Judge Rules -NSA-Phone Surveillance is Legal-Take That Snowden

[JMS]

http://rt.com/usa/obama-nsa-reform-meeting-288/

Obama inviting top NSA critics to private meeting at White House

United States President Barack Obama will reportedly hold a closed-door meeting with select officials on Thursday this week to discuss in private the future of the controversial surveillance operations waged by the National Security Agency.

The National Journal reported on Tuesday that the president has asked the chairmen and ranking members of the Senate and House of Representatives Judiciary and Intelligence committees to attend the secret meeting, as well as senior White House staffers and other “key players” in Congress who have been critical of the NSA’s operations, including Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colorado), Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) and Rep Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wisconsin).

“It remains unclear precisely what Obama wants to discuss,” the Journal’s Dustin Volz reported on Tuesday, “but aides expect him to offer some reforms in an attempt to garner support from the lawmakers.”

Thursday’s meeting will come seven months-to-the-day after former NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed himself to be the man responsible for taking a trove of classified documents detailing those surveillance operations and leaking them to members of the media. Reports penned by journalists at some of the biggest news agencies in the world have since used those documents to expose previously unpublished and questionably legal spy tactics waged by the NSA, the likes of which have prompted calls for widespread reform from the likes of Udall, Wyden, Sensenbrenner and other critics both in and out of Congress.

Last month, a five-person review group assembled by Pres. Obama presented the White House with a report recommending that the NSA consider dozens of recommendations meant to reform some of the operations exposed through Mr. Snowden’s leaks. After that report was completed but before the president went on vacation in late December, Obama said he’d make a "pretty definitive statement about all of this in January." The president is now expected to weigh in on those recommendations publically during the annual State of the Union address scheduled for January 28 in Washington, but meanwhile the Journal is reporting that the White House may be using this week’s meeting to discuss in private the potential details about NSA reform.

Government operations exposed through those leaks have linked the NSA to gathering intelligence on Americans and conducting surveillance on the leaders of allied nations. Attempts to rein in those programs in the months since the leaks started in June have been ongoing, albeit largely unsuccessful. Upon the recent publishing of the review group’s recommendations, however, the president could find himself press to adopt at least some of the suggestions made by his hand-picked panel.

“Clearly, this report speaks to what I’ve heard not just from people here but around the world: that they know that liberty and security are not mutually exclusive,” Sen. Wyden told the UK’s Guardian newspaper last month. "There are substantial, meaningful reforms in this.”

The Senate Judiciary Committee has previously scheduled a hearing for next Tuesday, January 14, in which its members will discuss the NSA review group’s findings with the panelists responsible for the report.

[Mocountyskins]

 

http://rt.com/usa/obama-nsa-reform-meeting-288/

Obama inviting top NSA critics to private meeting at White House

 

 

They are going to be hung on charges of treason! 

[PokerPacker]

They are going to be hung on charges of treason! 

I was gonna say that they were gonna mysteriously disappear, but that works, too.

[JMS]

http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2014/01/feds-move-to-block-discovery-in-nsa-lawsuit-180857.html

 

 

Feds move to block discovery in NSA lawsuits

The Justice Department moved Wednesday night to block the plaintiffs in the most successful legal challenges to the National Security Agency's call-tracking program from obtaining more details about how the surveillance effort operates.

In a motion filed with U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon, government lawyers asked the judge to halt further proceedings before him while appeals go forward in a pair of lawsuits brought by conservative legal activist Larry Klayman. The suits led last month to Leon's landmark ruling that the NSA's call database, aimed at making it easier for the government to trace leads in potential terrorism cases, likely violated the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

"Even if the mere collection of information about Plaintiffs’ communications constitutes a Fourth Amendment search...conclusively resolving the reasonableness of that search ultimately could risk or require disclosure of exceptionally sensitive and classified intelligence information regarding the nature and scope of the international terrorist threat to the United States, and the role that the NSA’s intelligence-gathering activities have played in meeting that threat," the government motion states.

(Also on POLITICO: Klayman: 'We hit the mother lode')

"Plaintiffs have made clear their intentions to seek discovery of this kind of still-classified information, concerning targets and subjects, participating providers, and other operational details of the challenged NSA intelligence programs," the motion (posted here) adds. "Contentious litigation over the availability of classified information to litigate these cases against the Government Defendants, and the significant risks to national security if such information were disclosed, could and should be avoided by allowing the Court of Appeals to rule first on the legal viability of Plaintiffs’ claims against the Government Defendants."

Klayman's past litigation has been known for being as impactful and sometimes more impactful in the discovery phase, where lawyers demand documents and conduct depositions, as in its ultimate outcome. So, the government's desire to head that process off for now, and perhaps entirely, is understandable.

Klayman didn't immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment for this item, but made clear in an interview last month that he was eager to start demanding information on the NSA's surveillance efforts.

(Also on POLITICO: Klayman in huge CNN smackdown)

"We’re heading to discovery. We’ve got an entree into the NSA,” he crowed just after Leon issued his ruling determining that the mass collection of phone data was probably unconstitutional. The conclusion led Leon to order a halt to NSA's gathering of phone data on Klayman and one of his clients, but the judge halted that part of his order pending appeal.

The new government filing also underscores a still unresolved aspect of the NSA call-tracking effort: just how comprehensive it is.

"Although the Government has acknowledged that the program involves the collection and aggregation of a large volume of data from multiple providers, it has not represented in this litigation, nor does the record contain any representations by the Government, that the program captures information about all (or even virtually all) telephone calls to, from, or within the United States," the Justice Department lawyers wrote.

The motion goes on to point to a declassified Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court order from August that stated: "production of all call detail records of all persons in the United States has never occurred under this program."

(Also on POLITICO: 10 best political feuds of 2013)

While not noted in the new motion, a report from an outside group President Barack Obama tapped to examine surveillance efforts added more granularity about the program to the public record last month. "The meta-data captured by the program covers only a portion of the records of only a few telephone service providers,” the Review Group report said.

 

 

[PeterMP]

Anybody else watch the NBC Snowden interview?

 

He seemed to come across pretty well IMO initially.

 

Then watching the NBC post-interview thing on NBC, and they made good counter points.  For example, the idea that NSA can do with your phone vs. what they are actually allowed to do and do do.  In retrospect, the interview was pretty much a campaign advertisement.  Williams didn't challenge him very much.