UK Tribunal Declares NSAs Data-Sharing with British Intel Illegal

A British tribunal has ruled that data sharing between the NSA and the UK spy group known as GCHQ was illegal for years. Why? Because it was done in secret.

The Investigatory Powers Tribunal in the UK ruled today (.pdf) that British intelligence services acted unlawfully when they accessed the private communications of millions of people that had been collected by the NSA under its mass-surveillance programs known as PRISM and Upstream. The PRISM program, which began in 2007, allowed the NSA to collect data in bulk from U.S. companies like Yahoo and Google. The Upstream program involved the collection of data from taps placed on undersea cables outside the U.S.

The UKs use of the NSA data was illegal, the Tribunal found, because it violated the European Convention on Human Rights, which requires that activity that infringes on an individuals privacy be done both in accordance with the law and only when necessary and proportionate. The law requires that there be a detailed and publicly accessible legal framework in place that explains any privacy safeguards that are in place to help regulate programs that interfere with privacy. This was not the case until December 2014, after documents leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden exposed the data-sharing programs and a legal challenge to the data-sharing forced the government to disclose the safeguards it was using.

The legal challenge was brought in July 2013 by Privacy International, Liberty, and other human rights and civil liberties groups. These groups argued in their complaint that by obtaining data about UK citizens from the NSA, UK spy agencies had done an end-run around privacy protections that UK citizens have under domestic laws. This forced the UK intelligence community to explain the safeguards it had put in place to govern use of the data.

We now know that, by keeping the public in the dark about their secret dealings with the NSA, GCHQ acted unlawfully and violated our rights, said James Welch, legal director for Liberty, in a statement. That their activities are now deemed lawful is thanks only to the degree of disclosure Liberty and the other claimants were able to force from our secrecy-obsessed government.

The Guardian notes that this is the first time since the Tribunal was established in 2000 that it has upheld a complaint relating to the UKs intelligence agencies.

But civil liberties groups say the Tribunal didnt go far enough. They are appealing an earlier decision by the Tribunal in December of last year, which found that now that the safeguards are public, the program is legal.

The IPT ruled that, because the government was forced to disclosed these previous secret policies during the case, that the sharing of intelligence between GCHQ and NSA is lawful post December 2014. We obviously disagree with that, Mike Rispoli, spokesman for Privacy International told WIRED.

He said the groups are also still waiting on a ruling from the Tribunal regarding the proportionality of the data collection and sharing. That ruling is expected within a few months.

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UK Tribunal Declares NSAs Data-Sharing with British Intel Illegal

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GCHQ-NSA intelligence sharing unlawful

LONDON Britains electronic spy agency was acting unlawfully until December when it received intelligence provided by the U.S. National Security Agency, a British court ruled Friday.

The Investigatory Powers Tribunal, a court that oversees the intelligence and security agencies, said that Britains spy agency, GCHQ, was violating human rights when it received the intercepted communications from the NSA because it had not made details of the procedure and its safeguards on it public. In the tribunals 15-year history, this is the first time it has ruled against any of Britains intelligence agencies.

The court also said that while the lack of transparency in the past meant that GCHQ had breached human rights, the agency has been in compliance with the law since December.

The ruling comes at a time of heated debate in Britain over the balance between security and privacy, with Prime Minister David Cameron vowing to push for legislation to beef up security agencies surveillance powers if his party wins the upcoming general election.

In its ruling, the court said that the regime governing the soliciting, receiving, storing and transmitting by UK authorities of private communications of individuals located in the UK by the NSA breached Articles 8 or 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, because GCHQs safeguards were kept secret. Article 8 refers to the right of privacy, while Article 10 covers freedom of expression.

In December, the tribunal said, the security agency made public the safeguards governing the exchanges with the NSAs Prism and Upstream mass surveillance programs, making the exchanges lawful. The safeguards were disclosed as part of a separate legal challenge brought by civil liberty groups.

GCHQ said that the legal frameworks around intelligence-sharing were compatible with the law and that Fridays ruling against it was, in essence, a technicality, or in one small respect in relation to the historic intelligence-sharing regime. It also said that the ruling did not require it to change its operations.

The NSA and other U.S. officials declined to comment.

A GCHQ spokesman also said: We are pleased that the court has once again ruled that the U.K.s bulk interception regime is fully lawful. He added, Todays IPT ruling re-affirms that the processes and safeguards within the intelligence-sharing regime were fully adequate at all times it is simply about the amount of detail about those processes and safeguards that needed to be in the public domain. We welcome the important role the IPT has played in ensuring that the public regime is sufficiently detailed.

