Barack Obama asks the FISA court to allow illegal NSA data-mining program to continue

  Back on May 7th the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the NSA data-mining program was illegal because it went beyond what the Congress authorized under the PATRIOT Act. (I would argue both the data-mining program and the PATRIOT Act are unconstitutional but that is an argument for another day.)

  Needless to say, Barack Obama–who you will remember ran against this type of program in 2008 before expanding it as President–and the selective Constitutionalist Republicans were not happy about this decision. Now we are learning that Barack Obama has gone to the secret FISA court (an unconstitutional entity in my opinion) and asked it to ignore the Second Circuit Court of Appeals and reinstate the data-mining program.

  Here is more:

The Obama administration has asked a secret surveillance court to ignore a federal court that found bulk surveillance illegal and to once again grant the National Security Agency the power to collect the phone records of millions of Americans for six months.

The legal request, filed nearly four hours after Barack Obama vowed to sign a new law banning precisely the bulk collection he asks the secret court to approve, also suggests that the administration may not necessarily comply with any potential court order demanding that the collection stop.

  The USA Freedom Act is being used as justification to start the program back up, at least temporarily.

Justice Department national security chief John A Carlin cited a six-month transition period provided in the USA Freedom Act – passed by the Senate last week to ban the bulk collection – as a reason to permit an “orderly transition” of the NSA’s domestic dragnet.

  Of course the USA Freedom Act was sold to the American people as legislation which would bring an end to the data-mining program but is now looks as if that is not the case. And while this might only be a temporary extension during the so-called “transition” period it leads to two questions which must be asked at this point.

  First; what is the government transitioning towards? The government should not be transitioning towards anything but the complete stop of this illegal program and that does not seem to be something that even needs transitioning towards: it should be as simple as stopping the program dead in its tracks, it should not take six months to stop. This leads me to believe there is another secret plan the government is looking to implement in its place.

  And second; once the six month transition period is over what is to stop the Obama regime from seeking another extension from the FISA court? After all, this is a secret court and as the linked to article states, only the government is present and allowed to argue before this court so this could be done in secret and the American people would not know unless there is another Edward Snowden out there somewhere.

Malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium