US must tell defendants when spying is used to build case against them
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
NSA is a symptom. Secret courts (and "state secret" legal defenses) are the disease.
Limiting NSA through policy or defunding won't do anything. They'll circumvent it and it will continue to happen in secrecy somewhere else.
The only solution to stopping mass surveillance is allowing the ability for the state surveillance to be challenged in court. Secret panels of judges are insufficient means to having judicial checks on state power. The only way this can happen is if 'state secret' laws are revised and FISA courts stop issuing warrants in secret.
> In the nearly five years since the FAA was enacted, the government has never once disclosed its reliance on material obtained through FAA surveillance to counsel’s knowledge.
The article is about the Justice Department (NSA is under the DoD). IE: This is about the FBI, DEA, ATF, and Eric Holder. NSA is an entirely different agency in a very different section of government.
How would this legal precedent not effect the NSA if they are operating under the same policy as the other agencies you just listed? I don't see how being a part of a different higher level agency would change that.
It just doesn't happen.
DOJ on the other hand, controls the FBI, ATF, and other federal police forces. It is the _job_ of a police force to bring you before a judge. This article states that when this happens, the DoJ is now forced to tell the judge (and the public, in the public trial) whether or not they used FISA powers.
NSA is different. Its a military agency run by a 4 star general of the army. They are military, and as a military-run (civilian) organization, they are subject to different rules and regulations that the DoJ follows. In particular, they aren't supposed to be investigating Americans in the first place.
And the people the NSA does investigate (ie: Bin Laden), they are allowed to do in secret... by nature of being a branch of the military. Military targets do not have rights, they don't receive warrants, they don't check with judges. At best, they check with the FISA court to prove that their target is a legal target of the NSA, but beyond that, they are free to do whatever they want.
Its the difference between a Police and the Military. The military cannot and do not afford their targets any rights. (and as a result, in theory, military run organizations are not allowed to control the US Homeland. Military powers are supposed to be used strictly only on America's enemies).
For this particular story... what we have here is the Federal Police Force (IE: Department of Justice) declaring that they'll follow a particular regulation from now on. It says nothing about the NSA however.
To tie this story into the NSA indicates a misunderstanding on how the US Federal Government works.
Dragnet surveillance is only good for guilt-by-association, which really has no place in US jurisprudence. That "voice of authority" type of guilt is un-American, and non-rational, when we get down to it.