In a decision hailed by the ACLU and NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, an US appeals court has sided with black activists and ruled that Baltimore’s AIR spying program violated the Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable searches.
The full bench of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia ruled in favor of Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle and against the Baltimore, Maryland police department, declaring the Aerial Investigation Research (AIR) program unconstitutional.
The ruling is the most significant 4th Amendment victory in quite some time, and will have national impact, wrote Snowden, who exposed the warrant-less federal spying on Americans in 2013.
In the majority opinion, the appeals court said the AIR program is a “photographic record of movements, surpassing the precision even of GPS data” and cell service location information, which transcends ordinary police capabilities.
Such a “dystopian program” should have never been permitted in the first place, said the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which represented the plaintiffs before the court.
RT. com / ABC Flash Point WW III News 2021.
It’s a victory for now, but I wouldn’t be optimistic about its surviving an appeal to SCOTUS. That, and police will do it anyway, legal or not.
Excellent, about time the citizens of the US wake up to the reality that the Federal government spies, lies and cheats to control.
Baltimore police secretly patrol citizens with tech used in Iraq war.
Always military inventions that are first tested abroad?