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Paul Merrell

Deferential D.C. Circuit Upholds Genital Searches at Guantánamo | Just Security - 0 views

justsecurity.org/...ds-genital-searches-guantanamo

war & peace Gitmo-detainees genital-searches litigation

shared by Paul Merrell on 05 Aug 14 - No Cached
  • I’ve written before about the potential significance of the Guantánamo “counsel access” case–Hatim v. Obama–which raised the question of whether new and especially invasive search procedures at Guantánamo were invalid insofar as they interfered with the detainees’ right of access to counsel. Today, a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit upheld the procedures, while claiming to duck the far larger and more important constitutional question the district court had reached, i.e., whether the right of access to counsel in these cases is protected by the Suspension Clause. In the process, the court of Appeals held that the deferential Turner v. Safley test does apply to challenges to conditions of confinement at Guantánamo–a very big win for the government, and a big setback for the detainees.
  • Paul Merrell on 05 Aug 14
     
    So according to a D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals panel of three judges, if a Gitmo detainee wants to speak with his lawyer, even by telephone, it's okay to search his genitals, before and after the conversation, to prevent smuggling of contraband. This one is begging for reconsideration by all judges in the Circuit, and if upheld, by the Supreme Court.
Paul Merrell

Is the Government's Aerial Smartphone Surveillance Program Legal? | TIME - 0 views

time.com/...government-aerial-surveillance

surveillance-state DoJ aerial-stingrays location-data

shared by Paul Merrell on 18 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • Still, is the Justice Department’s airborne dragnet program legal? The answer is “maybe.” Federal authorities have employed similar tools in the past. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is known to use a surveillance tool called a “stingray,” a portable transceiver that tricks cell phones within a certain area into relaying their locations, not unlike the equipment onboard the Marshals’ aircraft. A government vehicle with a stingray can net hundreds of nearby cell phones’ approximate locations just by driving through a typical neighborhood. The government has said it doesn’t need a probable cause warrant to use stingrays because investigators don’t collect the content of phone calls, just the locations of those phones. Government officials, meanwhile, have said they get court approval to use the devices. Much of the government’s warrantless use of stingray-style technology hinges on a 1979 Supreme court decision titled Smith v. Maryland. Smith involved law enforcement’s use of a device called a pen register that, when attached to a suspect’s phone line, recorded the numbers of outgoing calls, but not the calls themselves. The Smith decision upheld the warrantless use of such devices because the suspect’s phone company would record the same data picked up by the pen register, and therefore the suspect had no reasonable expectation of privacy when it came to that information. Currently, the law requires a court to approve the use of a pen register, but investigators only have to show that the device’s use is “relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation,” a much weaker standard than a probable cause warrant requires.
  • However, to get back to the Smith decision, wireless carriers do store your location history for several months to several years, information they obtain by keeping a record of the cell towers to which your device connects as you move from place to place. That could mean Americans don’t have a reasonable expectation of privacy over their location data and the Smith precedent applies, making the DoJ’s aerial surveillance program legal. Still, that would be a matter for the courts to decide. “There are a lot of tricky questions whether a stingray or dirtbox operated by the government directly is a pen register, or the Fourth Amendment concerns dismissed by the Supreme court 35 years ago in Smith v. Maryland are more applicable here,” Fakhoury said.
  • Hanni Fakhoury, an attorney at the pro-privacy Electronic Frontier Foundation, says the Department of Justice could use the Smith precedent as legal justification for the airborne dirtbox program. However, Fakhoury also highlighted a key problem with that argument: Location. Pen registers aren’t intended to pick up location data beyond an area code, whereas the airborne dirtboxes can track a person down to a single building. Many courts, he said, have expressed that location data deserves greater constitutional protection than is afforded to other kinds of information.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Civil rights groups are raising serious constitutional questions about the Justice Department’s use of dragnet technology onboard aircraft to collect data from suspects’ cell phones, as reported by the Wall Street Journal Thursday.
  • The Justice Department said it could not confirm or deny the existence of the program. But a department official said that all federal investigations are consistent with federal law and are subject to court approval. That official also said the Marshals Service does not maintain any databases of cell phone information — meaning the program could possibly only be used to track the whereabouts of suspects on a case-by-case basis and that it’s vastly different in nature from the kinds of sweeping government surveillance programs first revealed by Edward Snowden.
  • Paul Merrell on 18 Nov 14
     
    Smith v. Maryland is a dead precedent for mass surveillance after the Supreme Court's ruling in Riley v. California. It awaits only the judicial coup de grace. 
Paul Merrell

Tech firms and privacy groups press for curbs on NSA surveillance powers - The Washington Post - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...4-ab77-9646eea6a4c7_story.html

