Hahah somehow I doubt this will even result in the records themselves being destroyed.For one thing, the decision would have to be upheld at the Supreme Court -- although Gorsuch has signaled some willingness to put firm limits on this kind of data collection, which might tilt things in favor of upholding the lower court&#x27;s ruling.

Permission was retroactive.At the time of the offenses, the perps knew they were violating the law. If the law authorizing the action is found unconstitutional, then that retroactive permission has been withdrawn. There is no question of &quot;double jeopardy&quot;, because they never faced trial.

Probably never, since the metadata collection program was legally governed by Section 215 of the Patriot Act from 2001 to 2015, which modified the FISA Act. The FISA Amendments Act of 2008 further enshrined the legal basis of the program. You can&#x27;t prosecute people retroactively. Even if you could, it&#x27;s unclear exactly who that should be.

I wonder if Clapper established that you could lie before US Congress without consequence, or if there are earlier instances?

Don&#x27;t forget about Keith B. Alexander, the director of the NSA at that time.He testified to congress that this program helped foil 54 terror plots. Weeks later, he conceded that it was helpful in &quot;only one or two&quot;.We later found out there was basically just one, and it wasn&#x27;t a terror plot; it was a Somali-born taxi driver living in San Diego who attempted to send $8,500 to a Somali terror group.But the damage was done. The headlines blared from his initial testimony about the NSA using this program to thwart 50+ terror plots, but there was a fraction of that coverage correcting it.Clapper&#x27;s perjury may be more blatant, but Gen. Alexander&#x27;s is pretty galling too. They both should&#x27;ve been charged.

Will Clapper&#x27;s perjury ever be punished?

Seems there isn&#x27;t<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;fas.org&#x2F;sgp&#x2F;crs&#x2F;misc&#x2F;RL31253.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;fas.org&#x2F;sgp&#x2F;crs&#x2F;misc&#x2F;RL31253.pdf</a>

Yeah but Gina had unanimous support by Democrats, Republicans, and the entire CIA to become the Director of the CIA.Let’s not forget that Obama re-signed the Patriot Act even after campaigning in 2008 to end it.This kind of behavior is a problem that spans generations of government positions. It’s about time something is done about it.

Similarly, the NSA betrayed us. They don&#x27;t get to say that they were just following orders. We must always understand that the NSA betrayed us and we can&#x27;t trust them any more. Information dominance is the most powerful way for a nation to dominate and control its people.  The NSA turned on the US Citizens and betrayed them in this way.

These are war crimes. Someone convicted of torture in the way that CIA officials have authorized could be sentenced to life imprisonment. The only problem is that the US is not a party to the ICC (probably because so many power holders are guilty of war crimes), so we do not pursue war crime trials.I would like to see a concerted effort to document these crimes, issue warrants for arrest, and have customs officials in all ICC-party states ready to flag and arrest any suspected war criminal, in order to extradite for ICC trial. Some countries do this already but we need all of the ICC-party states to do it.And yes, I get that they would likely just never travel to countries where they may be arrested. But for the powerful, that in itself is a punishment. They may not serve prison time, but we can take away their European vacations.

Was anything they did ruled illegal? Pretty sure it wasn’t so I’m not sure how that is relevant.

A reminder that a CIA officer who oversaw, ordered, and participated in systematic detainee torture, then wrote the order to destroy the evidential tapes of said torture, was not only not punished or prosecuted but promoted to the current Director of the agency.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;2005_CIA_interrogation_videotapes_destruction" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;2005_CIA_interrogation_videota...</a><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Gina_Haspel" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Gina_Haspel</a>

I&#x27;m confused by your Bush and Obama references—both incidents occurred under Bush, the one that you attribute to Bush was revealed under Obama, whereas the one you attribute to Obama was revealed under Bush.Are you attributing based on occurrence or based on decision not to prosecute? Did you accidentally switch them?

&quot;During the early stages of the Iraq War, United States Army and _Central Intelligence Agency_ personnel committed a series of human rights violations against detainees in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq,[1] including physical and sexual abuse, torture, rape, sodomy, and murder.[2][3][4][5] The abuses came to public attention with the publication of photographs of the abuse by CBS News in _April 2004_.&quot;<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisone...</a>

While not many Nazis and Stasi agents got convicted at the end of the day (mostly due to a lack of clear evidence), many of them at least were tried in a proper court. In case of the US intelligence agencies, however, not even that is happening.

The historical track record isn&#x27;t good. Nobody bothered much with prosecuting nazis or nazi collaborators after WW2, Stasi spies after the reunion, party members after the soviet collapse, AT&amp;T and others for collaborating with the NSA on warrantless surveillance (that was Bush) or the CIA torturers (that was Obama).&quot;[N]othing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past … we must resist the forces that divide us, and instead come together on behalf of our common future.&quot;

&gt; As an aside, it&#x27;s wildly funny to me that the ACLU won&#x27;t defend free speech anymore but they&#x27;ll defend terrorists and their supporters.When has the ACLU stopped defending free speech? They defend convicted terrorists or alleged terrorists?

You’re overlooking that each office has a scope of authority. The relevant authority in this case is the Constitution, unless we are no longer a nation of law.

The POTUS does not have any such lawful authority. And they knew he didn&#x27;t.

Traditionally, &quot;I was following orders&quot; has not held up well.

&gt; Why would you prosecute people who were given permission by the relevant authorities?Because the “relevant authorities” didn’t have the legal right to give that permission.No one is allowed to decide to torture people - it’s illegal even if your boss says it’s okay.

&gt; &quot;defend terrorists and their supporters&quot;So in your mind, as soon as someone is accused of being a terrorist, no proof is needed. You can just proceed straight to torture.Oh boy, I wonder if such a system could even be abused? 
You are basically supporting Gulags and because you think it can&#x27;t possibly happen to you.&gt; Why would you prosecute people who were given permission by the relevant authorities?Nuremberg trials, just following orders?

Why would you prosecute people who were given permission by the relevant authorities?&gt;The call-tracking effort began without court authorization under President George W. Bush following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.&lt;So the PotUS gave them the authority.&gt;A similar program was approved by the secretive FISA Court beginning in 2006 and renewed numerous times, but the 9th Circuit panel said those rulings were legally flawed.&lt;So in this instance the IC was still operating under the authority of the FISA court. Whether the court came to the right conclusions or not is irrelevant to whether or not the agencies were bound to following those conclusions.&gt;The metadata program was officially shut down in 2015 after Congress passed the USA FREEDOM Act, which provided a new mechanism where phone providers retained their data instead of turning it over to the government. The revamped system appears to have been abandoned by the NSA in 2018 or 2019.&lt;So the programs being discussed have already been terminated. What more would you have done? Are we going to prosecute judges for making rulings we disagree with?&gt;The American Civil Liberties Union hailed the decision as &quot;a victory for our privacy rights,&quot; though the left-leaning group said it was &quot;disappointed that, having found the surveillance of Mr. Moalin unlawful, the court declined to order suppression of the illegally obtained evidence in his case.&quot;&lt;As an aside, it&#x27;s wildly funny to me that the ACLU won&#x27;t defend free speech anymore but they&#x27;ll defend terrorists and their supporters.

This program was authorized by Congress more than once and overseen by FISC. No one could have possibly believed they were doing anything illegal. In fact, the court today didn&#x27;t rule the collection to have been criminal as much as they ruled the collected data to be inadmissable.

Now, when can we begin prosecuting the instigators? Presumably, after we have prosecuted those who ordered and participated in torture. (There is no statute of limitations on torture, is there?)

Ok, we&#x27;ll change to that from <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.yahoo.com&#x2F;court-rules-nsa-phone-snooping-181157311.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.yahoo.com&#x2F;court-rules-nsa-phone-snooping-181157...</a>, which links to that. Thanks!

The article is form <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.politico.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;2020&#x2F;09&#x2F;02&#x2F;court-rules-nsa-phone-snooping-illegal-407727" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.politico.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;2020&#x2F;09&#x2F;02&#x2F;court-rules-nsa-pho...</a>

We&#x27;ve changed the URL from <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.aclu.org&#x2F;legal-document&#x2F;united-states-v-moalin-ninth-circuit-opinion" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.aclu.org&#x2F;legal-document&#x2F;united-states-v-moalin-n...</a> to an article that gives more background. The link to the decision is an excellent thing to post, but usually it&#x27;s best as a supplement to a general article (if one can be found) that establishes context.

objectively your post is false.the US has a flawed democracy, but a democracy nonetheless:
<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Democracy_Index" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Democracy_Index</a>consider the rest of the countries in that list

We are objectively an oligarchy; there&#x27;s no other explanation that makes sense.

EO12333 includes a fourth amendment bypass for people subject to background investigations. It&#x27;s easy to redirect that capability for the general population.

The intelligence community has been above the law in the United States for a long, long time. The ability to classify (and hence shield from oversight or accountability) any action which is deemed &quot;in the interest of national security&quot; was codified in the National Security Act of 1947 which created the CIA and NSA.

It seems to me that just the pardon power by itself is fundamentally incompatible with democracy and the rule of law.It&#x27;s like saying you&#x27;re a pacifist... except for Tuesdays when you go on a weekly killing spree.I imagine that if we can survive and progress long enough to have real democracy and rule of law, our present system will be viewed a transitional period that, for all its very real improvements, was still structurally closer to feudalism than actual democracy.

&gt;I&#x27;m still baffled by how little punishment there was for Iran-ContraI&#x27;ll tell you why you&#x27;re baffled. Those kinds of issues tend to be very complicated because the world is complicated and messy. However people don&#x27;t do well with grey and nuance, so instead they try to map it to something they can get a handle on that match their world-view and ideology and reinforce by reading highly partisan summaries (where the opinion just so happens to match their own) and staying in a bubble with other like-minded partisans.

Seems to have a long tradition. I&#x27;m still baffled by how little punishment there was for Iran-Contra, key people were simply pardoned by Bush, or how little punishment there was for the Abu Ghraib prisoner torture, just looking at the pictures of the wikipedia article makes me want to throw up.

So the Colorado Civil Rights Commission would be put in prison due to the results of the Masterpiece Cakeshop decision?

If you have a signed confession and video recording of civil servants intentionally violating the law, should they not be punished?

It is impossible to hold civil servants accountable at all levels of government. As long as you believe you were operating within the law, regardless of if you were or not and what effect that may have had on other people, you seem to be unapproachable.Eventually this is going to lead to civil servants being lynched.

Wow, this is an outstanding post and could probably be an HN submission in its own right. Thank you for sharing.

There&#x27;s an old maxim in the Common Law that &quot;every right has a remedy&quot;. But it&#x27;s just a maxim, and rights are often recognized long before any remedy. One of the most recent (relative to the long term) and conspicuous attempts by American courts to try to judicially craft a remedy was the creation of the so-called Bivens Action, which permits citizens to sue Federal officials for civil rights violations in the absence of any statute. See <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.law.cornell.edu&#x2F;wex&#x2F;bivens_actions" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.law.cornell.edu&#x2F;wex&#x2F;bivens_actions</a> and <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Bivens_v._Six_Unknown_Named_Agents" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Bivens_v._Six_Unknown_Named_Ag...</a> But over the past 40 years conservative justices have not only cabined but nearly extinguished Bivens claims, arguing that it abrogates the principle of sovereign immunity and subverts the legislative process. Ironically (or not so ironically), the same justices over the same timespan have judicially created defenses to S.1983 civil rights suits, protecting state officials in contravention of clear constitutional and statutory text. Both sides promote a background principle of law in contravention of nominal legal texts; &quot;every right has a remedy&quot; and individual justice in the case of the liberal faction, sovereign immunity in the case of the conservatives.

When I was young and dreamed of being a rock star^W^W entrepreneur I used to pay more attention to contract law.It seems like everywhere from roommate, landlord, business, or partnership contracts, we seem to write down rules but not consequences or penalties. Oh you were supposed to pay rent or this invoice, but I can&#x27;t make you do it? What&#x27;s the point of contracts?The time I owned property with someone, I at least had the foresight to add two clauses. Right of first refusal (obvious), and another clause that if either party were behind on payments the other party could trigger arbitration, and one of those outcomes could be to force a sale (then looping back to rule #1).But the &#x27;punishment&#x27; in this case is that one party loses their ownership, and the other party either has to cough up a ton of cash or lose it too. In this case I had decidedly more liquid assets so I had an idea how that might play out if things went south. But I&#x27;m sure there are a ton of things not covered, and really weren&#x27;t suggested by the lawyers.Whatever penalties exist for the lawyer leaving a huge surface area for litigation, those are pretty opaque for the rest of us and I think they like it that way. Capital L Law just seems like a giant conflict of interests straight out of the gate.

You&#x27;re absoutley right, but as the answer in your link points out, those laws are still enforced by some other means in most cases. My point was, obeying the most important laws of the land should not be left to the good will of government employees, if laws are to have penalties, is it not reasonable for the most important law to have the highest penalties?

