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Comment by LowKarmaAccount | Hacker News Reader

The court's opinion is classified. The DOJ is trying to block a FOIA suit filed by the EFF to release the opinion.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/06/government-says-secret...

To be honest I don't really understand the EFF's position. The FOIA explicitly applies only to executive branch government agencies. The FISA court is fully under the control of the SCOTUS.

"...agency" as defined in section 551(1) of this title includes any executive department, military department, Government corporation, Government controlled corporation, or other establishment in the executive branch of the Government (including the Executive Office of the President), or any independent regulatory agency..."[0].

I suppose it might be possible to go after the briefs and evidence presented by the DoJ to the FISA court with FOIA requests but anything you would get would be redacted to nothing.

[0] [pdf]: http://www.justice.gov/oip/amended-foia-redlined-2010.pdf

Court opinions can be classified? What in the actual fuck?

In ex Yugoslavia we had secret laws, published by secret official journal and enforced by secret courts.

So you could easily get persecuted for breaking the law that you were prohibited to know it even existed.

The same was going on in east Germany and other socialist countries.

I warmly recommend watching The Lives of Others (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0405094/) to those who haven't seen it yet.

Amusing that the US claimed victory in the cold war and then ends up adopting all their "enemies'" worst stuff.

They didn't give all those ex-Nazi scientists jobs for nothing you know.

My surprise was directed at the fact that people have this in a system advertised as democratic. I am quite well-acquainted with cases like those you quote.

"Advertised as democratic" won't get you very far in predicting how democratic a country is.

The Soviet Union was advertised as democratic. Nazi Germany was advertised as democratic. Communist China was/is advertised as democratic.

My old debating coaches saying was that any country with 'democratic' or 'peoples' in it's name was most certainly not either of those things.

Aye, but no Chinese without political involvement and no mental problems would freely claim (and believe!) he's a free man living under a democratic regime.

This seriously sounds like Kafka's The trial :( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trial)

https://supporters.eff.org/donate

Just donated.

"In its response filed with the FISC today, the government offers a circular argument, asserting that only the Executive Branch can de-classify the opinion, but that it is somehow prohibited by the FISC rules from doing so."

It seems to me the FISA Court still has the power the make the ruling public, even if the government classified it. It wouldn't be the first time a judge overrules classified information, right?

It seems to me the judges are accomplices to the government (why would they still grant the warrants, if they already found it unconstitutional?), and even if there was some kind of conflict in the law, I assume they would know this could go to the Supreme Court and it would be solved there.

IIRC only the Supreme Court can really decide on constitutionality other judges are just supposed to follow the laws laid out by Congress.

Then why did the court re-authorize the Verizon order in April 2013?

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