surveillance state Patriot-Act 215-sunset NSA-reform legislation

shared by Paul Merrell on 29 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • The nation’s top technology firms and a coalition of privacy groups are urging Congress to place curbs on government surveillance in the face of a fast-approaching deadline for legislative action. A set of key Patriot Act surveillance authorities expire June 1, but the effective date is May 21 — the last day before Congress breaks for a Memorial Day recess. In a letter to be sent Wednesday to the Obama administration and senior lawmakers, the coalition vowed to oppose any legislation that, among other things, does not ban the “bulk collection” of Americans’ phone records and other data.
  • We know that there are some in Congress who think that they can get away with reauthorizing the expiring provisions of the Patriot Act without any reforms at all,” said Kevin Bankston, policy director of New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute, a privacy group that organized the effort. “This letter draws a line in the sand that makes clear that the privacy community and the Internet industry do not intend to let that happen without a fight.” At issue is the bulk collection of Americans’ data by intelligence agencies such as the National Security Agency. The NSA’s daily gathering of millions of records logging phone call times, lengths and other “metadata” stirred controversy when it was revealed in June 2013 by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. The records are placed in a database that can, with a judge’s permission, be searched for links to foreign terrorists.They do not include the content of conversations.
  • That program, placed under federal surveillance court oversight in 2006, was authorized by the court in secret under Section 215 of the Patriot Act — one of the expiring provisions. The public outcry that ensued after the program was disclosed forced President Obama in January 2014 to call for an end to the NSA’s storage of the data. He also appealed to Congress to find a way to preserve the agency’s access to the data for counterterrorism information.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Despite growing opposition in some quarters to ending the NSA’s program, a “clean” authorization — one that would enable its continuation without any changes — is unlikely, lawmakers from both parties say. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a leading opponent of the NSA’s program in its current format, said he would be “surprised if there are 60 votes” in the Senate for that. In the House, where there is bipartisan support for reining in surveillance, it’s a longer shot still. “It’s a toxic vote back in your district to reauthorize the Patriot Act, if you don’t get some reforms” with it, said Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.). The House last fall passed the USA Freedom Act, which would have ended the NSA program, but the Senate failed to advance its own version.The House and Senate judiciary committees are working to come up with new bipartisan legislation to be introduced soon.
  • The tech firms and privacy groups’ demands are a baseline, they say. Besides ending bulk collection, they want companies to have the right to be more transparent in reporting on national security requests and greater declassification of opinions by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
  • Some legal experts have pointed to a little-noticed clause in the Patriot Act that would appear to allow bulk collection to continue even if the authority is not renewed. Administration officials have conceded privately that a legal case probably could be made for that, but politically it would be a tough sell. On Tuesday, a White House spokesman indicated the administration would not seek to exploit that clause. “If Section 215 sunsets, we will not continue the bulk telephony metadata program,” National Security Council spokesman Edward Price said in a statement first reported by Reuters. Price added that allowing Section 215 to expire would result in the loss of a “critical national security tool” used in investigations that do not involve the bulk collection of data. “That is why we have underscored the imperative of Congressional action in the coming weeks, and we welcome the opportunity to work with lawmakers on such legislation,” he said.
  • Paul Merrell on 29 Mar 15
     
    I omitted some stuff about opposition to sunsetting the provisions. They  seem to forget, as does Obama, that the proponents of the FISA Court's expansive reading of section 215 have not yet come up with a single instance where 215-derived data caught a single terrorist or prevented a single act of terrorism. Which means that if that data is of some use, it ain't in fighting terrorism, the purpose of the section.  Patriot Act § 215 is codified as 50 USCS § 1861, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/1861 That section authorizes the FBI to obtain an iorder from the FISA Court "requiring the production of *any tangible things* (including books, records, papers, documents, and other items)."  Specific examples (a non-exclusive list) include: the production of library circulation records, library patron lists, book sales records, book customer lists, firearms sales records, tax return records, educational records, or medical records containing information that would identify a person." The Court can order that the recipient of the order tell no one of its receipt of the order or its response to it.   In other words, this is about way more than your telephone metadata. Do you trust the NSA with your medical records? 
Paul Merrell

Bulk Collection Under Section 215 Has Ended… What's Next? | Just Security - 0 views

www.justsecurity.org/...lk-collection-ended-whats-next

surveillance state NSA-reform 215 bulk-collection EO-12333

shared by Paul Merrell on 01 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • The first (and thus far only) roll-back of post-9/11 surveillance authorities was implemented over the weekend: The National Security Agency shuttered its program for collecting and holding the metadata of Americans’ phone calls under Section 215 of the Patriot Act. While bulk collection under Section 215 has ended, the government can obtain access to this information under the procedures specified in the USA Freedom Act. Indeed, some experts have argued that the Agency likely has access to more metadata because its earlier dragnet didn’t cover cell phones or Internet calling. In addition, the metadata of calls made by an individual in the United States to someone overseas and vice versa can still be collected in bulk — this takes place abroad under Executive Order 12333. No doubt the NSA wishes that this was the end of the surveillance reform story and the Paris attacks initially gave them an opening. John Brennan, the Director of the CIA, implied that the attacks were somehow related to “hand wringing” about spying and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) introduced a bill to delay the shut down of the 215 program. Opponents of encryption were quick to say: “I told you so.”
  • But the facts that have emerged thus far tell a different story. It appears that much of the planning took place IRL (that’s “in real life” for those of you who don’t have teenagers). The attackers, several of whom were on law enforcement’s radar, communicated openly over the Internet. If France ever has a 9/11 Commission-type inquiry, it could well conclude that the Paris attacks were a failure of the intelligence agencies rather than a failure of intelligence authorities. Despite the passage of the USA Freedom Act, US surveillance authorities have remained largely intact. Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act — which is the basis of programs like PRISM and the NSA’s Upstream collection of information from Internet cables — sunsets in the summer of 2017. While it’s difficult to predict the political environment that far out, meaningful reform of Section 702 faces significant obstacles. Unlike the Section 215 program, which was clearly aimed at Americans, Section 702 is supposedly targeted at foreigners and only picks up information about Americans “incidentally.” The NSA has refused to provide an estimate of how many Americans’ information it collects under Section 702, despite repeated requests from lawmakers and most recently a large cohort of advocates. The Section 215 program was held illegal by two federal courts (here and here), but civil attempts to challenge Section 702 have run into standing barriers. Finally, while two review panels concluded that the Section 215 program provided little counterterrorism benefit (here and here), they found that the Section 702 program had been useful.
  • There is, nonetheless, some pressure to narrow the reach of Section 702. The recent decision by the European Court of Justice in the safe harbor case suggests that data flows between Europe and the US may be restricted unless the PRISM program is modified to protect the information of Europeans (see here, here, and here for discussion of the decision and reform options). Pressure from Internet companies whose business is suffering — estimates run to the tune of $35 to 180 billion — as a result of disclosures about NSA spying may also nudge lawmakers towards reform. One of the Courts currently considering criminal cases which rely on evidence derived from Section 702 surveillance may hold the program unconstitutional either on the basis of the Fourth Amendment or Article III for the reasons set out in this Brennan Center report. A federal district Court in Colorado recently rejected such a challenge, although as explained in Steve’s post, the decision did not seriously explore the issues. Further litigation in the European Courts too could have an impact on the debate.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • The US intelligence community’s broadest surveillance authorities are enshrined in Executive Order 12333, which primarily covers the interception of electronic communications overseas. The Order authorizes the collection, retention, and dissemination of “foreign intelligence” information, which includes information “relating to the capabilities, intentions or activities of foreign powers, organizations or persons.” In other words, so long as they are operating outside the US, intelligence agencies are authorized to collect information about any foreign person — and, of course, any Americans with whom they communicate. The NSA has conceded that EO 12333 is the basis of most of its surveillance. While public information about these programs is limited, a few highlights give a sense of the breadth of EO 12333 operations: The NSA gathers information about every cell phone call made to, from, and within the Bahamas, Mexico, Kenya, the Philippines, and Afghanistan, and possibly other countries. A joint US-UK program tapped into the cables connecting internal Yahoo and Google networks to gather e-mail address books and contact lists from their customers. Another US-UK collaboration collected images from video chats among Yahoo users and possibly other webcam services. The NSA collects both the content and metadata of hundreds of millions of text messages from around the world. By tapping into the cables that connect global networks, the NSA has created a database of the location of hundreds of millions of mobile phones outside the US.
  • Given its scope, EO 12333 is clearly critical to those seeking serious surveillance reform. The path to reform is, however, less clear. There is no sunset provision that requires action by Congress and creates an opportunity for exposing privacy risks. Even in the unlikely event that Congress was inclined to intervene, it would have to address questions about the extent of its constitutional authority to regulate overseas surveillance. To the best of my knowledge, there is no litigation challenging EO 12333 and the government doesn’t give notice to criminal defendants when it uses evidence derived from surveillance under the order, so the likelihood of a court ruling is slim. The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board is currently reviewing two programs under EO 12333, but it is anticipated that much of its report will be classified (although it has promised a less detailed unclassified version as well). While the short-term outlook for additional surveillance reform is challenging, from a longer-term perspective, the distinctions that our law makes between Americans and non-Americans and between domestic and foreign collection cannot stand indefinitely. If the Fourth Amendment is to meaningfully protect Americans’ privacy, the courts and Congress must come to grips with this reality.
Paul Merrell

DailyTech - Pakistani Court Accuses U.S. of War Crimes for Drone Strikes - 0 views

www.dailytech.com/...article31537.htm

war & peace Pakistan drone attacks war crimes

shared by Paul Merrell on 15 May 13 - No Cached
  • In response four petitions by tribal leaders complaining that U.S. drone strikes were killing civilians, Chief Justice Dost Muhammad Khan and the junior judge on Pakistan two-judge Peshawar High Court panel decided that the drone were war crimes as they killed innocent civilians. The panel says that the drone strikes were inhumane and violated the UN Charter on Human Rights.  The Court is asking the government of Pakistan to push a UN resolution to condemn the strikes and declare them a war crimes, writing [according to translation by The Press Trust of India, "The government of Pakistan must ensure that no drone strike takes place in the future.  If the US vetoes the resolution, then the country should think about breaking diplomatic ties with the US."
  • Shahzad Akbar, lawyer for victims in the case, is quoted as saying, "This is a landmark judgment. Drone victims in Waziristan will now get some justice after a long wait. This judgment will also prove to be a test for the new government: if drone strikes continue and the government fails to act, it will run the risk of contempt of court."
  • The administration also does have a policy of paying the family of civilians it kills in the Middle East "grief payments" of a few thousand dollars per body. While the current administration may be hesistant to take action in the UN against the U.S. elections are fast approaching.  This Saturday's election sees the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) party leading in current polls.  Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, the party's leader, promises a zero-tolerance policy on drone strike civilian deaths.  He comments, "Drone attacks are against the national sovereignty and a challenge for the country's autonomy and independence." The U.S. has often accused hostile regimes like the governments of Syria, Sudan, Iran, and North Korea of war crimes in recent years.  However, it has seldom been on the receiving end of such accusations, despite an aggressive (and expensive) overseas military program.
Gary Edwards

CHILDREN KILLED OF KEVIN KRIM, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OF CNBC DIGITAL, AFTER RELEASING INFORMATION ON $43 TRILLION LAWSUIT >> Four Winds 10 - Truth Winds - 0 views

www.fourwinds10.net/...news.php

Banksters Federal-Reserve-Bankster-Cartel assasination murder

shared by Gary Edwards on 02 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 02 Nov 12
     
