Judge rules that NSA metadata surveillance is constitutional

Yeah, but corporations can’t incarcerate me, execute me, or any number of things a government can do, without ever having to explain their motive…

Unless you are a member of California’s Rapid Enforcement Allied Computer Team.

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We must find a way to get guys like this off the bench. Where there is a will there is way.

And don’t talk to be about the constitution and an independent court. That has been long gone for over a decade.

Guy doesn’t like a judge’s ruling on a constitutional matter (even if it is consistent with current Constitutional jurisprudence).
Decides we should explicitly abrogate the constitutional life-tenure of Article III judges.
Because the Constitution matters!

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Sounds like these were from the county government…

“Deputies from the San Mateo County Sheriff’s office obtained a warrant on Friday and searched Jason Chen’s Fremont, Calif., home later that evening, Gizmodo acknowledged on Monday.”

Yeah, they were acting on the request of a corporation (and they’d act on a private citizen’s request (or should) if a crime were alleged to have been committed).

Point is, it was’t Apple Corporate Police entering his home, it was, as you quote, California’s REACT (what a fun acronym!). The fact that they did this re-enforces my original point, I think. The fact that they might have overstepped their authority re-re-enforces my point.

I wonder how big the files the NSA keeps on the SC judges might be? Browsing history, phone calls. It might not be too hard to convince a couple to ‘call in sick’. Though judges tend to get cranky when people mess with them, and I imagine the SC have fairly healthy egos.

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That’s not a newsflash for me. That’s a vain hope. Do you know who is on the bench right now? I wish you the best of luck with that. I really do.

Well, it can’t be worse than Congress. I hope, same as you. But, you know what hope is worth without positive action. I think we’ll do better in the courts, because the Constitutional violation is so clear. Leon gave warning with his preliminary injunction - now, they have to prove they have a case or shut up. So, they’ll try. But I very much doubt they’ll have anything to offer but more rhetoric - and judges are at least trained to blast through the wordy truthiness.

I worry less about the Supremes than you do, I think. So far, they seem bent more toward ending government interferences wherever possible Some haven’t liked their past decisions much, where they felt they actually were getting some protections from that stuff. But this is one where that very same tendency is absolutely the right direction to go and the ‘protections’ are a lie in the first place. At least, we get some better odds this way.

(And none of that denies or delays the need to fire Congress, anyway. This should have been over, weeks ago!)

We have separation of powers in the US for a reason. Mob rule sucks.

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Now if only 'muricans actual data was subject to eavesdropping and analysis you’d be on the same footing as us non-'muricans (aka terrorists).

Emergency rules. We can not continue under these conditions. When a judge gets it so wrong that there his decisions have no basis in reality and is direct attack against real freedom, rights, and liberty HAS GOT TO GO. This judge has harmed every single American.

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I see. So whenever someone declares an emergency, then we can throw the constitution out the window. Good idea.

It also seems kind of difficult to say that a decision has no basis in reality and that a judge got it so wrong when you haven’t read the opinion.

Actually, the right answer is to turn that around: We’ve already allowed far too much “emergency rules” justification in the TSA and the DHS and Gitmo; that needs to be corrected.

As far as the judge having harmed every single American: That, my friend, is a judgement call, and judgement calls are what we have judges for, and the supreme court to check them, and the Congress to change the law if the supreme court rules that the law isn’t doing what it needs to. Democracy isn’t fast, and it isn’t pretty, but it works better than most of the alternatives if you’re actually willing to use it rather than complain about it.

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From what he said, I don’t think that @earnestinebrown meant that it was good that the Constitution has been thrown out. When he says, “This judge has harmed every single American,” I assume that means that he doesn’t approve of the verdict.

It means that the courts have shredded the constitution, the very thing they are sworn to protect. So what do you do with a court that failed it’s official mandate? You get ride of the offenders, reorganize the court, and put it back on it’s constitutional path. That sounds very constitutional to me.

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In your opinion the courts have shredded the constitution. And your solution is to do something that all Constitutional scholars would agree is unconstitutional: remove the life tenure of federal judges as guaranteed by Article III of the Constitution. That doesn’t sound very constitutional to me.

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