Unconstitutional eavesdropping through secret wiretapping is still legal, thanks to a federal appeals court ruling Saturday.
The U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals threw out a Detroit judge's decision stating the anti-terrorism program was unconstitutional, according to the Detroit Free Press. The American Civil Liberties Union and its co-plaintiffs, including groups like Greenpeace, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, scholars, journalists and others, sued the National Security Agency, alleging the program was unconstitutional and hampered personal rights.
The court ruled 2-1 that the plaintiffs couldn't prove they had been harmed by the National Security Agency's wiretapping program and, therefore, had no legal standing to challenge it.
But the government created the state-secret doctrine to keep details of the program hidden, meaning no one can get access to any evidence proving the program harmed them. The program was designed to be impregnable - no one can challenge it because it has all the evidence they would need.
The administration announced in January it had abandoned the warrantless phase of the anti-terrorism program and was henceforth seeking warrants from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in Washington, following a declaration by U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor last August that the warrantless program was unconstitutional.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court allows the administration to eavesdrop for up to 15 days without requesting a warrant, or up to a year if the attorney general certifies under oath, in writing, that the surveillance is directed at a foreign power, according to the Detroit Free Press. The law also lowered the amount of evidence required to get a warrant.
The entire program reeks of abuse of power and double standards from an administration that continuously pushes the line on secrecy and cover-ups. It's unjust for members of the executive branch to fire dissidents and withhold documents from the National Archives' Information Security Oversight Office, and turn around and wiretap its own citizens.
And whether it's done with a legal warrant or not, secret wiretapping is an inexcusable invasion of privacy. The administration has created a catch-22 with the program because anyone who challenges the program can be framed as having something to hide. This is yet another blast at civil liberties. Slowly, personal innate rights and freedoms are being degraded by an administration with a power trip.
The administration continues to operate these types of programs under the veil of abolishing terrorism, because terrorism is bad and anything anti-terrorism, therefore, must be good. People have been sitting in prisons in Cuba for years without due process of law and American citizens have their phones tapped by their own government, all in the name of opposing an ambiguous enemy.