    Incredible article about the behind-the-scenes story of the nanny murder of two small children in NYC.   First, it's a staged murder meant to send a clear message to ALL media.  The children were the offspring of Kevin Krim, CEO of CNBC digital.  His website had published a story about the Spire Law Group suing an entire class of bigshot BANKSTERS for the theft of $43 TRILLION dollars of tax payer money.  Second, this involves the US Government.  The Spire allegation is that the Feds actively helped and assisted the Bankster theft. Third, the story describes the historical background of these Bankster hits, assassination and threats.  Although not covered in the article, Presidential assassinations in particular have an unmistakable link to Executive Orders that the Treasury print Silver Certificates that would compete against Bankster notes.  In one way or another, it's all about control of the money system.  This list of Presidents includes Jackson, Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, Kennedy and Reagan. Original Press Release from the Spire Law Group:  ... http://goo.gl/ynV6O .... Wow! ................................... excerpt:: "On 10/25/2012 two corporate financial media bastions,  MarketWatch  (an affiliate of the Wall Street Journal) and CNBC, presented their readers with a bombshell.  In a too-good-to-be-true lawsuit, the top echelons of the USA's banking and civilian government had been sued for "racketeering and money laundering."  The suit requested "the return of $43 trillion to the United States Treasury."  Yes, you've read that right: 43 trillion-roughly 3 years worth of America's GDP or 3 times America's underestimate of its own national debt. The suit characterizes itself, according to these two corporate media tabloids, as the largest money laundering and racketeering lawsuit in United States History.  [It identifies] $43 trillion ($43,000,000,000,000.00) of laundered money by the 'Banksters' and their U.S. r
Gary Edwards

Is martial law the ultimate goal? - Tea Party Command Center - 0 views

teapartyorg.ning.com/...show

martial-law executive-orders Obammunism

shared by Gary Edwards on 31 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 31 Jan 13
     
    "During President Obama's first term he laid the ground work. President Obama issued over 900 executive orders, many dealing with martial law. As the Supreme Court already opinioned when looking at President Lincolns use of martial law, "Martial law ... destroys every guarantee of the Constitution.". This means when martial law is declared we as Americans have no rights at all. During President Obama's first term he wrote Executive Orders granting the government the power to take over all communications media, electrical power, gas, petroleum, fuels and minerals. He also wrote an Executive Order where the government can take over all modes of transportation and control of the highways and sea ports. That means Obama can confiscate your horse, your donkeys, your bicycle or even your riding lawn mower. All forms of transportation. Executive orders signed by Obama also include railroads, inland water ways, public storage facilities, airports and airplanes including commercial planes can all be taken over by the government." Executive Orders have also been signed allowing the government to mobilize civilians into work brigades under government supervision. To take over all health education and welfare functions. To allow the Housing and Finance Authority to relocate and establish new locations for populations, AND grants authority to the Department of Justice to enforce the plans set out in Executive Orders, to institute Industrial support, to establish judicial and legislative liaison, to control all aliens, to operate penal and correctional institutions, and to advise and assist the President. An Executive order has also been signed which allows the Federal Emergency Preparedness Agency to develop plans to establish control over the mechanisms of production and distribution of energy sources, wages, salaries, credit, and the flow of money in U.S. financial institutions in any undefined national emergency. It also provides that when the president declares a state of
Paul Merrell

Reassured by NSA's Internal Procedures? Don't Be. They Still Don't Tell the Whole Story. | Electronic Frontier Foundation - 0 views

www.eff.org/...nd-unconstitutional-fisa-court

surveillance state NSA lies FISA Court constitutional law

shared by Paul Merrell on 22 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • Yesterday, the Guardian released two previously-classified documents describing the internal "minimization" and "targeting" procedures used by the NSA to conduct surveillance under Section 702. These procedures are approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) on an annual basis and are supposed to serve as the bulwark between the NSA's vast surveillance capabilities and the private communications of Americans. As we noted earlier today, the procedures, themselves, aren't reassuring: far too much discretion is retained by NSA analysts, the procedures frequently resolve doubt in favor of collection, and information is obtained that could otherwise never be obtained without a warrant. Which would be bad enough, if it were the end of the story. But it's not.
  • Unless the government substantially changed the procedures between August 2010 and October 2011, these are the very procedures that the FISC eventually found resulted in illegal and unconstitutional surveillance. In October 2011, the FISC issued an 86-page opinion finding that collection carried out under the NSA's classified minimization procedures was unconstitutional. The opinion remains secret, but it is very likely that yesterday's leaked NSA documents show the very minimization procedures the Director of National Intelligence admitted the FISC had found resulted in surveillance that was “unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment" and "circumvented the spirit of the law." And for good reason: the procedures are unconstitutional. They allow for the government to obtain and keep huge amounts of information it could never Constitutionally get without a warrant based on probable cause. As we explained, the procedures are designed such that the NSA will routinely fail to exclude or remove United States persons' communications, and the removal of those communications are wholly entrusted to the "reasonable discretion" of an analyst.  
  • Yesterday, the Guardian released two previously-classified documents describing the internal "minimization" and "targeting" procedures used by the NSA to conduct surveillance under Section 702. These procedures are approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) on an annual basis and are supposed to serve as the bulwark between the NSA's vast surveillance capabilities and the private communications of Americans. As we noted earlier today, the procedures, themselves, aren't reassuring: far too much discretion is retained by NSA analysts, the procedures frequently resolve doubt in favor of collection, and information is obtained that could otherwise never be obtained without a warrant. Which would be bad enough, if it were the end of the story. But it's not. The targeting and minimization documents released yesterday are dated a few months after the first publicly known scandal over the new FAA procedures: In April 2009, the New York Times reported that Section 702 surveillance had “intercepted the private e-mail messages and phone calls of Americans . . . on a scale that went beyond the broad legal limits established by Congress." In June 2009, the Times reported that members of Congress were saying NSA's "recent intercepts of the private telephone calls and e-mail messages of Americans are broader than previously acknowledged." Rep. Rush Holt described the problems as "so flagrant that they can't be accidental."
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Presumably, following these "flagrant" abuses (and likely in response to the Congressional criticism of the original procedures), the government refined the procedures. The documents released yesterday are the "improved" targeting and minimization procedures, which appear to have been reused the following year, in 2010, in the FISC's annual certification. But these amended procedures still didn't stop illegal spying under Section 702. Unless the government substantially changed the procedures between August 2010 and October 2011, these are the mimization rules that the FISC eventually found to result in illegal and unconstitutional surveillance. In October 2011, the FISC issued an 86-page opinion finding that collection carried out under the NSA's minimization procedures was unconstitutional. The opinion remains secret, but it is likely that yesterday's leaked NSA documents show the very procedures the Director of National Intelligence admitted had been found to result in surveillance that was “unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment" and "circumvented the spirit of the law." And for good reason: the procedures are unconstitutional.
  • EFF has been litigating to uncover this critical FISC opinion through the Freedom of Information Act and to uncover the "secret law" the government has been hiding from the American public. And EFF isn't alone in fighting for the release of these documents. A bipartisan coalition of Senators just announced legislation that would require the Attorney General to declassify significant FISC opinions, a move they say would help put an end to precisely this kind of "secret law."
Gary Edwards

