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Judge dismisses Wikimedia case against NSA over Upstream surveillance

230 pointsby abbe98over 5 years ago

11 comments

post_belowover 5 years ago
From the article: &quot;Judge Ellis said: &quot;For Wikimedia to litigate the standing issue further, and for defendants to defend adequately in any further litigation, would require the disclosure of protected state secrets, namely details about the Upstream surveillance program&#x27;s operations. For the reasons that follow, therefore, the standing issue cannot be tried, or otherwise further litigated, without risking or requiring harmful disclosures of privileged state secrets, an outcome prohibited under binding Supreme Court and Fourth Circuit precedent.&quot;<p>This is why whistleblowers are so important. The &quot;state secrets&quot; firewall means that the public has no ability to police government surveillance.<p>It&#x27;s a frustrating situation because intelligence agencies obviously do need to keep secrets while at the same time they can use this as justification to keep anything they want secret, even when there is no real national security concern with revealing the information.
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javajoshover 5 years ago
Being a fan of lightweight activism, I would like Wikimedia to please publish a list of sensitive articles, so that I can look at them occasionally or, better yet, write a browser extension that simulates looking through them that other people can run.<p>The default state of government is totalitarian dictatorship; democracy is carved out of that rock every time we the people reserve a right for ourselves. Clearly the Judiciary has lost the ability to keep the Executive in check - and no, I don&#x27;t think we need new laws here. The 4th Amendment is clearly being violated for every American.<p>What intelligence is, what warfare is, has changed almost beyond recognition since the founding. Ubiquitous, computer mediated relationships, to an intelligence service, are achingly attractive. And yet, such a capability, which is embedded in the basic marble from which better government is carved, <i>should not be used</i>. I would have thought the 4th Amendment was enough, but clearly it is not.<p>(It is with great sadness I admit that since ~40% of Americans cannot recognize the obvious threat an un-restrained Executive entails, so it seems unlikely that they would recognize this more subtle threat.)
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yellow_leadover 5 years ago
I have been thinking about these types of cases lately. It seems like any proof can be dismissed by three letter agencies with them using their &quot;state secret&quot; card as evidence to the contrary. i.e We have evidence to the contrary but you cannot see it. Darn, guess the case can&#x27;t proceed.
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naringasover 5 years ago
Does doing something seriously evil necessarily imply secrecy?<p>I am thinking it might but I am not exactly sure why I think this.<p>Ae there examples of evil things (known to be evil at their time) done in a widely public way?<p>On the other hand, the converse is not true; this is far more straighforward: something secret is not necessarily evil<p>In any case I have decided that I have to be EXTRA SUPER cautious that I am not complicity engaging in evil behavior whenever someone asks me to keep something secret.<p>I don&#x27;t think that secrecy is quite the same as privacy (not sure as to why), they are just very similar.
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jancsikaover 5 years ago
Ooh, this is a tough one.<p>I was initially going to inquire why someone like Binney, Drake, or Snowden couldn&#x27;t just testify to the fact that they could retrieve results where the source data obviously was not (or could not have been) collected through one of the PRISM partners. But because of Wikipedia&#x27;s general transparency, the gov&#x27;t could just come claim that, say, the IP associated with the edit history was retrieved at the time of the search or something so it doesn&#x27;t prove bulk collection.<p>I guess you&#x27;d have to have a search that returns data clearly not public like the Wikipedia <i>viewing</i> habits associated with a given selector or set of selectors. E.g., something that necessitates having stored the bulk data at a previous point in time.
mindfulgeekover 5 years ago
Why can’t there be an independent party with top secret clearance do a code inspection and see if the hypothetical theory holds water? It seems like there should be a way to testify about it without compromising secrets.
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brokenmachineover 5 years ago
This is how democracy dies. In secret.
lettergramover 5 years ago
Shouldn’t the Supreme Court weigh in on some of this stuff? IMO this is a constitutional issue of the highest magnitude.
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ptahover 5 years ago
Can they not seal the court proceedings instead
kickover 5 years ago
<i>Judge Ellis said: &quot;For Wikimedia to litigate the standing issue further, and for defendants to defend adequately in any further litigation, would require the disclosure of protected state secrets, namely details about the Upstream surveillance program&#x27;s operations. For the reasons that follow, therefore, the standing issue cannot be tried, or otherwise further litigated, without risking or requiring harmful disclosures of privileged state secrets, an outcome prohibited under binding Supreme Court and Fourth Circuit precedent.<p>&quot;Thus, the case must be dismissed, and judgment must be entered in favor of defendants.&quot;</i><p>Ellis is a traitor in the legal sense of the word, and (though it&#x27;s been obvious for a while) the court systems are broken.<p>Formerly, Ellis has similarly sided with the CIA against Khalid El-Masri, a man who was &quot;allegedly&quot; tortured by the CIA, despite being fully aware justice wasn&#x27;t being dealt. To quote him:<p><i>&quot;If El-Masri&#x27;s allegations are true or essentially true, then all fair-minded people, including those who believe that state secrets must be protected, that this lawsuit cannot proceed, and that renditions are a necessary step to take in this war, must also agree that El-Masri has suffered injuries as a result of our country&#x27;s mistake and deserves a remedy.&quot;</i><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.aclu.org&#x2F;press-releases&#x2F;day-court-denied-victim-cia-kidnapping-and-rendition-khaled-el-masri" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.aclu.org&#x2F;press-releases&#x2F;day-court-denied-victim-...</a><p>Given that the Judicial Branch can be considered compromised, the Executive Branch is the one being accused, and the Legislative Branch allowed this to happen to begin with, <i>everyone</i> should act as if the U.S. government is a hostile, compromised actor. Don&#x27;t attack it, but defend yourself.<p>Avoid allowing proprietary software from touching any of your secrets (ideally go for software created by foreigners). Keep your communications safe and encrypted. Standard stuff, but there&#x27;s more of an incentive to use it, now.
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mdszyover 5 years ago
State secrets should not exist.
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