It's pretty damn odious. I'll take slight heart in the fact that her ruling seems to be very narrow and technical. It could, if I understand her reasoning, be fixed very easily by Congress (not that that's very likely). She admits herself that the legalities are pretty absurd, but that's the way they are. As much as the 4th and 5th Amendments are part of the Constitution, so is Sovereign Immunity. The key bit of the article, in my opinion, is this:
** The San Francisco-based appeals court ruled that when Congress wrote the law regulating eavesdropping on Americans and spies, it never waived sovereign immunity in the section prohibiting targeting Americans without warrants. That means Congress did not allow for aggrieved Americans to sue the government, even if their constitutional rights were violated by the United States breaching its own wiretapping laws. Under this scheme, Al-Haramain can bring a suit for damages against the United States for use of the collected information, but cannot bring suit against the government for collection of the information itself, Judge M. Margaret McKeown wrote for the majority. She was joined by Judge Michael Daly Hawkins and Judge Harry Pregerson. Although such a structure may seem anomalous and even unfair, the policy judgment is one for Congress, not the courts. ** Messed up, but I see the point she's making. What we really need is for Congress to do their job, scrap the Patriot Act and associated laws around FISA and go forward with a new set of rules on intelligence activities that properly balances individual privacy with the need for information to help protect the country. Cheers, Judah On Thu, Aug 9, 2012 at 11:31 PM, LRS Scout <[email protected]> wrote: > > http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/08/appeals-court-oks-wiretapping/ > > Seriously though, what is with these recent administrations, they totally > ignore civil rights, ignore the constitution, violate individual liberty at > every turn. I'm so sick of these peo ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:353602 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/unsubscribe.cfm