Supremacy Clause - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views

en.wikipedia.org/...Supremacy_Clause

Alexis-de-Tocqueville freedom-liberty The-Constitution Globalist-Elites

shared by Gary Edwards on 09 Jul 13 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 09 Jul 13
     
    Is the Constitution the Law of the Land? excerpt: "Article VI, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution, known as the Supremacy Clause, establishes the U.S. Constitution, federal statutes, and U.S. Treaties as "the supreme law of the land." The text provides that these are the highest form of law in the U.S. legal system, and mandates that all state judges must follow federal law when a conflict arises between federal law and either the state constitution or state law of any state. The "supremacy clause" is the most important guarantor of national union. It assures that the Constitution and federal laws and treaties take precedence over state law and binds all judges to adhere to that principle in their courts. - United States Senate[1] The Supremacy Clause only applies if Congress is acting in pursuit of its constitutionally authorized powers. Federal laws are valid and are supreme, so long as those laws were adopted in pursuance of-that is, consistent with-the Constitution. Nullification is the legal theory that states have the right to nullify, or invalidate, federal laws which they view as being unconstitutional; or federal laws that they view as having exceeded Congresses' constitutionally authorized powers. The Supreme court has rejected nullification, finding that under Article III of the Constitution, the power to declare federal laws unconstitutional has been delegated to the federal courts and that states do not have the authority to nullify federal law.[2]" quote: This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.  Article II
Paul Merrell

Venezuela's Opposition Calls Protests Against Recall Postponement, Appeals to Military - nsnbc international | nsnbc international - 0 views

nsnbc.me/...stponement-appeals-to-military

war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy Venezuela recall-petition MUD Maduro

shared by Paul Merrell on 24 Oct 16 - No Cached
  • Venezuela’s political opposition vowed Friday to stage renewed protests against the administration of President Nicolas Maduro, after the country’s electoral authority heeded a court order postponing the next phase of preparations for a presidential recall referendum.
  • On Thursday, state-level courts in Aragua, Bolivar, Carabobo, and Monagas issued injunctions halting the opposition’s collection of signatures from 20 percent of voters in each state, scheduled for October 26, 27, and 28. The court orders come in response to revelations of widespread fraud in the opposition’s prior collection of signatures from 1 percent of voters in each state as a condition to begin the recall process earlier this year. In addition to 307,747 signatures lacking essential identifying information, 53,658 signatures presented irregularities, including 10,995 deceased persons, 9,333 nonexistent persons, 3,003 minors, and 1,335 felons. State courts have warned that the 1 percent of signatures collected in their states could be invalid due to the fraudulent signatures, preventing the opposition from going ahead with the next stage on a national level.
  • In 2014, Popular Will leader Leopoldo Lopez led months of violent anti-government protests, demanding the ouster of President Maduro. Over 40 people were killed, the majority of whom  government supporters, state security forces, and innocent bystanders.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Meanwhile, Venezuela’s Supreme Court has upheld the regional Court decisions, prompting the CNE to likewise suspend next week’s collection drive on Thursday. The move could mean the MUD will have to restart the entire process in the four states where fraud allegations surface. Such an outcome would be a major setback for the MUD, which has been aiming to organise the referendum before the end of the year. This goal has long been dismissed as unrealistic by the CNE, which announced last month that the plebiscite could be held no sooner than April. The ultimate timing of the referendum is critical for the opposition. If Maduro loses a vote before January 10, snap elections will be held, and the socialists would face the prospect of losing the office of president for the first time in 14 years. The last time the right-wing took power was during a short lived, US backed coup in 2002. However, if the referendum takes place after January 10, Maduro will simply be replaced by his vice-president until regular elections are held in 2018.
  • Paul Merrell on 24 Oct 16
     