The British government is committed to transparency, Britains Home Office said response to the ruling. We have now made public the detail of the safeguards that underpin requests to overseas governments for support on interc

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GCHQ-NSA intelligence sharing unlawful

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NSA-GCHQ data sharing was illegal – but they are free to carry on doing it

The Investigatory Powers Tribunal ruled today that the UK intelligence services acted unlawfully in their sharing of intelligence with the NSA prior to December 2014.

The case was brought to the Tribunal, which rules on intelligence matters, by the organisations Privacy International, Bytes for All, Liberty and Amnesty International.

The basis of the ruling is that the way in which intelligence sharing between GCHQ and the US intelligence services was kept secret prior to that date contravenes human rights. That includes the Tempora programme, by which the UK intercepts data passing through the transatlantic fibre-optic cables that carry much of the world's internet traffic, and warrantless access to data harvested by the NSA's Prism and Upstream programmes.

However, those same activities are now deemed to be legal. Following a limited disclosure by UK intelligence about its methodology with respect to information sharing with the US, on December 5th the IPT ruled that the cooperation between GCHQ and the NSA could continue.

Privacy International welcomed today's ruling, but said it does not go far enough since the activities are continuing as before.

"For far too long, intelligence agencies like GCHQ and NSA have acted like they are above the law. Today's decision confirms to the public what many have said all along - over the past decade, GCHQ and the NSA have been engaged in an illegal mass surveillance sharing program that has affected millions of people around the world," said deputy director Eric King in a statement.

"We must not allow agencies to continue justifying mass surveillance programmes using secret interpretations of secret laws. The world owes Edward Snowden a great debt for blowing the whistle, and today's decision is a vindication of his actions," he said, adding that more now needs to be done to put pressure on the authorities.

"The only reason why the NSA-GCHQ sharing relationship is still legal today is because of a last-minute clean-up effort by Government to release previously secret 'arrangements'. That is plainly not enough to fix what remains a massive loophole in the law, and we hope that the European Court decides to rule in favour of privacy rather than unchecked state power."

James Welch, legal director for Liberty, said his organisation will continue the battle through the European courts.

"We now know that, by keeping the public in the dark about their secret dealings with the National Security Agency, GCHQ acted unlawfully and violated our rights. That their activities are now deemed lawful is thanks only to the degree of disclosure Liberty and the other claimants were able to force from our secrecy-obsessed Government." Welch said.

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NSA-GCHQ data sharing was illegal - but they are free to carry on doing it

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Thanks to Snowden, NSA-GCHQ surveillance data sharing is now legal

A secret UK court has ruled that the UK's intelligence agency GCHQ acted unlawfully by intercepting information gathered by the NSA. Investigatory Powers Tribunal said that because the rules surrounding the UKs access to the NSA's PRISM and UPSTREAM program data were secret, data sharing between the US and UK was illegal. A case has been brought against GCHQ by Privacy International, Bytes for All, Liberty, and Amnesty International.

But while the IPT said that accessing this information breached human rights laws this is no longer the case. Why? The illegality of sharing data collected through these surveillance programs centered on the very fact that they were secret. In blowing the whistle about what the NSA was doing, Edward Snowden unwittingly made this data sharing legal. Whoops.

The IPT's ruling states that GCHQ's access to NSA data was illegal before December 2014, but after this time the documents revealed by Snowden has brought the sharing of gathered intelligence to the public attention -- it is now legal. The activities of the NSA are now something we are all too aware of. This is largely thanks to the revelations made by Snowden which led to a massive surge in public interest about government monitoring of web usage.

Few would have suspected, however, that the documents leaked by Snowden would end up making the activities legal. The new ruling says that

...prior to the disclosures made and referred to in the Tribunal's Judgment of 5 December 2014 and this judgment the Prism and/or Upstream arrangements contravened Articles 8 or 10 ECHR, but now comply.

So when we didnt know about what was going on, it was illegal. Now that we do know about it, it's legal. The ethical and legal rights and wrongs of the surveillance have been questioned by many, and today's ruling will do little to silence those opposed to what is going on. Deputy director of Privacy International, Eric King, said:

The only reason why the NSA-GCHQ sharing relationship is still legal today is because of a last-minute clean-up effort by Government to release previously secret 'arrangements'. That is plainly not enough to fix what remains a massive loophole in the law, and we hope that the European Court decides to rule in favor of privacy rather than unchecked State power.

Privacy International and Bytes for All are now calling for the deletion of all data collected before December 2014. The two groups will also continue to fight against GCHQ access to NSA-gathered information, and the ruling is seen as being very bittersweet. James Welch, Legal Director for Liberty, said:

We now know that, by keeping the public in the dark about their secret dealings with the National Security Agency, GCHQ acted unlawfully and violated our rights. That their activities are now deemed lawful is thanks only to the degree of disclosure Liberty and the other claimants were able to force from our secrecy-obsessed Government [...] The Tribunal believes the limited safeguards revealed during last year's legal proceedings are an adequate protection of our privacy. We disagree, and will be taking our fight to the European Court of Human Rights.

