re: #1 Charles Johnson

How is a brief filed by Lavabit’s lawyers an “admission” of anything?

This has nothing to do with the Patriot Act. The Feds were trying to get the emails of Edward Snowden, because he’s charged with very serious crimes of espionage.

The Lavabit attorneys are stating a fact, admitted by the NSA since disclosures happened. The point is the sheer lack of relevance, which goes to the heart of well thought objections to the expansion of surveillance powers since the Patriot Act was implemented.

The NSA side has admitted it is gathering and keeping vast amounts of metadata that is not relevant to any particular investigation. That is where it goes wrong. This point does not rest on just the post above. it has been pointed out time and time again-accurately. Hence the Sensenbrenner/Leahy legislation and the ACLU lawsuit.

I don’t mind surveilling a suspect, a person of interest. Maybe even witnesses. But those of us uninvolved have a right to expect to be treated as such. Us and our metadata.

Why fear a proper “relevance” standard? I personally believe we as a nation can be well defended with that check in our checks and balances intact.

added edit-Where i agree most is where they don’t get all the data because they need some of it.