    The U.S.-backed efforts to unseat the leftist government in Venezuela continues via propaganda, opposition-created shortages of living essentials, and the electorate, after 3 violent coup attempts failed.
Gary Edwards

The End Of The Obama World Order - 0 views

www.blacklistednews.com/...M.html

Obama

shared by Gary Edwards on 19 Jan 17 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 19 Jan 17
     
    "For the past eight years, Barack Obama has been using the power of the U.S. presidency to impose his vision of a progressive world order on the entire globe.  As a result, much of the planet will greatly celebrate once the Obama era officially ends on Friday.  The Obama years brought us the Arab Spring, Benghazi, ISIS, civil war in Syria, civil war in Ukraine and the Iran nuclear deal.  On the home front, we have had to deal with Obamacare, "Fast and Furious", IRS targeting of conservative groups, Solyndra, the VA scandal, NSA spying and the worst "economic recovery" since the end of World War II.  And right at the end of his presidency, Barack Obama has committed the greatest betrayal of Israel in U.S. history and has brought us dangerously close to war with Russia. So is the end of the Obama world order worth celebrating? You better believe it is. Of course Obama and his minions are in a great deal of distress that much of their hard work over the past eight years is about to be undone by Donald Trump.  On Wednesday, Vice President Joe Biden warned the elitists gathered at the World Economic Forum in Davos that their "liberal world order" is in danger of collapsing…     Vice President Joe Biden delivered an epic final speech Wednesday to the elites at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.   The gist of his speech was simple: At a time of "uncertainty" we must double down on the values that made Western democracies great, and not allow the "liberal world order" to be torn apart by destructive forces. And without a doubt, we definitely want it to collapse. During his time in the White House, Barack Obama has used the full diplomatic power of the government to promote "abortion rights", "gay rights" and other "liberal values" to the farthest corners of the globe.  Here at home, the appointment of two new Supreme Court justices under Obama paved the way for the Supreme Court decision that forced all 50 state
Paul Merrell

Austrian court overturns presidential election, orders rerun - The Washington Post - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...6-9e16-4cf01a41decb_story.html

EU-politics Austria President election

shared by Paul Merrell on 01 Jul 16 - No Cached
  • VIENNA — In a move that could turn into the next blow to the EU after Britain’s exit vote, Austria’s highest court on Friday ordered a rerun of the country’s presidential election. The landmark decision gives a right-wing candidate the chance to turn his narrow defeat into victory. Unprecedented in Austria’s post-war history, the court ruling also appeared to be unique within the European Union and is looming large in the wake of Britain’s vote to leave the 28-nation bloc. The decision, announced by Constitutional court chief judge Gerhart Holzinger, represents a victory for the right-wing Freedom Party, which had challenged the May 22 runoff on claims of widespread irregularities. It comes just a week before independent politician Alexander Van der Bellen was to be sworn in as president and 40 days after he was declared the winner of the vote.
  • But it also has wider implications. With Britain’s impending departure from the EU, a chance by Freedom Party candidate Norbert Hofer to turn his loss into a win would boost not only his party but also far-right and nationalist movements elsewhere in Europe who are all lobbying for a weaker EU or an outright exit from the bloc. Those parties had hailed Hofer’s strong showing in May as proof of a surge in anti-EU sentiment. Several wasted no time in responding to Friday’s court decision.
Paul Merrell

Court Refuses to Reinstate Travel Ban, Dealing Trump Another Legal Loss - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ls-court-trump-travel-ban.html

Trump immigration litigation 9th-Circuit

shared by Paul Merrell on 10 Feb 17 - No Cached
  • A federal appeals panel on Thursday unanimously rejected President Trump’s bid to reinstate his ban on travel into the United States from seven largely Muslim nations, a sweeping rebuke of the administration’s claim that the courts have no role as a check on the president.The three-judge panel, suggesting that the ban did not advance national security, said the administration had shown “no evidence” that anyone from the seven nations — Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen — had committed terrorist acts in the United States.The ruling also rejected Mr. Trump’s claim that courts are powerless to review a president’s national security assessments. Judges have a crucial role to play in a constitutional democracy, the court said.“It is beyond question,” the decision said, “that the federal judiciary retains the authority to adjudicate constitutional challenges to executive action.”
  • The decision was handed down by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco. It upheld a ruling last Friday by a federal district judge, James L. Robart, who blocked key parts of the travel ban, allowing thousands of foreigners to enter the country.
  • Paul Merrell on 10 Feb 17
     
    As I expected.
Gary Edwards

Judge Blocks Citigroup Settlement With S.E.C. - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ects-sec-accord-with-citi.html

Banksters Judge-Rakoff SEC-CitiGroup

shared by Gary Edwards on 28 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 28 Nov 11
     
    The greatest theft in the history of mankind, and a posse of one Judge and a few State Attorney Generals is all we have on the hunt.  Pathetic.  But thank God for Judge Jed S. Rakoff of United States District Court in Manhattan!   The Federal Government is so corrupt and politicized that regulatory agencies are bagmen for the worst kind of crony capitalism ever seen.  I would rather shut down these corrupt and crony laden regulatory agencies and replace them with legislation requiring full transparency and reporting to the PUBLIC.  A process that would enable lawyers and Courts to sift through the mess, and let contract law, legal settlements, class actions and lawsuit penalties be the instruments of regulatory oversight.  Judge Rakoff should be the next Supreme Court nominee.
Paul Merrell

CCC | GCHQ to face European Court over mass surveillance - 0 views

www.ccc.de/gchq

surveillance state GCHQ human rights litigation ECHR

shared by Paul Merrell on 11 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • Three of Britain’s most prominent campaign groups have today announced the launch of a legal challenge against the actions of GCHQ, alleging it has illegally intruded on the privacy of millions of British and European citizens. Big Brother Watch, the Open Rights Group and English PEN, together with German internet activist Constanze Kurz, have filed papers at the European Court of Human Rights bringing an action against the UK Government.