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Thanks to Snowden, NSA-GCHQ surveillance data sharing is now legal

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"Fifth Amendment" Defined & Explained – Free Legal Forms …

PREMIUM LEGAL RESOURCES LEGAL FORMS ASK A LAWYER

'No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb, nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.'

The Fifth Amendment 'can be asserted in any proceeding, civil or criminal, administrative or judicial, investigatory or adjudicatory; and it protects against any disclosures which the witness reasonably believes could be used in a criminal prosecution or could lead to other evidence that might be so used.' Kastigar v. U.S., 406 U.S. 441, 44-45 ('72). A reasonable belief that information concerning income or assets might be used to establish criminal failure to file a tax return can support a claim of Fifth Amendment privilege. See U.S. v. Rendahl, 746 F.2d 553, 55-56 (9th Cir.'84).

The only way the Fifth Amendment can be asserted as to testimony is on a question-by-question basis. Rendahl, 746 F.2d at 555, citing with approval U.S. v. Bell, 448 F.2d 40, 42 (9th Cir.'71) (Fifth Amendment challenge premature on appeal from enforcement order; appellant must present himself for questioning after enforcement and as to each question elect to raise or not to raise the defense).

The appropriate device for compelling answers to incriminating questions is a government grant of use immunity. See Sharp, 920 F.2d at 1172.

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Fifth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland – Wikipedia …

The Fifth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland removed from the constitution a controversial reference to the "special position" of the Roman Catholic Church as well as recognition of certain other named religious denominations. It was effected by the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution Act, 1972 which was approved by referendum on 7 December 1972 and signed into law on 5 January 1973.

In drafting the Irish constitution in 1936 and 1937, amon de Valera and his advisers chose to reflect what had been a contemporary willingness by constitution drafters and lawmakers in Europe to mention and in some ways recognise religion in explicit detail. This contrasted with many 1920s constitutions, notably the Irish Free State Constitution of 1922, which, following the secularism of the initial period following the First World War, simply prohibited any discrimination based on religion or avoided religious issues entirely.

De Valera, his advisers (Fr. John Charles McQuaid, the future Archbishop of Dublin), and the men who put words to de Valera's concepts for the constitution (John Hearne and Mchel Grobhtha) faced conflicting demands in his drafting of the article on religion.

De Valera's solution was Article 44. In contemporary terms, it marked a defeat for conservative Catholics, and Pope Pius XI explicitly withheld his approval from it:

Though perceived in retrospect as a sectarian article, Article 44 was praised in 1937 by leaders of Irish Protestant churches (notably the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin) and by Jewish groups. Conservative Catholics condemned it as "liberal".

When the contents of Article 44 were put to Pope Pius XI by Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli (then Cardinal Secretary of State, later Pope Pius XII), the pope stated in diplomatic language: "We do not approve, nor do we not disapprove we will remain silent".[citation needed] It was said that the Vatican was privately more appreciative of the constitution, and Pius XII later praised it.[1]

By 1972 an article once condemned by critics as liberal and indeed by some as offensive to Catholicism, had come to be seen as out of place, dated, and potentially discriminatory to Protestants. The "special position" of the Catholic Church had granted to that church, albeit in an undefined manner, was a special status that was out of step with post-Vatican II Catholic thinking on the relationships between the churches. The Protestant churches, though they had declined in adherents, were more outspoken and willing to express their unhappiness than they had been in the Ireland of the 1920s and 1930s, when many were fearful that criticism of the Irish state would be seen as criticism of Irish independence and so implicitly a preference for the British regime that had ruled Ireland before 1922.

In addition, in the rapprochement between Northern Ireland and what was by then known as the Republic of Ireland, many southerners perceived the "special position" as a barrier between a north-south relationship and even a potential source of discrimination against minorities. In addition the explicit recognition of certain denominations was seen as unnecessary because of the provisions Article 44.2, which contains guarantees of freedom of worship and against religious discrimination. Though the changes shown above are those made to the English-language version of the constitution, constitutionally it is the Irish text that takes precedence.

This Fifth Amendment was introduced by the Fianna Fil government of Jack Lynch and supported by every other major political party. The Catholic Church did not voice any objection to the amendment, but it was opposed by some conservative Catholics. Some leading members of the Church of Ireland and the Jewish Community said during the campaign that while they appreciated the Article's recognition of their existence (and in the case of the Jewish Community, their right to exist, in contrast to anti-Jewish laws in other states) in 1937, it was no longer needed in the 1970s and had lost its usefulness.

The referendum on the amendment occurred on the same day as the referendum on the Fourth Amendment which lowered the voting age to eighteen. The Fifth Amendment was approved by 721,003 (84.4%) in favour and 133,430 (15.6%) against.

