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Clapper v. Amnesty International: The case below

Even though they couldn't prove they were being surveilled, all of the plaintiffs argued that they were likely interacting with persons and groups outside the country who were being wiretapped—foreign sources for reporters, activists, and defendants in court cases. They argued they were getting wrapped up in an expanding government initiative of foreign and domestic data collection, and their due-process rights were being violated.

They lost their case in New York district court when a federal judge said they didn't have standing to sue because they couldn't prove they were personally being surveilled. They had nothing more than an "abstract fear that their communications will be monitored" under the new law, wrote the judge.

That order was overturned by a New York federal appeals court, which held that the groups were indeed being injured and should be allowed to sue. They had to take (costly) extra steps to avoid surveillance, and their fear that government agents were listening to them was not "fanciful, paranoid or otherwise unreasonable." It was "extremely likely" that the government would indeed "undertake broad-based surveillance" under the new law, and the advocacy and media groups had "good reason to believe that their communications" would be intercepted, said the appeals panel. The government didn't dispute the fact that those groups were communicating with "likely targets" of surveillance under the new law.

The Court's opinion attacks the group's two main theories supporting their right to sue.

First, there's doubt about whether any surveillance of these groups will take place at all. "It is speculative whether the Government will imminently target communications to which respondents are parties," he states.

"Accordingly, it is no surprise that respondents fail to offer any evidence that their communications have been monitored under §1881a, a failure that substantially undermines their standing theory."

The groups believe the government will target "their foreign contacts," but even that belief is speculative, he notes. "Respondents have no actual knowledge of the Government's... targeting practices." The opinion quotes statements from journalist Christopher Hedges, Scott McKay (an Idaho lawyer who successfully defended a Saudi national against terrorism charges), and previously represented Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the highest-profile detainee at Guantanamo. The journalist and lawyer state that because of the FISA Amendments Act, they have been forced to operate under the assumption that their communications are being monitored.

But because the plaintiffs "have set forth no specific facts demonstrating" their foreign contacts will be monitored, their argument fails. Even if the government did try to get their communications, they have no idea whether the FISA court would authorize that surveillance, the opinion states. Thus, the plaintiffs' theory rests of a "speculative chain of possibilities" that don't establish any impending injury.

As to the costs and burdens of avoiding potential surveillance, the Court is dismissive. "Respondents cannot manufacture standing merely by inflicting harm on themselves based on their fears of hypothetical future harm that is not certainly impending," the Court writes.

they can finagle a way to catch you doing something illegal in a way that they CAN legally surveill, and then they can put you away it Gitmo or target you for assassination.

I read somewhere that..............

All international phone calls are monitored by the National Security Agency which has computers that catch certain key words. Without this activity it would be much harder to watch for terrorists.
Might be a reason we haven't seen car bombings of our schools killing hundreds of kids at a time etc etc etc.

I have no objections to that.

I don't believe that US Citizens can be confined to GITMO, but if the government does it secretly who would know.

Seriously many US Citizens are secretly surveiled every day. If you work in any job that requires a Security Clearance someone (probably several someones) are watching you. The same can be true if you work with or control the movement of cash, someone is watching you.....and so on.

. I don't think at this point we'll see targetting American citizens on American soil for assassination, either.

But people buy into that as a condition of employment.

I believe that.........

Evidence acquired in an investigation for which there was no grounds for an investigation can't be used in court.

Is that right?

Any lawyers out there?

There is no such thing as privacy today and there never again will be

I doubt if there is ever such thing as privacy. As long as someone has access to sensitive information, or the capacity to access it, authorities throughout history I believe have sought a way to have them and what they know and do on their radar.

I don't think either of you Bobs is worth watching, at least based on your descriptions. Nobody in the government is worried about you guys.

Yet.

Give it 20 years.

But we may be worried about them.

Seriously it all about information. I worked around the intelligence community for awhile and they just acquire and store so much info, the government just keeps gathering and storing.

The best theory about what the NSA's doing with their sniffing on the Internet is that they're capturing the data, tagging it with an IP or whatever identifying information they can get from it, encrypting the capture, and storing it. They can't look at it without a warrant, because that would be wiretapping, but they will then go get a warrant if someone from that IP address DOES do something illegal or comes under investigation, and then they can open the encrypted container.

I don't think either of you Bobs is worth watching, at least based on your descriptions. Nobody in the government is worried about you guys.

Yet.

Give it 20 years.

Seems like capturing the data in the first place is wiretapping whether or not a human being has examined it or not.

The "evidence" is already there.
Perhaps somebody is arrested for jaywalking and somebody at NSA notices that the person's telephone number is tagged "suspicious" by the NSA computers. So somebody looks at this guy's NSA files and, voila! we got him on international trafficking of stolen cars.