For law-enforcement agencies, but not for the courts. That is, no court of law is bound by said presumption, and any court might properly rule it illegal sua sponte regardless of arguments presented or not presented by either litigant – but only in connection with a case where its legality were at issue.
Ok, sorry if I’m be redundant or whatever, but how is the OP’s claim of “illegal wiretapping” valid? I mean, obviously a particular program is not illegal because a random poster on the SDMB says so; it takes a ruling by a court of competent jurisdiction to determine that, doesn’t it?
Anyone may argue it is illegal. Only a court’s ruling is legally dispositive – and to date, none is, on this point. The question remains as open as it was before this decision.
In a very strict sense, that is so, no one here on the Boards is qualified beyond the reasonable opinion. And it is a reasonable opinion. One may say “Dick Cheney is an asshole” without being required to submit an affidavit from a proctologist.
Well, yeah, anyone may argue that the moon is made of green cheese, too, but it doesn’t make it so.
Is the wiretapping program in question illegal, or not? Cite, please.
Since its legality remains to be decided by the courts, what you can reasonably ask for is not a cite but an argument. You can find some – on both sides – here.
Hell, at least you didn’t “cite” thinkprogressive.org or somesuch. Wiki is not much better. That said, the OP used the phrase “illegal wiretapping” as if it were a fact, and that’s rather clearly not a fact, but an “arguement”, in your own words.
By golly, she’s right, it is just an opinion! Bad Tuckerfan! Bad! Go lay down by your water dish!
I haven’t read the ruling, 'cause this is the pit and I don’t have to have facts or knowledge to respond. But there are exceptions to the standing doctrine (see, e.g., Roe v. Wade) that permit courts to take cases where the putative plaintiff doesn’t have standing. In Roe, as I recall (my memory is blurred by a decade or more’s distance from reading it, and maybe the martini next to me), they permitted the plaintiff to go forward even though she didn’t have standing because the pregnancy was already over by the time the case got to the appellate courts.
In other words, there are legal ways to get around the lack of standing – a continuing wrong incapable of being righted due to the technicality of standing. So without reading the case, I don’t know if they discussed or considered that issue.
Well, no, because the US owns Canada. We just like to pretend like they’re autonomous. 
It throws it into this weird legal limbo. No shit. I forget where I read this, but the Feds are trying to get all US telecoms to route their international traffic through the US, because of weird loopholes (and a lack of legal challenges) it’s easier for the US to monitor those calls. This means if a call from (say) England is made via AT&T’s network to France, instead of routing the call straight to France from England, they’ll route it to the US and then on to France. I would imagine that there is a way for the parties on such a connection to figure it out due to the time lag caused by such a rerouting.
IIRC, Wired did a piece on calls which were domestic US calls that were being routed into Canada since this made it easier in the legal sense for the calls to be monitored. Might have even been a Pit thread on this as well.
Can you count as “damaged” by someone on the basis that you reasonably find you must refrain from engaging in some perfectly legal beneficial activity in order to avoid the possibility of suffering ill effects from some action of that person?
Pretty vague question I guess. Well what do you say?
-FrL-
You know what they say about opinions…and everyone’s got one.
Apart from “everyone’s got one,” what exactly do they say about opinions?
Legally speaking, it is too vague a question to be meaningfully answered yea or nay without more specifics being supplied.
That they all stink. The usual version of the quote that I’ve heard is “Opinions are like assholes: everyone’s got one, and they all stink.”
Well, that all depends on how “reasonable” the claim is, right? To me, it would only be “reasonable” if someone had actually been affected by the action. IOW, if you could show that person A, B or C had been prosecuted or charge with a crime based on NSA wiretaps and that you were engaged in activity comparable to what that person was engaged in. Otherwise, it’s just an open invitation to say that you are being intimidated by some action the administration is taking.
Carol Stream, stop being a bitch. You know that since the court lacks jurisdiction, even if it is illegal the court can’t step in. Saying it’s “presumptively legal” is just fucking weasel words.
Yeah, good luck with that, Blalron. Say as long as you’re up, I’d like a pony…
Pretty much everything is “presumptively legal”, unless the court rules otherwise.
I’m still waiting on the cite that the wiretapping program is illegal. So far, no luck, go figure.
As for calling me a bitch, what’s wrong with you? Were you raised by wolves?
Not to presume to speak for Frylock… I get the sense he/she is asking, what if I wanted to enter a business deal with someone in Germany? Something perfectly legal and above board. But because of fears of the gov eavsdropping on our correspondence, I decide to just drop the deal. The damage would be the potential lost profits from said deal. It is pretty vague, but would it have any standing with the courts?