The New York Times editorial board reacts to a federal court ruling finding that the NSA's data mining program is illegal:
Reaching into the 18th century from the 21st, the judge wrote that James Madison “would be aghast” at the degree of privacy invasion the data sweep represents. [...] Judge Leon recognized the government’s compelling interest in preventing terrorism, but he pointed out that it “does not cite a single instance” in which the data collection “actually stopped an imminent attack.” [...]
The judge, in granting the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction, ordered the government to stop collecting the plaintiffs’ phone data and to destroy any data it had already collected, but because of the “significant national security interests at stake,” he stayed his own ruling to allow the government to appeal. The decision applies only to the plaintiffs in this case, and not to the American public at large.
Though the ruling is limited in those respects, it is an enormous symbolic victory for opponents of the bulk-collection program, and a reminder of the importance of the adversarial process. For seven years, these constitutional issues have been adjudicated under “a cloak of secrecy,” as Judge Leon put it. Now, that cloak has finally been lifted in a true court of law.
More on this and other stories below the fold.
Here's how The Washington Post editorial board views the NSA rebuke:
The NSA’s activities will continue to be litigated in court and in the court of public opinion. If the government is to emerge from Mr. Snowden’s revelations with the authorities that officials insist are crucial, it will have to do more to demonstrate why they are essential and how Americans’ privacy is being protected.
Here's
Eugene Robinson's take:
A federal judge in Washington ruled Monday that the government’s widespread collection of telephone records is likely unconstitutional, but stayed a preliminary injunction while the government appeals.
Meanwhile, what can we do about it? For a start, we can demand to see all of the secret FISA court rulings that make domestic surveillance possible. When we learn what these documents say, privacy advocates can challenge them in open court.
We should let our elected representatives know that while domestic surveillance is currently deemed “lawful,” it is a betrayal of our traditions and values. We can let our phone and Internet companies know that we expect them to fight as hard as they can for privacy, not just in their legal arguments but also in using the most advanced encryption technology.
It’s simple: Either we demand our privacy — loudly — or we kiss it goodbye.
Andrew Rosenthal at
The New York Times looks at various NSA reform proposals:
After the Edward Snowden leaks started, President Obama said absolutely everything was being done to safeguard Americans’ privacy and rights. Then he called for a “vigorous public debate” about surveillance and eventually ordered reviews of National Security Agency programs — to make sure that all those promised safeguards were, in fact, in place.
Some information is trickling out from those reviews, and the proposals, so far, seem pretty mild.
Over at
The Nation,
John Nichols looks at various proposals as well and dives deeper into the ruling:
The Justice Department has continued to argue that plaintiffs in lawsuits against the spying program lack standing because they cannot prove their records were examined. But Judge Leon suggested that the old calculus that afforded police agencies great leeway when it came to monitoring communications has clearly changed.
Suggesting that the NSA has relied on “almost-Orwellian technology,” wrote Judge Leon, who was appointed by former President George W. Bush to the United States District Court for the District of Columbia bench. “The relationship between the police and the phone company (as imagined by the courts decades ago)…is nothing compared to the relationship that has apparently evolved over the last seven years between the government and telecom companies.”