Maybe some laws just don&#x27;t have penalties? Having laws with no penalties is rather common.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;politics.stackexchange.com&#x2F;questions&#x2F;26724&#x2F;what-is-the-purpose-of-issuing-laws-regulations-without-penalty" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;politics.stackexchange.com&#x2F;questions&#x2F;26724&#x2F;what-is-t...</a>

The executive branch. Following orders or implementing a law that violates citizens right should come with criminal consequence. I don&#x27;t care who found it unconstitutional, there should be criminal punishment after a court rules that a crime was committed. Of course either side can appeal all the way to the supreme court using any laws or precedent. But if the final verdict is that a government official violated a citizens right, that official should be punished. If a law maker intentionally proposed a law that violates constitutional rights, there should be consequences. If a judge rules or operates intentionally to violate these rights there should be a punishment.Just like doctors face malpractice lawsuits and felony charges, so should govetnment officials that intentionally violate citizes&#x27; rights.I saw a video the other day where a cop arrested a person for insulting him. Worst case he would lose his job, but no punishment! This NSA case is a small example of a systemic disease.

&gt;How is it anymore than a suggestion or a guidline if government officials are not punished for violating it?The program (and it&#x27;s replacement) has been around for two decades. It was passed into law by Congress, administered by the executive branch and justice department, funded by Congress, and overseen by the Judiciary and Congress. So punish who? And for what crime? Based on what law? That the the ninth-circuit ruled that the collection overstepped some bounds is not a criminal indictment, but rather a normal part of the process. And who knows if it won&#x27;t be reversed.

For crimes like this it isn&#x27;t a matter of &quot;reform&quot; in the same way as when dealing with regular anti-social behavior by individuals. These are people who have been given huge amounts of resources and trust then betrayed us all. I would be very happy for them to be permanently banned from any position in government for the rest of their lives. Instead, nothing happens to them and they fail upwards.

Be careful what you wish for.Mandatory sentencing removes any possibility of judicial discretion.And then there&#x27;s the problem that gaol tends not to reform people.

That gives me an idea for some big time controversy. Pass a law that says your religion can override specific laws such as hiring discrimination. In exchange for those freedoms the government now gets to enforce your religion&#x27;s rules on your followers if you&#x27;re not doing it. Or at least the government can fine&#x2F;sue your organization for failure to enforce the rules.That&#x27;s such a bad idea but it would cause so much juicy drama. I would take a year of that over 2020.Edit: fixed misspelling of rules, had rupes

Let&#x27;s say the hiring practice of a church is unlawful, it would not be constitutional law that was violated. Now the Church might sue and say their freedom to excercise their faith is being violated. If a judge rules in good faith against the Church and a higher court reverses that decision the judge should not be found any wrongdoing. I did not mean incorrect rulings should be punished, I meant malicious ignorance and violation of the constitition should be punished.With your example, if it is found that the law was crafted with intentional ignorance of freedom of religion, then the lawmakers that introduced it should face punishment, if the judge also intentionally ignored this right (and this can be proven) not because of their understanding of the law but because their intentional ignorance of the right, that judge should be punished. And a law enforcer that intentionally violates citizens&#x27; rights should also face punishment.

The problem with your idea is that the court is sometimes weighing&#x2F;balancing competing rights and responsibilities from separate parts of the Constitution.For example, when is a church’s hiring practice an equal protection violation? Or is it an exercise of freedom of religion?

I&#x27;d say the Second Amendment would need to be tweaked. Our gun control laws are honestly really in breach, and I think they are very sensible pieces of legislation, so we should make everything consistent.

It&#x27;s an eighteenth century document that can be maddeningly vague at times.A lot of people (on HN at least) seem to think it&#x27;s a problem that the First Amendment only applies to Congress, letting companies like Google or Facebook censor speech as much as they like.The Second Amendment isn&#x27;t even written in complete sentences, and we need a room full of scholars to figure out just what exactly they meant by &quot;A well regulated Militia,&quot;The Third Amendment just seems absurd in the modern day.Maybe we don&#x27;t need the Electoral College?Maybe the President&#x27;s powers to draft executive orders and pardon people undermines the legislative and judicial branches and should be done away with, given how often they&#x27;ve been abused?It must be possible to have a more efficient census than through the process required by the Constitution.It should be possible, in a nation of immigrants, for an immigrant to run for President.There is no Constitutionally guaranteed right to vote. Amendments related to voting, yes, but nowhere is voting considered to be a right, as opposed to a privilege.Do we really need to explicitly make the justice system an exception to the Thirteenth Amendment and banning slavery?That&#x27;s all I could think of off the top of my head, not being a constitutional scholar. But it stands to reason that a document as old as the Constitution should be updated more often than it has been.

What updates does the US constitution need? I think if we were to rewrite it today it would become largely the same, maybe with a footer that says “and this time we really mean it”

The government commits so many felonies and break so many laws daily that laws are really just for us peasants these days.

Yes, so being in contempt is the what is being punished. Like you said, being told to stop is the only consequence.

Once the court has ruled, if those officials continue to engage in that activity, they can be held in contempt and imprisoned indefinitely until they stop engaging in that activity. The system achieves the goal of stopping the activity in question. What it doesn&#x27;t do is create a deterrent for others who will engage in the same or similar activity in the future.

Seems like the courts could make a distinction between &quot;ok this was unclear&quot; and &quot;this was obvious, egregious and deserving of penalties.&quot;And while throwing Congress in jail seems unworkable, disqualifying members from reelection in egregious cases might be doable (though of course it would require a constitutional amendment).

&gt; because there&#x27;s no higher authority to appeal to for enforcementTechnically, that higher authority is the people themselves. Bear in mind that the Constitution was written in a context where the governed people successfully held their government accountable at the business end of their hunting rifles.

&gt; If the Constitution says &quot;Congress shall make no law...&quot; and Congress still makes a law, what are you going to do, throw Congress in jail? That&#x27;s nonsense.Actually, it&#x27;s nonsense to think anything to the contrary. Either our founding document matters as the backbone of our Laws or it doesn&#x27;t. Your outlandish logic nullifies any power that the government may have over it&#x27;s people. It nullifies the social contract.&gt; The Constitution, for the most part, just states norms and procedures that the the country and government have decided to follow voluntarily, not because some authority will punish it if it doesn&#x27;t.It&#x27;s not a document of &#x27;norms&#x27; and &#x27;procedures&#x27;. It&#x27;s a structure of how our Republic is built. Either we have a structure or we undermine it. That&#x27;s really it, full stop. Amendments are apart of that structure to build or take away for what that structure is to be. Not &#x27;ought to be&#x27; not &#x27;suggested&#x27; not &#x27;maybe if you&#x27;d like to follow&#x27;, it&#x27;s a mutually agreed upon Law.[edited: minor edits for added clarity]

This is an interesting concept. In Norway, the parliament cannot pass contradictory laws, for instance, for the simple reason this tenet: &quot;All power must be gathered in this hall&quot;. So in essence, Stortinget (our parliament) cannot pass laws that give power away, for instance. Doing so would be unconstitutional, also because our constitution explicitly states that power shall not be given away. Yet it has happened, but in those instances the laws is either handily disregarded at opportune times, or it&#x27;s left to the suppreme court to decide the outcome where there are offended parties. And since they follow the constitution, they always follow the above tenet.

