FISA Renews NSA’s Right To Log Your Phone Calls

… if you’re in the United States, that is. Or anywhere else, come to think of it.

Earlier today, FISA Judge Mary McLaughlin (above, far left) strengthened and extended the semi-secret court’s approval of the NSA’s domestic phone snooping program, which until recently had been a close-kept secret.

Now and until civil libertarians can muster more than a costumed parade in front of a monument to something vaguely discussed in French history books, NSA will gather unlimited metadata on the phone calls of everyone with a phone, and store that metadata for months — all without a warrant.

Judge Mary McLaughlin — whose own expectation of personal privacy appears quaint in light of formalizing the distinct lack thereof for hundreds of millions of American citizens — did not comment on the ruling.

Brett Max Kaufman, counsel for the ACLU, did comment, because he actually respects our remaining shreds of privacy, and wishes Mary McLaughlin did:

Brett Max Kaufman, a lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union, criticized Judge McLaughlin for distinguishing aggregated location tracking from aggregated call records, saying that both types of data “reveal intimate details of our lives” and that the Fourth Amendment should be interpreted as protecting “against all unreasonable intrusions into Americans’ privacy, however they are accomplished.”

Judge McLaughlin is a former corporate lawyer at Dechert, a former prosecutor, and a Clinton appointee to FISA.

By: rhb

Rob is a NYC-based Internet entrepreneur. He's also a businessman and job creator (wait: doesn't demand create jobs?) who understands the sense, and the eventual predominance, of the progressive agenda.