A U.S. spying program that collects data about millions of Americans' phone calls is illegal, a federal appeals court ruled on Thursday, adding pressure on lawmakers to decide quickly whether to end or replace the program, which was intended to help fight terrorism.I remain unconvinced that the NSA would bother to follow the law. Even if Congress were to limit Section 215 phone collections and even if the courts were to rule that the NSA's mass-monitoring is unconstitutional, I see no way that would be enforceable.
It would take another Ed Snowden to leak the program. Jimmy the Perjurer and others were very comfortably denying what the NSA did until Snowden leaked it. The NSA will probably bet that another Snowden won't happen anytime soon. So they'll keep on doing what they want to do because they're effectively an extra-legal operation to begin with.
Because most stuff involving the NSA goes to the FISA Court and we all know the outcome there:
UPDATE: The ACLU has a list of reasons why this decision matters. Isn't just adorable how they believe that the various TLAs would ever give a fuck what a court says?
Doesn't the US government do what it wants anyway? No question with me.
ReplyDeleteOf course it will continue as it has.
w3ski
Everyone involved knew this was illegal. They didn't care then, why would they care now? They might change the name of the program and pretend it was shut down or something, but no way to they actually stop.
ReplyDeleteThere are no consequence for them even if they are caught. The only people who face any punishment are whistleblowers whi expose the illegal activity.