 They allege that by collecting vast amounts of data leaving or entering the UK, including the content of emails and social media messages, the UK’s spy agency has acted illegally. When details recently emerged in the media about the Prism and Tempora programmes, codenames for previously secret online surveillance operations, it was revealed that GCHQ has the capacity to collect more than 21 petabytes of data a day – equivalent to sending all the information in all the books in the British Library 192 times every 24 hours. The disclosures have raised serious parliamentary concerns both in Britain and at the EU level. Deighton Pierce Glynn solicitors represent the applicants, instructing Helen Mountfield QC of Matrix Chambers and Tom Hickman and Ravi Mehta of Blackstone Chambers. The legal action will be funded through donations at www.privacynotprism.org.uk
  • Paul Merrell on 11 Jan 14
     
    One I missed from October 3, 2013. The case was later filed with the European Court of Human Rights as "Joint Application Under Article 34 of Big Brother Watch, Open Rights Group, English Pen Dr Constanze Kurz (Applicants) - v - United Kingdom (Respondent)." There is no appeal from decisions of this Court.
Paul Merrell

Disclosure of FISA Court Opinions: Legal Issues (CRS) - Secrecy News - 0 views

blogs.fas.org/...disclosure-fisa-crs

surveillance state NSA classification-authority Constitution legal-research

shared by Paul Merrell on 04 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • Could Congress legally compel the executive branch to disclose classified opinions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court?  Maybe not, a new analysis from the Congressional Research Service concludes. The CRS report — entitled “Disclosure of FISA Court Opinions: Select Legal Issues” — has little to do with FISA Court opinions in particular. It is an analysis of the overlapping authorities of the three branches of government to classify or disclose national security information. “The central issue is the extent to which Congress may regulate control over access to national security information, including mandating that the executive branch disclose specific materials — a question not definitively resolved by the Courts,” the report says. This is not a new question, but it is usefully reviewed and summarized by the CRS report.
  • The issue arises because “The executive branch has argued that the Commander-in-Chief clause bestows the President with independent power to control access to national security information. As such, according to this line of reasoning, Congress’s generally broad ability to require disclosure of agency documents may be constrained when it implicates national security.” Although no statute regulating classification has ever been ruled unconstitutional, “Congress’s power to compel the release of information held by the executive branch might have limits,” CRS said. “There may be a limited sphere of information that courts will protect from public disclosure,” just as they have exempted properly classified information in FOIA cases, and state secrets in other cases.
  • The new CRS report has a couple of other noteworthy omissions. It does not mention the authority claimed by the congressional intelligence committees to publicly disclose classified information without executive branch approval. (See Section 8 of Senate Resolution 400 of the 94th Congress, 1976.)  Though this authority has never yet been exercised, it remains available in principle. The report also does not mention some recent instances when Congress has successfully compelled executive branch declassification while also navigating around potential constitutional obstacles.
Paul Merrell

National intelligence chief declassifies Bush-era documents on NSA programs | World news | theguardian.com - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...ligence-bush-era-nsa-documents

surveillance state NSA litigation NSA-domestic-surveillance origins

shared by Paul Merrell on 22 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • The director of national intelligence on Saturday declassified more documents that outline how the National Security Agency was first authorised to start collecting bulk phone and internet records in the hunt for al-Qaida terrorists and how a court eventually gained oversight of the program, after the justice department complied with a federal court order to release its previous legal arguments for keeping the programs secret.
  • "There has never been a comprehensive government release ... that wove the whole story together: the timeline of authorizing the programs and the gradual transition to (court) oversight," said Mark Rumold, staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group suing the NSA to reveal more about the bulk records programs. "Everybody knew that happened, but this is the first time I've seen the government confirm those twin aspects." That unexpected windfall of disclosures early on Saturday came with the release of documents outlining why issuing the information would damage national security. The US district court in the northern district of California in the fall had ordered the Obama administration to make public the documents, known as state secrets declarations. The justice department issued the declarations late on Friday in two ongoing class action cases: Shubert v Bush, now known as Shubert v Obama, on behalf of Verizon customers; and Jewel v NSA, on behalf of AT&T customers. Calls to the justice department and the director of national intelligence's office were not answered.
  • "In September, the federal court in the northern district of California ... ordered the government to go back through all the secret ex parte declarations and declassify and release as much as they could, in light of the Snowden revelations and government confirmations," Rumold said. "So what was released late last night was in response to that court order."
Paul Merrell

