At Last . . . Two Important Legal Victories!

[dimensionm]

In the wake of the NSA surveillance revelations, it's nice to know that sometimes we can at least rely on the courts to do the right thing in protecting fundamental human rights and dignity.

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  In the decision that's getting all the attention, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that companies cannot patent naturally occurring human genes. I was

Comments

[cahwyguy]

I think courts eventually get it right, but sometimes it takes more time than others. Civil rights is a good example of that. Of course, to get it right, the first step is to get the issue into the right court. There probably needs to be someone with appropriate standing to take the FISA issues through a court path that would end at the Supreme Court.

[dimensionm]

Well, the ACLU is trying. And from what I'm understanding, there's a very practical difference between this and previous lawsuits they've tried to file over government spying. In this case, since the information about the program leaked, the ACLU has a far better chance of proving that it 1) has standing to sue and 2) has been harmed.

This issue of needing standing to sue needs to be reworked somehow. In theory, it makes perfect sense. However, in practice, it doesn't work in cases where the government is abusing its power in secret. By virtue of the programs being secret, there's no way to prove standing or prove harm unless someone breaks the law to leak the information.

[cahwyguy]

To prove harm, you would need to show that the privacy violation resulted in damages or an arrest (for then the arrest would be based on an unreasonable search or seizure, violating the 4th amendment). Essentially, this means if the Government collects the information but does not use it proactively to target citizens, there is no basis for a lawsuit. If they get actionable evidence from another source, and use the information as part of the investigation, then there might be an argument that subsequent evidence is tainted.

(This post says my IP address is recorded. NSA again :-)? )

[dimensionm]

I think there would be other ways of proving harm. But I'll leave that to the legal experts. Fortunately, there's a lot of organizations that employ some very talented ones who will be all over this.

Your journal tells me that my IP address gets recorded too. I was wondering the same thing. ;-)

[musicalchaos]

Does it count if the CEO of the company in question believes that they are god?

[dimensionm]

HA! Good one! *grin*