A 640 MB .wav file! Someone is a sadist.
 

it must have hours and hours of surveillance recordings of suspicious individuals..
I could not think faster way of downloading the file, except if you have fiber optics internet connection that would for sure make the download much faster.
 

Okay, we are all internet savy right? If someone has the file, create a torrent and post the link here.
 

Never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence.

The Bush administration and its handpicked DOJ - yeesh.

My system says 25 hours to get this on multi-megabit pipe. That's plenty of time for them to reclassify it, trace me and bust in the door for my possession of unauthorized classified materials. Or for damaging a federal computer system when it crashes.

I'll go with malice on this one. Their sysop is sitting there, laughing.
 

As others have noted - it's a full, CD-quality uncompressed audio stream. Rough estimates say it's just over 2 hours long, but 700Mb for that! Worse yet, the server appears to be attached to the rest of the net via a very very clogged piece of string. It doesn't matter what size net connection you have - the problem is with the ca6.uscourts.gov webserver's bandwidth.

I'd ask the people responsible for the file to consider re-encoding it in a more sane format - if they're worried about MP3's legality (patents&c) there's always the Ogg Vorbis format. Re-encoded, it should be easily possible to get it down to around 50-100M in size.
 

To the extent that you can tell anything from selective snippets of questions and comments from the panel judges provided by an interested party who disclosed the program to the enemy, it appears that none of the judges are buying the mootness argument, but two of the three are having trouble finding standing for the plaintiffs.

The Government brought up the states secrets privilege on multiple occasions, but there is no indication in the article concerning judges' responses on the matter. I would have liked to hear the judges make comments on the applicability of the state secrets privilege so we could speculate whether the case will be dismissed outright or sent to Judge Vaughn for discovery under the limits of the state secrets privilege.

I would note that the NYT incorrectly represented previous rulings at the district court level.

Several courts have ruled, however, that the administration’s general description and defense of the N.S.A. program meant that it was no longer secret and that questions about its legality could be decided without raising national security concerns.

Except for Judge Taylor's opinion, I have no idea to what cases the reporter is referring.

In the Hepting case, Judge Vaughn declined to dismiss the case at the outset under the Government's argument that plaintiff's could not prove standing under any circumstances without violating the state secrets privilege. The court deferred ruling on that question until the plaintiff's attempted discovery and the court could determine whether the resulting requests violated the state secrets privilege. At no time did Judge Vaughn hold that the court could rule on the substantive issues raised by plaintiffs of the legality of the program. Judge Vaughn's ruling should control the proceedings at the trial level since all these cases have been consolidated in his court.

http://www.eff.org/legal/cases/att/
308_order_on_mtns_to_dismiss.pdf
 

"Bart" DePalma said:

I would have liked to hear the judges make comments on the applicability of the state secrets privilege so we could speculate whether the case will be dismissed outright or sent to Judge Vaughn for discovery under the limits of the state secrets privilege.

The "state secrets privilege" means never having to say you're sorry. As we've seen from the el-Masri and Arar cases -- in fact, from the original Reynolds case. It's a pile of hogwash, designed to cover up gummint embarrassments. There's plenty of ways to protect real sensitive information, but few tools as good as this one to hide maladministration incompetence malice, and illegality.

Cheers,
 

JaO said...

Bart:... so we could speculate whether the case will be dismissed outright or sent to Judge Vaughn for discovery under the limits of the state secrets privilege.

We certainly could speculate, but let's do so with some factual basis. No party is seeking "discovery" in the ACLU v NSA case.

If the Sixth Circuit follows Judge Vaughn's lead and defers a determination on standing until the plaintiff attempt discovery, then they should reverse SJ as premature and remand back to the trial court. The parties are then put back to square one and must proceed to discovery to determine standing.
 

jao:

I understand that plaintiffs skipped discovery and convinced Judge Taylor to grant them summary judgment.

However, if the 6th Circuit finds, as the comments of two of the three panel members indicate, that plaintiffs have not provided sufficient evidence of standing to support SJ, then either the panel dismisses the case outright for lack of standing or remands to the trial court to enable the plaintiffs to conduct discovery to gather sufficient evidence of standing. If the panel chooses to remand, ACLU has a choice between conducting discovery or being dismissed by the trial court based on the 6th Circuit finding that they do not currently have enough evidence of standing.

ACLU rolled the dice with SJ because they had a favorable judge and very likely the TSP has not actually surveilled any of their clients.
 

For example, one of the most basic questions is whether the TSP fell within the definition of activity governed by FISA. Although the DOJ had clearly stated in many previous documents (the White Paper for example) that it would not answer this question because of national security, they did not clearly dispute the allegation that this was an "uncontested fact" until their brief to the Sixth Circuit.

This claim is absurd. The Administration, from the moment the illegal surveillance was revealed, has admitted that FISA governs it. In fact, the whole point of the government's mootness argument is that it is now getting FISA warrants. Obviously, that would not and could not be the case if FISA didn't apply.

Here are some examples of previous Administration statements which concede that FISA applies:

On December 19, 2005, Attorney General Gonzales gave a press conference after the surveillance was revealed by the New York Times. He was asked, “If FISA didn’t work, why didn’t you seek a new statute that allowed something like this legally?” He responded that they had discussed that with certain members of Congress and were advised, “that was not something we could likely get.” Link. There's no point in amending FISA if FISA doesn't apply, so Gonzales clearly understood that it did apply.

