This is fantastic. GG, ACLU. 
(also, this thread wonât get 300+ comments)
Who will be held accountable for this monumental and continuing violation of our privacy?
Tough to call this a âVICTORY!â, especially because the Court isnât stopping the program, but sending it down to a lower court - allowing this program to continue to collect our personal data unabated for undoubtedly years more.
Donât you wish people were as interested in their Constitutional rights as they were in boxing?
Or arguing about comics, or gun rights, or so on and on and onâŚ
I am totally cool with the massive discussions we have on things like thatâŚbut I just get a little sad when things Iâll class as the post-Snowden release stuff gets less than a dozen comments.
Iâd say itâs a product of Learned Helplessness, combined with Psychological Desensitization.
The government has been grossly violating our rights, the first Snowden revelation was earthshaking, but by now he could give credible evidence that the government has been collaborating with the lizard people from rigel 7 to poison our balls and ovaries, and it just wouldnât be that shocking. Weâve grown to expect the government to be full of shit and corrupt as hell and a pack of liars, and through our learned helplessness, weâve mostly decided that thereâs nothing we can do about it. If you stand up and make a ruckus, youâll be killed, exiled or imprisoned and tortured. What else are we supposed to do?
Argue about card games!
Well, sure, but ⌠what is there to talk about? Topic folks have been bitching about finally found to be illegal. Yay! Unlike card games or comics, there is no basic disagreement about any of that. So ⌠really, thatâs it, no?
Or felt so righteous as they do with cards against humanity.
Probably that one intern in the NSA mailroom. Itâs all his fault, and justice will be harsh indeed. Cf: Scooter Libby.
This is a good outcome, but I think weâve gotten to the point of âwe donât need no stinkin badges.â The courts were also against innoculating our children with alien-hybrid DNA, but did that stop them?
This is a great thing. NEED MOAR, but this is a toe-hold in the edifice of awful that is mass government surveilance
Yeah, popping in to say âYayâ isnât as compelling as arguing about something thereâs a real disagreement about!
But while Iâm here: Yay!
While I agree with your post in general terms, this is a bit hyperbolic, in a Doctrowian School of Journalism kind of way. As far as I know they arenât performing mass tortures and executions of protesters yetâŚ
The main reason we donât care is because even when the courts find the NSA, CIA, DEA guilty, no one goes to prison, and they keep doing their illegal stuff. Nothing changes. They might as well not even try these organizations at all; itâs just a waste of money.
my innner cynic sees this ray of light in the dark room of government overreach and thinks âSo what? You canât sue the government about a program you donât know about.â
Note that the Court ruled this ILLEGAL, at least under Section 215. It did NOT rule it unconstitutional.
So now Congress will just pass an updated Patriot Act (renewal) with a beefed-up Section 215.
So this is NOT "victoryâ. At least, not yet.
I would consider it a victory if there arenât the usual authoritarians making the tired point that Snowden broke the law.
Somehow, exposing massive and unconstitutional governmental overreach seems a tad more important.
Exactly, the NSA straight lied to congress about whether they were spying on Americans. If theyâre willing and able to openly flout the entire legislative branch, I donât see why they wouldnât do the same to the judicial.
When a government agency like the NSA, CIA, or DOD has that much power, they become effectively sovereign. This is related to the idea of the deep state: While there is no secret conspiracy to control the government, the people who are ostensibly running it are not in fact in charge.
Therefore, itâs naive to look to the courts or congress or the president to solve these problems. We must look to each other, and work together to make mass-surveillance impossible.
Actually Congress is currently trying to tighten itâs reigns. Now that a court has deemed it literally illegal, they really donât need to do anything. The court added that congress has the power to make it specifically legal, but no one would touch that with the horrible public opinion and now the official term of âIllegalâ assigned to it.
Additionally, no one would fund an illegal project, not a big public one like this. And this one needs a huge buget. If you cut the NSA budget at all (hopefully a lot) there is no way you could run all the data centers and storage and covert connectivity. All of it is now useless and a giant illegal waste of money. Iâm hoping that even Republicans would have to think twice about trying to fund it.
