flacaltenn
Diamond Member
Court upholds warrantless surveillance of U.S. citizens under Section 702
The U.S. federal appeals court has ruled in United States v. Mohamud, a case that began with a 2010 holiday bomb plot and will end with unique implications for the private digital communications of American citizens.
Let's just accept this and give up some more of our privacy, why lets just live in a glass house and tell the world everything we do. Oh wait we already do. But the trendy's need to feel safe and secure.
I'm just as concerned about abuses of Sect 702 as you are. Maybe more, because I have an appreciation of what the NSA can do. BUT --- there were loopholes in that this kid was a FOREIGN NATIONAL student whose communications were intercepted first on INTERNATIONAL traffic and NOT purely domestic surveillance within the US.
It's important because it's one of the only cases VERIFIED where 702 was actually used for collection. But the collection was on a suspect non-citizen with probably good cause for tapping him..
From the article..
“Although § 702 potentially raises complex statutory and constitutional issues, this case does not. As explained [in the opinion], the initial collection of Mohamud’s email communications did not involve so-called “upstreaming” or targeting of Mohamud under § 702, more controversial methods of collecting information. It also did not involve the retention and querying of incidentally collected communications. All this case involved was the targeting of a foreign national under § 702, through which Mohamud’s email communications were incidentally collected. Confined to the particular facts of this case, we hold that the § 702 acquisition of Mohamud’s email communications did not violate the Fourth Amendment.”