At the same press conference (December 19, 2005), Attorney General Gonzales stated that the authorization for the use of force against Al Qaeda on September 12, 2001, satisfied the FISA requirements. It make no sense to claim that the AUMF satisfies the FISA requirements if FISA doesn't apply.

On January 23, 2006, General Michael Hayden, the director of the NSA from March 1999 until the Spring of 2005, gave a speech in which he said that President Bush approved the warrantless surveillance because the NSA needed a “softer” standard (“softer” than the probable cause required by FISA) such as “reasonable basis to believe”. Link. Again, it makes no sense to discuss the FISA standard if FISA didn't apply.
 

JaO said...

Bart, If the plaintiffs lose on standing, it will likely be because the court rejects their theory of standing. That theory has never been based on any assertion that they were, in fact, surveilled...If the plaintiffs lose on their standing theory, I think, they lose. Of course, that ruling itself likely would be appealed.

This is true and the reason why I posted that the panel may dismiss the case altogether, even though Judge Vaughn declined to dismiss similar cases before his court which sought discovery.

However, has ACLU actually admitted that their clients were not surveilled? I don't recall ACLU making this argument. If ACLU made this concession, then the case probably will be dismissed outright. If not, the 6th Circuit may remand and allow plaintiffs an attempt to establish standing through discovery to gain evidence of actual surveillance.

However, your analysis is compelling and you have changed my mind. I suspect that the case could be dismissed outright for lack of standing rather than being remanded. Thanks for your take.
 

The only unambiguous formal statements made by the DOJ are the statements in their brief in this appeal and to the California court. In both cases they say that the question of whether the way the TSP was previously conducted falls under FISA is in dispute.

This is simply and unambiguously false. First, going back to the December 19 press conference, Gonzales stated, "Now, in terms of legal authorities, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act provides -- requires a court order before engaging in this kind of surveillance that I've just discussed and the President announced on Saturday, unless there is somehow -- there is -- unless otherwise authorized by statute or by Congress. That's what the law requires."

That's both formal and unambiguous.

Second, the White Paper (link) does NOT claim that FISA doesn't apply. To the contrary, it claims either (1) the AUMF satisfies FISA (i.e., it DOES apply); or (2) FISA is unconstitutional (i.e., that FISA purports to apply but can't):

1. "The NSA activities are consistent with the preexisting statutory framework generally applicable to the interception of communications in the United States—the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (“FISA”), as amended, 50 U.S.C. §§ 1801-1862 (2000 & Supp. II 2002), and relevant related provisions in chapter 119 of title 18.1 Although FISA generally requires judicial approval of electronic surveillance, FISA also contemplates that Congress may authorize such surveillance by a statute other than FISA. ... The AUMF, as construed by the Supreme Court in Hamdi and as confirmed by the history and tradition of armed conflict, is just such a statute. Accordingly, electronic surveillance conducted by the President pursuant to the AUMF, including the NSA activities, is fully consistent with FISA ...."

2. "Even if there were ambiguity about whether FISA, read together with the AUMF, permits the President to authorize the NSA activities, the canon of constitutional avoidance requires reading these statutes in harmony to overcome any restrictions in FISA and Title III, at least as they might otherwise apply to the congressionally authorized armed conflict with al Qaeda. Indeed, were FISA and Title III interpreted to impede the President’s ability to use the traditional tool of electronic surveillance to detect and prevent future attacks by a declared enemy that has already struck at the homeland and is engaged in ongoing operations against the United States, the constitutionality of FISA, as applied to that situation, would be called into very serious doubt. In fact, if this difficult constitutional question had to be addressed, FISA would be unconstitutional as applied to this narrow context."
 

Fair enough, JaO. Thanks.
 

Those who didn't read carefully assumed that because the White Paper justified the TSP assuming that it was covered by FISA, then the government was admitting what it instead was refusing to discuss.

Perhaps that's because the government's statements before that DID admit the fact. Gonzales said so specifically, and the justifications he and others offered did so indirectly.
 

"Bart" DePalma missed the boat (unsurprisingly):

However, has ACLU actually admitted that their clients were not surveilled?...

Why should they (and how could they)?

But I'd note a little something that our esteemed attorney "Bart" DePalma, Esq., seems to have missed: They don't need to make any such admission (nor can they); their case doesn't rest on whether they, specifically were wiretapped or not. That fact is irrelevant. I think that JaO pointed that out; I think it went 40,000 feet over "Bart"'s head....

Cheers,


Cheers,
 

Download free mp3 from googlemp3.com


http://www.googlemp3.com

is a new google site
 

thanks so much i like very so much your post
حلي الاوريو الفطر الهندي صور تورتة حلى قهوه طريقة عمل السينابون طريقة عمل بلح الشام بيتزا هت كيكة الزبادي حلا سهل صور كيك
عجينة العشر دقائق
طريقة عمل الدونات طريقة عمل البان كيك طريقة عمل الكنافة طريقة عمل البسبوسة طريقة عمل الكيك طريقة عمل عجينة البيتزا فوائد القرفه
 

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Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.
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