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Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

All three branches of government agreed that the surveillance we found out about this week was lawful. "Rule of law" is a feature of a just society, but does not define it. "Rule of law" is also the vehicle we use to course-correct society back towards justice.

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"In a rare public filing in the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), the Justice Department today urged continued secrecy for a 2011 FISC opinion that found the National Security Agency's surveillance under the FISA Amendments Act to be unconstitutional. Significantly, the surveillance at issue was carried out under the same controversial legal authority that underlies the NSA’s recently-revealed PRISM program." [1]

[1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/06/government-says-secret...

By all three branches, do you mean:

1. A handful of the most senior (see also: most gerrymandered) members of the intelligence committee informed of this.

2. A secret ruling from a secret FISA court.

3. Obama.

There is no such thing as a gerrymandered Senator.

And there are no senators in the House intelligence committee.

But there obviously are on the Senate Select Committee On Intelligence.

"Rule of law" is also not closed to debate; it's somewhat difficult to define a precedent for checks and balances when those checks and balances have been iterated so frequently.

While Assange could have been more precise with his diction, what would occur were it not for people questioning the integrity of the branches of government themselves -- barring the true definition of a rule of law? If the rule itself is unable to effect positive change, why would it be relevant in a just society at all?

It's questions like these that make government, and law in general, incredibly complex to break down, bit by bit. Everything is tightly integrated and there's no true definition of what is right or wrong. Theological morality doesn't, at least in a modern society, have any bearing whatsoever on law, and the morals perpetuated by anyone can be debated by anyone.

There is no clear line that divides the justness of any such law. The only way that we can decide if law is just is through majority versus the minority -- but what if the majority drowns out the minority's cries? What if the minority is trying to convey a sensible solution to x problem?

It's happened throughout history, and it will happen again. It's a fundamental flaw of a partially broken system -- but it's all we have.

You are wrong. Rule of law is a judiciary state or institutional system in which every actor respects the same set of rules, from individuals to the very institutions that creates the rules, those rules usually imply separation of powers and always respect to fundamental rights (privacy is one of them!!)

Society gets to decide the rules though, and we can't all do that when only a tiny fraction know what the rules are, and anyone that tries to talks gets prosecuted under the espionage act.

Obama really needed to keep his transparency promise, mission failed on that one.

If it were true that "anyone that tries to talk gets prosecuted under the espionage act" then thousands of people and a very large share of HN would already be facing prosecution under the espionage act, since we seem to talk about nothing OTHER than NSA these days...

> All three branches of government agreed that the surveillance we found out about this week was lawful

Turns out that three branches are not enough :(

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