“I Cannot Imagine a More ‘Indiscriminate’ and ‘Arbitrary Invasion’ Than This Systematic and High-Tech Collection and Retention of Personal Data On Virtually Every Single Citizen”
“The Government Does Not Cite A Single Instance In Which Analysis Of The NSA’s Bulk Metadata Collection Actually Stopped An Imminent Attack”
A federal court has just struck down the NSA’s bulk metadata spying program today.
The court notes:
The Government does not cite a single instance in which analysis of the NSA’s bulk metadata collection actually stopped an imminent attack, or otherwise aided the Government in achieving any objective that was time-sensitive in nature.
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There is no indication that these revelations were immediately useful or that they prevented an impending attack.
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I have serious doubts about the efficacy of the metadata collection program as a means of conducting time-sensitive investigations in cases involving imminent threats of terrorism.
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The Fourth Amendment typically requires “a neutral and detached authority be interposed between the police and the public,” and it is offended by “general warrants” and laws that allow searches to be conducted “indiscriminately and without regard to their connection with [a] crime under investigation.”
I cannot imagine a more “indiscriminate” and “arbitrary invasion” than this systematic and high-tech collection and retention of personal data on virtually every single citizen for purposes of querying and analyzing it without prior judicial approval. Surely, such a program infringes on “that degree of privacy” that the Founders enshrined in the Fourth Amendment. Indeed, I have little doubt that the author of our Constitution, James Madison, who cautioned us to beware “the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power,” would be aghast.
The judge is right:
- Mass surveillance has not stopped a single terrorist attack
- Top counter-terror experts say that the government’s mass spying doesn’t keep us safe; moreover, they say that mass spying actually hurts U.S. counter-terror efforts (more here and here), and weakens digital security
- Experts say (including congress members) say that the spying program is illegal, and is exactly the kind of thing which King George imposed on the American colonists … which led to the Revolutionary War
- Two American presidents and a vice president say that NSA spying is turning the U.S. into a dictatorship
- There is no real oversight by Congress or the executive branch of government. And see this and this
- Indeed, most Congress members had no idea what the NSA is doing. Even staunch defenders of the NSA – and congress members on the intelligence oversight committees – now say they’ve been kept in the dark
- The FISA court provides no real oversight. Even the current judges on the secret spying court now admit that they’re out of the loop and powerless to exercise real oversight
