On 05/14/2017 03:34 AM, Ryan Carboni wrote:
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/01/us_customs_open.html Here, Schneier commends the ACLU for improving civil liberties protections.
http://www.rstreet.org/2014/11/19/yes-the-government-can-open-your-mail-with... A John Conyers requested the DoJ view on the matter, to investigate it. Governmentattic requested the documents in 2010, was released to them in 2012, and they finally posted it in 2014.
A large issue in our modern era is apparently how US laws are being interpreted far outside what people expect.
The USPS 'does a prism' and attempted to 'read' your mail for [selector] words electronically (opto-electronically anyway...). That was noted (on the 34th page of the "J" section in 8pt smudged italic print) in the MSM (and at 3am on an infomercial channel ticker on teevee) No one expects the Spanish Inquisition either...
The ACLU has done nothing in this matter. They are protecting civil liberties through the most ineffective and indirect mechanisms imaginable, anyone who spends millions of dollars per year with their lack of accomplishments must be doing something wrong. The executive issues signing statements saying that the judicial branch overrules Congress, whereas Congress writes the laws. Congress will always overrule the Supreme Court when it comes to reasonable interpretations of laws, it appears as if Congress has to explicitly state it so, which Congress has not done.
The ACLU is a legal lobbying organization. Their modus, very much like Peace Action, Earth Action, and a number of other lobbying orgs with "Action" in their names, is 'come in late after other orgs in the 'trenches' like the NLG, CCR, et al, do all the hard work, take credit for the wins or publicize the loss to claim the need for (slush) funding, and lunch with the people they're supposed to be working against...' Because they aren't the lawyers on the case or in the same firm (if they're even lawyers at all) and there's no 'conflict of interest'. They REALLY hung Nippon-Americans out to dry during the Yellow Peril panic at the beginning of WWII, and they APPEAR to be trying to make amends by taking a high profile in Muslim discrimination cases. But as can be seen, they put it all in a slush fund, and the money you send them to assist the Muslim community may very well be used to defend the NeoNazis Bigots and Racist who persecute Muslims.
I just thought everyone should be aware that the Holocaust was strictly legal. So was the Soviet gulag. The law itself is not a prophylactic against immorality.
The laws are made by rich white men for rich white men's concept of "Morality", and elections of the people who make the laws are designed to reinforce the existing rich white men's power structure, not change it. Rr
Anyway, Seymour Hersh has done incredible reporting, he talks about it here: https://www.c-span.org/video/?311093-1/seymour-hersh-investigative-journalis... He hears a rumor from one place, and then goes thoroughly investigates it. (makes me wonder how anything was Top Secret with Bavarian fire drills) Of course it doesn't seem like the ACLU ever asked him about any of it... or famed Jason Leopold for that matter.
So what matters? Either federal intrusions are wholly legal, or they are illegal. Somehow they have proven to be wholly legal over time, besides the meek complaints by the ACLU that it's still illegal. Or maybe the NSA is filled with thousands of men acting with impunity, who know what they are doing is illegal. The most frightening possibility of all, no?
On a wholly different topic, I wonder why certain crimes are still possible to commit through the internet. Congress can always mandate ID for some services or cut funding for other services.