Larry Klayman Wins Stunning Legal Victory Over Government But Still Has Not Managed To Inpeach Obama

 
 Regular readers will know that we have made it a practice to be your go-to source for all things Larry Klayman. Yes, he of the Million Larry March to Inpeach Obama, and the imaginary grand jury to indict Obama, and also too the representing Wonket fan favorite Bradleeeeee Dean, and also last coming dangerously close to suing yr Wonkette for libel for quoting court filings against him. That Larry Klayman. He's been our secret sauce, our own little spicy goodness, for a while now, but he probably won't even take our calls anymore now that he's been discovered by the Emmm Esss Emmm thanks to his improbable court victory against the NSA and their ravenous hoovering up of your phone calls, America.

A federal district judge ruled on Monday that the National Security Agency program that is systematically keeping records of all Americans’ phone calls most likely violates the Constitution, describing its technology as “almost Orwellian” and suggesting that James Madison would be “aghast” to learn that the government was encroaching on liberty in such a way.

The judge [...] ordered the government to stop collecting data on the personal calls of the two plaintiffs in the case and to destroy the records of their calling history, [b]ut [...] stayed his injunction “in light of the significant national security interests at stake in this case and the novelty of the constitutional issues,” allowing the government time to appeal it, which he said could take at least six months.

You guys this is actually an important thing and not one of Larry Klayman's stock in trade lawsuits, which usually consist of him tilting at impeachment-flavored windmills or the aforementioned human hairball, Bradlee Dean, or suing his own mother. So, blind squirrel, nut, whatever. No matter how you slice it, the gubmint is in trouble for scooping up Larry Klayman's Very Important Metadata, but they get six months to appeal the ruling and get to continue to troll through Larry's outgoing calls or whatever it is they do, thanks to the judge staying the injunction.

Klayman is, of course, positively aglow with his achievement.

"It's the most important ruling in the history of litigation against the government," Klayman said. "It's the biggest ruling, ever, in any case filed against the government. Never has there been a violation of constitutional rights to this magnitude. Thank God that this judge stepped in on behalf of the American people."

Our Larry's talents do not run towards modesty. We're not exactly sure what they run towards, actually, but here he certainly ran into some blind luck. You see, the case wasn't so much won by Larry as lost by the government on account of how they are snorting all your metadata like an early 1980s stockbroker on payday.

Klayman brought this suit with four of his closest friends or people he found on the street or imaginary coworkers or whatever, claiming that all of them were being searched and seized and surveilled by the NSA snooping on their phones. (You can read the entire order in all its 68-page lawsplainy glory here. ) They sued both the government and the telcos that facilitate your gubmint spying on you, but right out the gate they ran into a wee spot of trouble when the judge determined that only two of the five plaintiffs were actually phone subscribers of the company they sued, and that meant they lacked standing, which is a pesky little thing that law students learn about in their first ten minutes of law school but maybe Larry was sick that day?

Also, the judge caught on kind of quick that the reasons that led to the Klayman Krew believing the government was going all The Wire on them were a bit slapdash aka completely ridiculous.

Whoops! If the NSA were not behaving with such a cartoonish moustache-twirling level of villainy, the suit would have ended there, because you generally do not get to press ahead with your lawsuit when you allege things that are actually not examples of what you are suing about. In this case, however, the NSA has not only been behaving terribly but literally incoherently and indefensibly, so the judge pretty much decided to overlook the whole Klayman Komics Kaper aspect of the lawsuit and rule against the government anyway.

The judge portrayed that claim as “unusual” but looked past it, saying Mr. Klayman and his co-plaintiff instead had standing because it was highly likely, based on the government’s own description of the program as a “comprehensive metadata database,” that the N.S.A. collected data about their phone calls along with everyone else’s.

Translation: Larry Klayman is a buffoon with nonsense reasons for believing the government collects his metadata but since the government says they collect everyone's metadata, they probably collect his also too.

While Klayman is taking his victory lap for the press, we'll take this opportunity to remind both him and you, dear gentle readers, that this is the first step in a long and winding court road and a number of other similar cases will be grinding their way through various courts, which means that we'll never be able to stop reading statements from Edward Snowden or Glenn Greenwald on the matter.

We've never been more disappointed in a government that forces us to side with Greenwald and Klayman on the same day. Dark days indeed, America.

[ NYT / HuffPo ]