Supreme Court Won't Hear Case On Legality Of Retroactive Immunity For Telcos
from the another-brick-in-the-wall dept
Well, this is unfortunate. Late last year, the 9th Circuit appeals court -- as part of a series of cases concerning warrantless spying on Americans -- decided that the FISA Amendments Act (FAA) passed by Congress in 2008 was not unconstitutional in granting telcos retroactive immunity for carrying out government orders to spy on Americans. This is quite troubling for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that the government is more or less admitting that it teamed up with telcos to violate the law. Why else would you grant retroactive immunity to telcos if you didn't know they'd already broken the law in the past.Unfortunately, it appears that the Supreme Court has now refused to hear the appeal on the case, effectively killing off the EFF and ACLU's legal challenge to the legality of giving telcos retroactive immunity.
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Filed Under: 4th amendment, immunity, retroactive immunity, supreme court, telcos, warrantless wiretaps
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Yes we are heading quickly into the waters of the real 1984.
Wake me up when the Revolution Starts.
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Having the 'will' to do it is another matter unfortunately.
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"Me."
"...And who watches you?"
"I do. All the time."
Sir Terry Pratchett, Thud!
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*sigh*
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They know where their power and pay come from...
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oh looky there! a circus ! ! !
ain't that interestin'...
oh, and
MOTHERFUCKING EAGLES, bitchez ! ! !
art guerrilla
aka ann archy
eof
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Hearing this case would be tantamount to the US government admitting that they were once so scared of a small bunch of hillbillies that they ran roughshod over the rights of every single american.
I imagine the Supremes looked at each other and said "Let's not stick our dicks in this particular hornets' nest."
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Supreme Court of the United States
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Re: Supreme Court of the United States
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Nice court system, is there a court system that protects citizens rights around anywhere?
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Prosecutors grant immunity all the time to people in criminal cases, including murder cases, to get the biggest criminal off the street. Often there's no other way to get such people to testify because they refuse to take a plea deal, and even if found guilty in court they'll still refuse to talk because talking and saying "yeah I stole $10,000 from this guy I saw that other guy brutally murder" could ruin all hope of them winning an appeal.
How can you grand immunity in such a situation that ISN'T retroactive? You don't just go up to a prosecutor and say "I'd like to rob some people, but I think my partners are going to murder my robbing victims, so if you give me immunity for robbery I'll speak against my partners in court for the crime of murder".
Undercover police agents don't get immunity, because they record everything they do for the purpose of catching a criminal, they don't break the laws.
That said, giving the telcos immunity doesn't farther the conviction of any law breaker, it just stifles everyone else's right to privacy.
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It's WAY bigger than that. Giving the telcos immunity sets a dangerous precedent: it tells powerful corporations who are not restrained by the Constitution that they can break the law freely without regards to consequences when the government asks them to.
This effectively lets the the government use corporations as proxies, giving it power unfettered by the Constitution. Not just about privacy issues, but about all issues.
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Government
Essentially trial by jury against public officials. No illegal activity required, just a democratic vote of the citizens to say "I don't like what they're doing".
My main point is there needs to be a punishment worse than "we won't vote for you again".
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I'm shocked.
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