Court Seals It: We Live in a 'Surveillance State'

The Supreme Court yesterday gave the green light to the Justice Department to continue eavesdropping on Americans without need of a warrant. In so doing, the court's five conservative justices agreed with the "Kafkaesque reasoning" of the Obama administration, which was borrowed and expanded upon from the Bush administration, writes Glenn Greenwald at the Guardian. Essentially, this line of argument states that the warrantless wiretapping allowed under the FISA Amendments Act is so secret that nobody can be sure they're being spied upon and therefore can't sue.

This is nuts, writes Greenwald. To prevent people from suing "on the ground that the US government's secrecy precludes them from proving with certainty that they are being targeted is to remove the US government's surveillance actions from the rule of law and the constraints of the Constitution." Which means the "US government has constructed a ubiquitous Surveillance State." Click for the full column. (More US Supreme Court stories.)