&gt; unconstitutional ex-post-facto punishmentThis point makes no sense. A properly passed amendment to the Constitution (presumably what is meant by update) can never be unconstitutional by definition. Furthermore, prohibiting ex-post-facto laws means you can&#x27;t pass a law which criminalizes actions in the past. But courts don&#x27;t pass laws, they interpret them. There&#x27;s plenty of cases where courts interpret a law in a new way because of new situation. For example, I&#x27;m sure Clayton County is going to face applicable penalties under Title VII after Bostock v. Clayton County (recent LGBT discrimination ruling).

Whaaaa?!&gt; because there&#x27;s no higher authority to appeal to for enforcement.Then we do not live in a democracy with a rule of law. Why have the constitution at all?Barring weasel lawyering and issues around standing. The very idea that you would claim these violations are not punishable means that they will continue to occur.I am having a hard time fathoming how you take this stance at all.

There’s a reason the founding fathers regularly stated things like&gt; the Tree of Liberty Must Be Refreshed with the Blood of Patriots and Tyrants - Thomas JeffersonIt’s because the final authority is the people of the country. The constitution is the social contract the government and people agreed to. If broken, the people have the obligations to correct it. That’s not to say some kind of rebellion necessarily. We have the justice system, Congress, senate, etc. when all that fails... that’s why we have the first, second, fourth, etc amendments. It makes it hard to enforce your will all at once when the people have those protections. Each would have to be slowly taken away to effectively take control .

I don&#x27;t think it would be unconstitutional ex-post-facto. Obergefell v. Hodges didn&#x27;t define sex discrimination in marriage certificates unconstitutional after a certain date. It was always unconstitutional, and was recognized as such in their ruling.And yes, I would like to see, actually, qualified immunity removed and governments held liable for rights violations. Perhaps not prison time for the clerks - who were simply &quot;following orders&quot;, as horrendous a saying as that is - but some liability and remedy for the countless people harmed.How different a world would it be if as a result of Brown v. Board of Education was that black families were financially compensated for sixty years of segregation and for centuries before that denied the right to an education?How different a world would it be if as a result of Shelley v. Kraemer, every black person who was told they couldn&#x27;t buy a home because of a bank was compensated?How different a world would it be if as a result of Whole Women&#x27;s Health v. Hellerstedt, women who sought an abortion and were denied or unable due to unconstitutional restrictions on clinics were compensated by the equivalent of child support from the state?I think that would be a better world. No, I don&#x27;t think the clerks, the school boards, or health commission members in Texas should go to jail. But I do think that perhaps, just perhaps, we might live in a more just world today if there were long-term consequences for denying someone their rights. And maybe, just maybe, we can then start to ask whether or not &quot;just following orders&quot; is a good way to justify one&#x27;s individual place in society.But before we go down the slippery slope of questioning whether evil can be banal - it can - we should ask whether or not its prior victims should be entitled to a remedy too.

With the exception of the president, there is always an authority that can arrest&#x2F;punish an authority (including the military).Incorrect interpretation of the law is not what I am talking about, intentional violation is. The clerks that denied marriage licenses before the ruling did not violate the law and after the ruling yes, they did act on behalf of government (not that I am expressing my view on the matter). What happened was one clerk was jailed indefinitetly (human rights violation!) Until she complied instead of measured punishment and removal from office. Regarding the law makers, the law maker that introduced it should be punished if it can be proven he violated the bill of rights on purpose (intent).You can&#x27;t say the law is not clear enough to punish people. You&#x27;re essentially saying the law is a guideline open to free interpretation. If I kill someone with a gun, is it murder? It depends right, even in such a simple scenario the law is not clear cut, that&#x27;s why you have judges. A cop on duty can get away with a shooting if he feared for his life, in certain states you can proactively stand your ground and kill intruders. No matter what, judges interpret law and lack of clarity is fine.The crime is violating constitutional law while acting on behalf of government. Intentional ignorance of the bill of rights or malicious violation of the same must be proven in court to find a person guilty.

&gt; If the Constitution says &quot;Congress shall make no law...&quot; and Congress still makes a law, what are you going to do, throw Congress in jail? That&#x27;s nonsense.Well.. you could depose them. Or declare independence from them. That has happened a few times in history.The Constitution is a social contract. The people say &quot;we&#x27;ll give you (government) these abc powers, if you promise to use them this xyz way.&quot; When that contract is broken, no one gets thrown in jail - its rather more severe. The legitimacy of the government is called into question, or dissolved.

&gt; what are you going to do, throw Congress in jail?My understanding is at the time it was written, it was expected that a government would be balanced by the potential military might of an armed rebellion should the government act so against the interests of the populace as to inspire that response (after all, starved and freezing American rebels had just beaten one of the mightiest empires in history, so they had set historical precedent).I don&#x27;t think the founders foresaw a future in which the government&#x27;s military might so far surpassed the public&#x27;s as to make such a rebellion unthinkable.

&gt; If the Constitution says &quot;Congress shall make no law...&quot; and Congress still makes a law, what are you going to do, throw Congress in jail? That&#x27;s nonsense.The only nonsense is that we haven&#x27;t done exactly that. If someone in power betrays the public trust they should be punished. The punishment ought to be severe so there is no doubt about the stakes at play.&gt; That might actually be unconstitutional ex-post-facto punishment.We have members of our government who have taken oaths to other nations, and that have then voted to provide those other nations with aid and support. Similarly, we have members of our government who provide legal sanctuary for those who defy the laws of the land. And, regardless of your political beliefs, both parties currently in power have voted overwhelmingly in favor of war over the past several decades.&gt; Article III, section 3 of the U.S. Constitution: &quot;Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.&quot;

&gt; and Congress still makes a law, what are you going to do, throw Congress in jail?Yes that&#x27;s exactly what you should do. That&#x27;s not nonsense. That&#x27;s how a non-corrupt state should work. At the very least the law itself should be nullified.

