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Wikipedia's parent organization just joined the fight against dragnet government surveillance.

The ACLU filed a lawsuit today against the National Security Administration for its spying tactics. The lawsuit challenges the NSA's surveillance program as a violation of Fourth Amendment privacy rights, an infringement on First Amendment rights, and an overstepping of the authority given to the NSA under Congress' FISA Amendments Act.

"The reason we're filing this lawsuit is that we feel we've been harmed directly by the NSA," Wikimedia General Counsel Geoff Brigham told me, noting that the NSA explicitly targeted Wikipedia in a top secret document revealed by Edward Snowden. Plaintiffs stretch across political boundaries and include both conservative and liberal organizations.

This is far from the only recent lawsuit against the NSA. In February, a judge announced that he can't rule in Jewel vs. NSA, a lawsuit filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation against the NSA's spying tactics. The EFF has also filed a suit regarding government spying in July 2013 (First Unitarian vs. NSA) and helped the ACLU on the legal team for Smith vs. Obama, which also argued that bulk government data collection violates a citizen's Fourth Amendment rights.

So far, none of these cases have worked out. Smith v. Obama was dismissed. And the ACLU cited Clapper vs. Amnesty as a precedent to this case. While that lawsuit wound up dismissed by the Supreme Court after it determined that plaintiffs couldn't prove they were getting spied on, there's still a lot of optimism this time around.

"I expect the district court will rule in our favor and that the NSA will accept that ruling," Bingham told me.

First Unitarian is still pending, and also boasts a long and weird list of organizations united together primarily by their reluctance to be okay with sweeping government surveillance. Just to give you a glimpse at the scope of furious groups, here's a list of all the companies and organizations currently participating in pending suits related to the NSA's surveillance program:

I have a feeling this list will just keep growing if the pending cases aren't heard soon. So far, Obama's weak stabs at NSA reform haven't exactly soothed reasonable concerns that government surveillance is an uncontrolled privacy piss-storm.

Link:
Wikipedia Just Joined the List of Pissed-Off Organizations Suing the NSA

The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution articulates the right of Americans sources of private informational documents to be secure "against unreasonable searches and seizures." We need this principle to address threats to cloud computing.

Alena Root, Thinkstock

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SALT LAKE CITY As a medium of expression that blossomed in popular consciousness in the late 1990s, the Internet is beginning to reach its adolescent years.

We've evolved from static Web pages to social networking to "cloud computing," which means that personal documents aren't stored on our computers and smartphones but on servers throughout the world.

And yet citizens' security in their digital possessions has never been more threatened. Fortunately, there are two bills one co-sponsored by Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, the other co-sponsored by Utah Sen. Mike Lee that go a long way to restoring constitutional protections for Internet information.

It's important at the outset to dispense the shibboleth that the Internet changes everything. What the Internet needs is a strong dose of 18th century legal wisdom, not words about "freedom of expression in the 21st century," to quote the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission during last Thursday's vote by the agency on network neutrality.

The Constitution says that we have the right to be secure in our "persons, houses, papers and effects." We have the right to speak free from regulation by the government. There are some who say that the Internet has rewritten the laws of supply and demand, or changed common decency and morality, or altered the possibility of being free from police surveillance. They are mistaken.

The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution articulates the right of Americans sources of private informational documents to be secure "against unreasonable searches and seizures." This doesn't prevent the government or the police from obtaining information upon probable cause or reasonable suspicion; it simply bars the issuance of general warrants.

On Feb. 4, a bipartisan group of senators and representatives introduced the Electronic Communications Privacy Amendments Act of 2015. The bill we are introducing today protects Americans digital privacy in their emails, and all the other files and photographs they store in the cloud," said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, who has long been seeking to update this law that first passed in 1986.

Read the original:
Drew Clark: Threats to cloud computing require a solution from the 18th century

The Ferguson Police Department routinely violated the constitutional rights of the local African-American population in the Missouri city for years, the Department of Justice has found in a searing report.

The investigation, launched after the August shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, found that the department violated the Fourth Amendment in instances such as making traffic stops without reasonable suspicion and making arrests without probable cause.

The report provides direct evidence of racial bias among police officers and court workers, and details a criminal justice system that through the issuance of petty citations for infractions such as walking in the middle of the street, prioritizes generating revenue from fines over public safety.

The practice hits poor people especially hard, sometimes leading to jail time when they can't pay, the report says, and has contributed to a cynicism about the police on the part of citizens.

The official release of the report could come as early as Wednesday. The details were provided to Fox News on Tuesday by law enforcement officials familiar with the department's findings.

The Justice Department alleges that the discrimination was triggered at least partly by racial bias and stereotypes about African-Americans, a violation of the 14th Amendment. The report details a November 2008 email on an official Ferguson municipal account which joked that President Obama would not be president for long because what black man holds a steady job for four years?

From 2012 to 2014, the report found, African-Americans comprised 85 percent of people pulled over for a traffic stop; 90 percent of those given citations; and 93 percent of arrests.

Also, African-American drivers were more than twice as likely to be searched during a traffic stop than white drivers, but that those black drivers were 26 percent less likely to be found to be holding contraband.

The report also accuses the Ferguson police of using unreasonable force in violation of the Fourth Amendment, and that 88 percent of those cases involved African-Americans.

Overall, blacks make up 67 percent of Ferguson's population.

Read the original post:
DOJ report says Ferguson PD routinely violated rights of African-Americans

The Ferguson Police Department routinely violated the constitutional rights of the local African-American population in the Missouri city for years, the Department of Justice has found in a searing report.

The investigation, launched after the August shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, found that the department violated the Fourth Amendment in instances such as making traffic stops without reasonable suspicion and making arrests without probable cause.

The report provides direct evidence of racial bias among police officers and court workers, and details a criminal justice system that through the issuance of petty citations for infractions such as walking in the middle of the street, prioritizes generating revenue from fines over public safety.

The practice hits poor people especially hard, sometimes leading to jail time when they can't pay, the report says, and has contributed to a cynicism about the police on the part of citizens.

The official release of the report could come as early as Wednesday. The details were provided to Fox News on Tuesday by law enforcement officials familiar with the department's findings.

The Justice Department alleges that the discrimination was triggered at least partly by racial bias and stereotypes about African-Americans, a violation of the 14th Amendment. The report details a November 2008 email on an official Ferguson municipal account which joked that President Obama would not be president for long because what black man holds a steady job for four years?

From 2012 to 2014, the report found, African-Americans comprised 85 percent of people pulled over for a traffic stop; 90 percent of those given citations; and 93 percent of arrests.

Also, African-American drivers were more than twice as likely to be searched during a traffic stop than white drivers, but that those black drivers were 26 percent less likely to be found to be holding contraband.

The report also accuses the Ferguson police of using unreasonable force in violation of the Fourth Amendment, and that 88 percent of those cases involved African-Americans.

Overall, blacks make up 67 percent of Ferguson's population.

Visit link:
Officials: DOJ report finds racial bias in Ferguson police

Criminal Procedure tutorial: Derivative Evidence and the Fourth Amendment | quimbee.com
A brief excerpt from Quimbee #39;s tutorial video on the rules governing when police interrogation may resume after Miranda rights have been effectively invoked....

By: Quimbee.com

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Criminal Procedure tutorial: Derivative Evidence and the Fourth Amendment | quimbee.com - Video