Barely a week after Judge Leon of the DC district court held the NSA data-collection program of – well, virtually everything – to be “likely unconstitutional,” District Judge William H. Pauley III in Manhattan took the view of most in the federal government, that there’s nothing to worry about, nothing unconstitutional at all.

Focusing mostly on need and effect rather than the 4th Amendment, Pauley said the mass collection of phone data “significantly increases the NSA’s capability to detect the faintest patterns left behind by individuals affiliated with foreign terrorist organizations. Armed with all the metadata, NSA can draw connections it might otherwise never be able to find.”

In a previous article, it was noted that the appeals court in Leon’s district is very unlikely to agree with his opinion, which may be the reason he “stayed” his “injunction” pending appeal. In other words, he had the power to put a court-ordered stop to the program and he chose not to.

This leaves the current lawsuits against NSA spying with one district considering it fully acceptable, another considering it “likely unconstitutional” but likely to be overturned on appeal.

The odds of the federal court system stopping the federal spying program are almost zero.

Add to that – President Obama recently said that the NSA always acts appropriately.

“It’s important to note that in all the reviews of this program that have been done, in fact, there have not been actual instances where it’s been alleged that the NSA in some ways acted inappropriately in the use of this data.”

And Dianne Feinstein, the powerful chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee is 100% in favor of mass NSA surveillance. Any Congressional bill attempting to stop the NSA or even slow it down must get through her.

Sometimes facts are hard to accept. But facts are facts.

The federal government isn’t going to stop itself. NSA spying will continue unless we resist and #NullifyNSA on a state and local level.

Michael Boldin

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