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Annotation 1 – Fourth Amendment – FindLaw

SEARCH AND SEIZURE History and Scope of the Amendment

History .--Few provisions of the Bill of Rights grew so directly out of the experience of the colonials as the Fourth Amendment, embodying as it did the protection against the utilization of the ''writs of assistance.'' But while the insistence on freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures as a fundamental right gained expression in the Colonies late and as a result of experience, 1 there was also a rich English experience to draw on. ''Every man's house is his castle'' was a maxim much celebrated in England, as was demonstrated in Semayne's Case, decided in 1603. 2 A civil case of execution of process, Semayne's Case nonetheless recognized the right of the homeowner to defend his house against unlawful entry even by the King's agents, but at the same time recognized the authority of the appropriate officers to break and enter upon notice in order to arrest or to execute the King's process. Most famous of the English cases was Entick v. Carrington, 3 one of a series of civil actions against state officers who, pursuant to general warrants, had raided many homes and other places in search of materials connected with John Wilkes' polemical pamphlets attacking not only governmental policies but the King himself. 4

Entick, an associate of Wilkes, sued because agents had forcibly broken into his house, broken into locked desks and boxes, and seized many printed charts, pamphlets and the like. In an opinion sweeping in terms, the court declared the warrant and the behavior it authorized subversive ''of all the comforts of society,'' and the issuance of a warrant for the seizure of all of a person's papers rather than only those alleged to be criminal in nature ''contrary to the genius of the law of England.'' 5 Besides its general character, said the court, the warrant was bad because it was not issued on a showing of probable cause and no record was required to be made of what had been seized. Entick v. Carrington, the Supreme Court has said, is a ''great judgment,'' ''one of the landmarks of English liberty,'' ''one of the permanent monuments of the British Constitution,'' and a guide to an understanding of what the Framers meant in writing the Fourth Amendment. 6

In the colonies, smuggling rather than seditious libel afforded the leading examples of the necessity for protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. In order to enforce the revenue laws, English authorities made use of writs of assistance, which were general warrants authorizing the bearer to enter any house or other place to search for and seize ''prohibited and uncustomed'' goods, and commanding all subjects to assist in these endeavors. The writs once issued remained in force throughout the lifetime of the sovereign and six months thereafter. When, upon the death of George II in 1760, the authorities were required to obtain the issuance of new writs, opposition was led by James Otis, who attacked such writs on libertarian grounds and who asserted the invalidity of the authorizing statutes because they conflicted with English constitutionalism. 7 Otis lost and the writs were issued and utilized, but his arguments were much cited in the colonies not only on the immediate subject but also with regard to judicial review.

Scope of the Amendment .--The language of the provision which became the Fourth Amendment underwent some modest changes on its passage through the Congress, and it is possible that the changes reflected more than a modest significance in the interpretation of the relationship of the two clauses. Madison's introduced version provided ''The rights to be secured in their persons, their houses, their papers, and their other property, from all unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated by warrants issued without probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, or not particularly describing the places to be searched, or the persons or things to be seized.'' 8 As reported from committee, with an inadvertent omission corrected on the floor, 9 the section was almost identical to the introduced version, and the House defeated a motion to substitute ''and no warrant shall issue'' for ''by warrants issuing'' in the committee draft. In some fashion, the rejected amendment was inserted in the language before passage by the House and is the language of the ratified constitutional provision. 10

As noted above, the noteworthy disputes over search and seizure in England and the colonies revolved about the character of warrants. There were, however, lawful warrantless searches, primarily searches incident to arrest, and these apparently gave rise to no disputes. Thus, the question arises whether the Fourth Amendment's two clauses must be read together to mean that the only searches and seizures which are ''reasonable'' are those which meet the requirements of the second clause, that is, are pursuant to warrants issued under the prescribed safeguards, or whether the two clauses are independent, so that searches under warrant must comply with the second clause but that there are ''reasonable'' searches under the first clause which need not comply with the second clause. 11 This issue has divided the Court for some time, has seen several reversals of precedents, and is important for the resolution of many cases. It is a dispute which has run most consistently throughout the cases involving the scope of the right to search incident to arrest. 12 While the right to search the person of the arrestee without a warrant is unquestioned, how far afield into areas within and without the control of the arrestee a search may range is an interesting and crucial matter.

