BREAKING: Federal judge rules NSA data gathering on all US telephone calls is unconstitutional

[JDPriestly]

209. The Bill of Rights was written in language that prohibited wrongful things that had actually

happened but that was also general enough to encompass the many wrongs that were unimaginable at the epoch.

Until recently, very recently, the government denied the existence of these programs. There were whistleblowers but until Snowden came forth with his cache of documents, attempts by potential or known victims of the program could not even obtain standing in court to present their cases.

So, we will have to wait until more specific documents are published, the names of targets known and the outcomes of specific cases until we can do more than imagine what has happened or can happen.

When the Supreme Court decides a case, it often considers hypothetical situations in which its decision or ruling might apply. The situations I have described are hypothetical, but some of them will occur if the NSA program is allowed to continue as it is without legal supervision, without adequate judicial oversight in courts other than the apparently ineffectual FISA court.