US: Supreme Court is ill-equipped to judge NSA surveillance programs – Scalia
Published on Russia Today RT, September 26, 2013.
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said Wednesday the court eventually will have to determine the legality of far-reaching National Security Agency spying programs, though he is not convinced the court is equipped to based on modern security threats.
Scalia, speaking at the Northern Virginia Technology Council, said elected officials are most qualified to discern how much personal information of Americans the NSA can collect, and under what circumstances.
“The consequence of that is that whether the NSA can do the stuff it’s been doing … which used to be a question for the people … will now be resolved by the branch of government that knows the least about the issues in question, the branch that knows the least about the extent of the threat against which the wiretapping is directed,” he said.
Nevertheless, the Supreme Court started down that path in the 1960s, putting restrictions on wiretapping without a judge’s approval. The court held in 1967 that there were Fourth Amendment prohibitions on wiretapping conversations of Americans.
The Warren court found that “there’s a generalized right of privacy that comes from penumbras and emanations, blah blah blah, garbage,” Scalia said of the decision.
Scalia said the Constitution calls for a balance between whether a search or seizure is reasonable depending on the threat posed … //
… Scalia did not openly solicit his thoughts on surveillance, but was asked about it by an attendee. He said later that he was speaking about general NSA surveillance, including vast collection of phone records, when he repeatedly used the term “wiretap.”
He said tech companies should speak up and tell customers if data was illegally confiscated by the government.
“But it’s pretty hard to know that. … If it’s a governmental wiretap, presumably it’s been approved by somebody, some lawyer expert in the field who said it was OK, and you better be damn sure you’re right before you blow the cover,” he said.
A groups of US senators revealed legislation Wednesday that would curb the NSA’s mass collection of phone records and reform the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which approves NSA spying orders.
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Links:
US: Interview with Interior and Justice Minister Miguel Rodriguez Torres, Part Two, on ZNet, by Michael Albert, September 25, 2013.
Part one (translation and aid regarding all aspects provided by Gregory Wilpert of Venezuela Analysis).
Greek anti-fascist rally turns violent, on Russia Today RT, Sept 26, 2013;
Greek army, police probed over links to neo-Nazi party, on RT, Sept 24, 2013.