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Obama lawyers asked secret court to ignore public court's decision on spying

Isn't that nice?  (sarcasm alert)


 The Obama administration has asked a secret surveillance court to ignore a federal court that found bulk surveillance illegal and to once again grant the National Security Agency the power to collect the phone records of millions of Americans for six months.

The legal request, filed nearly four hours after Barack Obama vowed to sign a new law banning precisely the bulk collection he asks the secret court to approve, also suggests that the administration may not necessarily comply with any potential court order demanding that the collection stop.

 US officials confirmed last week that they would ask the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court – better known as the Fisa court, a panel that meets in secret as a step in the surveillance process and thus far has only ever had the government argue before it – to turn the domestic bulk collection spigot back on.

Justice Department national security chief John A Carlin cited a six-month transition period provided in the USA Freedom Act – passed by the Senate last week to ban the bulk collection – as a reason to permit an "orderly transition" of the NSA's domestic dragnet. Carlin did not address whether the transition clause of the Freedom Act still applies now that a congressional deadlock meant the program shut down on 31 May.

But Carlin asked the Fisa court to set aside a landmark declaration by the second circuit court of appeals. Decided on 7 May, the appeals court ruled that the government had erroneously interpreted the Patriot Act's authorization of data collection as "relevant" to an ongoing investigation to permit bulk collection.

Carlin, in his filing, wrote that the Patriot Act provision remained "in effect" during the transition period.

 "This court may certainly consider ACLU v Clapper as part of its evaluation of the government's application, but second circuit rulings do not constitute controlling precedent for this court," Carlin wrote in the 2 June application. Instead, the government asked the court to rely on its own body of once-secret precedent stretching back to 2006, which Carlin called "the better interpretation of the statute".

The second circuit court of appeals is supposed to bind only the circuit's lower courts. But the unique nature of the Fisa court – whose rulings practically never became public before whistleblower Edward Snowden's revelations – has left ambiguous which public court precedents it is obliged to follow.

"While the Fisa court isn't formally bound by the second circuit's ruling, it will certainly have to grapple with the second circuit's interpretation of the 'relevance' requirement. The [court] will also have to consider whether Congress effectively adopted the second circuit's interpretation of the relevance requirement when it passed the USA Freedom Act," said Jameel Jaffer, the deputy legal director of the ACLU, which brought the lawsuit the second circuit decided.

The second circuit did not issue an injunction stopping the bulk collection. It deferred to the then-ongoing congressional debate over the USA Freedom Act, citing legislation as the more appropriate mode of relief. The ACLU, now confronting a potential return of bulk surveillance via the Fisa court, is considering seeking an injunction in the appropriate federal district court should the Fisa Court grant the government surveillance request.

Yet Carlin's request to the Fisa court suggested the Obama administration would not consider the second circuit the last word – and might seek to challenge the injunction.

Carlin told the Fisa court that the government was "considering its litigation options in regard to the second circuit's opinion", which would have to mean a challenge before the US supreme court.

Carlin added in a footnote: "In the event an injunction of some sort were to issue by the district court, the government would need to assess, in light of the nature and scope of whatever injunction the district court issued, its ability to carry out authority granted under an order issued by this court."

But the Fisa court must first decide whether the new bulk-surveillance request is lawful.

On Friday, the conservative group FreedomWorks filed a rare motion before the Fisa court, asking it to reject the government's surveillance request as a violation of the fourth amendment's prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures. Fisa court judge Michael Moseman gave the justice department until this coming Friday to respond – and explicitly barred the government from arguing that FreedomWorks lacks the standing to petition the secret court.

"The only federal appeals court to have considered this surveillance concluded, after very careful analysis, that it's unlawful. It's disturbing and disappointing that the government is proposing to continue it," said Jaffer, of the ACLU.

 http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/09/obama-fisa-court-surveillance-phone-records

Re: Black Man Tries To Help His Community. Here’s What They Did To Him : B. Christopher Agee

Can't help people that are content in their squallor and told by their chosen peers that it is okay to live like that.

Re: Is your house cleaner?

Yes, and I have saved a small fortune on toilet paper to boot!!!

Re: Hey my friends ......how is everybody , have you found your friends , are you finding your way around Zangle , are ya missing your friends

I'm on FB, here and a couple others and have located many that I actually conversed with regularly one place or another. SH shot itself in the foot and hopefully it won't survive.