Feds confirm Bush-era e-mail surveillance - POLITICO.com - 0 views

www.politico.com/...email-surveillance-185283.html

surveillance state NSA Bush-II email digital-privacy

shared by Paul Merrell on 20 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • The U.S. government has acknowledged that it swept up huge volumes of data from emails in the U.S. for several years without any court approval, based solely on the orders of former President George W. Bush. In a court filings on Monday, government lawyers said that the Internet program ran in parallel with a program gathering so-called metadata about telephone calls. The counterterrorism efforts operated under presidential authority before a judge approved them in July 2004, said a 2007 court filing made public Monday by the Justice Department (and posted here.)
  • "After the 9/11 attacks and pursuant to an authorization of the President, [redacted] the NSA [redacted] the bulk collection of non-content information about  telephone calls and Internet communications (hereafter 'metadata') activities that enable the NSA to uncover the contacts [redacted] of members or agents of al Qaeda or affiliated terrorist organizations," a senior NSA official wrote in an October 2007 declaration originally filed under seal as part of an effort to defeat litigation about the snooping Bush ordered. "Specifically, the President authorized the the NSA to collect metadata related to Internet communications for the purpose of conducting targeted analysis to track Al Qaeda-related networks. Internet metadata is header/router/addressing information, such as the 'to,' 'from,' 'cc,' and 'bcc' lines, as opposed to the body or 're' lines, of a standard e-mail. Since July 2004, the collection of Internet metadata has been conducted pursuant to an Order of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court," the still-unidentified official from NSA's Signals Intelligence Directorate continued. The email program was effectively public since June of last year, after contractor Edward Snowden leaked a top-secret National Security Agency inspector general report that described the program.
  • FISC Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly's opinion approving the surveillance was officially released in November 2013. However, the date she issued it was redacted. Many surmised that her opinion followed a dust-up in March 2004, when then-Deputy Attorney General James Comey questioned the legality of some aspect of Bush's post-9/11 surveillance programs and refused to reauthorize that portion of the surveillance. Comey's refusal is said to have put the program into turmoil for a period of months, until officials sought and won the order from Kollar-Kotelly blessing the gathering of both the email and telephone metadata. The publicly released version of Kollar-Kotelly's opinion does not discuss the operation of the program during the period before the application for court approval. The filings Monday came in continuing legal wrangling over obligations pending lawsuits may create for the NSA to hang on to aging metadata that it would ordinarily have been required to erase under FISC orders. A federal judge in San Francisco has required that the NSA preserve that data, at least for now, rather than erasing it.
Gary Edwards

The Lawless President - 0 views

spectator.org/...the-lawless-president

ObamaCare Impeachment articles-of-impeachment Impeach-Obama

shared by Gary Edwards on 10 Jul 13 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 10 Jul 13
     
    Excellent read!  Peter Ferrara walks us through the latest Obama assault on the Constitution, this time his refusal to enforce laws he disagrees with.  Surprisingly, this now includes the employer mandate portion of ObamaCare!!!  Why he has to do this however is a stunning story. Bottom line:  The latest jobs report has the economy producing 195,000 new jobs in the past quarter.  The problem is, 100% of these new jobs are part-time.  Thanks to ObamaCare.   "The duties of the President of the United States are spelled out in Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution, which states, inter alia, that the President "shall take Care that the laws be faithfully executed." As Stanford Law Professor and former federal judge Michael McConnell explained in yesterday's Wall Street Journal, "This is a duty, not a discretionary power. While the president does have substantial discretion about how to enforce a law, he has no discretion about whether to do so." Section 1513(d) of the Unaffordable Care Act (aka "Obamacare") states unequivocally, "The amendments made by this section shall apply to months beginning after December 31, 2013." In other words, the provisions of Obamacare become fully effective in 2014, as a matter of duly enacted federal law. But over the long Fourth of July weekend, in a "Never Mind" moment, the Obama Administration announced, through a Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, that contrary to federal law, the employer mandate of Obamacare shall not become fully effective in months beginning after December 31, 2013, but only in months beginning after December 31, 2014. Making the announcement through such a low level Administration official to me says that Obama has contempt for the American people, and for the rule of law. Barack Obama: Lawbreaker But it does not matter who announces it. The President is the one responsible. And the announcement constitutes the assumption of authoritarian powers by President Obama. McCo
Gary Edwards

Whistleblowers & NSA - Shows - Coast to Coast AM - 0 views

www.coasttocoastam.com/...27

William-Binney Edward-Snowden NSA-Patriot-Act-NDAA NSA-Whistleblower

shared by Gary Edwards on 02 Aug 13 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 02 Aug 13
     
    Interview Date: 07-27-13 :: 3 hours on mp3 Host: John B. Wells Guests: William E. Binney This amazing interview covers 3 hours with William Edward Binney; the former highly placed intelligence official with the United States National Security Agency (NSA) turned whistleblower who resigned on October 31, 2001, after more than 30 years with the agency. He joined John B. Wells to discuss living his life as a whistleblower, the NSA scandal and related topics. "The NSA was chartered to do foreign intelligence only, not domestic intelligence," he said. Prior to the Bush Administration, if the NSA happened to randomly intercept a U.S. citizen's communications, the database was purged of the collection and records erased, Binney revealed. After 9/11 and per a "secret interpretation" of the Patriot Act, the NSA decided it could build a register of every phone in the country, he explained, noting that they now keep records on who every U.S. Citizen calls, how often and for how long. A person has the right to free association with others only as long as the NSA knows about it, he admonished. According to Binney, there is substantial danger that data collected from phone and internet communications as well as financial records will be used to target particular Americans, a scenario recently played out when the IRS was caught harassing tea party members, he pointed out. Because the threat is real and the spy organization's reach well beyond its original charter, Binney said he has signed an affidavit for the Electronic Frontier Foundation's lawsuit challenging the NSA's constitutional authority to collect this kind of information. Another peril to U.S. citizens are FISA Courts (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court) which can order the transfer of domestic intelligence data but have no way of validating the intelligence being given to them, he continued. Binney called for the defunding of FISA Courts since they, like the NSA, are in violation of their original charter. He
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