Obama Quietly Issues Ruling: It's Legal For The FBI To Access Phone Records | Hacker News Reader

Obama Quietly Issues Ruling: It's Legal For The FBI To Access Phone Records

techdirt.com

28 pointsprat9 comments

Well I call bullshit on this whole story. From the linkbait heading to the complete distortion of the facts of the ruling. If you actually read the ruling (ok I just skimmed through it but I'm pretty sure I got a much better grip than this blogger who is only commenting on a Wired article which itself seems wildly biased and inaccurate) the whole point of the ruling is to determine whether the FBI acted improperly and the conclusion of the ruling is that yes they did act improperly. I can't see anywhere that it says that breaking the law is legal, as this blogger claims. Perhaps I'm mistaken and someone could point this out to me but I don't see it. As for the linkbait heading. It's ALWAYS been legal for the FBI to access phone records. That is, after all, what police do these days. There are two relevant questions: did they follow proper legal procedure (the answer is no) and are they allowed to continue flaunting the law (the answer is again no). So what's up with this heading of "It's legal for the FBI to access phone records"? Of course it's legal, if they follow the law and it's not legal if they don't. Sounds reasonable to me.

I actually tracked down the ruling and tried to go through it unfortunately its a scanned image pdf so I couldn't really search for what I wanted.

But this is fishy all around. The Executive doesn't have the ability to make things legal or not legal (especially retroactively - and they do have the ability to pardon which in a way makes that moot).

But from further reading it looks like the Obama "Office of Legal Counsel" wrote a brief stating that the searches were legal. However this doesn't make it so. (an extension of the whole John Yoo mess). What this is is a huge grey area w/o black letter law. Anyone can say its legal/illegal but the courts will still ultimately decide who's right.

I agree with your comment however I don't think there is a difference, practically, with something being 'legal' and something being 'illegal' but tolerated nonetheless. In this case, the FBI acted improperly however with no consequences - nobody will be sued, or go to jail for this. Then what's the difference?

Public officials are rarely prosecuted for acting improperly. Usually it's only in cases of personal gain (corruption) or outright criminal behaviour. You don't throw people in jail or chop off their heads simply because they were overzealous and bent/abused/ignored the rules. Hopefully, there are some reprimands and some re-education. Maybe some people need to be fired or demoted, but prosecution is really unnecessary and a collosal waste of resources.

One difference is that "illegal but not prosecuted" is still not admissible as evidence in court. I'll bet there are some defendants' lawyers celebrating this ruling right now, because now the FBI is going to have to prove that it got those records legally, and that just got harder.

This doesn't seem like the whole story. President's can't issue 'rulings'. They set policy and those policies are subject to examination under the law by the judicial branch so this whole story seems a bit off-axis.

I know the man can walk on water, but can he actually bypass the 3rd branch (judicial) of government and decide what is and isn't legal.

Hell if he could do that than why have a ruling at all on political contributions.

Well, the OLC issued the ruling as a means of ass-covering, it's a legal brief detailing the basis of why they think this is legal.

The fact that they're doing such should trouble anyone with half a brain, but it also comes as no surprise at this point.

In other words, the DOJ is basically saying they have no intention of investigating or prosecuting these crimes alleged to have been committed by the FBI as reported in the NY Times and elsewhere.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com