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Re:NSA surveillance may be legal – but it’s unconstitutional by austenallred on Saturday June 22, 2013 @11:51AM (#5924005)
Bingo. The entire NSA hearing a few days ago was NSA directors pointing out under which law they perform each action. They could do it, because according to US law it is legal.

The much more deep rooted question is "is this good?" Every aspect of law in the United States can be changed and rewritten according to the conscious of the people, though this takes a long time to do. Legality is temporary. Under ideal circumstances we would debate "right vs wrong" and change laws accordingly.

Re:NSA surveillance may be legal – but it’s unconstitutional by alexqgb on Saturday June 22, 2013 @02:23PM (#5924629)
There's also a big difference between new law - which can be batshit insane - and settled law, which has both passed constitutional muster and become widely accepted. Trying to reconcile "consent of the governed" with "secret law" goes in the opposite direction.
Re:NSA surveillance may be legal – but it’s unconstitutional by aclevernickname on Saturday June 22, 2013 @04:29PM (#5925046)
I thought NSPD-51 solved all of that, putting the Executive Branch above the constitution, so it's actions didn't have to pass muster.

I wish I was kidding:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Presidential_...

http://www.marjoriecohn.com/2007/05/unitary-king-george.html