&gt; You know what I don&#x27;t get? There is no penalty for violating the highest law of the land (the constitution). How is it anymore than a suggestion or a guidline if government officials are not punished for violating it? And that is exactly how lae enforcement and intelligence community treat it.It&#x27;s because it can&#x27;t reasonably work like that. At a certain point, defining punishments is moot, because there&#x27;s no higher authority to appeal to for enforcement. If the Constitution says &quot;Congress shall make no law...&quot; and Congress still makes a law, what are you going to do, throw Congress in jail? That&#x27;s nonsense. The Constitution, for the most part, just states norms and procedures that the the country and government have decided to follow voluntarily, not because some authority will punish it if it doesn&#x27;t.&gt; The US constitution needs lots of updates but this maybe the most important item -- manadatory prison terms for anyone acting on behalf of government who is found violating the bill of rights or any restriction set by articles of the constitution.That might actually be unconstitutional ex-post-facto punishment. Many violations of the Constitution or Bill of Rights aren&#x27;t clear until some court case interprets some action as not being in compliance. Would you have every county clerk that ever denied a same-sex marriage license or defined procedures to do so go to jail after Obergefell v. Hodges?

A major reason for the Bill of Rights is to make sure the majority can&#x27;t take away the rights of the minority. If the only penalty is voting, that doesn&#x27;t work.

Voting gets the violators out of office (rarely works, but let&#x27;s say it does) but it does not punish them for their explicit malicious violation of the law.

VOTING is the penalty for many of these transgressions...

We hold low grade solders responsible for following illegal orders, even when those orders come from the very top of the chain of command.Although its giant double standard, despite knowledge of illegal acts frequently those higher in the chain of command aren&#x27;t held responsible (aka, look up waterboarding).

That&#x27;s one of the weakest attempts to justify illegal and unconstitutional actions I&#x27;ve seen.&gt; Metadata is not the content of the calls but the data that the users put out to the world.So when I make a call to my private friends, that&#x27;s &quot;me putting data into the world&quot;? And it is ok for everyone to read it because I did not write it on a paper and instead used the phone? That&#x27;s how you treat the constitution&#x27;s &quot;persons, houses, papers, and effects&quot;? Really?This is not how most people would even think about their information. There is nothing vague about it.

You can’t hold a random analyst, usually a contractor and not a “government official”, for not sharing your opinion on what a 200-year old, intentionally vague, document meant about who-was-contacting-who on a pice of technology that wasn’t invented.  Let alone a law that was, albeit controversial at the time, in place for almost 20 years. Would you prefer that your public servants follow the law... or do whatever they feel like?  Do what they personally think is the most moral, regardless of what actually elected officials have told them to do?
Metadata is not the content of the calls but the data that the users put out to the world. The public facing data that’s necessary to even process communication in the first place. To use analogy, this would be like imprisoning a postal worker for reading the address on the outside of the envelope. 
The idea went that: if the intelligence community chooses to use that information for some thing other than just delivering the letter, that’s no more illegal than if you were to stand on a soapbox and scream all the bad things you did and the cops decided to hold some of that against you in court. 
IE. if you put it out there, than you don’t consider it a secret. 
But, now, (if the Supreme Court doesn’t step in), the policies will change in the state won’t be used anymore. And, those faithful public servants, who were following the law, will now follow the new law.  And, the system works to protect your freedoms. 
Whereas, under your ideal, all the public servants that were following the law would be imprisoned and we’d have to find new public servants.. and threaten them with imprisonment if they don’t do what’s morally correct without respect to what they’re actually being told to do by the courts.

Your comment makes it so obvious why the current President, who busts norms on a daily basis, is so dangerous: no one is going to hold him accountable. &quot;First they came...&quot;

He knowingly and clearly broke laws by stealing and disclosing classified information. I think he was ethically correct to do so, and his act qualified as civil disobedience, but that&#x27;s why the US government is after him.

You know what I don&#x27;t get? Why is Edward Snowden, who exposed these crimes, being treated like a criminal?

18 U.S. Code § 242.Deprivation of rights under color of lawIs pretty close, but requires that it be for reason of the person being a certain color, of a race, or an alien, and that the violation be of a nature otherwise unascribed to a citizen. You&#x27;d have to be exceedingly loose in interpretation to use it, or well within levels of niceness. However, the desired regulation you&#x27;re looking for could be achieved with the deletion of the race&#x2F;alien&#x2F;color part.You don&#x27;t even have to ditch the as prescribed by law for a citizen piece because unconstitutional laws are deemed so from the moment of their enactment.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.law.cornell.edu&#x2F;uscode&#x2F;text&#x2F;18&#x2F;242" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.law.cornell.edu&#x2F;uscode&#x2F;text&#x2F;18&#x2F;242</a>

In the Athens Democracy, the Graphe paranomon (their version of SCOTUS, sort of) could punish legislators that had proposed &quot;unconstitutional&quot; laws.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Graphe_paranomon" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Graphe_paranomon</a>

States willing to call a constitutional convention almost have the numbers to do it at this point and they lean hard right.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;conventionofstates.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;conventionofstates.com&#x2F;</a>

&gt; You know what I don&#x27;t get? There is no penalty for violating the highest law of the land (the constitution).Constitution is an interpretable document. Depends how you read it, so it&#x27;s not as simple as &#x27;violating&#x27; the constitution, it ends up in the interpretation of a comma or something.

&gt; The US constitution needs lots of updates but this maybe the most important item -- manadatory prison terms for anyone acting on behalf of government who is found violating the bill of rights or any restriction set by articles of the constitution.We already have federal criminal and civil law establishing penalties, damages, and other remedies for deprivation of rights under color of law, plus the Constitutional power of impeachment which is designed to serve that role for offenses against the Constitutional order of government that are not adequately remediable through traditional legal process.Your problem seems really to be that laws are always enforced by humans and you don&#x27;t like the way that the humans responsible for the existing enforcement mechanisms apply them. That&#x27;s not something that is likely to be fixed particularly well by focussing on changing the law rather than focussing on changing who is entrusted with it&#x27;s application.

You know what I don&#x27;t get? There is no penalty for violating the highest law of the land (the constitution). How is it anymore than a suggestion or a guidline if government officials are not punished for violating it? And that is exactly how lae enforcement and intelligence community treat it.The US constitution needs lots of updates but this maybe the most important item -- manadatory prison terms for anyone acting on behalf of government who is found violating the bill of rights or any restriction set by articles of the constitution.

&gt; Let&#x27;s put aside politics and hold the intelligence agencies accountable.Lol.

