> The perverse thing is that the pretense for keeping it secret is to prevent 'foreign adversary governments' from knowing what it is, but it's clearly about domestic spying on U.S. citizens - and Russia and China probably already know exactly what it is
I think you're trying to hard to dismiss the justification here. There are certainly techniques for monitoring communications that use justifiably classified technologies that were probably developed to monitor communications of adversaries.
Imagine the use of which is helping keep American spies in Iran safe and the knowledge of the technique could help Iran identify those people. That's a perfectly reasonable classification of the technique.
What makes the interpretation of the law secret is that it mentions this hypothetical technology.
Imagine they have the technology to hear speech through walls passively using your WiFi signal. That technology is classified and they have the legal opinion that this doesn't violate the fourth amendment.
Wyden being concerned about whatever this is isn't surprising really but he's always on the extreme end of these interpretations, which I usually agree with, but judges typically don't agree with him.
I think it's probably generous to say the legal justification they are using has just as much chance of being legal as illegal. It would be nice to know what it was though because it can probably be defeated.
I think you're trying to hard to dismiss the justification here. There are certainly techniques for monitoring communications that use justifiably classified technologies that were probably developed to monitor communications of adversaries.
Imagine the use of which is helping keep American spies in Iran safe and the knowledge of the technique could help Iran identify those people. That's a perfectly reasonable classification of the technique.
What makes the interpretation of the law secret is that it mentions this hypothetical technology.
Imagine they have the technology to hear speech through walls passively using your WiFi signal. That technology is classified and they have the legal opinion that this doesn't violate the fourth amendment.
Wyden being concerned about whatever this is isn't surprising really but he's always on the extreme end of these interpretations, which I usually agree with, but judges typically don't agree with him.
I think it's probably generous to say the legal justification they are using has just as much chance of being legal as illegal. It would be nice to know what it was though because it can probably be defeated.