A US judge’s ruling against the NSA is a big win for Edward Snowden

http://qz.com/545978/a-federal-judges-ruling-against-the-nsa-is-a-big-win-for-edward-snowden/

by prostoalex • 11 years ago

123 27 11 years ago

Calling this ruling a "big win" is rather hyperbolic. As the article admits, the scope is extremely narrow and applies to only one law firm, as well as the fact that the program will (supposedly) changed in the coming months. Besides, a federal judge already found the program itself unconstitutional and we can all see how much that changed things.

Laws can change, as can public opinion. In the grand scheme of things, I can't tell how this changes anything at all.

giaour• 11 years ago

As the article points out, having to exclude communications for that one law firm night very well require sitting the whole thing down.

Also, there's now a precedent for others to sue and get their communications excluded.

olympus• 11 years ago

From previous experience, having to exclude communications from a single entity (or single type of entity) is not going to shut anything down.

Case in point: It is unconstitutional to conduct surveillance on US citizens without a warrant. Therefore the NSA's massive collection machine must exclude every single American, right? Wrong. What they did instead was implement a filter where the accuracy of excluding a US citizen is greater than 50%. So if your exclusion rate is only 60% you "accidentally" catch 40% of US citizens in your surveillance net, but you have met the requirements.

Similarly in this case if surveillance must exclude communications from a single law firm then they only have to implement a filter where they are more likely to exclude the communications than they are to catch them. "Accidentally" catching their communications would still be allowed since the filter would be meeting the requirements.

ChuckMcM• 11 years ago

In the context of the larger conversation around what the NSA can and cannot do, it is fairly huge because one part of the government is on the record of restraining another part. This is how the Supreme Court tells the NSA that they better clean up their act or the judicial branch will start unilaterally taking away powers they think they have but don't.

It is also another brick in the wall which shows the government defense of its actions and that Snowden was a traitor (as opposed to a whistle blower) no doubt hinge on the assertion that what the NSA was doing (and was disclosed by Snowden) was legal. That is the bigger conversation that is going on here and so one which Snowden is quite invested.

If he ever hopes to return to the US, he has to make an iron clad case that he was a "whistle blower" [1] and not just violating his security clearance. To do that, as I understand it, he needs to prove three things. 1) The activity he was reporting was illegal (as opposed to just something he felt was immoral), 2) that reporting it through channels was likely to be unsuccessful in actually revealing the information, and 3) that was not enriched as a result of his actions.

When you try to make that case against the worlds most powerful intelligence agency you cannot do so with simple evidentiary rules. So I see a number of cases and efforts which are putting into the judicial record decisions like this one where the NSA's activity is called out as illegal before Snowden steps foot back on US soil and gets arrested for treason.

[1] Important note, I'm not a lawyer, 99% of the whistleblower information is about securities fraud or OSHA safety issues, not constitutional violators. It's not entirely clear that there is a whistleblower type protection for what Snowden did.

swombat• 11 years ago

I read the whole judgement and it felt very positive to me. It seems like the effect that "separation of powers" should have - namely that the executive now has the choice only to either comply or to enter into a protracted battle with the judiciary, where they're going to piss off every judge all the way up to the Supreme Court. I would hope that if the executive ignored the decision of this judge, for example, the net effect would be to turn the whole judiciary against them on this matter.

Eventually the executive ends up faced with a choice to either drop the pretence of democracy (as democracy is not in line with the actions they claim to need to do) or to change their ways.

One can hope...

PaulAJ• 11 years ago

Does this mean that any other US citizen could file essentially the same case with their local court? Even if only some of them succeed, it would mean that the NSA is legally required to manage a long list of individual exclusions, and that might help to gum up the works as well as forcing a proper resolution of the issue.

MrZongle2• 11 years ago

I doubt that Snowden will be able to return to the United States and receive fair treatment until after the current administration, and its successor have left power. Possibly not until all the top and secondary positions within the DOJ and intelligence agencies have switched hands a couple of times.

mikeash• 11 years ago

It'll require a huge shift in the political landscape. I suspect that if we see him coming back at all, it'll be as a humanitarian gesture when he's dying of some disease in his 70s or 80s.

ogezi2• 11 years ago

What Snowden did was quite bold. it's truly a pity that he can't return to the US.

ogezi2• 11 years ago

What Snowden did was quite bold. it's truly a pity that he can't return to the US. I hope to see more people like him and more judges like this one.

dogma11382• 11 years ago

How is this a win for Snowden? They can deem the entire program illegal, disband the NSA and put everyone in charge in prison for violating US law and it still won't help Snowden get back into the US without cuffs.

