NSA Illegal Surveillance - Salt Lake City - 2002 Olympics - Lawsuit

Kristin Murphy/Deseret News, File Photo Rocky Anderson to file suit against NSA for 'criminal' surveillance during Olympics By Angie H. Treasure   |  Posted Aug 12th, 2015 @ 8:12pm SALT LAKE CITY — Former Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson is asking for the public's help in filing claims against the National Security Agency for what he called the "illegal" and "criminal" gathering of information during the 2002 Winter Olympic Games. In an interview with KSL NewsRadio, Anderson said he first became aware of the alleged surveillance when he read an article detailing the NSA's activity in the Wall Street Journal in 2013. The publication disclosed that every phone call and text message in Salt Lake City was subject to surveillance by the NSA and FBI before and during the 2002 Olympic Games held in Utah. The Olympic games took place less than six months after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. "Every bit of it was illegal. It was a criminal act," Anderson said. "Every instance was a criminal act and a massive violation of our constitution and other domestic laws." Anderson said he had since spoken with a source who worked within the NSA at the time of the Olympics, and said the truth is even worse than the Wall Street Journal alleges. According to the source, not only was the greater Salt Lake City area under NSA surveillance, but the areas surrounding all the Olympic venues were being watched, meaning that the NSA was collecting information on all the calls made, how long they lasted and what numbers were involved. Anderson said his source also claimed that the NSA targeted specific people and recorded their conversations. "Here's how this man put it to me: They saw this as a golden opportunity to put a security cone over an entire geographic area and grab everything. And he said they did it all outside the Fourth Amendment, outside the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act," said Anderson. "Now think of this," Anderson said. "All of it without a warrant, all of it without probable cause. It is absolutely unprecedented in our nation's history." It's what Anderson's website calls "The most massive, indiscriminate, illegal spying on the contents of communications in United States history." "It used to be that we'd looked at what the Stasi did in East Germany, or what the KGB did in the Soviet Union and we would be appalled," Anderson said. "We would never stand for that from our government. We, the people, would stand up against that. And the fact is, we the people are not standing up. And that's why, in large part, I'm pursuing this now." "It used to be that we'd looked at what the Stasi did in East Germany, or what the KGB did in the Soviet Union and we would be appalled. We would never stand for that from our government. We, the people, would stand up against that. And the fact is, we the people are not standing up. And that's why, in large part, I'm pursuing this now." –Rocky Anderson Anderson said that his pursuit of a lawsuit is a way to prevent further surveillance of this kind from happening in the future. "We can't let complacency set in to the point where we're clearing the path toward greater totalitarianism," said Anderson. The lawsuit is about reversing the behavior before it becomes an irreversible trend, according to Anderson. "A lot of people say, oh, you're doing it for the fees. Believe me," Anderson said, "I would've been happy just being a plaintiff. I tried to get other organizations to handle this case." Although the statute of limitations for this kind of lawsuit is usually two years, the timeline has been delayed in light of the 2013 Wall Street Journal article. Anderson is asking that the public step forward and file claims. From Anderson's website: "If, during the period of approximately Oct. 1, 2001, to February 28, 2002, you sent or received emails or text messages or engaged in telephone calls while you or the other person to the communication was in Salt Lake City or an area near another Olympic venue, your communications were likely illegally and unconstitutionally surveilled, intercepted, and analyzed by the FBI and/or NSA. If that is the case, then you are likely entitled to the recovery of money damages."     Stand up for accountability for illegal spying and for rule of law. Description and claim forms: http://t.co/60KcuQqDjc Urgent. File now! RT     — Rocky Anderson (@RockyAnderson) August 12, 2015 Those damages, according to one statute cited by Anderson, could pay up to a minimum of $10,000 in damages to each person who has received this kind of violation of the law. Anderson is asking that people go to his website, fill out five documents and bring them to the Winder & Counsel offices at 460 S. 400 East in Salt Lake City by Monday, Aug. 17, to be filed. Anderson added that he tried to speak to the head of public affairs at the NSA last week and when he asked her about the allegations in the Wall Street Journal article, he was told she was aware of them but that she did not admit, deny, nor would she discuss them. The former mayor hopes that people will join him in the lawsuit, saying, "The government should fear the people, not the people fearing the government." Contributing: Mary Richards http://www.ksl.com/?sid=35936923&nid=148&fm=most_popular&s_cid=popular-8 ---------------------- ꕤ  ---------------------- COMMENT Not sure if I've posted this earlier.  If I have, here it is again.  lol The Google search box widget isn't doing its thing for me and I'm finding it hard to keep track of what I've posted so far. Thought NSA getting sued and resistance to surveillance and totalitarianism was post worthy. The links are there for anyone in that region who wants to join the suit for damages and effort to curb future civil liberties incursions. Law needs to be amended regarding that statute of limitations.  An extension to something like 30 years sounds good.  lol ꕤ

