World News Trust World News Trust
World News Trust World News Trust
  • News Portal
  • All Content
    • Edited
      • News
      • Commentary
      • Analysis
      • Advisories
      • Source
    • Flatwire
  • Topics
    • Agriculture
    • Culture
      • Arts
      • Children
      • Education
      • Entertainment
      • Food and Hunger
      • Sports
    • Disasters
    • Economy
    • Energy
    • Environment
    • Government
    • Health
    • Media
    • Science
    • Spiritual
    • Technology
    • Transportation
    • War
  • Regions
    • Africa
    • Americas
      • North America
      • South America
    • Antarctica
    • Arctic
    • Asia
    • Australia/Oceania
    • Europe
    • Middle East
    • Oceans
      • Arctic Ocean
      • Atlantic Ocean
      • Indian Ocean
      • Pacific Ocean
      • Southern Ocean
    • Space
  • World Desk
    • Submit Content
  • About Us
  • Sign In/Out
  • Register
  • Site Map
  • Contact Us
  • Russia's War and the Global Economy | Nouriel Roubini
  • U.S. Considers Radical Rethinking Of Dollar For Today's Digital World | David Gura
  • Why is Israel Amending Its Open-Fire Policy?: Three Possible Answers | Ramzy Baroud
  • WATCH: Republican National Committee Abandons America
  • ‘Previously Unknown Massacres’: Why is Israel Allowed to Own Palestinian History? | Ramzy Baroud
  • The Revolt of the Imagination, Part One: Notes on Belbury Syndrome | John Michael Greer
  • Human gut bacteria have sex to share vitamin B12 | University of California - Riverside

The Vindication of Edward Snowden | Conor Friedersdorf

More items by author
Categories
Edited | Front Page Stories | All Content | Culture | Government | Law | Courts | Police | Technology | North America | News | Analysis | News -- WNT Selected
Tool Bar
View Comments

Edward Snowden. Credit: Gage Skidmore. Flickr/(CC BY-SA 2.0)Edward Snowden speaking at the 2015 International Students for Liberty Conference at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, D.C. Credit: Gage Skidmore. Flickr/(CC BY-SA 2.0)

A federal appeals court has ruled that one of the NSA programs Snowden exposed was illegal

May 11, 2015 (TheAtlantic.com) -- Edward Snowden’s most famous leak has just been vindicated. Since June 2013, when he revealed that the telephone calls of Americans are being logged en masse, his critics have charged that he took it upon himself to expose a lawful secret. They insisted that Congress authorized the phone dragnet when it passed the U.S.A. Patriot Act, citing Section 215, a part of the law that pertains to business records.

That claim was always suspect. The text of the law does not seem to authorize mass surveillance. A primary author and longtime champion of the law avowsthat Congress never intended to authorize the phone dragnet. And nothing like it was ever discussed during an extensive, controversy-filled debate about its provisions.

Now the wrongheadedness of the national-security state’s position has been confirmed.

A panel of judges on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last week that the program Snowden exposed was never legal. The Patriot Act does not authorize it, contrary to the claims of George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Michael Hayden, Keith Alexander, and James Clapper. “Statutes to which the government points have never been interpreted to authorize anything approaching the breadth of the sweeping surveillance at issue here,” Judge Gerard E. Lynch declared. “The sheer volume of information sought is staggering.” 

Other conclusions reached by the three-judge panel include the following:

READ MORE: The Atlantic

back to top
  • Created
    Tuesday, May 12 2015
  • Last modified
    Tuesday, May 12 2015
  1. You are here:  
  2. Home
  3. All Content
  4. Edited
  5. The Vindication of Edward Snowden | Conor Friedersdorf
Copyright © 2022 World News Trust. All Rights Reserved.
Joomla! is Free Software released under the GNU General Public License.