Unless it's an executive pardon or a statement from the attorney general exempting Snowden from prosecution this isn't a win for Snowden.

In any case there might be an interesting development as it might turn into a catch 22 for the NSA if they'll claim that it's technically unfeasible for them to filter out their collection based solely on specific individuals/organizations (which is probably technically correct) it can open a whole new can worms for them (since they've claimed that the collection is targeted and ensures that certain parameters are met (other than it's a phone call, email, skype call or 1 or more person(s) talking in range of a microphone they can jack into)). If they'll find a way to comply well they might be flooded by similar law suits, and even FOIA requests from individuals and organizations about if and when any data about them was collected.

On the other side of the coin this might come to bite us in the arse if the NSA makes a case that to comply with this ruling they'll have to perform in-depth analysis of every communication they collect to ensure that no phone call data is being collected which might involve J.J. Little, especially if VOIP communications fall under this jurisdiction and ofc they can later claim that any intelligence gathered from that analysis is lawful and actionable/admissible because it was gathered in the course of achieving compliance with a court order.

Dear Citizens,

In order to comply with Civil Action No. 13-851 Klayman et al. v Obama et al. we now need to transcribe all domestic and international calls conducted from and to the continental united states, the pacific states as well as any incorporated and unincorporated territories and any commercial fleet vessels sailing under the US flag in order to ensure that the call does not contain any information, data or reference to J.J. Little & Associates, P.C. or it's clients.

Sincerely the NSA.

jonknee3• 11 years ago

How is this a win for Snowden? They can deem the entire program illegal, disband the NSA and put everyone in charge in prison for violating US law and it still won't help Snowden get back into the US without cuffs.

It's good for Snowden because it means he really was a whistle blower. Things can still be good for him even though he's not back at home.

tptacek3• 11 years ago

Are there serious opponents of Snowden that deny that he was in some real sense a whistleblower? The problem Snowden's critics have is that he wasn't just a whistleblower.

dogma11382• 11 years ago

The guy is in Russia most likely under quite quite strict supervision, he can't really go any where without looking over his shoulder and jumping at every shadow, and no matter what he is still a wanted criminal by the most powerful nation on the planet.

This isn't a win for him, he might be pleased with the outcome that a judge has sided with a plea for a target specific injunction but it doesn't really bring him any closer to being able to live a normal life.

Even if it comes to the point in which he wont fear being targeted for either an extradition, rendition or an ol' plain hit by one of the alphabet soup agencies of the US considering that in many cases he admitted that he has a cache of documents hidden somewhere as an insurance allot of which were never released the the press or to the public unredacted he isn't just a target for US intelligence and Law Enforcement organizations he is a target of virtually every intelligence organization out there who would love to get their hands on unredacted NSA documents as well as any potentially actionable intelligence Snowden might have in his head.

And heck even if he some how manages to come back to the US under a full pardon or a no prosecution agreement of some sort he won't really be able to live a normal life for the next few decades until every bit of the information he may or may not have is no longer relevant.

rakoo• 11 years ago

How is this a win for Snowden? They can deem the entire program illegal, disband the NSA and put everyone in charge in prison for violating US law and it still won't help Snowden get back into the US without cuffs.

It's a win for Snowden because the game is not and has never been whether Snowden is innocent or safe, but whether Snowden was right that bulk collection of phone records is unlawful. Until a judge said what it was, it was still disputed, now if a judge actually declares this program unlawful nobody can say he was wrong, and we can formally advance the state we're in.

ck2• 11 years ago

Given the BS Hillary is saying about him, he will not be safe for at least another decade.

I hope no-one ever convinces him it is a good idea to come back here and just go on trial, they will railroad him right to solitary for the rest of his life.

dang• 11 years ago

This doesn't add significant new information over https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10536683, so it counts as a duplicate.

A US judge’s ruling against the NSA is a big win for Edward Snowden

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