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Ninth Circuit rules NSA's bulk collection of Americans' call records was illegal

politico.com

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Re: Ninth Circuit rules NSA's bulk collection of Americans' call records was illegal

#111

Post by xxpor »

ColanR wrote: post #107
xxpor wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Either our founding document matters as the backbone of our Laws or it doesn't. Nitpick, the constitution isn't a founding document. There was that whole Articles of Confederation thing. Congress isn't the final authority of if laws are constitutional or not. The courts are. Congress and the Supreme Court commonly disagree on the constitutionality of laws. What you're proposing is essentially a oligarchy lead by the…

> No regular people voted on the Constitution. Nitpick. The people who were sent as representatives from each state to help write and ratify the constitution were chosen by the people of that state. So technically, through representative democracy, the regular people did agree to the constitution because their representatives agreed on it.

Not the same thing IMO. Ignoring the issue of who was allowed to vote in the 1780s, there's a reason why the House was voted on by the people and the Senate the state legislatures. They recognized then the two groups have different interests.

Re: Ninth Circuit rules NSA's bulk collection of Americans' call records was illegal

#112

Post by yyyk »

danenania wrote: post #21
Barrin92 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems to have a long tradition. I'm still baffled by how little punishment there was for Iran-Contra, key people were simply pardoned by Bush, or how little punishment there was for the Abu Ghraib prisoner torture, just looking at the pictures of the wikipedia article makes me want to throw up.

It seems to me that just the pardon power by itself is fundamentally incompatible with democracy and the rule of law. It's like saying you're a pacifist... except for Tuesdays when you go on a weekly killing spree. I imagine that if we can survive and progress long enough to have real democracy and rule of law, our present system will be viewed a transitional period that, for all its very real improvements, was still…

There's no choice in a democracy but to have something like the pardon power.

The reason is that we need protection also from the power of judicial branch, which is abusable like any branch with power. Not having a pardon power allows bad judges to throw anyone they don't like into jail with no recourse by anyone. In a democracy, all branches are checked by the others, and this is a necessary check on the judicial branch. It could be done differently (approval by Congress or some third party?), but not having a check is dangerous.

Re: Ninth Circuit rules NSA's bulk collection of Americans' call records was illegal

#113

Post by ardy42 »

zucker42 wrote: post #99
ardy42 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You know what I don't get? There is no penalty for violating the highest law of the land (the constitution). How is it anymore than a suggestion or a guidline if government officials are not punished for violating it? And that is exactly how lae enforcement and intelligence community treat it. It's because it can't reasonably work like that. At a certain point, defining punishments is moot, because there's no highe…

> unconstitutional ex-post-facto punishment This point makes no sense. A properly passed amendment to the Constitution (presumably what is meant by update) can never be unconstitutional by definition. Furthermore, prohibiting ex-post-facto laws means you can't pass a law which criminalizes actions in the past. But courts don't pass laws, they interpret them. There's plenty of cases where courts interpret a law in a n…

> This point makes no sense. A properly passed amendment to the Constitution (presumably what is meant by update) can never be unconstitutional by definition.

That's not what I was talking about. Look at the example I used. The Supreme Court declared it was unconstitutional to forbid gay marriage, even though that was the common practice up to that time. So, now we've discovered all the people who were engaged in implementing the common practice were violating the constitution? What happens to them now.

The courts don't examine theoretical questions of legality. Every law that was declared unconstitutional was a law that was passed and enforced, usually in good faith.

Re: Ninth Circuit rules NSA's bulk collection of Americans' call records was illegal

#114

Post by sjy »

_8j50 wrote: post #65
macspoofing wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>How is it anymore than a suggestion or a guidline if government officials are not punished for violating it? The program (and it's replacement) has been around for two decades. It was passed into law by Congress, administered by the executive branch and justice department, funded by Congress, and overseen by the Judiciary and Congress. So punish who? And for what crime? Based on what law? That the the ninth-circuit…

The executive branch. Following orders or implementing a law that violates citizens right should come with criminal consequence. I don't care who found it unconstitutional, there should be criminal punishment after a court rules that a crime was committed. Of course either side can appeal all the way to the supreme court using any laws or precedent. But if the final verdict is that a government official violated a ci…

Government officials do face charges when they commit crimes such as abuse of public office. A court decision on the interpretation of the Constitution is not a “ruling that a crime was committed.” Drawing on your doctor analogy, it’s more like new evidence showing that a particular treatment is not as safe as previously believed. It doesn’t necessarily follow that the doctor is criminally or civilly liable for providing that treatment in the past – something more, like negligence or recklessness, is needed.

Re: Ninth Circuit rules NSA's bulk collection of Americans' call records was illegal

#115

Post by heimatau »

xxpor wrote: post #100
heimatau wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the Constitution says "Congress shall make no law..." and Congress still makes a law, what are you going to do, throw Congress in jail? That's nonsense. Actually, it's nonsense to think anything to the contrary. Either our founding document matters as the backbone of our Laws or it doesn't. Your outlandish logic nullifies any power that the government may have over it's people. It nullifies the social contract.…

>Either our founding document matters as the backbone of our Laws or it doesn't. Nitpick, the constitution isn't a founding document. There was that whole Articles of Confederation thing. Congress isn't the final authority of if laws are constitutional or not. The courts are. Congress and the Supreme Court commonly disagree on the constitutionality of laws. What you're proposing is essentially a oligarchy lead by the…

>Nitpick, the constitution isn't a founding document. There was that whole Articles of Confederation thing.

