9th Circuit Appeals Court oks warrantless wiretapping.

The federal government may spy on Americans’ communications without warrants and without fear of being sued, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday in a decision reversing the first and only case that successfully challenged President George W. Bush’s once-secret Terrorist Surveillance Program.

“This case effectively brings to an end the plaintiffs’ ongoing attempts to hold the executive branch responsible for intercepting telephone conversations without judicial authorization,” a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals wrote. (.pdf)

The case concerned a lower court decision in which two American attorneys — who were working with the now-defunct al-Haramain Islamic Foundation — were awarded more than $20,000 each in damages and their lawyers $2.5 million in legal fees after a tortured legal battle where they proved they were spied on without warrants.

They sued under domestic spying laws Congress adopted in the wake of President Richard M. Nixon’s Watergate scandal. The government appealed their victory, and the appeals court Tuesday dismissed the suit and the damages.

Jon Eisenberg, the lawyer for the two attorneys, said he may request the court to reconsider its decision with a larger panel of judges, or petition the Supreme Court.

“This case was the only chance to litigate and hold anybody accountable for the warrantless wiretapping program,” he said in a telephone interview. “As illegal as it was, it evaded accountability.”

The San Francisco-based appeals court ruled that when Congress wrote the law regulating eavesdropping on Americans and spies, it never waived sovereign immunity in the section prohibiting targeting Americans without warrants. That means Congress did not allow for aggrieved Americans to sue the government, even if their constitutional rights were violated by the United States breaching its own wiretapping laws.

“Under this scheme, Al-Haramain can bring a suit for damages against the United States for use of the collected information, but cannot bring suit against the government for collection of the information itself,” Judge M. Margaret McKeown wrote for the majority. She was joined by Judge Michael Daly Hawkins and Judge Harry Pregerson. ”Although such a structure may seem anomalous and even unfair, the policy judgment is one for Congress, not the courts.”

The court, during oral arguments in June, expressed concern that it may reach this result.
Judge Hawkins, during those arguments, noted that the law spells out that those who were illegally spied upon may seek monetary damages. But if Congress did not intend for the government to be sued, “it would make the remedy illusory,” Hawkins said.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/08/appeals-court-oks-wiretapping/

Federal Courts Abolish The Fourth Amendment.

Our beloved federal court judges have signed off again on the erosion of yet another fundamental tenet of the United States Constitution.

This time federal judges ruled the government is completely immune from any possible punishment for violating the Fourth Amendment which is SUPPOSED to protect us against illegal search and seizure.

While fully acknowledging the government’s spying and collecting of personal information using warrantless wiretapping is completely illegal and in violation of the Fourth Amendment the courts have passed the buck saying congress should deal with this issue.

While the ruling explicitly provides immunity to the federal government for illegally searching and seizing information without a warrant the ruling also grants implicit immunity for both state and local law enforcement officials to engage in the same kind of constitution trampling activities.

The judges clearly stated, in short, that yes it illegal for the government to seize and collect information without a warrant as outlawed by the Constitution but if they decide to violate that right, there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it.

A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that the government is immune to wireless wiretapping lawsuits in a decision the plaintiff’s attorney says releases Washington and the White House from ever being held accountable for spying on citizens.
http://www.thedailysheeple.com/federal-courts-abolish-the-fourth-amendment_082012
   
GPS evidence survives 9th Circuit ruling.
The 9th Circuit on Monday refused to suppress evidence gleaned from GPS tracking devices, saying the Supreme Court had not deemed such searches unconstitutional when the devices were placed on a suspect's Jeep.

On remand from the Supreme Court, the 9th Circuit once again rejected Juan Pineda-Moreno's motion to suppress the evidence from GPS tracking devices placed under his Jeep in 2007.

Agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration tracked his car after suspecting him of growing marijuana. They used the tracking information to stop Pineda-Moreno and take him into custody for immigration violations.

Two large garbage bags of marijuana were later found at his home. Pineda-Moreno was sentenced to 51 months in prison and five years of probation.

He argued that evidence from the tracking devices should be suppressed, because the warrantless search violated his Fourth Amendment rights.

After the 9th Circuit refused to suppress the evidence, the Supreme Court ruled on a similar case.

In Jones v. U.S., the justices said police need a warrant to use GPS to track a suspect. They vacated the 9th Circuit's ruling and remanded for similar treatment.

But the three-judge panel in Portland, Ore., did not reverse its earlier ruling. Instead, it held that the agents "acted in objectively reasonable reliance on binding precedent when they attached and used the tracking devices."

Because Jones had not been decided when the searches occurred, the agents' actions were constitutional at the time, Judge Diarmuid O'Scannlain ruled.

"Suppression is not warranted here because the agents objectively relied on then-binding precedent when they approached Pineda-Moreno's Jeep in public areas, attached tracking devices to it, and used those devices to monitor the Jeep's movements," O'Scannlain wrote.
http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/08/06/49034.htm
http://rt.com/usa/news/wiretap-haramain-plaintiffs-appeals-108/

US v. Moreno:
http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2012/08/06/08-30385.pdf