TOKYO MASTER BANNER

MINISTRY OF TOKYO
US-ANGLO CAPITALISMEU-NATO IMPERIALISM
Illegitimate Transfer of Inalienable European Rights via Convention(s) & Supranational Bodies
Establishment of Sovereignty-Usurping Supranational Body Dictatorships
Enduring Program of DEMOGRAPHICS WAR on Europeans
Enduring Program of PSYCHOLOGICAL WAR on Europeans
Enduring Program of European Displacement, Dismemberment, Dispossession, & Dissolution
No wars or conditions abroad (& no domestic or global economic pretexts) justify government policy facilitating the invasion of ancestral European homelands, the rape of European women, the destruction of European societies, & the genocide of Europeans.
U.S. RULING OLIGARCHY WAGES HYBRID WAR TO SALVAGE HEGEMONY
[LINK | Article]

*U.S. OLIGARCHY WAGES HYBRID WAR* | U.S. Empire's Casino Unsustainable | Destabilised U.S. Monetary & Financial System | U.S. Defaults Twice A Year | Causes for Global Financial Crisis of 2008 Remain | Financial Pyramids Composed of Derivatives & National Debt Are Growing | *U.S. OLIGARCHY WAGES HYBRID WAR* | U.S. Empire's Casino Unsustainable | Destabilised U.S. Monetary & Financial System | U.S. Defaults Twice A Year | Causes for Global Financial Crisis of 2008 Remain | Financial Pyramids Composed of Derivatives & National Debt Are Growing | *U.S. OLIGARCHY WAGES HYBRID WAR*

Who's preaching world democracy, democracy, democracy? —Who wants to make free people free?
[info from Craig Murray video appearance, follows]  US-Anglo Alliance DELIBERATELY STOKING ANTI-RUSSIAN FEELING & RAMPING UP TENSION BETWEEN EASTERN EUROPE & RUSSIA.  British military/government feeding media PROPAGANDA.  Media choosing to PUBLISH government PROPAGANDA.  US naval aggression against Russia:  Baltic Sea — US naval aggression against China:  South China Sea.  Continued NATO pressure on Russia:  US missile systems moving into Eastern Europe.     [info from John Pilger interview follows]  War Hawk:  Hillary Clinton — embodiment of seamless aggressive American imperialist post-WWII system.  USA in frenzy of preparation for a conflict.  Greatest US-led build-up of forces since WWII gathered in Eastern Europe and in Baltic states.  US expansion & military preparation HAS NOT BEEN REPORTED IN THE WEST.  Since US paid for & controlled US coup, UKRAINE has become an American preserve and CIA Theme Park, on Russia's borderland, through which Germans invaded in the 1940s, costing 27 million Russian lives.  Imagine equivalent occurring on US borders in Canada or Mexico.  US military preparations against RUSSIA and against CHINA have NOT been reported by MEDIA.  US has sent guided missile ships to diputed zone in South China Sea.  DANGER OF US PRE-EMPTIVE NUCLEAR STRIKES.  China is on HIGH NUCLEAR ALERT.  US spy plane intercepted by Chinese fighter jets.  Public is primed to accept so-called 'aggressive' moves by China, when these are in fact defensive moves:  US 400 major bases encircling China; Okinawa has 32 American military installations; Japan has 130 American military bases in all.  WARNING PENTAGON MILITARY THINKING DOMINATES WASHINGTON. ⟴  
Showing posts with label Legal Challenge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Legal Challenge. Show all posts

August 15, 2015

First NSA Mass Surveillance Legal Challenge - Portland, USA


Mohamed Mohamud appeal is first to challenge NSA surveillance in terrorism conviction
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Mohamed Mohamud, after being sentenced to 30 years in prison on Oct. 1, 2014. Courtroom sketch by Abigail Marble.
Mike Zacchino | The Oregonian/OregonLive
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Bryan Denson | The Oregonian/OregonLive By Bryan Denson | The Oregonian/OregonLive
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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

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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.