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Apple, Tim Cook and Others Sued Over Alleged NSA/PRISM Privacy Violations
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Wrong. He defends a purist application of the US constitution and nothing else. Individual States would NEVER have the same impact as the federal government when it comes to coordinated government-driven criminal acts such as PRISM, Patriot Act etc.
This is good. Apple has a war chest of lawyers and funds and hopefully they will win against the government and Obama and wake the American people up in the process.
The lawsuits and negative feedback regarding the NSA-spying issue are actually VERY HEALTHY. If we do nothing, one day you will wake up and realize you may as well be living in Nazi Germany or Stalin's Russia. Turns out all the "conspiracy nuts"....were right.
And BTW....the "cloud" is a Trojan Horse/spook agency wet dream. All your data on centralized servers with a secret "back door".
And BTW....the "cloud" is a Trojan Horse/spook agency wet dream. All your data on centralized servers with a secret "back door".
The Nuremberg defense is rarely recognized by courts, and shouldn't protect anyone complicit in violating 4th amendment rights.
:::::Applauds:::::
In fact, all those companies that complied should have immediately alerted us to what the government asked them to do. No more of this, in secret, violation of our constitution BS! (Democrats or Republicans alike).
Keep it in the courts, keep it in the press, and keep it people's short-span attention! This is important.
(Even if this particular stunt is a bit absurd on the surface.)
Right, but in this case, the government whose courts will be trying Tim Cook et al is the SAME government whose amendments are being broken and the SAME government who passed the laws that Apple (may have) followed.
"I was just following someone's orders" is no defense... but "I was just following YOUR orders" might be. Not in a world court, but in a US court.
Years ago when the Patriot Act first passed, friends of mine who work at libraries told me that they now received orders to turn over patron's private records, and were further banned from telling anyone when it happened. (They told me only in general terms that such things happened--not any specific instance.) That seemed like the tip of the iceberg then, and years later, still does.
And yes, as someone who voted for Obama and would do so again, Obama shares major blame. He didn't start it, but he continued it.
I like to see conservatives and liberals fighting on the same side here, at least (If the president were still Republican, I hope conservatives would still be up in arms about this issue. Sometimes there's a trend among Fox's new breed of conservatives where everything's OK if a Republican president does it, but not a Democratic president.)
(Even if this particular stunt is a bit absurd on the surface.)
Right, but in this case, the government whose courts will be trying Tim Cook et al is the SAME government whose amendments are being broken and the SAME government who passed the laws that Apple (may have) followed.
"I was just following someone's orders" is no defense... but "I was just following YOUR orders" might be. Not in a world court, but in a US court.
Years ago when the Patriot Act first passed, friends of mine who work at libraries told me that they now received orders to turn over patron's private records, and were further banned from telling anyone when it happened. (They told me only in general terms that such things happened--not any specific instance.) That seemed like the tip of the iceberg then, and years later, still does.
And yes, as someone who voted for Obama and would do so again, Obama shares major blame. He didn't start it, but he continued it.
I like to see conservatives and liberals fighting on the same side here, at least
(If the president were still Republican, I hope conservatives would still be up in arms about this issue. Sometimes there's a trend among Fox's new breed of conservatives where everything's OK if a Republican president does it, but not a Democratic president.)
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For the gov't to be so emboldened to use contracts and prosecution maliciously in situations like this? sorry, this is just an extension of evil that needs to be countered.
Yes, if you have stockholders you need to tow a smart line. Selling out your customers/endusers.... sorry still a huge problem and issue. I get the point that the gov't went after this person, but lets face it. Just another signal that the gov't and NSA is OUT OF CONTROL and need massive cutbacks, oversight which takes away their ability to spy domestically on our own citizens and more.
I don't think anyone is saying the idea of suing the government to stop this is a bad idea.
But from what I've read, the only thing known about Apple is that their name appeared in a powerpoint presentation. And the best analysis of what all that meant is, they are efficiently handling these FISA warrants. I disagree with the laws creating FISA warrants and in my opinion they are unconstitutional - but they not only have been passed and renewed by different congresses, I believe they have passed judicial review so far. This isn't an after-the-fact legalization of wiretaps like happened with AT&T, the law was passed and is quite explicit in saying Apple (and other companies) must comply and must not reveal the legal orders they are complying with.
So barring information not yet public, the lawsuit against Apple, Facebook, Google, et. al. is "They're obeying laws I think are wrong". And that's neither criminal nor a torte.
Again, this is bad law, my personal belief is that it's unconstitutional law (though the courts have not yet agreed). And for those who argued at the time this bad law was passed and later renewed that it would be used responsibly, it's pretty clear it's being abused.
Subnote: Reading the complaint, it looks like it's back to the original thought of "Apple and others opened a backdoor into their servers for the NSA". And looking at their website - these aren't serious players. Check their list of "cases". The purpose isn't to win a lawsuit, it's for the PR.
The lawsuit will not fly. It is well established law in the United States, metadata does not require a warrant. Add to the fact, all personally identifiable information was anonymized and it is hard to show any damages.
No names were included. No phone numbers were included, just phone ID 17 was connected from tower 2355 to phone ID 34555 at tower 887766 from timecode X to timecode y.
