Good news for those of us who don’t like Uncle Sammy listening to our phone calls just, ’cause, like, you know, freedom an’ shit — a federal district judge ruled Monday that the National Security Agency’s perma-tap is likely an “almost Orwellian” violation of the U.S. Constitution.
According to The New York Times, Judge Richard J. Leon stayed his injunction “in light of the significant national security interests at stake in this case and the novelty of the constitutional issues,” giving the gummint time to appeal, which could take six months or more.
But the judge said as part of a 68-page ruling that the gummint had failed to cite “a single instance in which analysis of the N.S.A.’s bulk metadata collection actually stopped an imminent attack, or otherwise aided the government in achieving any objective that was time-sensitive.”
MoJo’s Kevin Drum notes that “district court judges make lots of rulings that never go anywhere, and this is mostly likely one of them.” But he likes that a judge wants this bullshit to stop, and so do I.
Mad Blog Media 
I suspect the Supremes will overturn this if it gets that far, but meanwhile, three cheers and a tip of the nuclear beanie to His Honor, Richard Leon.
He was a Dubya appointee, by the way.
Okay, say this injunction stands, and say this goes to the nine person panels that appoints presidents (yea, I’m still pissed about that) and they somehow agree with Judge Leon. How would we ever know that the NSA is behaving itself? These guys are the business of keeping things secret (thanks, Snowden!), who or what is going to check up on them?
And it’s not like a spy agency hasn’t run amok before (CIA under Nixon), or that an executive branch hasn’t ignored a supreme court ruling before (e.g. Andrew “Send ’em On The Trail of Tears” Jackson).
It looks like we best just get used to the idea of our spy agencies potentially listening in on our phone calls, reading our emails, and monitoring what we comment on various blog posts….ah shit.
The question is not whether they will cheat, but when the Feddle Gummint will get so bad that we really do have to worry about being carted off in the dead of night.
Recall, these are the same agencies who saw to it that Augusto Pinochet was put into power, and that a lot of his opponents ended up as fill in stadium concrete structures.
True, we let the Amazonians peek in our window … but Bezos can’t have us snatched up and shipped off to Gitmo for what he sees. Yet.
Khal, you wouldn’t worry me half so much if I didn’t know that given where you work you probably have access to them thar nucular thingys. The mass of men may lead lives of quiet desperation, but yours could get very loud. Hmmm…am I downwind of Los Alamos? Nah, that’s C-Springs.
Sometimes I wonder who is watching me.
Like I’ve always said … Order a box of Pampers from Amazon and charge it to any major credit card. Within two weeks, you’ll get coupons in the mail for baby formula and Gerber life insurance policies. The privacy genie is so far out of the bottle …
I think I saw Bo’s paw move, another 6 hour lost.
Gawd dang activist judges …
Oh, wait a second … he’s ruling against that Kenyan mooslim fella?
Well, then, three cheers for strictly interpreting the Constitution!
What? The Founding Fathers never mentioned wire taps or monitoring of the electromagnetic spectrum?
Let me get back to you … I’ll figure out a way to make this fit in my ideological marching orders …
Patrick O’Grady for President.