From Wikipedia: "The radio program This American Life reported in 2009, that, contrary to claims made in the case, the accident report contained no information on the secret equipment on the plane except to note that secret equipment was present, a fact which had been reported in the press at the time. The program interviewed the daughter of one of the crash victims who described the government's claims in the case as fraudulent."

The court may have found that the government did not abuse its privilege, but I do not agree. Courts have also ruled that people who suspect they are being spied upon have no standing to find out, since the spying is classified and they can't know if they are or not. Whatever the material of my hat, court rulings do not guarantee fairness, good judgement or good policy.

The defense, as I understand it, was that the accident report was privileged information and therefore not subject to disclosure under Rule 34 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. However, the cause of the plane crash was determined to be a fire in the engine. What does a fire in the engine have to do with secret surveillance equipment on the plane? Why would an engine fire be privileged? How would its disclosure impact national security?

I know that the families of the airmen received a settlement, so they didn't go away with nothing. But the precedent was set and it really looks to me like the government used a supposed threat to national security to avoid accountability. YMMV

One of the things President Obama has done for this country is to show us that whether the Republicans or Democrats are in office, we get a lot of the same policies. Not identical, but most of the foreign policy, national security, surveillance and domestic security policies are the same between the parties. Some choice!

That just makes it all the more disillusioning when you figure out that it's bullshit.

In a republic, the people must be able to hold their representatives accountable and ensure they are working in the country's best interests and obeying the law. Secret policies like the one governing the members of the no-fly list work against people wanting to know what their government is doing and why. It is not a matter of whether we are protected or not. It is a matter of transparency in a government by, of and for the people. That's not to say that the policy governing the no-fly list should be published in the New York Times. But if the government can hide behind the state secrets privilege to bar people from finding out why they are on the list and how they might get off it, they are denying those people their right to redress of grievances.

It is true that some things must be kept secret. But part of the issue here is that in order to be trusted with secrets, you must be that; trusted. Members of the intelligence and national security apparatus have been found lying to Congress, the judiciary and the public on numerous occasions. When they say we must simply trust them that they are doing the right thing, any thinking person should be skeptical. They have blown their credibility and have lost the trust of the people they are supposed to be protecting. That's not a good thing.

It should be noted that in the seminal case that established the state secrets privilege, United States v. Reynolds, the government used the national security argument to hide negligence. In the very first case that they used that argument, they used it to cover something up (lax maintenance that led to the downing of an aircraft). So it has been a dubious privilege from the start. Given their track record since, there is no reason to trust that the government is being honest in their invoking the privilege now. They may indeed be on the up-and-up. But that needs to be independently verified, and that should be the job of the court.

What if they're throttling packets from another service you pay for? Is it really okay with you if you pay for Hulu and for your connection to Hulu, but your ISP purposely slows down your connection to Hulu? Why would that be acceptable?

It has been drilled into our heads because that mindset benefits the ruling class. It grants them the illusion of legitimacy.

That is by design. The oligarchs in the US don't want the citizenry getting the idea that American Capitalism may not be the best way to structure things. That's why socialism and communism were so demonized; they are a threat to the dominant paradigm. If people were to get the idea that government can function to make everyone's lives better and make this a more equal society (equality of opportunity, not outcome) they might start to object to the accumulation of inordinate wealth and the power and privilege that comes with it. They might also wonder why the rich keep getting richer while everyone else has to make do with less and less. I think you can see why the .1% doesn't want us going down that road.

Don't worry. Under neo-feudalism we'd still have a police state.

Why do you put that in the past tense?

At the federal level the Constitution says what the government can do. Anything not explicitly allowed to the federal government is left to the states.

I'd say that's a problem with just about any system. I think it's plain by now that American democracy and capitalism have the same problem.

I would say that without government enforcement there is no way to ensure net neutrality is being followed.

That's not what Net Neutrality is. It's not that the government dictates who gets bandwidth. It's that the government mandates that an ISP cannot charge one customer more than another for bandwidth, or slow down one's connection because they don't want to pay more for the same service. It's actually about the government making sure your concern above does not happen.

Or, "Yeah, bitch! Magnets!"

That's a main reason I continue to come to this site after all these years. The comments are often intelligent and worth reading. Contrast that with most other sites where people just get their stupid on.

True, but to be fair, the rich people have become a problem too.

The Constitution does not lay out the powers of the Federal Government with regards to recording. Obviously, the technology didn't exist back then, but still the Federal government does not have that authority; at least until the Supreme Court can shoehorn recording conversations into the Commerce clause.