The Court has drawn a wavering line. 13 In Harris v. United States, 14 it approved as ''reasonable'' the warrantless search of a four-room apartment pursuant to the arrest of the man found there. A year later, however, a reconstituted Court majority set aside a conviction based on evidence seized by a warrantless search pursuant to an arrest and adopted the ''cardinal rule that, in seizing goods and articles, law enforcement agents must secure and use search warrants wherever reasonably practicable.'' 15 This rule was set aside two years later by another reconstituted majority which adopted the premise that the test ''is not whether it is reasonable to procure a search warrant, but whether the search was reasonable.'' Whether a search is reasonable, the Court said, ''must find resolution in the facts and circumstances of each case.'' 16 However, the Court soon returned to its emphasis upon the warrant. ''The [Fourth] Amendment was in large part a reaction to the general warrants and warrantless searches that had so alienated the colonists and had helped speed the movement for independence. In the scheme of the Amendment, therefore, the requirement that 'no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause,' plays a crucial part.'' 17 Therefore, ''the police must, whenever practicable, obtain advance judicial approval of searches and seizures through a warrant procedure.'' 18 Exceptions to searches under warrants were to be closely contained by the rationale undergirding the necessity for the exception, and the scope of a search under one of the exceptions was similarly limited. 19

During the 1970s the Court was closely divided on which standard to apply. 20 For a while, the balance tipped in favor of the view that warrantless searches are per se unreasonable, with a few carefully prescribed exceptions. 21 Gradually, guided by the variable expectation of privacy approach to coverage of the Fourth Amendment, the Court broadened its view of permissible exceptions and of the scope of those exceptions. 22

By 1992, it was no longer the case that the ''warrants-with- narrow-exceptions'' standard normally prevails over a ''reasonableness'' approach. 23 Exceptions to the warrant requirement have multiplied, tending to confine application of the requirement to cases that are exclusively ''criminal'' in nature. And even within that core area of ''criminal'' cases, some exceptions have been broadened. The most important category of exception is that of administrative searches justified by ''special needs beyond the normal need for law enforcement.'' Under this general rubric the Court has upheld warrantless searches by administrative authorities in public schools, government offices, and prisons, and has upheld drug testing of public and transportation employees. 24 In all of these instances the warrant and probable cause requirements are dispensed with in favor of a reasonableness standard that balances the government's regulatory interest against the individual's privacy interest; in all of these instances the government's interest has been found to outweigh the individual's. The broad scope of the administrative search exception is evidenced by the fact that an overlap between law enforcement objectives and administrative ''special needs'' does not result in application of the warrant requirement; instead, the Court has upheld warrantless inspection of automobile junkyards and dismantling operations in spite of the strong law enforcement component of the regulation. 25 In the law enforcement context, where search by warrant is still the general rule, there has also been some loosening of the requirement. For example, the Court has shifted focus from whether exigent circumstances justified failure to obtain a warrant, to whether an officer had a ''reasonable'' belief that an exception to the warrant requirement applied; 26 in another case the scope of a valid search ''incident to arrest,'' once limited to areas within the immediate reach of the arrested suspect, was expanded to a ''protective sweep'' of the entire home if arresting officers have a reasonable belief that the home harbors an individual who may pose a danger. 27

Another matter of scope recently addressed by the Court is the category of persons protected by the Fourth Amendment--who constitutes ''the people.'' This phrase, the Court determined, ''refers to a class of persons who are part of a national community or who have otherwise developed sufficient connection with [the United States] to be considered part of that community.'' 28 The Fourth Amendment therefore does not apply to the search and seizure by United States agents of property that is owned by a nonresident alien and located in a foreign country. The community of protected people includes U.S. citizens who go abroad, and aliens who have voluntarily entered U.S. territory and developed substantial connections with this country. There is no resulting broad principle, however, that the Fourth Amendment constrains federal officials wherever and against whomever they act.

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The Meaning of the Words in the Second Amendment

The Meaning of the Words in the Second Amendment

The Second Amendment:

Militia

The federal government can use the militia for the following purposes as stated in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution:

For a definition of today's militia as defined, by statute, in the United States Code, click here.

A militia is always subject to federal, state, or local government control. A "private" militia or army not under government control could be considered illegal and in rebellion, and as a result subject to harsh punishment. (See Macnutt, Karen L., Militias, Women and Guns Magazine, March, 1995.)

Some argue that since the militias are "owned," or under the command of the states, that the states are free to disarm their militia if they so choose, and therefore of course no individual right to keep arms exists. The Militia is not "owned," rather it is controlled, organized, et. cetera, by governments. The federal government as well as the states have no legitimate power to disarm the people from which militias are organized. Unfortunately, few jurists today hold this view. (See Reynolds, Glen Harlan, A Critical Guide to the Second Amendment, 62 Tenn. L. Rev. 461-511 [1995].)

A brief summary of early U.S. militia history.

Well Regulated

The Random House College Dictionary (1980) gives four definitions for the word "regulate," which were all in use during the Colonial period and one more definition dating from 1690 (Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd Edition, 1989). They are:

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The Meaning of the Words in the Second Amendment

Texas lawmaker joining E. Texas leaders to announce concealed carry reciprocity legislation

TYLER, TX (KLTV) - A Texas lawmaker says Second Amendment rights shouldn't stop at state lines. Senator John Cornyn is joining East Texas leaders and Second Amendment rights advocates Saturday to announce proposed legislation that would allow Texans with a concealed handgun license to carry legally in other states.

