Meanwhile, Chuck you Farley ---STATE SECRET PRIVILEGE

[Surf n Turf]

STATE SECRET PRIVILEGE
Sounds like the Government is saying “I didn’t do it, and even if I did, I didn’t mean it, I wasn’t there, and you can’t prove it, and furthermore It’s a secret you can see anyway.
SnT

US government invokes special privilege to stop scrutiny of data mining
The director of national intelligence, James Clapper, has written in court filings that "after careful and actual personal consideration of the matter, based upon my own knowledge and information obtained in the course of my official duties, I have determined that the disclosure of certain information would cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security of the United States. Thus, as to this information, I formally assert the state secrets privilege."

The use of the privilege has been personally approved by President Obama and several of the administration's most senior officials: in addition to Clapper, they include the director of the NSA Keith Alexander and Eric Holder, the attorney general. "The attorney general has personally reviewed and approved the government's privilege assertion in these cases," legal documents state.

"The administration is saying that even if they are violating the constitution or committing a federal crime no court can stop them because it would compromise national security. That's a very dangerous argument," said Ilann Maazel, a lawyer with the New York-based Emery Celli firm who acts as lead counsel in the Shubert case.

"This has been legally frustrating and personally upsetting," Maazel added. "We have asked the government time after time what is the limit to the state secrets privilege, whether there's anything the government can't do and keep it secret, and every time the answer is: no."
In court motions, the Obama administration has set out the information that it claims is exempt from legal scrutiny under the privilege, including "information that may tend to confirm or deny whether the plaintiffs have been subject to any alleged NSA intelligence activity" and "any information concerning NSA intelligence activities, sources, or methods that may relate to or be necessary to adjudicate plaintiffs' allegations."

The government goes further and says that the state secrets privilege also covers "allegations that the NSA, with the assistance of telecommunications carriers such as AT&T and Verizon, indiscriminately intercepts the content of communications and also collects the communication records of millions of Americans."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013...-scrutiny-data

[tonyz]

Obama and Holder, part of the most transparent (and trustworthy) administration in the history of the planet, don't want something to be seen...what a surprise. Let's see what the ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights say about that - politics, Statists and tyranny can make such strange bedfellows.

Both political parties have contributed to the erosion of liberty - time to clean house in the next election cycles.

From an article in the Politico:

State secrets showdown looms

By JOSH GERSTEIN | 4/21/13 1:37 PM EDT

<snip>

"During the 2008 campaign, President Barack Obama and supporters like Holder decried President George W. Bush's Administration's use of the state secrets privilege to defeat lawsuits over national-security related issues. After taking office, Holder instituted a process that he said would limit use of the privilege, but the Obama administration has continued to deployed it to block litigation over the so-called warrantless wiretapping program, renditions of terrorism suspects by the Central Intelligence Agency and other matters."

Clapper, et al. v. Amnesty International USA, et al. (amicus)

http://ccrjustice.org/files/2012-09-...us%20brief.pdf

[Team Sergeant]

"The administration is saying that even if they are violating the constitution or committing a federal crime no court can stop them because it would compromise national security."

I find it amusing that the current administration is in the middle of a shitstorm and no one cares.....

Yeah, let's give amnesty to another eleven million "undocumented democrats" who really don't care who's screwing over who in America as long as they get everything free.

There's so many scandals going on that I'm losing count. Funny that everyone involves eric holder.....

[MR2]

This is the most transparent move this administration has made to date.

[Paslode]

Originally Posted by Team Sergeant

[B][I] Funny that everyone involves eric holder.....

He may be the pivot man in this circle jerk.

[ddoering]

Originally Posted by Team Sergeant

"The administration is saying that even if they are violating the constitution or committing a federal crime no court can stop them because it would compromise national security."

I find it amusing that the current administration is in the middle of a shitstorm and no one cares.....

Yeah, let's give amnesty to another eleven million "undocumented democrats" who really don't care who's screwing over who in America as long as they get everything free.

There's so many scandals going on that I'm losing count. Funny that everyone involves eric holder.....

The November Criminals......... Add Pelosi, Boxer, Feinstein, and Ried. Their day will come. Even your average dim will wake up when the country slides into a shithole like Greece did.

[lindy]

"The administration is saying that even if they are violating the constitution or committing a federal crime no court can stop them because it would compromise national security. That's a very dangerous argument," said Ilann Maazel, a lawyer with the New York-based Emery Celli firm (<--- link to his bio & selected case history) who acts as lead counsel in the Shubert case.

This is merely his opinion without any factual backing. The FISC has jurisdiction and SSCI and HPSCI have oversight of all IC programs.

[MR2]

Originally Posted by lindy

This is merely his opinion without any factual backing. The FISC has jurisdiction and SSCI and HPSCI have oversight of all IC programs.

Whew! Glad we have nothing to worry about.


(not a shot at you Lindy)

[Surf n Turf]

For the FOGs --- Remember when Russia sounded like the crazy ones, and we were sane ?
I say this “tongue in cheek”, as Russia is far from a shining example of a “civilized society”, still the rhetoric is interesting.
SnT

Vladimir Putin:
“But you can’t just listen to the phone call in Russia; you need a special order from court. This is how this should be done in civilized society, while tackling terrorism with the use of any technical means

On Syria
"From the outside some people think that if you bring the entire region in compliance with someone’s specific idea of democracy, things will settle down, and everything will be all right in that region. But that’s not true. Considering that region’s background history, culture, religion – you cannot interfere with it from the outside.”

Putin pointed out that the West is supporting some certain organizations that are fighting Assad in Syria, and they are countering "those very same groups" in Mali.

“What do you have there now? There is a war of everybody against everybody among various tribes, there is war for resources, and, I’m afraid, if we go the same way in Syria, there will be same havoc in Syria that we’re now witnessing in Libya,” he concluded. “Isn’t that enough from what we’re seeing in Pakistan and Afghanistan right now, where there’re terrorists that are not controlled by anyone, except for terrorists?”

http://rt.com/news/putin-rt-visit-br...ng-center-530/

[grog18b]

Originally Posted by Team Sergeant

I find it amusing that the current administration is in the middle of a shitstorm and no one cares.....

Yeah, let's give amnesty to another eleven million "undocumented democrats" who really don't care who's screwing over who in America as long as they get everything free.

There's so many scandals going on that I'm losing count. Funny that everyone involves eric holder.....

Are you as tired of it as I am?

I wish there were an easy way to fix all this stupidity, but honestly, I don't see any way of fixing everything they are destroying. The IRS is targeting people, the ATF is smuggling guns to Mexican gangs to murder US LEOs, the NSA is mining all our private communications, God knows what the FBI is up to these days, the CIA's chief just quit...

When does it end, and how can we fix it? Seems to me that every single three letter agency is doing things to try to screw the American Citizen. How do we fight the entire Government when we know it is completely rotten to the core?