Now do illegal unmaskings of US citizens[1]!Question for everyone: in October 2016 the head of the NSA did an audit on unaskings. What percentage do you think were illegal?&gt; One paragraph in the report states that ??% of the Section 704 and 705(b) FISA searches made during this time were non-compliant with applicable laws and therefore criminal.Take a guess before you click this [2] link and find out.I challenge you to even find a mainstream news article about this. It&#x27;s extremely hard, by design. Let&#x27;s put aside politics and hold the intelligence agencies accountable.1. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;justthenews.com&#x2F;accountability&#x2F;russia-and-ukraine-scandals&#x2F;line-between-lawful-unmasking-and-political-spying-and" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;justthenews.com&#x2F;accountability&#x2F;russia-and-ukraine-sc...</a>
2. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.usapoliticstoday.org&#x2F;fisa-court-ruling-85-obamas-fbi&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.usapoliticstoday.org&#x2F;fisa-court-ruling-85-obamas...</a>

Tune in next year for the outcome of the appeals process!

It was deleted in 2016. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reuters.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;us-usa-nsa-termination&#x2F;nsa-to-shut-down-bulk-phone-surveillance-program-by-sunday-idUSKBN0TG27120151127" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reuters.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;us-usa-nsa-termination&#x2F;nsa-t...</a>

So, do they have to delete all the databases now? Or just keep the illegally collected data all the same?

The real lesson of the Nazis should have been that secret police forces inevitably lead to corruption, even when they’re made with the best intentions. The #1 best method of preventing the Holocaust would have been better government oversight and transparency.I’m fine with record collection if it works. The secret courts enabling these secret agencies only help hide bad actors and must be abolished.

Ordered this bulk collection, then lied under oath that it wasn&#x27;t happening. Would get away with it, too, if it wasn&#x27;t for Snowden.

Can we put James Clapper in prison now, pls? Or is he still untouchable?

The lower court&#x27;s decision standing enables litigation against the federal government and the NSA specifically.

They don&#x27;t have to. They can let the lower court&#x27;s decision stand.

Nah. They&#x27;ll just quietly refuse to hear it and nothing will change.

This puts scotus in a difficult position. They&#x27;ve generally refused to hear national security cases. Now they&#x27;ll have to...

I&#x27;m not saying to punish a group of individuals individually, but to disband the group itself for a time.If individuals also broke the law, then of course they should be punished accordingly.

Except in rare circumstances, &quot;collective responsibility&quot; is very hard to prove in the courts of law.When a large section of a society dislikes certain thing, yes, it is possible to prosecute groups. When is this possible? Crimes against humanity is one such example. Or going after mafia or biker gangs. Otherwise, at some time or another, it is very easy to convict influential sections of a society. That&#x27;s why judges, lawyers are not keen to press charges against an individual just because such an individual is part of some kind of collective responsibility.

If corporations are people, they need to face imprisonment and capital punishment, too eh?  Charters can be suspended or revoked.

The org must be accountable for its actions (or inactions). It&#x27;s the org&#x27;s responsibility to make sure its agents don&#x27;t mess up when acting under its authority. Hire employees who are trustworthy and competent, fire those who aren&#x27;t, and provide training and oversight to ensure compliance. That&#x27;s a reasonable minimum bar.Separately, if a person breaks a law, they should be punished for that.And remember, judgements incorporate circumstances and intentions when determining punishments. So a small non-profit that was trying its best but was still hacked by a nation-state would probably get a lighter punishment, just as accidental manslaughter usually receives a lighter sentence than pre-meditated murder.

Shutting down the NSA isn&#x27;t the answer. We do need those orgs to keep operating for good reasons. Otherwise somebody who dislikes those orgs or has a grudge can shut the whole thing down by breaking the law (imagine a foreign agent playing the &quot;long-con&quot; and doing this).The answer, as others have already said, is imprisonment of commanding officiers, supervisors, senators in charge of oversight committees, etc. Hold the people that make decisions accountable. Don&#x27;t hold the entry-level engineers who had a family to feed accountable. Hold the people calling the shots accountable. 10 years in prison is a pretty good incentive for those in charge to make sure what they and their employees are doing is legal.

Our society hasn&#x27;t figured out how to punish organizations, whether businesses, NGOs, religious groups, or government agencies. Past a certain level, fines don&#x27;t cut it—you need existential threats.We need &quot;prison&quot; more often for misbehaving entities; that is, a prohibition on operating for the duration of the sentence.&quot;But what about all the people who will be unemployed?&quot; Exactly, that&#x27;s part of the incentive not to mess up.&quot;You can&#x27;t shut down the NSA for a year, what about the commies and the terrorists?&quot; Yes that would be bad, so make sure it won&#x27;t happen. #IncentivesNothing is too big to fail.

Well, we can&#x27;t forget that he also took a bunch of information that had nothing to do with this ruling.

So does he also have a moral imperative to stand trial for what laws he himself broke?So basically the US needs to follow their strict laws to the T. But adversaries like Russia and China can play as dirty as they want.Moralists will do well against communist dictatorships, I&#x27;m sure.

I would go so far as to say if the organization you&#x27;re working for is breaking the law, and you know about it and do nothing, you&#x27;re an accomplice.So not only did Snowden have a moral imperative to blow the whistle, but a legal one too.

Hard to even pretend he did something wrong after this ruling. The government was proven to be acting illegally and likely also unconstitutionally, he had a moral imperative to alert the public.

The National Security Agency program that swept up details on billions of Americans&#x27; phone calls was illegal and possibly unconstitutional, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.However, the unanimous three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said the role the so-called telephone metadata program played in a criminal terror-fundraising case against four Somali immigrants was so minor that it did not undermine their convictions. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bloggerzune.com&#x2F;2020&#x2F;06&#x2F;10-Most-Important-SEO-Strategies.html?m=1" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bloggerzune.com&#x2F;2020&#x2F;06&#x2F;10-Most-Important-SEO-St...</a>

The 9th is being flipped or has already flipped[1], depending on whom you ask. Trump has made 10 appointment to the 9th.[1] Trump has flipped the 9th Circuit
 <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.latimes.com&#x2F;california&#x2F;story&#x2F;2020-02-22&#x2F;trump-conservative-judges-9th-circuit" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.latimes.com&#x2F;california&#x2F;story&#x2F;2020-02-22&#x2F;trump-co...</a>

Isn&#x27;t the 9th circuit the court where most of the liberal judges sit. This decision can as well go to the Supreme Court and get overturned.

&gt; But she said even if Moalin and his co-defendants had clear notice of that, it wouldn&#x27;t have helped their defense.parallel construction is a hell of a thing

Lol, they only make rulings like this after the act was already committed and the NSA already stopped using phone metadata so nothing material changes. Even the people imprisoned over the phone data, we are assured that it was so minor and insignificant nothing important about their case should change.Make no mistake, this is just a way for the intelligence services to pretend as though there&#x27;s some kind of legality and court oversight to what they are doing.

The fact this has taken so long to process - and by all means not complete yet - doesn’t paint a pretty picture of the system as a whole.

