Courthouse News Service – by Tim Ryan
WASHINGTON (CN) – The federal judge who first ruled the government’s collection of cellphone metadata unconstitutional again blocked the National Security Agency program Monday.
The decision comes nearly three months after the D.C. Circuit reversed U.S. District Judge Richard Leon’s original injunction on the grounds that none of the plaintiffs in the case, including conservative legal activist Larry Klayman, could prove their data had been collected.
Klayman attempted to fix this issue by filing an amended complaint in September. The new filing adds two more plaintiffs who subscribed to Verizon Business Network Services, and Leon suggested at a Sept. 2 hearing that their involvement allows Leon to reinstate the injunction.
The 43-page ruling Leon filed Monday primarily focuses on whether Klayman’s Fourth Amendment challenges are deserving of an injunction, but Leon’s analysis hinged on whether the plaintiffs would be able to prove the searches were unreasonable, even with changes in the law.
Congress passed the USA Freedom Act in June to stop the government from obtaining bulk telephone metadata, beginning Nov. 29. Before that deadline, however, the government can continue its old collection habits under the Patriot Act.
To Leon, the ever-changing relationship people have with their smartphones illustrates the importance of preserving their right to privacy when using their devices.
“Surely a person’s expectation of privacy is not radically different when using his or her cellphone to make a call versus to check his or her bank account balance,” Leon wrote.
Leon contrasted such searches from other seeming invasions of privacy that occur under special circumstances, such as at airport security.
While people subjected to these searches “check certain rights at the door,” Leon said cellphones are different. Because cellphones are a “constant” presence for most people, the privacy protections on them must be substantial, Leon found.
Leon rejected the government’s attempt to characterize its searches of individuals’ data at issue here as “minimal and finite.”
“To say the least, the searches in this case lack most of these hallmarks of minimal intrusion,” Leon wrote. “It is not, as an initial matter, a discrete or targeted incursion. To the contrary, it is a sweeping and truly astounding program that targets millions of Americans arbitrarily and indiscriminately. To be sure, by designing a program that eliminates the need for agents to use discretion, the Government has reduced to zero the likelihood that metadata will be collected in a discriminatory fashion – a characteristic that the Supreme Court has suggested minimizes the privacy intrusion.”
Even though there remains a short amount of time for the government to collect metadata under the previous rules, Leon noted that the NSA would still maintain the data for five years.
In addition to slamming that lengthy timeframe, and the shroud of secrecy that permeates this case, Leon said there simply isn’t enough evidence that the program is successful enough to justify such an invasion of privacy. Furthermore, the plaintiffs have shown that they would suffer “irreparable harm” if the collection continued.
“With the government’s authority to operate the Bulk Telephony Metadata Program quickly coming to an end, this case is perhaps the last chapter in the Judiciary’s evaluation of this particular Program’s compatibility with the Constitution,” Leon wrote before enjoining the program. “It will not, however, be the last chapter in the ongoing struggle to balance privacy rights and national security interests under our Constitution in the age of evolving technological wizardry.”
Though Klayman agreed that Klayman and the other original challengers of the program did not have standing, J.J. Little and his law firm, J.J. Little & Associates, fared better as clients of Verizon Business.
“Because the Government has acknowledged that VBNS subscribers’ call records were collected during a three-month window in which the Little plaintiffs were themselves VBNS subscribers, barring some unimaginable circumstances, it is overwhelmingly likely that their telephone metadata was indeed warehoused by the NSA,” Leon wrote.
Their subscription to Verizon business meant there was “no need to speculate that their metadata was targeted for collection,” the decision states.
As to the government’s contention that Little lacks proof that the NSA specifically searched his data, Leon “wholeheartedly” disagreed.
Citing his December 2013 opinion, Leon said the NSA must analyze the information on every number it collects every time queries its database. This means the NSA searched Little’s records even if it didn’t specifically target them, Leon wrote.
As for whether Little could challenge the government’s future collection of their records, Leon said it defied common sense to assume, as the government contended, the NSA would stop querying Verizon Business data in the future.
“In fact, it would make no sense whatsoever for the Government to use all available tools except VBNS call data to accomplish it putative goals,” Leon wrote.
http://www.courthousenews.com/2015/11/09/injunction-reinstated-against-nsa-spying.htm
Yes, and a week form now they’ll reaffirm the injunction, repeal the rulings, declare it unconstitutional for a third time, and after that ruling is challenged, they’ll reassert it’s constitutionality, lose three appeals, require a change of venue, and deny the motion, until the whole thing is thrown out by a judge playing with a penis pump behind the bench.
Then the process will begin again, and all the while, the NSA will continue doing whatever the hell they want to, and if they are later found to be criminals, none of them will be arrested for their crimes, because they’ll file an appeal under the tyrannical privilege law, which hasn’t been written yet, but eventually will be because it will keep three useless Jewish lawyers employed for another year.
Or, they’ll just do it like GWB did when his spooks were busted tapping into ATT. One Executive Order later, and he “retroactively” made it “legal”.
That this issue is even being debated is an outrage. The Bill of Rights describes rights that are inalienable, sacrosanct, and the highest law of the land.
***In addition to slamming that lengthy timeframe, and the shroud of secrecy that permeates this case, Leon said there simply isn’t enough evidence that the program is successful enough to justify such an invasion of privacy.***
Even if the spying program were amazingly successful, it would still be unconstitutional and therefore illegitimate. The last time I checked, the Fourth Amendment did not contain any exception for spying if it was “particularly useful in stopping crime or terrorism.”
It’s unfortunate that even the occasional “good” judge in this country seems to have a poor understanding of what freedom means and how our Framers meant to guarantee it. The Bill of Rights was put there to limit the government’s power. The more useful a surveillance program is to the government, the less likely it is that such a program is constitutional.
But that’s all moot now. It no longer matters what any court says. The fedcoats are going to do whatever they want to, regardless of its legality, until they are stopped.
Incidentally, while all the sheep are celebrating Veterans Day tomorrow, I’ll be celebrating Edward Snowden Day. He’s a man who TRULY put his ass on the line for freedom. Snowden stands miles and miles above all the poseurs out there who insist on being praised as heroes for “defending my freedom.” And how do they “defend my freedom”? By taking orders from the same political scum who are robbing us of our freedom. Barking SEALs and Delta Farce, my ass — Snowden showed balls they only pretend to have as they use overwhelming firepower and air support against goatherders with rusty old AKs and fertilizer.