Let's totally 'nitpick' because the structure that our entire government is built upon the Constitution. "The first, The Articles of Confederation, was in effect from March 1, 1781, when Maryland ratified it. The second, The Constitution, replaced the Articles when it was ratified by New Hampshire on June 21, 1788." [1]

If this 7 year gap is something that's causing you issues, just know that today that we aren't judged by 1900 laws. We're judged by the living document called the Constitution, as it 'replaced the Articles when it was ratified', and auxiliary laws via State/Local govts. But the backbone is the Constitution.

>Congress isn't the final authority of if laws are constitutional or not. The courts are.

In theory, sure. But Dred Scott said one thing (no Black person is free, even in the North) and the people in the North said something else with their 2nd amendment rights.

>What you're proposing is essentially a oligarchy lead by the Supreme Court.

Actually I'm not. A law can (and in many cases, already does) include what appropriate punishments should be for a law that is broken.

> There is no social contract based on the constitution. It's just that enough people agree that it has value, so it does. That's not a social contract. No regular people voted on the Constitution. You don't have the ability to reject it if you don't agree with it.

These statements are entirely false.

1) Your first sentence and your second sentence are contradicting each other. ~'no social contract' vs ~'what a social contract is'.

2) As for the latter two sentences. We vote everyday with our citizenship. You either agree to that living document or you don't by your allegiance. No one is forcing you to be a US citizen ruled by Constitution, namely after an adult legal age. Constitution is just American's structure, it can be changed but within it's already given framework. The country could become a Communist rule of law, if it got ratified, whether an individual liked it or not.

[1] - https://www.usconstitution.net/constconart.html

Re: Ninth Circuit rules NSA's bulk collection of Americans' call records was illegal

#117

Post by macspoofing »

_8j50 wrote: post #65
macspoofing wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>How is it anymore than a suggestion or a guidline if government officials are not punished for violating it? The program (and it's replacement) has been around for two decades. It was passed into law by Congress, administered by the executive branch and justice department, funded by Congress, and overseen by the Judiciary and Congress. So punish who? And for what crime? Based on what law? That the the ninth-circuit…

The executive branch. Following orders or implementing a law that violates citizens right should come with criminal consequence. I don't care who found it unconstitutional, there should be criminal punishment after a court rules that a crime was committed. Of course either side can appeal all the way to the supreme court using any laws or precedent. But if the final verdict is that a government official violated a ci…

>Following orders or implementing a law that violates citizens right should come with criminal consequence.

But we don't live in a world where things work like you think they should work. In this world, there was no crime, and a court opinion of some aspects of one kind of law does not lead to criminal indictment. That is a better world then the imaginary world that lives in your head.

You do realize government is run by humans in a messy world, trying to figure things and and deal with all kinds life-and-death stuff - like terrorism (which is the context for that law in the first place). Let's set aside 9/11 and terrorism and look at government policy around this pandemic. This pandemic has led to unprecedented government abrogation of civil and citizen rights. It is unprecedented that government would forcibly lock-down huge swaths of the economy for dubious reasons, and destroying countless lives - as well as control what HEALTHY people do with their bodies. Do you know why nobody gives a shit? Because nobody gives a shit about what lawyers on a court have to say when people are fearful for their lives. We see this during wartime (and civil war was a great example), and other extraordinary situations. The only power the constitution has, is the power that is imbued into int by the populations willingly submitting to it and willingly raising it up as a model.

When life-or-death situations arise, the constitution takes a back-seat.

Re: Ninth Circuit rules NSA's bulk collection of Americans' call records was illegal

#118

Post by sjy »

_8j50 wrote: post #83
R0b0t1 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is impossible to hold civil servants accountable at all levels of government. As long as you believe you were operating within the law, regardless of if you were or not and what effect that may have had on other people, you seem to be unapproachable. Eventually this is going to lead to civil servants being lynched.

If you have a signed confession and video recording of civil servants intentionally violating the law, should they not be punished?

Such a person did not “believe they were operating within the law” as stated by the grandparent.

Re: Ninth Circuit rules NSA's bulk collection of Americans' call records was illegal

#119

Post by joshuamorton »

ColanR wrote: post #95
krapp wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Bear in mind that the Constitution was written in a context where the governed people successfully held their government accountable at the business end of their hunting rifles. No they didn't, look up Shay's Rebellion and the Whiskey Rebellion as examples. The US government has never been successfully "held accountable" at gunpoint.

I was referring to the American Revolution. The 'holding accountable' was the revocation of Britain's authority over the colonies.

In what way was the British Government "held accountable"? British leaders in Britain weren't held accountable, and many of the eventual founders were high level bureaucrats in the British government of the American colonies.
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