Yeah, I'm sure the NSA are trembling, if they gave two shits about laws or civil liberties we would be here, so I'm sure this isn't going to do a thing.
The circular logic they were relying on to make the law go away, "can't sue without standing, can't get standing without evidence, can't get evidence without suing" has been cut at step 3.
Except that they claim that the leaked material is still classified. If you have clearance and you download that material to your personal computer, they would say that you were leaking it (seriously). This is one of those cases where "things that make sense" is not the same as "the law."
Yeah, moving from FPTP to Approval voting or Cordocet voting or something would be a huge improvement, at least in those terms. It's a tough fight though. Critics say "oooh, that's too complicated, it'll confuse the voters" blah, blah. Hell, in NC the SBOE (State Board of Elections) has used "voter confusion" as justification for policies that historically made it all but impossible for 3rd party candidates to even get on the ballot.
To give some perspective... in NC, in the modern era, only one 3rd party has ever achieved ballot access (the Libertarian Party). And until a few years ago, the rules were rigged to force the LP to constantly recertify through a long, tedious and expensive petitioning process every election cycle.
When the LP, Green Party and others sued the SBOE, they actually argued that having "too many candidates on the ballot could confuse voters", despite their essentially never being more than 3 candidates for any given office. Further, in most election years many, many races are actually uncontested! But we'll confuse the voters if we allow the Libertarian Party, Green Party, Constitution Party, etc. on the ballot. Sheesh.
I am not sure how you can make such an assertion, when almost everything they do is classified and they have repeatedly lied about the very existence of the programs in question for years now. Until the details of the program are available and subject to legal scrutiny, I would not assume that they were following the law, regardless of what President Obama or his allies in Congress have to say.
And furthermore, they're operating based on a DoJ interpretation of FISA that they have also classified so the public cannot know how they are interpreting the law.
