wtop.com posted:NEW YORK (AP) -- Citing the Sept. 11 attacks, a federal judge ruled Friday that the National Security Agency's bulk collection of millions of Americans' telephone records is legal, a valuable tool in the nation's arsenal to fight terrorism that "only works because it collects everything."
U.S. District Judge William Pauley said in a written opinion that the program lets the government connect fragmented and fleeting communications and "represents the government's counter-punch" to the al-Qaida's terror network's use of technology to operate decentralized and plot international terrorist attacks remotely.
"This blunt tool only works because it collects everything," Pauley said. "The collection is broad, but the scope of counterterrorism investigations is unprecedented."
Pauley's decision contrasts with a ruling earlier this month by U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon, who granted a preliminary injunction against the collecting of phone records of two men who had challenged the program. The Washington, D.C. jurist said the program likely violates the U.S. Constitution's ban on unreasonable search. The judge has since stayed the effect of his ruling, pending a government appeal.
Pauley said the mass collection of phone data "significantly increases the NSA's capability to detect the faintest patterns left behind by individuals affiliated with foreign terrorist organizations. Armed with all the metadata, NSA can draw connections it might otherwise never be able to find."
He added: "As the Sept. 11 attacks demonstrate, the cost of missing such a threat can be horrific."
Pauley said the attacks "revealed, in the starkest terms, just how dangerous and interconnected the world is. While Americans depended on technology for the conveniences of modernity, al-Qaida plotted in a seventh-century milieu to use that technology against us. It was a bold jujitsu. And it succeeded because conventional intelligence gathering could not detect diffuse filaments connecting al-Qaida."
The judge said the NSA intercepted seven calls made by one of the Sept. 11 hijackers in San Diego prior to the attacks, but mistakenly concluded that he was overseas because it lacked the kind of information it can now collect.
Still, Pauley said such a program, if unchecked, "imperils the civil liberties of every citizen" and he noted the lively debate about the subject across the nation, in Congress and at the White House.
"The question for this court is whether the government's bulk telephony metadata program is lawful. This court finds it is. But the question of whether that program should be conducted is for the other two coordinate branches of government to decide," he said.
A week ago, President Barack Obama said there may be ways of changing the program so that is has sufficient oversight and transparency.
In ruling, Pauley cited the emergency of the program after 20 hijackers took over four planes in the 2001 attacks, flying two into the twin towers of the World Trade Center, one into the Pentagon and a fourth into a Pennsylvania field as passengers tried to take back the aircraft.
"The government learned from its mistake and adapted to confront a new enemy: a terror network capable of orchestrating attacks across the world. It launched a number of counter-measures, including a bulk telephony metadata collection program -- a wide net that could find and isolate gossamer contacts among suspected terrorists in an ocean of seemingly disconnected data," he said.
Pauley dismissed a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, which promised to appeal to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan.
"We're obviously very disappointed," said Brett Max Kaufman, an attorney with the ACLU's National Security Project. "This mass call tracking program constitutes a serious threat to Americans' privacy and we think Judge Pauley is wrong in concluding otherwise."
Justice Department spokesman Peter Carr said: "We are pleased the court found the NSA's bulk telephony metadata collection program to be lawful."
In arguments before Pauley last month, an ACLU lawyer argued that the government's interpretation of its authority under the Patriot Act was so broad that it could justify the mass collection of financial, health and even library records of innocent Americans without their knowledge, including whether they had used a telephone sex hotline, contemplated suicide, been addicted to gambling or drugs or supported political causes. A government lawyer had countered that counterterrorism investigators wouldn't find most personal information useful.
Pauley said there were safeguards in place, including the fact the NSA cannot query the phone database it collects without legal justification and is limited in how much it can learn. He also noted "the government repudiates any notion that it conducts the type of data mining the ACLU warns about in its parade of horribles."
So many good quotes on this one
Superabound posted:speaking of bulk collection, hows Tom doing these days?
They have knocked down the outer walls and are constructing a lift capable of supporting him its all good news so far
"al-Qaida plotted in a seventh-century milieu to use that technology against us. It was a bold jujitsu. And it succeeded because conventional intelligence gathering could not detect diffuse filaments connecting al-Qaida."
, steampunk connoisseur, D&D poster, lover
I believe it is high time to do away with all of it and hit the reset button.
I am tired as many are in these United States of an unrepresentative government. One which steals my money, one which steals my liberty, one which steals my land, one which spies on my phone calls, emails, every mode of communication I have. This isn't a land of liberty, it is a land of repulsive snakes in power who think the people are nothing more than subservient drones or slaves, consumers who consume products who are incapable of thinking for themselves. We are sick of you and your kind dominating our lives.
You did not protect us from 9-11, you allowed it to happen.
Your security is meaningless to us, you can take your security and shove it. We want our liberty back. As a great man once said, those who sacrifice liberty for security lose both and deserve neither.
I'm personally not scared of terrorists. I believe I am more likely to die from being hit by a lighting bolt than dying from a terrorist. While terrorism is a definite issue, and is not to be taken lightly, I believe I can defend myself pretty well, and if I am to die in a fiery explosion from a terrorist attack, well, I believe I'd rather die from a terrorist attacking me than die from an oppressive government stomping me in the face as in 1984. I would rather die a free man than die an enslaved man.
Stop oppressing the people under the guise of 'saving them.'
What if a soldier overseas is having phone sex with his wife? Should that be listened in on by the government? According to you oppressive judges it should. They collect more than just 'metadata.' They can record conversations on the telephone as well. You people should be ashamed of yourselves. You empower the terrorists by legitimizing them as a threat. But just how many times has the United States been attacked on our own soil by terrorists? It truly isn't that often. I am not downplaying those who have died. By no means. It is a tragedy and a deep sadness that will never fully heal when people are senselessly murdered. But you people in government must understand, you aren't doing a very good job of protecting us, and instead YOU are becoming the terrorists. As a matter of fact, over the years it has been shown that our government has actually *SPONSORED* the terrorists as in the mujahideen in Afghanistan which ultimately morphed into (or perhaps sectioned off into) Al Qaeda.
You are destroying our lives and our freedom. Stop it. The people are getting fed up with your shit.