I think it's actually kind of a common sense provision, says gun rights advocate Dr. Scott Lieberman.

Senator Cornyn wants CHL holders to be able to protect themselves when they travel to other states.

You'd like to think that what's legal in one state should be legal in another state, says Dr. Lieberman.

Some states just don't recognize Texas' CHL, but Senator Cornyn's proposed Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act would fix that by requiring states to honor any other states' concealed carry permits.

Some people can be licensed to carry in one state, but when they cross the border they become a criminal, says Dr. Lieberman.

He says it's a lot like a driver's license.

You're licensed to drive in one state and you cross the border, you want to be able to keep on driving. I think it's the same thing for a concealed carry. If you're able to defend yourself in one state, it should be common sense that you should be able to defend yourself in any state, he explains.

Dr. Lieberman says it's also a balance between the Second Amendment and states' rights.

All the states became members of the United States by agreeing to certain principles. Those principles were outlined and agreed upon by all of these states in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. So, fundamental to being one of the states is accepting the Bill of Rights and ergo the Second Amendment, he says.

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Texas lawmaker joining E. Texas leaders to announce concealed carry reciprocity legislation

Arizona Republicans push series of gun owners' rights bills

PHOENIX -- Republicans in the Arizona Legislature are pushing a series of bills that would ensure gun owners' rights to sell and transfer firearms at gun shows, bring guns into public places and protect owners from having their weapons taken.

Arizona already has some of the strongest Second Amendment protections in the country, including the right to carry a concealed weapon without a permit and sell firearms at gun shows without a permit or background check. But Republicans in the House of Representatives said new laws will further protect those rights.

The House Military and Public Safety Committee passed House Bill 2527 in a 5-3 vote Thursday. Rep. Anthony Kern, R-Glendale, said the bill would add the word "transfer" to an existing law so only the state legislature can regulate the transfer of firearms, in addition to storage and possession.

"There's no harm in that. I think it just adds to the rights of the second amendment," Kern said.

However, Sen. David Bradley, D-Tucson, said communities should be able to craft their own laws based on the Constitution.

"It's funny because sometimes we talk about local control, and when it's not convenient we view this as a restraint on Second Amendment rights," he said.

The House Military and Public Safety Committee delayed action on two other proposals, which representatives based on similar bills that Gov. Jan Brewer vetoed last session.

House Bill 2509 would make it a crime to take control of a person's legally owned firearm, except in the case of police officers and people whose "conduct is justified."

House Bill 2320 is designed to let concealed carry permit holders take their weapons into public buildings. Republican Rep. Brenda Barton said the bill honors people who have concealed carry permits by expanding the number of public places where they can take firearms.

Last week the committee passed House Bill 2300, which would allow former or current city, county and state prosecutors to carry concealed firearms in any jurisdiction.

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Arizona Republicans push series of gun owners' rights bills

Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution …

The Twenty-first Amendment (Amendment XXI) to the United States Constitution repealed the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which had mandated nationwide Prohibition on alcohol on January 17, 1920. The Twenty-first Amendment was ratified on December 5, 1933. It is unique among the 27 amendments of the U.S. Constitution for being the only one to have been ratified by state ratifying conventions.

Section 1. The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.

Section 2. The transportation or importation into any State, Territory, or possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited.

Section 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by conventions in the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress.

The Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution had ushered in a period known as Prohibition, during which the manufacture, distribution, and sale of alcoholic beverages was illegal. Passage of the Eighteenth Amendment in 1919 was the crowning achievement of the temperance movement, but it soon proved highly unpopular. Crime rates soared under Prohibition as gangsters, such as Chicago's Al Capone, became rich from a profitable, often violent black market for alcohol. The federal government was incapable of stemming the tide: enforcement of the Volstead Act proved to be a nearly impossible task and corruption was rife among law enforcement agencies.[1] In 1932, wealthy industrialist John D. Rockefeller, Jr. stated in a letter:

When Prohibition was introduced, I hoped that it would be widely supported by public opinion and the day would soon come when the evil effects of alcohol would be recognized. I have slowly and reluctantly come to believe that this has not been the result. Instead, drinking has generally increased; the speakeasy has replaced the saloon; a vast army of lawbreakers has appeared; many of our best citizens have openly ignored Prohibition; respect for the law has been greatly lessened; and crime has increased to a level never seen before.[2]

As more and more Americans opposed the Eighteenth Amendment, a political movement grew for its repeal. However, repeal was complicated by grassroots politics. Although the U.S. Constitution provides two methods for ratifying constitutional amendments, only one method had been used up until that time; and that was for ratification by the state legislatures of three-fourths of the states. However, the wisdom of the day was that the lawmakers of many states were either beholden to or simply fearful of the temperance lobby. For that reason, when Congress formally proposed the repeal of Prohibition on February 20, 1933 (with the requisite two-thirds having voted in favor in each house; 63 to 21 in the United States Senate and 289 to 121 in the United States House of Representatives), they chose the other ratification method established by Article V, that being via state conventions. The Twenty-first Amendment is the only constitutional amendment ratified by state conventions rather than by the state legislatures.

