Nobody questions it and those that do are often ridiculed for doing so.

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    Mute cosmological
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    May 7th 2015, 4:11 PM

    Another good point Glen.

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    Mute Ivan Murphy
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    May 7th 2015, 4:16 PM

    Edward Snowden, the Hero of our times and possibly the bravest. Well done Ed!

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    Mute jonathan
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    May 7th 2015, 4:02 PM

    A true hero anyone who hasn’t seen citizen four its a must watch

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    Mute Kool Tiger
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    May 7th 2015, 3:57 PM

    Does this mean Edward Snowden will be welcomed home to a hero’s welcome an no longer be considered a traitor?

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    Mute Al Beebak
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    May 7th 2015, 4:03 PM

    Will he f”"k

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    Mute Monty Wuggy
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    May 7th 2015, 4:24 PM

    Sadly not, this ruling will have little bearing on the operations conducted by the NSA, nor does it address Snowden’s actions directly. The hope is these programs eventually come before the Supreme Court.

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    Mute Kevin Higgins
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    May 7th 2015, 4:49 PM

    Snowden is being charges under a 70 plus year old legislation that doesn’t distinguish between whistleblower and spy. It’s a piss take but that’s murica for you

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    Mute Kool Tiger
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    May 7th 2015, 4:31 PM

    I see the snake Angela Merkel is at this moment on the ropes for spying on European businesses and officials and passing the info to NSA, just imagine good ole Angie spying for NSA to the detriment to Europe. This snake had the cheek to get outraged last year when it was revealed NSA were spying on her phone.. This is a scandal that is about to explode and this could easily be the end of Angela’s glorious career.

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    Mute Kool Tiger
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    May 7th 2015, 4:35 PM

    When I say Angela Merkel I mean the BND German Foreign Intelligence Agency

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    Mute Al Beebak
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    May 7th 2015, 3:47 PM

    How do I go about suing them? I’m gonna be a gazzilionaire out of this one.

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    Mute Deco James Connolly
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    May 7th 2015, 4:24 PM

    The NSA needs to read the constitution .

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    Mute Glen
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    May 7th 2015, 4:36 PM

    Can you blame people for embracing the second amendment when the federal government are breaking the law.

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    Mute why?
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    May 7th 2015, 5:25 PM

    I wonder if Frances Fitzgerald has read this yet?
    Seeing as she retroactively covered GCHQ ass back in November…..which, as we know, are peas in a pod with NSA. Worse in fact, if you believe Snowden – which we all now should.

    http://thisbloodycountry.com/creeping-state-surveillance-ireland-meekly-follows-the-leaders/#gchq

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    Mute Kool Tiger
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    May 7th 2015, 5:37 PM

    In the past week both France and Canada have expanded the powers of their secret services and granted far ranging spying powers.

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    Mute Deco James Connolly
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    May 7th 2015, 5:43 PM

    Australia , Canada , France have all very recently and conveniently experienced terrors attacks , wait for ours .

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    Mute why?
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    May 7th 2015, 5:43 PM

    Aye, mentioned in the link above (start of the article).
    Australia too.

    “JeSuisIrony”

    Colonialism never went away, it just moved online.

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    Mute Kool Tiger
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    May 7th 2015, 5:57 PM

    @why? I didn’t read your link but I’ve following carefully what’s going on in Germany with the spying agreement with US and there is a lot of information coming out that may just waken the sleeping sheep once shit hits the fan.

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    Mute Northern Craic
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    May 7th 2015, 4:43 PM

    I know the Snowden story gets people worked up but I genuinely can’t see why it’s such a big story. As far as I can tell he’s an ex CIA agent who exposed evidence that the US & UK security services are snooping on all our phone calls and emails? Is there any more to it than that? If that’s it then why do people care? If you send an email it goes through dozens of servers where it can be read by the admin, and when you phone someone the phone company staff can listen to the call. It’s always been that way, we don’t think about it.

    If some freak wants to read or listen to my boring calls/emails then more fool them.

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    Mute Glen
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    May 7th 2015, 4:48 PM

    Alternative media broke this before he did but they were called looney tin foil hat brigade.
    Having an I don’t care attitude is counter productive and exactly the kind of thing they want the sheep to have.
    Good going you.

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    Mute Monty Wuggy
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    May 7th 2015, 5:01 PM

    The NSA programs Edward Snowden disclosed actually had very little to do with ‘terrorism’ and more to do with diplomatic control, economic espionage and expanding the power of the state. One just has to look to history to see the danger in supplying the state with a surveillance system and how perilous it is for citizens of a country. Privacy is a fundamental human right guaranteed by the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. You may be willing to sacrifice yours, but many aren’t nor should they be obligated to.

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    Mute Brian Ward
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    May 7th 2015, 5:06 PM

    This is the same argument that is trotted out all of the time by people who have obviously never heard of the expression “Knowledge is power”.

    Example, a big US company is trying to get the best deal it can on locating a new site. Quick call to the White House or their nearest Senator and the NSA turn on the mics. It finds out that the Irish Government are bluffing at 12% tax and are in fact willing to go to 10%. that could cost the exchequer millions over the years. If you think it’s far fetched then just look at the Germans helping the NSA spy on Airbus who is a direst competitor to US based Boeing. Somebody in France probably had the attitude of “If some freak wants to read or listen to my boring calls/emails then more fool them.” and now they are out of a job because Boeing had the competitive edge due to NSA snooping.

    The NSA don’t give a crap about the man on the street but they do like to know everything about him. The only fools are the ones who think that they have nothing of value to hide.

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    Mute Northern Craic
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    May 7th 2015, 5:12 PM

    I wouldn’t agree that I’m happy to sacrifice my privacy (I wouldn’t be happy if Tom the local perv was reading my emails for sure) but I’ve always presumed the security services could listen to my calls or read my emails if they wanted to – maybe that’s an NI attitude. But I can’t see what the threat to me is if they do.

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    Mute Northern Craic
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    May 7th 2015, 5:25 PM

    @Brian that’s a valid argument but I’d come with it from the view that if you have something you really don’t want others to know then it’s up to you to find a properly secure method of communicating rather than presuming the normal modes are secure.

    Plus, most people are perfectly happy to give away their immortal soul to Facebook to the point it can tell you when it’s time to fart, so personal information isn’t really personal anymore anyway.

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    Mute why?
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    May 7th 2015, 5:28 PM

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect

    Even knowing you *could* be being watched has a profound effect on human behaviour. You’re less likely to act naturally, discuss off-the-wall ideas (which is usually where good ideas come from), and you’re certainly less likely to question the government/ruling elite or whatever.

    It’s not as blatant as “they’re reading my emails”. Us humans are a sensitive bunch.

    Also – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon

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    Mute JC Denton
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    May 7th 2015, 11:00 PM

    MKUltra was illegal too

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    Mute Lylucifer
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    May 7th 2015, 8:10 PM

    There’s a van across the road from my house with “Flowers By Irene” on it. I didn’t order any flowers.

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