Director of National Intelligence: 4th Ammendment Broken at Least Once

[N. De Plume]

“On at least one occasion,” the intelligence shop has approved Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) to say, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court found that “minimization procedures” used by the government while it was collecting intelligence were “unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment.” Minimization refers to how long the government may retain the surveillance data it collects.  The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution is supposed to guarantee our rights against unreasonable searches.

But, don’t worry. They are concerned about Americans’ privacy now:

Separately, the National Security Agency insisted that it would violate Americans’ privacy even to tally up how many Americans it had spied upon under the new law.

And, you should feel okay about these violations because, they didn’t mean to do so.

“At no time,” she continues, “have these reviews found any intentional violations of law.”

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/07/surveillance-spirit-law/

[StallChaser]

It's kinda sad that my first thought was "Well, duh, private for-profit prisons won't fill themselves."

“At no time,” she continues, “have these reviews found any intentional violations of law.”

"Oops" is now the perfect defense* against prosecution.


*Offer only valid for important people.

[Fpqxz]

It's kinda sad that my first thought was "Well, duh, private for-profit prisons won't fill themselves."

Don't be silly.  We have the War on Drugs and the occasional staged immigration raid for that.

“At no time,” she continues, “have these reviews found any intentional violations of law.”

"Oops" is now the perfect defense* against prosecution.


*Offer only valid for important people.

Yeah, I almost forgot..."Dude, we, like, totally didn't mean to do it" is an affirmative defense to civil rights violations.

Edited to fix tags.

[N. De Plume]

Oh, yeah, and it has also been pointed out that this tidbit was revealed on a Friday afternoon. You, know, the period you only release things you want buried. Even when there isn’t a major violent news story taking all the press from everything else. The timing there certainly worked out for them.

And keep in mind one, two, ten, fifty, one hundred, and one thousand times all qualify for “at least once.” No upper bound has been specified. This is in addition to it being unclear as to how many individuals are covered in any given incident of amendment-breakage.

[TenfoldMaquette]

I don't understand why we bother to have laws 'n such on the books when you can just ignore them (and not get prosecuted for doing so!) whenever it's convenient.... :-/