U.S. court - Mass surveillance program exposed by Snowden was illegal

By Raphael Satter

 

FILE PHOTO: Edward Snowden gestures as he speaks via livestream at Web Summit in Lisbon, Portugal, November 4, 2019. REUTERS/Rafael Marchante

 

(Reuters) - Seven years after former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden blew the whistle on the mass surveillance of Americans' telephone records, an appeals court has found the program was unlawful - and that the U.S. intelligence leaders who publicly defended it were not telling the truth.

 

In a ruling handed down on Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said the warrantless telephone dragnet that secretly collected millions of Americans' telephone records violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and may well have been unconstitutional.

 

Snowden, who fled to Russia in the aftermath of the 2013 disclosures and still faces U.S. espionage charges, said on Twitter that the ruling was a vindication of his decision to go public with evidence of the National Security Agency's domestic eavesdropping operation.

 

"I never imagined that I would live to see our courts condemn the NSA's activities as unlawful and in the same ruling credit me for exposing them," Snowden said in a message posted to Twitter.

 

Evidence that the NSA was secretly building a vast database of U.S. telephone records - the who, the how, the when, and the where of millions of mobile calls - was the first and arguably the most explosive of the Snowden revelations published by the Guardian newspaper in 2013.

 

Up until that moment, top intelligence officials publicly insisted the NSA never knowingly collected information on Americans at all. After the program's exposure, U.S. officials fell back on the argument that the spying had played a crucial role in fighting domestic extremism, citing in particular the case of four San Diego residents who were accused of providing aid to religious fanatics in Somalia.

 

U.S. officials insisted that the four - Basaaly Saeed Moalin, Ahmed Nasir Taalil Mohamud, Mohamed Mohamud, and Issa Doreh - were convicted in 2013 thanks to the NSA's telephone record spying, but the Ninth Circuit ruled Wednesday that those claims were "inconsistent with the contents of the classified record."

 

The ruling will not affect the convictions of Moalin and his fellow defendants; the court ruled the illegal surveillance did not taint the evidence introduced at their trial. Nevertheless, watchdog groups including the American Civil Liberties Union, which helped bring the case to appeal, welcomed the judges' verdict on the NSA's spy program.

 

"Today's ruling is a victory for our privacy rights," the ACLU said in a statement, saying it "makes plain that the NSA's bulk collection of Americans' phone records violated the Constitution."

 

(Reporting by Raphael Satter; Editing by Tom Brown)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2020-09-03

 

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25 minutes ago, webfact said:

U.S. intelligence leaders who publicly defended it were not telling the truth.

God Bless America. ????

We now have confirmation of what most of us believed, so will the guilty now go to jail? One can only hope.

1 hour ago, webfact said:

Seven years after former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden blew the whistle on the mass surveillance of Americans' telephone records, an appeals court has found the program was unlawful - and that the U.S. intelligence leaders who publicly defended it were not telling the truth.

The real question is whether the president at the time knew of the illegal activity and colluded with them?

Yes America has fallen deep and corruption and active civil unrest, weapened gangs inthe streets to somewhere in between the sub-Sahara countries and on level with Russia and China to spy on its own citizens!

Edited September 3, 20205 yr by ardsong

So Snowdon is being prosecuted for exposing that a Government Branch is committing illegal acts. That makes sense. Maybe nobody should report crimes anymore. 

we need a new snowden that hack telecom companies to see their secret agenda

8 hours ago, webfact said:

U.S. court - Mass surveillance program exposed by Snowden was illegal

20 years later...thanks.

Public officials in the US, not telling the truth? Over reaching by the security agencies? No. Not in America! There are 23 major intelligence agencies with total budgets of hundreds of billions of dollar, it is likely. Again, the official number would be another major lie. 

 

I think it is safe to say that a good part of the US "intelligence" community, are filthy, illegal, incompetent, unethical, without limits on their power, and dark as night. I despise them. 

19 minutes ago, spidermike007 said:

Public officials in the US, not telling the truth? Over reaching by the security agencies? No. Not in America! There are 23 major intelligence agencies with total budgets of hundreds of billions of dollar, it is likely. Again, the official number would be another major lie. 

 

I think it is safe to say that a good part of the US "intelligence" community, are filthy, illegal, incompetent, unethical, without limits on their power, and dark as night. I despise them. 

If that's what the good ones are like, what are the bad ones like?

Snowden persecuted and in exile. Those that did break the law, nothing.

 

Whistleblower laws need changing. Its a travesty that those that expose the illegal acts of others are the ones that have to endure undue consequenses.

Well, as an outsider all I can say is.....No good deed goes unpunished! Why does all of this very unpleasant news eventually come back to "Barry"? Did he have a deeper plan? 

Not only should he be allowed back into the US without fear of punishment.

 

He should also be given a job to monitor the NSA for illegal present and future activities. I can't think of anyone more qualified.

 

It would seem That America better spy on it's own, that is where the real threat is.  Very doubtful another nation is going to attach or kill Americans in their streets.

In other words, what we have all known all along, that America tries to convince its citizens that China and Russia are the evil spies, and all the while that is actually just cover for them to hide behind. 

Whose watch did this happen on? Clue: Barrack and Hillary’s...and they were after poor Edward’s blood BIG TIME.

NSA is the evil empire. Free Snowden!!

On 9/3/2020 at 5:14 AM, spidermike007 said:

Public officials in the US, not telling the truth? Over reaching by the security agencies? No. Not in America! There are 23 major intelligence agencies with total budgets of hundreds of billions of dollar, it is likely. Again, the official number would be another major lie. 

 

I think it is safe to say that a good part of the US "intelligence" community, are filthy, illegal, incompetent, unethical, without limits on their power, and dark as night. I despise them. 

It is wonderful to have the chance to tell you I agree with you completely. It seems to me our intelligence agencies have had free reign, for too much, for too long. Engage in any scrutiny and we're told they can't tell us anything because of "national security". Poppycock. The cloak they use is to conceal their criminality.