Unfortunately, this is:1) Only a 3 judge panel, so their will be an appeal for the full court to here the case.2) Not yet over even if the full panel agrees, because then it will be appealed to the Supreme Court.So it could still be years before the issue is finally

The US congress gave retroactive immunity to AT&amp;T for this so you can&#x27;t sue them for actively working with the US government to violate the constitution.

Cynicism aside, I genuinely don&#x27;t understand how the legal system works where an action may be found illegal - with no actual penalties despite organizations and persons having committed that action.

Lol, of course nobody will be disciplined

Standard practice is to introduce legislation to make either make it legal, or to make it more secret.

Why is there a statute of limitations for government officials? This shouldn&#x27;t be a thing when you&#x27;re entrusted with the responsibilities that you are concerning an entire country and its citizens.

The statute of limitations has expired for prosecuting the person responsible.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;sensenbrenner.house.gov&#x2F;2018&#x2F;3&#x2F;james-clapper-not-charged-with-lying-to-congress" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;sensenbrenner.house.gov&#x2F;2018&#x2F;3&#x2F;james-clapper-not-cha...</a>

I wonder if a class action lawsuit can target the government?  If not punishment, perhaps we could hope for remuneration?

Unless news outlets run the story and outrage the public about how violating the constitution should have repercussions, nothing will happen.But given how grim the news landscape looks like in the USA, I&#x27;m not very hopeful.

This question is meant in good faith, not to be facetious but out of a genuine lack of understanding: now what?If this action was ruled illegal, then someone in the chain of command ordered this illegal action - in other words did something illegal. Is the individual who ordered the illegal action going to be disciplined? Is anyone?

This ruling is much more likely to be related to the 4th Amendment search and seizure clause or the 14th Amendment Due Process clause.

“Amendment ICongress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”... and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.This document matters. It’s a fucking miracle it even exists — still.

When the President is protecting war criminals, anything goes....

It wasn&#x27;t illegal, it was prelegal ;-)

But its affect our privacy too.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theflyy.com&#x2F;blog&#x2F;how-appbrowzer-hit-1-lac-downloads-in-24-hours&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theflyy.com&#x2F;blog&#x2F;how-appbrowzer-hit-1-lac-downlo...</a>

For those of us with less detailed knowledge of US history: I take it you are referring to the assassination of president John F Kennedy?

&gt; it seems to me that the executive and the legislature are truly toothless in the face of these three-letter agencies.This is by design, a design which was cemented in place on November 22, 1963. If real accountability ever comes to the intelligence agencies, it won&#x27;t come from the executive or legislative branches over which they exert a lethal veto.

There is a Decemberists refrain about the reaction to 9&#x2F;11, the war on terror: &quot;Because America can, and America can&#x27;t say no.&quot; Or at least, I thought it stood for that, at the time.Part of a solution may be to introduce a &quot;principle of proportionality&quot; like [1] (if one does not already exist), and to aggressively remove the bugs in the US judicial system that prevent ordinary courts from examining the spies, the military and the executive. Like the state secrets privilege [2]. Then the system can prevent itself from backsliding during crises.Laws are no good if courts take 10 years or more to figure out whether they have jurisdiction over, or are able to subpoena evidence relating to, crass, publicly known, obviously illegal, civil rights violations. If courts take too long, standards shift, are forgotten, then abolished. The normative power of the facts.Jewel vs NSA has taken 10 years and has gotten nowhere.[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Proportionality_(law)#European_Union_law" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Proportionality_(law)#European...</a>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;State_secrets_privilege" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;State_secrets_privilege</a>

Few things can stand up against the ‘national security’ argument in America (maybe even nothing). A court ruling like this will be overturned in a heartbeat with any kind of terrorist attack. Don’t count out the current domestic unrest to lead to legislation that buffs up these agencies going forward if the Republicans win again.

Huge parts of these agencies&#x27; activities have been moved off the books or to private entities. It&#x27;s not as simple a matter as just cutting off their funding anymore.

&gt;and if they aren&#x27;t why would they exist at all?Reminds me of Lisa simpsons rock which protects against tigers.

&gt; But as much as they enjoy bluster, Americans are afraid [...]Are Americans really afraid? Or is it that Americans feel comfort in having the meanest dog on the block, even if that dog sometimes nips its master?

The old &quot;We sleep safely in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.&quot; - anon

&gt; Congress could, if the American people wanted - which they do not - abolish these agencies entirely.Unfortunately that&#x27;s not now power works, not even in a relatively free society such as the US. How often does the public actually get their way when it comes to policy? Once elected, representatives will almost certainly follow the same agenda - work hard to maintain power and privilege for the existing ruling class. Secret services with discretionary power are an invaluable tool in this endeavor.

Sorry but I disagree (partially). Where I agree is that covert agents operating abroad are by-definition criminals. Foreign governments don&#x27;t give permission for spies to be present, and they break all sorts of their nations host laws while there. Morally this is questionable... if you believe that &#x27;all men&#x27; have &#x27;certain unalienable rights&#x27; then surely those should apply to how you treat all humans on earth and not only your own citizens; but most countries and their citizens accept the cat and mouse game that is spying abroad.Where I disagree is that these powers are unchecked and tolerated when used on a country&#x27;s own citizens. The mandate of both of these organizations is crystal fucking clear - do bad shit abroad but not to your own citizens. There has to be oversight of this, that oversight has to be built into the system, and there have to be consequences. Knowingly collect data on US citizens: go to jail. Fail to regularly audit whether or not you are inadvertently collecting data on US citizens: go to jail. Torture, steal, trespass, hack? Jail. Know that someone has done this and look the other way? Jail. But what about domestic terrorism, or important exceptions? No problem! Get a warrant.This whole business of &quot;we don&#x27;t want spies to be afraid to their job&quot; is bullshit... As a business owner it would be much easier to not pay my taxes, defraud investors, avoid safety regulations, and have my competition murdered. But I don&#x27;t do it (and I&#x27;m not preoccupied with dread about it). Either our shared values (e.g. the constitution) are important or they are not.

Certainly you could have spooks and not grant them unlimited power.And, in the case of bulk collection, it&#x27;s quite obviously made them worse at doing what they&#x27;re supposed to be doing.

