EFF Victory Results in Release of Secret Court Opinion Finding NSA Surveillance Unconstitutional

For almost two years, EFF has been fighting the government in federal court to force the public release of an 86-page opinion of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC). Issued in October 2011, the secret court’s opinion found that surveillance conducted by the NSA under the FISA Amendments Act was unconstitutional and violated “the spirit of” federal law.

Today, EFF can declare victory: a federal court ordered the government to release records in our litigation, the government has indicated it intends to release the opinion today, and ODNI has called a 3:00 ET press conference to discuss "issues" with FISA Amendments Act surveillance, which we assume will include a discussion of the opinion.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/eff-victory-results-expected-release-secret-court-opinion-finding-nsa-surveillance

Declassified FISA Court Opinion Shows NSA Lied Repeatedly To The Court As Well
from the that's-officially-everybody dept

The leaks keep coming and keep pointing to the same conclusion: the NSA has acted as a law unto itself. And all the while it continues to point at its "overseers," which include Congress (which has been lied to directly by the agency when not having information withheld from it by the leaders of the House Intelligence Committee) and the FISA Court (which has been lied to directly and is hampered by its reliance on the NSA's data and narratives -- which pretty much just means more lying).

And despite all this evidence that the NSA's "oversight" is nearly completely compromised, the defenders, including those within the agency, continue to insist the system is working the way it should. In their eyes, maybe it is.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130821/16331524274/declassified-fisa-court-opinion-shows-nsa-lied-repeatedly-to-court-as-well.shtml