The Congress proposed the Twenty-first Amendment on February 20, 1933.[3]

The proposed amendment was adopted on December 5, 1933. It is the only amendment to have been ratified by state ratifying conventions, specially selected for the purpose.[4] All other amendments have been ratified by state legislatures. It is also the only amendment that was approved for the explicit purpose of repealing a previously existing amendment to the Constitution. The Twenty-first Amendment ending national prohibition became officially effective on December 15, though people started drinking openly before that date.[5]

The various responses of the 48 states is as follows:

Continued here:

Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution ...

Jitsi Wikipdia

Un article de Wikipdia, l'encyclopdie libre.

Jitsi (anciennement SIP Communicator) est une application dveloppe en Java cre l'origine au sein d'un des laboratoires de l'universit de Strasbourg, qui permet ses utilisateurs d'tablir des conversations audio et vido sur Internet via le protocole SIP (Session Initiation Protocol). Elle intgre galement des fonctions de messagerie instantane en prenant en charge quelques-uns des rseaux les plus populaires: SIP/SIMPLE, Jabber (XMPP), AIM/ICQ, MSN (Windows Live Messenger), Yahoo!, Facebook Chat, Google Talk . Une version portable est aussi disponible[1].

Le 11 mars 2011 SIP Communicator change de nom et devient Jitsi[2].

Dans sa version 1.0 sortie le 3 avril 2012, Jitsi s'excute sur les systmes Solaris, Windows, Mac OS X, FreeBSD et la plupart des distributions GNU/Linux.

La version 2.0 est sortie le 6 mars 2013[3], la 2.4 est sortie le 6 janvier 2014.

Une partie des dveloppeurs de Jitsi[4] travaillent pour la socit Blue Jimp qui fournit du support professionnel autour de Jitsi[5].

Jitsi veut se positionner comme le Skype du libre[6].

En effet, il propose presque tous les services[7] que propose Skype:

Le logiciel est cod majoritairement en java l'aide du framework OSGi[12]. Certaines parties sont toutefois propres chaque systme notamment pour capturer les images venant de la camra. Il utilise les protocoles SRTP et ZRTP et peut utiliser le DNSSEC. Le logiciel utilise un systme extensible via des plugins[13]. Il peut utiliser plusieurs codecs audios (SILK, G.722, Speex et Opus) et vidos diffrents (H.264, H.263 ou VP8).

Sur les autres projets Wikimedia:

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Jitsi Wikipdia

Skype Encrypted Alt. SIP Jitsi Combo

Skype is a really widely-used voice/video chat program. Its easy and convenient to use, the call quality is quite good, and you probably already know people who use it. Its also owned and controlled by a single company, and you might also not be entirely comfortable with its sketchy security history.

With privacy awareness on the rise (thanks to the recent disclosure of PRISM), Id like to tell you how you can jump from Skype to a free, secure alternative, in three easy steps. But first, lets look at the differences between Skype and SIP, the free alternative.

With Skype, theres one program you use (the Skype client) and it talks over the Skype network, and no one else can write their own software to connect to Skype. If you want to talk to someone on Skype, youve got to use their software and their network.

SIP, by contrast, isnt a piece of software or a company. SIP is a protocol (the Session Initiation Protocol) that defines how voice/video chat programs can connect to each other. Why is this important? Because anyone can write a program that talks SIP, and no single company owns the client or the network. This is why you can find a number of different SIP clients for your smartphone and your desktop PC, and they can all connect to each other.

So, to make the jump from Skype, what youll need is an account with a SIP provider and a SIP client, and thats it. If youre still with me, lets go!

There are a lot of free SIP account providers on the Internet. Some offer services where you can dial regular phones, some offer iNum numbers, some have fancy websites and some are pretty spartan. I like ippi.fr. Heres their English-language home page.

Once youre there, hit that purple Free sign-up! button. Fill out the sign-up form (its pretty quick) and look for a link in your email to complete your registration.

Thats it for the first step. Be sure to remember your username and password, because well need it in a minute.

Next, head on over to Jitsis website, jitsi.org, to grab a free, secure SIP client. This is the program youll run instead of Skype, to make your voice and video calls.

