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NPR : Federal Government Can Now Open Citizens' Mail
by dc0de at 12:33 pm EST, Jan 8, 2007 |
And yet another loss of privacy, without so much as a whimper from anyone... I can't believe it... So much the better for using encryption, obfuscation, and one-time pads (all in combination) for securing email... The Postal Accountability and Enforcement Act had a signing statement attached to it that said, "The white house believes the postal law has always given the president the right to open the mail, in quote, exigent circumstances."
This is a radical departure to our constitutional rights, and should be raised to the highest level of challenge, so that the President and the Attorney General would have to follow the current laws that require a warrant to open mail... not just anytime they "feel" threatened... |
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RE: NPR : Federal Government Can Now Open Citizens' Mail
by Decius at 5:35 pm EST, Jan 8, 2007 |
dc0de wrote:
And yet another loss of privacy, without so much as a whimper from anyone...
Well, technically they are arguing that they had the right to do this all along. In order to test their theory, you'd have to get standing in court, which would require demonstrating that they have done it, or demonstrating that the possibility that they might do it directly impacts you. The later is what they've tried to do with the telephone surveillance cases. What comes next is their claim that the lawsuit's result is a state secret... Basically, whatever happens with the phone suits is likely to happen with this, and in the phone suits they are doing everything in their power to avoid having to actually argue, before a court, the points of law that they keep making in contexts like this (inherent power of the president, article II, etc...). In my estimation there is only one currently sitting Supreme Court justice who would accept their perspective on that if push finally came to shove, but they're not ever planning on push coming to shove. The recent change in Congress may have made it difficult for them to pull the issue out of the courts through legislative fiat, but I have been surprised that this thing has gone this far in court and I have a feeling they'll get it out of there through some other means eventually. Also, suing specifically on this mail question won't get you anywhere, as they haven't actually publicly admitted that they do this, and so their state secrets claim would stick and it would get pulled. |
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RE: NPR : Federal Government Can Now Open Citizens' Mail
by dc0de at 9:15 pm EST, Jan 9, 2007 |
Decius wrote: dc0de wrote:
And yet another loss of privacy, without so much as a whimper from anyone...
Well, technically they are arguing that they had the right to do this all along. In order to test their theory, you'd have to get standing in court, which would require demonstrating that they have done it, or demonstrating that the possibility that they might do it directly impacts you. The later is what they've tried to do with the telephone surveillance cases. What comes next is their claim that the lawsuit's result is a state secret... Basically, whatever happens with the phone suits is likely to happen with this, and in the phone suits they are doing everything in their power to avoid having to actually argue, before a court, the points of law that they keep making in contexts like this (inherent power of the president, article II, etc...). In my estimation there is only one currently sitting Supreme Court justice who would accept their perspective on that if push finally came to shove, but they're not ever planning on push coming to shove. The recent change in Congress may have made it difficult for them to pull the issue out of the courts through legislative fiat, but I have been surprised that this thing has gone this far in court and I have a feeling they'll get it out of there through some other means eventually. Also, suing specifically on this mail question won't get you anywhere, as they haven't actually publicly admitted that they do this, and so their state secrets claim would stick and it would get pulled.
Perhaps we should start sending regular letters, with conspicuous markings on the outside, that are encrypted to each other... and then prove they were opened, and bring it to court? It would be a fun project, hell, we could do it with postcards.... |
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