John Mack standing by Hillary Clinton

Mopvyzo USA

Today in History

Today is Tuesday, June 9, the 160th day of 2015. There are 205 days left in the year.
On June 9, A.D. 68, Roman Emperor Nero committed suicide, ending a 13-year reign.
1870
author Charles Dickens died in Gad's Hill Place, England.
1911
Carrie (sometimes spelled "Carry") A. Nation, the hatchet-wielding temperance crusader, died in Leavenworth, Kansas, at age 64.
1915
guitarist, songwriter and inventor Les Paul was born in Waukesha, Wisconsin.
1934
the first Walt Disney animated cartoon featuring Donald Duck, "The Wise Little Hen," was released.
1940
during World War II, Norway decided to surrender to the Nazis, effective at midnight.
1943
the federal government began withholding income tax from paychecks.
1953
94 people died when a tornado struck Worcester (WU'-stur), Massachusetts.
1954
during the Senate-Army Hearings, Army special counsel Joseph N. Welch famously berated Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy, R-Wis., asking McCarthy: "Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"
1969
the Senate confirmed Warren Burger to be the new chief justice of the United States, succeeding Earl Warren.
1973
Secretariat won the Belmont Stakes, becoming horse racing's first Triple Crown winner in 25 years.
1985
American educator Thomas Sutherland was kidnapped in Lebanon by members of Islamic Jihad; he was released in November 1991 along with fellow hostage Terry Waite.
1994
a fire destroyed the Georgia mansion of Atlanta Falcons receiver Andre Rison; his girlfriend, rap singer Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes, admitted causing the blaze after a fight, and was later sentenced to probation.
Ten years ago:
President George W. Bush defended the USA Patriot Act, saying it had made America safer and should be made permanent. Italian aid worker Clementina Cantoni was freed after having been held hostage more than three weeks in Afghanistan.
Five years ago:
The U.S. and its allies scored a long-sought victory by pushing through new U.N. sanctions over Iran's nuclear program, punishments Tehran dismissed as "annoying flies." The Chicago Blackhawks won their first Stanley Cup in 49 years, as Patrick Kane's overtime goal delivered a 4-3 win over the Philadelphia Flyers in Game 6.
One year ago:
In a wide-ranging review, the Veterans Affairs Department said more than 57,000 U.S. military veterans had been waiting 90 days or more for their first VA medical appointments, and an additional 64,000 appeared to have fallen through the cracks, never getting appointments after enrolling and requesting them. Five American special operations troops were killed by a U.S. airstrike called in to help them after they were ambushed by the Taliban in southern Afghanistan. British comedian Rik Mayall, 56, died in London.
Today's Birthdays:
Comedian Jackie Mason is 87. Media analyst Marvin Kalb is 85. Actor Joe Santos is 84. Former baseball manager and player Bill Virdon is 84. Sports commentator Dick Vitale is 76. Author Letty Cottin Pogrebin is 76. Retired MLB All-Star Dave Parker is 64. Film composer James Newton Howard ("The Hunger Games" films) is 64. Mystery author Patricia Cornwell is 59. Actor Michael J. Fox is 54. Writer-producer Aaron Sorkin is 54. Actor Johnny Depp is 52. Actress Gloria Reuben is 51. Gospel singer-actress Tamela Mann is 49. Rock musician Dean Felber (Hootie & the Blowfish) is 48. Rock musician Dean Dinning is 48. Musician Ed Simons is 45. Country musician Shade Deggs (Cole Deggs and the Lonesome) is 41. Bluegrass singer-musician Jamie Dailey (Dailey & Vincent) is 40. Actress Michaela Conlin is 37. Actress Natalie Portman is 34. Actress Mae Whitman is 27.
Thought for Today:
"It's innocence when it charms us, ignorance when it doesn't." — Mignon McLaughlin, American journalist (1913-1983).      http://www.the-daily-record.com/latest%20headlines/2015/06/09/today-in-history

Governor Malloy endorses Hillary Clinton for president

Mopvyzo USA

Laws That Undermine Free Speech : Scott Greer -

"Congress shall make no law...prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech." That's the U.S. Constitution explicitly stating a citizen's right to free speech in its First Amendment. Unfortunately, the state of Montana is apparently unaware of this and is seeking to prosecute a Flathead County man for the crime of hate speech. Last week, the popular Washington Post legal blogger and UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh reported about the disturbing Montana case and explained the state's rationale for prosecuting 28-year-old David Lenio, a man charged with defaming Jewish people. According to Volokh, Montana's defamation laws are broader than most states' statutes when it comes to the issue of malicious speech. Unlike the typical statute that limits defamation to false assertions about a particular person, Montana's law includes "false opinions" and extends the definition to disparaged ""group[s], class[es], or association[s]."                                                                                       http://dailycaller.com/2015/06/08/hate-speech-laws-have-no-place-in-america/

Black Man Tries To Help His Community. Here’s What They Did To Him : B. Christopher Agee

A bloodied, emotional Ronald Moon Jr. addressed his attackers, his community and his nation in a video recently uploaded to LiveLeak. He explained that he has been in the same Cincinnati neighborhood for the majority of his life, noting he has been working on turning his own home into a community center.

Despite the fact that it has been burglarized several times, Moon said he has nonetheless been "putting in hours and hour and hours" of work to restore the residence.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         "And today I came across the people that have been breaking in there," he said. "This is what they did to me."

He then showed several lacerations and contusions in addition to the injuries to his face that were obvious from the video's beginning.  Video at : http://www.westernjournalism.com/watch-black-man-tries-to-help-his-community-heres-what-they-did-to-him/?utm_campaign=54ebe14371e7fc692400399a&utm_source=BoomTrain&utm_medium=email&utm_content=recommended&bt_alias=eyJ1c2VySWQiOiIzYTBhMjU0YS1kMjM1LTQzNTctYjFiZi05YzBiNzk1Y2JjZDAifQ%3D%3D

"I want to do something good for my people," he said as tears streamed down his face. "I'm tired of struggling. I'm sick of it."   http://www.westernjournalism.com/watch-black-man-tries-to-help-his-community-heres-what-they-did-to-him/?utm_campaign=54ebe14371e7fc692400399a&utm_source=BoomTrain&utm_medium=email&utm_content=recommended&bt_alias=eyJ1c2VySWQiOiIzYTBhMjU0YS1kMjM1LTQzNTctYjFiZi05YzBiNzk1Y2JjZDAifQ%3D%3D

A Syrian Group Just Hacked The U.S. Army Website And Left This Mysterious Message : Randy DeSoto

A group affiliated with the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad took responsibility Monday for hacking the U.S. Army's public website and forcing it offline.  The group has breached other military and media websites in the past.                                                                                                                                                                                                                           The Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) sent multiple tweets out Monday with screenshots from images it posted to the Army.mil website. 

One popup message on Army.mil read: "Your commanders admit they are training the people they have sent you to die fighting."

The message references a training program, which Western Journalism reported about last week, for moderate fighters who pledge to back ISIS, many of whom also oppose the Assad regime. The United States military has avoided any direct confrontation with the dictator in the 10 months since American airstrikes began against ISIS targets in Syria.   http://www.westernjournalism.com/1000-rebels-to-quit-fighting-isis-heres-why-the-obama-admin-is-to-blame/                                                                                                                                                                                                       The U.S. Army confirmed the hacking of its website on Monday. "Today an element of the Army.mil service provider's content was compromised," explained Army Brig. Gen. Malcolm B.Frost. "After this came to our attention, the Army took appropriate preventive measures to ensure there was no breach of Army data by taking down the website temporarily."    http://www.cbsnews.com/news/syrian-group-claims-responsibility-for-hack-of-u-s-army-website/

The SEA began tweeting images from the hacked website at 1pm; and at approximately 3pm, the Army took the website down.

SEA has claimed responsibility in the past for breaching military sites and others including the U.S. Army Central Command's Twitter account last year, as well as the Washington Post's mobile site earlier this year. In 2013, the group caused a momentary stock market panic when it hacked the Associated Press' Twitter account and announced the White House had been attacked.     http://www.westernjournalism.com/a-syrian-group-just-hacked-the-u-s-army-website-and-left-this-mysterious-message/?utm_campaign=54ebe14371e7fc692400399a&utm_source=BoomTrain&utm_medium=email&utm_content=recommended&bt_alias=eyJ1c2VySWQiOiIzYTBhMjU0YS1kMjM1LTQzNTctYjFiZi05YzBiNzk1Y2JjZDAifQ%3D%3D