First NSA Mass Surveillance Legal Challenge - Portland, USA

Mohamed Mohamud appeal is first to challenge NSA surveillance in terrorism conviction 1 / 42 Mohamed Mohamud, after being sentenced to 30 years in prison on Oct. 1, 2014. Courtroom sketch by Abigail Marble. Mike Zacchino | The Oregonian/OregonLive Print Email Bryan Denson | The Oregonian/OregonLive By Bryan Denson | The Oregonian/OregonLive Email the author | Follow on Twitter on August 12, 2015 at 5:00 AM, updated August 12, 2015 at 5:01 AM The U.S. spy operations that once put Portland terrorist Mohamed Mohamud under FBI surveillance violated his constitutional right against unlawful search and seizure, two civil liberties groups contend in a federal appeals court filing. Lawyers for the ACLU and Electronic Frontier Foundation recently filed a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of Mohamud, who has appealed his 30-year-sentence for trying to detonate a bomb in downtown Portland four years ago. They have joined Mohamud's legal team in denouncing a law that has allowed the National Security Agency to collect troves of overseas communications by Americans through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The FISA Amendments Act of 2008 provided the legal justification for the massive NSA surveillance programs exposed two years ago by Edward Snowden. To identify foreign terrorists, the U.S. has secretly collected records of communications between untold numbers of Americans and tens of thousands of people overseas. While the targets of those queries are foreign agents, the civil liberties groups wrote that the government has sometimes performed "backdoor searches," poring through electronic repositories of phone calls, emails and texts for information about U.S. citizens such as Mohamud. That violated Mohamud's Fourth Amendment rights, they argue. His lawyers filed an opening brief with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals this spring, opening the door for what is expected to be the nation's first appellate review of a criminal conviction resulting from the law. Their brief totaled 256 pages, and the court's commissioner ordered them to produce a slimmer version – no more than 180 pages – by this Friday. Government lawyers have until Dec. 7 to file their reply. Assistant U.S. Attorney Ethan D. Knight, lead prosecutor in Mohamud's criminal case, declined to comment on the appeal because it is pending. Lawyers have been arguing about Mohamud's case since the last Monday in November 2010, three days after he tried to detonate what he thought was a massive fertilizer bomb supplied by al-Qaida terrorists. The explosive was packed in a van near Pioneer Courthouse Square, where thousands of people gathered for Portland's holiday tree-lighting ceremony. The latest brief filed by Mohamud's lawyers describes his actions that night: "He pushed the buttons of a cellphone, twice, believing they would cause the explosion of a massive, nail-filled bomb capable of eliminating at least two city blocks. ... The bomb was a fake, created by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as the culmination of a sting operation they had started over a year earlier. "The defense at trial was entrapment: that the government had induced this teenager to attempt a crime he was not predisposed to commit." Mohamud was 19 at the time. On Jan. 31, 2013, a jury before Senior U.S. District Judge Garr M. King found Mohamud guilty of attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction, a charge that carried a potential life sentence. King sentenced him last October to 30 years in prison, and his lawyers filed a notice of appeal eight days later. Ten months later, the Department of Justice filed a court notice saying that the government had obtained permission – under the FISA Amendments Act – to eavesdrop and collect evidence on Mohamud. The 7-year-old law has allowed the NSA to vacuum up millions of ordinary Americans' telephone records. But it also has played a significant role in identifying and disrupting foreign spies and terrorists, national security experts say. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which signed orders that allowed the U.S. to eavesdrop on Mohamud, is the most secretive court in the land. Its written orders, unlike standard wiretap warrants, are classified and not disclosed to the defense. So Mohamud's lawyers never fully understood how the FBI came to investigate their client as a potential terrorist. As Mohamud sits in a federal prison in Victorville, California, his lawyers hope to persuade the appeals court to reverse his conviction and send the case back to Portland for dismissal or a new trial. As an alternative, they are asking the appeals court to vacate their client's sentence and send it back to U.S. District Court for evidentiary hearings or resentencing. Mohamud's lawyers raise 11 key issues in their appeal, pointing out that King had repeatedly turned down their requests for classified evidence. For instance, they wrote that the judge allowed the FBI's two key witnesses – undercover agents – to use their pseudonyms and wear light disguises as they testified before the jury. But their main point, the one that will keep national security scholars buzzing until the 9th Circuit rules in the Mohamud case, is the assertion that the FISA Amendments Act is illegal. One of those watching most closely is Tung Yin, a Lewis & Clark Law School professor who specializes in national security matters. "We shouldn't be putting someone in prison for 30 years if that conviction resulted in significant part from evidence that the government should not have had, which is what this case would determine," said Yin. Retired Federal Public Defender Steven T. Wax, who served on Mohamud's defense team and now works on his appellate team, said the government's use of the FISA Amendments Act should lead to reversal of his client's conviction. He remains troubled that the government might still possess classified evidence that could have helped Mohamud's case. "The way our system should work, the government is obligated by law to provide notice," he said. "They did not. That's a fundamental failing that should lead to throwing out the conviction." -- Bryan Denson bdenson@oregonian.com SOURCE http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2015/08/mohamed_mohamud_appeal_is_firs.html ---------------------- ꕤ ---------------------- COMMENT What I got out of this (if I understand correctly): The following enabled the NSA to bulk collect data, in what amounts to the violation of the US  constitution: FISA Amendments Act of 2008 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court NSA conducted an illegal program that bulk collected the records of Americans, in violation of the Fourth Amendment rights enshrined in the US constitution. NSA conducted an illegal program that bulk collected the records of "tens of thousands" of non US citizens abroad (more like entire countries). FBI secures convictions on the basis of entrapment:  inducing targets to commit crime. Following civil liberties groups are mounting a legal challenge in respect of this conviction: ACLU Electronic Frontier Foundation  Law professor, Tung Yin:  "... if that conviction resulted in significant part from evidence that the government should not have had" - 30 year conviction a no go. The brief in defence was knocked back, with instructions to compile something scant (WTF?  A defence is a defence.  It's as long as it takes.) The secrecy surrounding the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is troublesome, because it prevents the defendant mounting a proper defence:   vital information is withheld, on basis of "classified" information justification, interfering with ability to defend. secret, disguised, key FBI witnesses testify. Under these circumstances, anybody could probably be convicted of anything.  No transparency and no accountability.  The accused is induced to commit crime and then denied information on 'classified' grounds and therefore denied the opportunity to properly defend. I don't understand the principles associated with evidence one is not supposed to have.  But I guess it has something to do with fair trials. As for FBI informants, they're not necessarily reliable.  Usually, these types are being blackmailed by the authorities into informing on others, so they're motivated by the opportunity to save their skin. ꕤ

