Secret Courts Enable Unconstitutional Spying

In 2008, a ruling by a surveillance court said to be against Yahoo discouraged technology firms from fighting data requests from the government. (source infra)

How can you have a "Secret Court" issuing "Secret Court Orders" in a "free country?"

Secret Court Ruling Put Tech Companies in Data Bind - NYTimes.com: "In a secret court in Washington, Yahoo’s top lawyers made their case. The government had sought help in spying on certain foreign users, without a warrant, and Yahoo had refused, saying the broad requests were unconstitutional. The judges disagreed. That left Yahoo two choices: Hand over the data or break the law. So Yahoo became part of the National Security Agency’s secret Internet surveillance program, Prism, according to leaked N.S.A. documents, as did seven other Internet companies.Like almost all the actions of the secret court, which operates under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the details of its disagreement with Yahoo were never made public beyond a heavily redacted court order, one of the few public documents ever to emerge from the court. The name of the company had not been revealed until now. Yahoo’s involvement was confirmed by two people with knowledge of the proceedings. Yahoo declined to comment. . . ."

Big Brother Lives! (through Secret Courts, Secret Court Orders, Dysfunctional Presidency and Executive Branch, Dysfunctional Congress).

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Think You've Got Nothing To Hide? Better Think Again

Anytime you hear this mantra--it's OK to violate the Constitution (domestic spying etc.), because I have nothing to hide--you can be sure that the person is either naive, stupid, or has an agenda--

If You've Got Nothing To Hide, You've Actually Got Plenty To Hide | Techdirt: " . . . First up, we've got Moxie Marlinspike at Wired, who points out that, you're wrong if you think you've got nothing to hide, because our criminal laws are so crazy, that anyone sifting through your data would likely be able to pin quite a few crimes on you if they just wanted to. . . ." (read more at links above)

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Obama: “All I Care About Right Now is Political Fund Raising”

OK, Obama really didn't say that, but actions speak louder than words--

Obama: “All I Care About Right Now is Governing” | The Blog on Obama: White House Dossier: " . . . “And so what that means is I think you can have confidence that all I care about right now is governing.” But Obama’s actions would appear to say otherwise. With the three fundraisers he attended Wednesday – one in Boston for the Senate campaign of Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and two in Miami Beach for the Democratic National Committee – Obama’s total for 2013 already tops the number George W. Bush did for the entire year in 2005. According to Mark Knoller of CBS News, who tracks presidential political activity, Bush did 15 events in 2005, three less than Obama has already done. Obama has hosted eight fundraisers – more than half Bush’s 2005 total – in just the past two weeks. The two years are comparable because Bush was also in the first year of his second term and raising money ahead of the following year’s midterm elections."

But when the only things at which one is competent are making speeches and fund-raising, what do you expect? As for "governing" . . . .

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