“The Obama administration is invoking an obscure legal privilege to avoid judicial scrutiny of its secret collection of the communications of potentially millions of Americans. Civil liberties lawyers trying to hold the administration to account through the courts for its surveillance of phone calls and emails of American citizens have been repeatedly stymied by the government’s recourse to the ‘military and state secrets privilege’. The precedent, rarely used but devastating in its legal impact, allows the government to claim that it cannot be submitted to judicial oversight because to do so it would have to compromise national security.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/07/us-government-special-privilege-scrutiny-data
Related posts:
Brazil hackers accidentally attack NASA as payback for NSA surveillance
PetroChina to join Exxon on giant Iraqi oilfield
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to begin merging operations
Canadian immigrant investor program scrapped, replacement planned
Throwing children in prison turns out to be a really bad idea
N.S.A. Collecting Millions of Faces From Web Images
IRS Still Stealing Cash From Immigrant Business Owners
Ron Paul Gets Cut Off During Interview On Syria With Wolf Blitzer
Facebook drops facial recognition tool following privacy investigation
Japan Returns to Atomic Club With Restart Amid Public Opposition
Bond investors will find out that PIGS can’t fly
AB InBev's Mega Bonds Just the Start of a Corporate-Debt Deluge
Steinway Agrees to Be Bought by Paulson for $512 Million
Boston Dynamics' robots can now run, jump and climb
How the U.S. got mixed up in a fight over Kurdish oil