Theres a big blue button in the center of their homepage that says Download Jitsi. That button takes you to their downloads page. Once youre there, look for your OS platform. Click the appropriate link to start your download, and install the program once its done downloading.

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Skype Encrypted Alt. SIP Jitsi Combo

Download Tor!

You need to change some of your habits, as some things won't work exactly as you are used to.

Tor does not protect all of your computer's Internet traffic when you run it. Tor only protects your applications that are properly configured to send their Internet traffic through Tor. To avoid problems with Tor configuration, we strongly recommend you use the Tor Browser. It is pre-configured to protect your privacy and anonymity on the web as long as you're browsing with the Tor Browser itself. Almost any other web browser configuration is likely to be unsafe to use with Tor.

Torrent file-sharing applications have been observed to ignore proxy settings and make direct connections even when they are told to use Tor. Even if your torrent application connects only through Tor, you will often send out your real IP address in the tracker GET request, because that's how torrents work. Not only do you deanonymize your torrent traffic and your other simultaneous Tor web traffic this way, you also slow down the entire Tor network for everyone else.

The Tor Browser will block browser plugins such as Flash, RealPlayer, Quicktime, and others: they can be manipulated into revealing your IP address. Similarly, we do not recommend installing additional addons or plugins into the Tor Browser, as these may bypass Tor or otherwise harm your anonymity and privacy.

Tor will encrypt your traffic to and within the Tor network, but the encryption of your traffic to the final destination website depends upon on that website. To help ensure private encryption to websites, the Tor Browser includes HTTPS Everywhere to force the use of HTTPS encryption with major websites that support it. However, you should still watch the browser URL bar to ensure that websites you provide sensitive information to display a blue or green URL bar button, include https:// in the URL, and display the proper expected name for the website. Also see EFF's interactive page explaining how Tor and HTTPS relate.

The Tor Browser will warn you before automatically opening documents that are handled by external applications. DO NOT IGNORE THIS WARNING. You should be very careful when downloading documents via Tor (especially DOC and PDF files) as these documents can contain Internet resources that will be downloaded outside of Tor by the application that opens them. This will reveal your non-Tor IP address. If you must work with DOC and/or PDF files, we strongly recommend either using a disconnected computer, downloading the free VirtualBox and using it with a virtual machine image with networking disabled, or using Tails. Under no circumstances is it safe to use BitTorrent and Tor together, however.

Tor tries to prevent attackers from learning what destination websites you connect to. However, by default, it does not prevent somebody watching your Internet traffic from learning that you're using Tor. If this matters to you, you can reduce this risk by configuring Tor to use a Tor bridge relay rather than connecting directly to the public Tor network. Ultimately the best protection is a social approach: the more Tor users there are near you and the more diverse their interests, the less dangerous it will be that you are one of them. Convince other people to use Tor, too!

Be smart and learn more. Understand what Tor does and does not offer. This list of pitfalls isn't complete, and we need your help identifying and documenting all the issues.

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Download Tor!

Tor Browser Review Download: Protect Your Privacy and Surf …

Tor is an acronym that stands for The Onion Router. While the name suggests it is a router, it is actually a browser. Tor is the browser that stands for anonymity and privacy on the Internet. This review of Tor talks about how Tor works and how it provides anonymity when you are browsing the Internet.

While Internet Explorer and Google Chrome offer the feature where you can browse anonymously (InPrivate and InCognito modes), they still lag behind when intermediaries sitting between source and destination of web traffic. When you browse the web, send an email or download audio/video or anything, data is sent inform of packets.

Each data packet has a header that tells about the source and destination of the data packet. Even if you are using an encrypted connection, the packet headers are vulnerable. Anyone sitting between the source and destination can read the packet header to know about you and your browsing habits. The people snooping include your ISPs, ad agencies and sometimes even the government agencies. As such, your browsing and what you see on the Internet is affected by the information others have gathered about you.

Tor has been developed with total concentration on the privacy of users. People use Tor to send confidential emails. The high level security of Tor makes it impossible for hackers to know the origination ofemails and thereby the location of sender. Following are some uses of Tor that make it clear as to who all need the safest browser available on the planet:

There are many uses of Tor especially in a world where user privacy has been under the prying eyes of different ad agencies, social networks and government agencies. Also, your ISPs intercept your connection requests before you actually connect to a website. Using Tor, you wont leave any data for such agencies.

Tor works on a network of relays formed by people who have volunteered for the project. Unlike other browsers that have fixed routers that receive data packets to forward them to their destinations, Tor browser uses a number of relays. To be clearer, here is the procedure:

The below figure shows how Tor works

The aim is clear to create a maze of relays so that all the information about the original source is lost in the network. This makes it impossible for the scripts on the destination website to track who sent the request/data and from where.

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Tor Browser Review Download: Protect Your Privacy and Surf ...