If they want to know who Phone ID 17 or 34555 is or the actual phone numbers, they must show probable cause and get a warrant from the FISA court. (The FISA court on the other hand is evil. Unfortunately, it has also gone all the way up the court system.)
No names were included. No phone numbers were included, just phone ID 17 was connected from tower 2355 to phone ID 34555 at tower 887766 from timecode X to timecode y.
If they want to know who Phone ID 17 or 34555 is or the actual phone numbers, they must show probable cause and get a warrant from the FISA court. (The FISA court on the other hand is evil. Unfortunately, it has also gone all the way up the court system.)
Bravo!
I am utterly disgusted by what is happening in our country and even more disgusted by all of the sheep who act like it's no big deal. When I was growing up, America railed against the idea of spying on your neighbor and decried government tracking its citizens in the communist east block and USSR. Back then we stood for something. Our nation had principles.
And today? Are we so scared of the terrorist boogeyman that we're willing to give the government an all-access pass to our private lives? Are we that weak? That fearful? Or worse, that indifferent? I am horrified by the way so many Americans just dismiss this mass-scale spying as no big deal.
We have no idea of the extent to which data is being collected, what is being done with that data, who has access to it, nor how it is safeguarded. Everything is classified. Any oversight (if any truly exists) is secret. We're just supposed to sit back and trust that our big government machine will always have our best interests at heart. What is happening now is worse than anything that happened back in the communist USSR days. We've not only crossed the line, we've blown past it.
We, as Americans, need to seriously ask ourselves what kind of country we want. Do we want a big government nanny state that spies on its citizens' every action or do we hold fast to our principles, our history, and our Constitution? And don't give me this "it's the law" ************. Not all laws are just. The Patriot Act is the greatest offense to American liberty and freedom we've ever known. We are not the USSR, although these days our government is looking more and more like it.
I am utterly disgusted by what is happening in our country and even more disgusted by all of the sheep who act like it's no big deal. When I was growing up, America railed against the idea of spying on your neighbor and decried government tracking its citizens in the communist east block and USSR. Back then we stood for something. Our nation had principles.
And today? Are we so scared of the terrorist boogeyman that we're willing to give the government an all-access pass to our private lives? Are we that weak? That fearful? Or worse, that indifferent? I am horrified by the way so many Americans just dismiss this mass-scale spying as no big deal.
We have no idea of the extent to which data is being collected, what is being done with that data, who has access to it, nor how it is safeguarded. Everything is classified. Any oversight (if any truly exists) is secret. We're just supposed to sit back and trust that our big government machine will always have our best interests at heart. What is happening now is worse than anything that happened back in the communist USSR days. We've not only crossed the line, we've blown past it.
We, as Americans, need to seriously ask ourselves what kind of country we want. Do we want a big government nanny state that spies on its citizens' every action or do we hold fast to our principles, our history, and our Constitution? And don't give me this "it's the law" ************. Not all laws are just. The Patriot Act is the greatest offense to American liberty and freedom we've ever known. We are not the USSR, although these days our government is looking more and more like it.
You do know that he probably had zero choice in the matter right? The government does what they want, when they want.
Do you know Google is forced to censor many different sites per year by the government? They have no choice. Outside of the "communist" countries the U.S. is second in censorship requests right behind Brazil.
One example I can remember is when I lived and worked overseas there were all kinds of articles about how the Bush administration admitted to lying about Iraqs weapons of mass destruction. When I was in the U.S. and tried to show family members who were Bush supporters the same articles they wouldn't show up in search.
Which I am sure is why they sue the person Obama and the Attorney General, rather than the government.
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Amen. Who knows what happens in Obama's administration without him even knowing about it, if not then simply to protect him (and 'their' funds).
Here is a hint people, it is well established law. If the police want to get the content of your phone calls, they must ask a judge for a warrant. If the police want your metadata (caller ID information and content of your text messages), all they need do is ask for it. This has been true for years.
They don't even need a warrant to read your email, if the messages are old. Again, this is established law. Do I like it? No. Can a legal challenge change it? No. It has gone all the way to the Supreme Court.
Don't like it? Call your congressmen and have them change the law.
They don't even need a warrant to read your email, if the messages are old. Again, this is established law. Do I like it? No. Can a legal challenge change it? No. It has gone all the way to the Supreme Court.
Don't like it? Call your congressmen and have them change the law.
Not true. You can sue anyone for anything, breaking law is optional.
I can sue you for posting on macrumor for emotional damage of $5 million dollars, and unfortunately our court system 'filter' is not idiot proof enough to dismiss such cases, you probably would need several thousands of dollars to defend yourself.
It's a flawed system, and lawyers are businessmen first.
Great speech, would have been awsome back in 2001 when the Patriot Act was introduced, now it's too late. I'm not a democrat, but I'm not going to blame Obama administration for expanding on something introduced back in 2001.
Go ahead. Try and sue him. You don't know who he is or where he lives. And even if you knew, good luck finding a lawyer that would take your case.
Has this been established, or is this just what they're telling everyone now they've been caught?
That is not entirely true, this data mining is all still being done under the Patriot Act Title: II and warrants are still required. Unfortunately the warrants are obtained in secret courts who immediately approve all requests. They literally approve request 100% of the time and their rulings are classified.
Face it, nobody cared about it the Patriot Act when Bush was in office, but it's Obama's fault now, just like how the national debt is suddenly Obama's fault.