They&#x27;re spooks. This is what they&#x27;re for. The constraints are at best just theatre, obviously their adversaries aren&#x27;t going to obey these rules, and they know that so if they are to be effective (and if they aren&#x27;t why would they exist at all?) they will also disobey these rules.The purpose of such rules in practice is to help the American public to sleep at night despite having tacitly authorised a nightmare. You know the scene in Casablance, even if you&#x27;ve never watched the movie - it has permeated our culture Captain Renault claims to be shocked to discover that the club is being used for gambling, undercut by a croupier giving him his winnings.If you don&#x27;t want spooks to do what spooks do, don&#x27;t pass a law saying it mustn&#x27;t happen, don&#x27;t vote for a government that promises they&#x27;ll exercise oversight over the spooks to prevent it. Just get rid of the spooks. Congress could, if the American people wanted - which they do not - abolish these agencies entirely. They&#x27;d just cease to exist and while I&#x27;m sure some small scale abuses would continue you just can&#x27;t run programmes to snoop these huge volumes on pocket change, and companies would be less likely to co-operate with informal requests than with the Department of Justice.But as much as they enjoy bluster, Americans are afraid, and so the spooks will certainly continue to be authorised and &quot;outrages&quot; will happen when once in a while it is revealed that the spooks are doing what spooks do but nothing actually changes. Eventually it&#x27;ll get to be so routine the The Onion has a pre-built news article for it like for the mass shootings.

Whenever I see such news and then look around at what they’ve been doing and continue to do (revealed sometimes in congressional hearings), it seems to me that the executive and the legislature are truly toothless in the face of these three-letter agencies.If that were true, I think Trump would already be gone.

Trials are secret because they don&#x27;t want to reveal further secrets. On the other hand you hear people saying: &quot;If you are doing everything right, you have nothing to hide.&quot;

Far as I understand the first director the FBI J. Edgar Hoover had blackmail on a lot of federal politicians. Which is why he left his position feet first. When Hoover died Nixon replaced him with someone with no previous ties to the agency.The CIA has deep ties to the American upper classes. And probably serves their interests over the states. Or their own interests. Aldrich Ames was living well beyond is means for years. A good supposition is people at his level routinely trade intel to &#x27;friendly&#x27; government an corporate interests.

&gt; They created those laws, not the NSA, not the CIA, they could choose as easily to remove them. But it is too useful for them.This is true, but it&#x27;s not the entire truth either. Most congressmen don&#x27;t have access to the really sensitive intelligence that comes from these surveillance operations, so it can&#x27;t be that useful to many of them.A legislator&#x27;s primary goal is to get reelected, and working to remove powerful operations like this deeply threaten a legislator&#x27;s political viability during elections. Remember, there&#x27;s an incredible amount of money changing hands in the military-industrial complex, and money plays a huge role in winning elections.

They are not toothless, they put them in those positions of power and do so gladly.Remember that Snowden always said he was ready to come back to the U.S and be trialled, as long as the trial wouldn&#x27;t be a secret trial. Those who created the laws for those secret trial where not the CIA or the NSA, it was politician.The same way they made it so that it is forbidden to talk about the programs of certain agencies, even for law maker, meaning they approve programs without debate, with only a few senator knowing what the program is even about.They created those laws, not the NSA, not the CIA, they could choose as easily to remove them. But it is too useful for them. The NSA can create a massive surveillance network that serves them without having to ever disclose it to the public.

These agencies are part of the executive and greenlit by the legislature. Mentally divorcing them from that is part of the problem and creates this exact situation where the agencies roam uncontrolled.The chain of accountability for their actions does not end at the head of the agency. It extends into both the White House as well as Congress. As indeed &quot;resignations here and there&quot; are pointless, the public perception needs to shift to a point where elected officials are actually held to what they do (as opposed to, as is frequently happening, what they say.)

i wonder if this this state of affairs is the result of the patriot act [1]; or did they have similar regulations in the US before that event?[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Patriot_Act" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Patriot_Act</a> <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Patriot_Act,_Title_II" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Patriot_Act,_Title_II</a>

Whenever I see such news and then look around at what they’ve been doing and continue to do (revealed sometimes in congressional hearings), it seems to me that the executive and the legislature are truly toothless in the face of these three-letter agencies. Nothing they say or put forth as law will be obeyed. So why even have laws then?Then you also have top representatives from these agencies lying outright in public hearings with hardly a consequence. There ought to be criminal proceedings and punishments for this. A resignation here and there isn’t enough (one way they’d handle that is by joining the privacy sector and getting back into the game by proxy).

The conspiracy theory is that the agency conspired to do this for political reasons. Even if you discount that entirely it does not take away from the fact that this is possible and happened, and that in itself ought to be cause for concern.

You present a very one-side of view of that story that has been extremely muddied by a constant stream of conspiracy theories and misinformation from everyone including the president. Even though I agree with Trump on some things and dislike Biden the lying, conspiracy theories and general disrespect for our democracy is completely disqualifying in my book.

In operation crossfire hurricane, the FBI doctored an email and used its contents as part of an effort to get a FISA warrant to spy on a member of the incoming administration. This gave them access to listen to conversations of anyone 2 levels of connection away from the target.They also withheld exculpatory evidence at the time of requesting the warrant, and relied on a fictional document paid for by the opposing political party.This was used as a basis to conduct a 2 year long investigation into collusion between the campaign and the Russian government, which resulted in the conviction of Michael Cohen for tax evasion and perjury, and Paul Manafort for tax fraud, bank fraud and conspiracy all of which predated the campaign and had nothing to do with it.Not only are these agencies spying based on fabricated evidence, they are using the spying to kick off independent investigations, each of which unveil various unrelated crimes, which they then prosecute.The whole system is rotten to its core.

Looking forward to a full pardon for Snowden.

For those talking about this subject, I would like to remind you that it is the surveillance network that is the equivalent of an automated Epstein system of blackmail. Not only should we reign in the surveillance state, but we need to remember that to do that we have to stop being so naive and need to understand that the blackmail system is at play in the legislative. This isn&#x27;t just overfocus on re-election, or k-street normal corruption or any of the normal accusations against congress we have to fight, this is state sponsered blackmail and worse. To try to fix other issues without adressing the blackmail one is not going to be a systemic fix. It&#x27;s a root causal issue.So, a question of chicken and egg. What do you try to fix first, congress, or the laws&#x2F;system? I think congress is the only practical avenue.

So we can presume that all the bosses who authorized this illegal activity will go to jail?Lol jk.

Prediction: In the next few days, the NSA&#x2F;FBI use their trove of data to track down all of Antifa, and make arrests. It lets the Democrats off the hook, lets Trump say &quot;law and order&quot;, lets the NSA keep it&#x27;s toys, and the risk of civil war drops a bit, increasing National Security.They could even frame Iran or North Korea in the process. Bonus points for the Military Industrial Complex.

What are we spying for? Rouge states trying to disrupt our elections? Rising boldness of home grown militias?

Are the records still accessible by the NSA?

Ninth Circuit rules NSA's bulk collection of Americans' call records was illegal