Dianne Feinstein: Supreme Court Should Settle The NSA Spying Debate

[Purveyor]

By Agence France-Presse
Tuesday, December 17, 2013 16:20 EST

A key senator who backs bulk data collection disagreed Tuesday with a US judge who declared the National Security Agency program may be unconstitutional, saying the Supreme Court should settle the matter.

Democrat Dianne Feinstein, who chairs the powerful Senate Intelligence committee, said Monday’s ruling by US District Court Judge Richard Leon flies in the face of decisions by several other federal judges who have upheld the controversial program.

Leon startled the intelligence community when he warned of the “almost Orwellian” degree to which the NSA is scooping up metadata on nearly every American, and how that might be a violation of the constitutional prohibition of unreasonable search and seizure.

But Feinstein pointed to a “real-world terrorist case” from last February against an associate of Al-Qaeda, in which another judge, Jeffrey Miller, found the program to be constitutional.

“Judge Leon’s opinion also differs from those of at least 15 separate federal district court judges who sit, or have sat, on the FISA Court (the secret court set up under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) and have reauthorized the program every 90 days — a total 35 times in all,” Feinstein said in a statement.

MORE...

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/12/17/dianne-feinstein-supreme-court-should-settle-the-nsa-spying-debate/

[IDemo]

1. DiFi is a Dem

in kinda the same way that Republicans are the party of Lincoln.

[Jesus Malverde]

2. This seems like a milestone when one of the NSA's staunchest defender turns tail.

The whole argument has been there are extenuating circumstances of existential threats to the homeland that force us to bend the law.

Feinstein: NSA phone surveillance 'important' but not 'indispensable'
The influential chairwoman of the Senate intelligence committee said on Tuesday that the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of American phone records, savaged by a federal judge a day earlier, was not “indispensable” for preventing terrorism.

In an interview with MSNBC on Tuesday, senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat who has been a staunch supporter of the National Security Agency, urged the supreme court to determine its constitutionality.

“I’m not saying it’s indispensable,” Feinstein said. “But I’m saying it is important, and it is a major tool in ferreting out a potential terrorist attack

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/17/feinstein-nsa-bulk-surveillance-important-indispensable

[mike_c]

3. if DiFi says it, then I instantly distrust it....

Any suggestion that comes from DiFi is likely self-serving. If she thought for a moment that the Supreme Court would limit the NSA then she'd be screaming about the separation of powers instead.

[Purveyor]

4. That was my 'first take' too... eom

[frylock]

5. just like they settled the 2000 (s)election?