Would you approve a person who you do not know combing through your financial records? Or how about your internet and phone history? Well, as of November 2015 it is now legal for NSA comb through ALL of your private data without a warrant or even probable cause. Previously, this was all done in the shadows, but again in November, it all became legal.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) unsealed the ruling for November 2015 just this week. The FISC hearing confirms that the NSA is allowed to use its warrantless spying on general criminal investigations. There are no requirements that the use must be for a serious crime or even in the event of relating to National Security, it instead allows the use in ANY criminal case.
These practices do not comply with the 4th Amendment. However, in recent years, the rights of Americans are dwindling because no one seems to care if a perverted NSA agent checks out your son or daughters’ private photo albums, or accesses your webcam while no one is on the computer, or even paying attention. No one seems to care until it bothers them on a personal level. However, it is on a personal level.
If there is an inkling of a query that a person is involved with a crime, they may be then subject to warrantless spying; however is that where it stops? Should you throw all of that trust at the government? Right, because the United States government has a spotless record of not committing crimes against humanity.
The court questioned whether it’s constitutional for the FBI to query NSA intelligence databases to find information to use against Americans in regular criminal investigations unrelated to national security. Government lawyers suggested that “targeting” and “minimization” procedures erase the harm that surveillance causes to Fourth Amendment principles, though we’ve explained why those procedures impose inadequate limits and allow unconstitutional spying to continue. We’re also reminded of Justice Roberts’ recent observation: “the Founders did not fight a revolution to gain the right to government agency protocols.”
Nevertheless, the FISC court decided that, instead of determining whether the Fourth Amendment was violated by the specific use of NSA collected information against particular Americans in criminal investigations, it only had to determine whether the program “as a whole” violated the Fourth Amendment. To do that, it perverted a prior case decided by the FISA appeals court, called the FISCR.
That case, In Re Directives [.pdf], upheld national security surveillance as a “special need” not subject to the Fourth Amendment’s normal warrant requirement, and reasonable specifically because this surveillance was not used for “garden-variety law enforcement.” While we disagree with the In Re Directives case, it plainly rested its analysis on when “surveillance is conducted to obtain foreign intelligence for national security purposes.”
What the people need to realize is that not too long ago the BIG DEAL about the warrantless spying, was over whether it was okay for the government to spy on certain individuals as long as it was about National Security. Now, in just a couple of years, the court case was over whether or not it is okay just to use the collated data on potential criminals. You watch, in an even shorter amount of time, it will be LEGAL for the NSA to spy and capture data on ANY American.
Take Note; and understand that the NSA ALREADY HAS THE DATA on every single American, again; the case is whether or not it is admissible in a legal court. Which as of November it is now legal for the NSA to share data with any governmental police force.
Hello Martial Law, and preemptive thought crimes here comes the blinded by personal issues populace of the USA.