USA - JOHN NAPIER TYE & Fourth Amendment Rights - US Surveillance Abroad

By Charlie Savage THE NEW YORK TIMES WASHINGTON — After President Barack Obama delivered a speech in January endorsing changes to surveillance policies, including an end to the National Security Agency's bulk collection of Americans' domestic calling records, John Napier Tye was disillusioned. A State Department official, Tye worked on Internet freedom issues and had top-secret clearance. He knew the Obama administration had also considered a proposal to impose what an internal White House document, obtained by The New York Times, portrayed as "significant changes" to rules for handling Americans' data the NSA collects from fiber-optic networks abroad. But Obama said nothing about that in his speech. So in April, as Tye was leaving the State Department, he filed a whistle-blower complaint arguing that the NSA's practices abroad violated Americans' Fourth Amendment rights. He also met with staff members for the House and Senate intelligence committees. Last month, he went public with those concerns, which have attracted growing attention. When operating abroad, the NSA can gather and use Americans' phone calls, emails, text messages and other communications under different — and sometimes more permissive — rules than when it collects them inside the United States. Much about those rules remains murky. The executive branch establishes them behind closed doors and can change them at will, with no involvement from Congress or the intelligence courts that are charged with protecting Americans' privacy. "It's a problem if one branch of government can collect and store most Americans' communications, and write rules in secret on how to use them — all without oversight from Congress or any court, and without the consent or even the knowledge of the American people," Tye said. "Regardless of the use rules in place today, this system could be abused in the future." Tye, 38, is speaking out as Congress considers amending the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which governs how the NSA operates domestically. The legislation resulted from the uproar over leaks by Edward J. Snowden, a former agency contractor. But the proposed changes would not touch its abilities overseas, which are authorized by Executive Order 12333, a Reagan-era presidential directive. The administration has declassified some rules for handling Americans' messages gathered under the order, but the scope of that collection and some details about how the messages are used remain unclear. "The debate over the last year has barely touched on the executive order," said Jameel Jaffer, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer. "It's a black box." The Times interviewed nearly a dozen current and former officials about EO 12333 rules for handling communications involving Americans, bringing further details to light. By law, the NSA cannot deliberately intercept an American's messages without court permission. But it can "incidentally" collect such private communications as a consequence of its foreign surveillance. The volume of incidental collection overseas is uncertain. Officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the delicate nature of the topic, said the NSA has never studied the matter and most likely could not come up with a representative sampling. Tye called that "willful blindness." Still, the number of Americans swept up could be sizable. As the NSA collects content in bulk overseas from fiber-optic hubs and satellite transmissions for later analysis, Americans' messages within the mix can be vacuumed up. By contrast, when operating domestically under FISA, the agency may engage only in targeted, not dragnet, collection and storage of content. Congress left the executive branch with a freer hand abroad because it was once rare for Americans' communications to go overseas. But in the Internet era, that is no longer true. Large email companies like Google and Yahoo have built data centers abroad, where they store backups of their users' data. Snowden disclosed that in 2012, the NSA, working with its British counterpart, GCHQ, penetrated links connecting the companies' overseas data centers and collected 181.3 million records in 30 days. CONTINUED @ SOURCE http://www.telegram.com/article/20140813/NEWS/308139532/1052

Fourth Amendment - prohibits unreasonable searches/seizures without court warrant & probable cause.


Good luck to this guy.  At least he's trying to do something.

It's great that there's some kind of starting point protective legal framework in the US.  Most other countries don't have that.