{"id":957,"date":"2012-09-09T16:07:19","date_gmt":"2012-09-09T16:07:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ncjolt.org\/?p=957"},"modified":"2020-06-04T20:54:08","modified_gmt":"2020-06-04T20:54:08","slug":"eff-seeks-answers-from-secret-court-in-ruling-on-nsa-spying-violations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/blogs\/eff-seeks-answers-from-secret-court-in-ruling-on-nsa-spying-violations\/","title":{"rendered":"EFF Seeks Answers from Secret Court in Ruling on NSA Spying Violations"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tuesday, September 4, 2012, by Anne Marie Tosco
\nThe public may soon learn the details of the secret court ruling that the National Security Agency (\u201cNSA\u201d) violated the Fourth Amendment when it conducted illegal surveillance of e-mails and telephone calls. The Electronic Frontier Foundation<\/a> (\u201cEFF\u201d), a non-profit defender of digital rights, sued<\/a> the United States Department of Justice (\u201cDOJ\u201d) on August 30, 2012, demanding the decision of the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (\u201cFISC\u201d) be made available by the DOJ immediately. The lawsuit follows the DOJ\u2019s failure to process the EFF\u2019s Freedom of Information Act Request for documents concerning the FISC\u2019s ruling within the 20-day deadline.
\n\u00a0The FISA Amendments Act of 2008 authorized<\/a> the NSA to secretly observe, without a probable cause warrant, the telephone calls and e-mails of \u201cpersons reasonably believed to be located outside the United States to acquire foreign intelligence information.\u201d The acquisition of this information is subject to targeting and minimization procedures, and is subject to the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. Senator Rob Wyden, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, received national security clearance to make public statements concerning the NSA\u2019s abuses of the FISA Amendments Act in violation of the Constitution. Wyden is suggested<\/a> to have learned of the illegal activity in briefings from the intelligence community.<\/p>\n

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (\u201cEFF\u201d) sued the United States Department of Justice (\u201cDOJ\u201d) on August 30, 2012, demanding the decision of the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (\u201cFISC\u201d) that the NSA conducted illegal e-mail and telephone surveillance in violation of the Fourth Amendment be made available by the DOJ immediately.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0Wyden was permitted to divulge<\/a> that while the FISC \u201chas repeatedly held that collection carried out pursuant to the FISA Section 702 minimization procedures . . . is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment,\u201d it has also held at least once that some collection carried out pursuant to this section is unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment. Wyden also stated, \u201cI believe that the government\u2019s implementation of Section 702 of FISA has sometimes circumvented the spirit of the law, and on at least one occasion the FISA Court has reached this same conclusion.\u201d The details of this occasion are currently a secret, as the decisions of the FISC are \u201cclassified<\/a> because of the sensitive intelligence matters they concern.\u201d The statements divulged by Wyden were declassified because \u201cthe public interest in disclosure outweighs the damage to the national security . . . .\u201d
\n\u00a0The EFF sought<\/a> written opinions and orders from the FISC discussing illegal government surveillance and any corresponding briefings to Congress regarding those activities. In its complaint<\/a>, it describes the records requested as involving questions of the government\u2019s integrity. In light of the fact that FISA will expire on December 31, 2012, unless reauthorized, the EFF believes that the release of this information will play a crucial role in the debate over reauthorizing the legislation.\u00a0 Mark Rumold, an EFF Open Government Legal Fellow, warns<\/a>, \u201cWhen law-breaking is allowed to remain secret, there\u2019s no accountability or way to monitor future abuses. It\u2019s time for the government to come clean and tell use about the NSA\u2019s unconstitutional actions.\u201d
\n\u00a0The battle between national security, government transparency, and individual privacy is in the spotlight once again as the EFF awaits a response from the DOJ.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tuesday, September 4, 2012, by Anne Marie Tosco The public may soon learn the details of the secret court ruling that the National Security Agency (\u201cNSA\u201d) violated the Fourth Amendment when it conducted illegal surveillance of e-mails and telephone calls. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (\u201cEFF\u201d), a non-profit defender of digital rights, sued the United States …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[51],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/957"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=957"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/957\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7706,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/957\/revisions\/7706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}