Hang ‘Em High (NSA)

Yesterday a story dropped that was covered by the media, but the importance of it was downplayed.  Sorry folks, this is far more important than is being let on, and you should pay close attention here.

A federal judge ruled Monday that the National Security Agency program which collects information on nearly all telephone calls made to, from or within the United States is likely to be unconstitutional.

U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon found that the program appears to violate the Fourth Amendment prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures. He also said the Justice Department had failed to demonstrate that collecting the so-called metadata had helped to head off terrorist attacks.

Note the bar for injunctive relief; it is a three-prong test and you must satisfy all of them:

• You are more-likely than not to win on the merits when the case is decided.  That is, whatever you’re arguing has to be quite-clear and convincing facially from the material you present, to lead to a winning conclusion.
• You will suffer irreparable harm if you don’t get relief.  That is, mere payment of money does not compensate you for whatever is happening. If money will compensate you then if the harm goes on for longer that simply means you get more money.
• The balance of harms is in your favor.  That is, if the relief is granted the harm done to others (if any) is outweighed  by the harm done to you if the relief isn’t granted.

You have to win all three or you lose on an injunction.  This is an extremely high bar to meet, and the Judge decided that the bar had been met.

But it’s what’s contained within the ruling that ought to lead to immediate criminal sanction against the NSA, particularly against Mr. Clapper who we now know lied to Congress when questioned about these programs.

Why?

Because under 18 USC 242 and 42 USC 1983 a conspiracy to deny someone Constitutional rights under color of law or authority is both civilly and criminally actionable.

And it is in the decision itself that we find the reason that the acts of the NSA, along withevery Congressperson, every government-employed attorney and every government employee who hasknowingly and intentionally supported this crap, needs to find themselves in the dock and ultimately behind bars.

There it is folks, read it and weep.

The government has effectively defused “standing” by refusing to confirm that a given program exists and is in fact doing what it is doing.

In other words they are hiding behind secrecy while using it against you and are doing so by actively lying.

This is broadly impermissible in any sort of actual justice system.  The justice system prohibits you from suing over speculative damages, but it is also supposed to prohibit you from profiting from your own unclean hands — that is, from your own deceptions and lies.

Indeed, the entire premise of justice relies on the fact that you cannot force a dismissal of a suit (or prosecution) against you via deception and scam – only by presentation of facts, or evidence that the opposing side’s presentation lacks said facts.

But in this case the facts are that the surveillance is taking place — that is, the facts are that the intrusion is real.  It is only the claim of secrecy and intentional obfuscation by the government that led to the previous dismissal as the alleged injury was ruled “speculative.”

It in fact was not speculative at all and the attorneys who so-argued and their client, in this case the government, knew it was not.

That is, just like Clapper, they committed a crime by falsely claiming that the injury alleged wasspeculative because the program wasn’t “proved” to exist when they knew damn well it both did and was collecting the data.

This crap must be stopped and the only way to stop it is with prison terms.

The judicial system is correct in not allowing you to recover from a “speculative” injury, but we, the people, must insist that when a party at interest knowingly raises a false defense — in this case claiming “speculative” injury when they know damn well they’re engaged in the conduct alleged the consequences for same must be prosecution and imprisonment for everyone involved, including but not limited theattorneys and government employees who cause the false defense to be raised.

Period.

The Market Ticker

Go to responses (registration required to post)