Earlier quoted context omitted.
Will Clapper's perjury ever be punished?
Not... wittingly.
I get it.
Ninth Circuit rules NSA's bulk collection of Americans' call records was illegal
161–170 of 493 posts
Re: Ninth Circuit rules NSA's bulk collection of Americans' call records was illegal
#162Lol, they only make rulings like this after the act was already committed and the NSA already stopped using phone metadata so nothing material changes. Even the people imprisoned over the phone data, we are assured that it was so minor and insignificant nothing important about their case should change.
Make no mistake, this is just a way for the intelligence services to pretend as though there's some kind of legality and court oversight to what they are doing.
Re: Ninth Circuit rules NSA's bulk collection of Americans' call records was illegal
#163You 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. The US constitution needs lots of updates but this maybe the most important item -- manadatory prison terms for anyone acting…
18 U.S. Code § 242.Deprivation of rights under color of law
Is pretty close, but requires that it be for reason of the person being a certain color, of a race, or an alien, and that the violation be of a nature otherwise unascribed to a citizen. You'd have to be exceedingly loose in interpretation to use it, or well within levels of niceness. However, the desired regulation you're looking for could be achieved with the deletion of the race/alien/color part.
You don't even have to ditch the as prescribed by law for a citizen piece because unconstitutional laws are deemed so from the moment of their enactment.
Re: Ninth Circuit rules NSA's bulk collection of Americans' call records was illegal
#164Earlier 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…
> the constitution isn't a founding document. There was that whole Articles of Confederation thing.
This isn't a nitpick, this is simply irrational. The Articles of Confederation were the founding document of an institution called the "league of friendship," and although the Constitution inherits ideas from the Articles, they have no legal bearing on the latter. They're out of scope.
Meanwhile, the Constitution literally constitutes the foundations of an institution called "the U.S. federal government" which, discounting some rather academic Theseus' Ship arguments, is what governs us, today.
The constitution was no the first document written on this continent, but it is the last document in which we've invested our collective institution-reifying intention at the national level.
Re: Ninth Circuit rules NSA's bulk collection of Americans' call records was illegal
#165Earlier 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…
> 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 definitely the definition of a social _construct_, if not a social contract, but it amounts to the same thing.
Re: Ninth Circuit rules NSA's bulk collection of Americans' call records was illegal
#166Now, when can we begin prosecuting the instigators? Presumably, after we have prosecuted those who ordered and participated in torture. (There is no statute of limitations on torture, is there?)
A reminder that a CIA officer who oversaw, ordered, and participated in systematic detainee torture, then wrote the order to destroy the evidential tapes of said torture, was not only not punished or prosecuted but promoted to the current Director of the agency.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_CIA_interrogation_videota...
Re: Ninth Circuit rules NSA's bulk collection of Americans' call records was illegal
#167You 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. The US constitution needs lots of updates but this maybe the most important item -- manadatory prison terms for anyone acting…
> 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…
> 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.
Well.. you could depose them. Or declare independence from them. That has happened a few times in history.
The Constitution is a social contract. The people say "we'll give you (government) these abc powers, if you promise to use them this xyz way." When that contract is broken, no one gets thrown in jail - its rather more severe. The legitimacy of the government is called into question, or dissolved.
Re: Ninth Circuit rules NSA's bulk collection of Americans' call records was illegal
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
We can and do love building prisons.
> We can and do love building prisons. Huh? What's that supposed to mean in this context?
If anyone is saying that we shouldn't throw a bunch of criminals in jail after they do the crime, because we can't just do that, we can.
Re: Ninth Circuit rules NSA's bulk collection of Americans' call records was illegal
#169We've changed the URL from https://www.aclu.org/legal-document/united-states-v-moalin-n... to an article that gives more background. The link to the decision is an excellent thing to post, but usually it's best as a supplement to a general article (if one can be found) that establishes context.
The article is form https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/02/court-rules-nsa-pho...
Re: Ninth Circuit rules NSA's bulk collection of Americans' call records was illegal
#170Earlier 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…
> the constitution isn't a founding document. There was that whole Articles of Confederation thing. This isn't a nitpick, this is simply irrational. The Articles of Confederation were the founding document of an institution called the "league of friendship," and although the Constitution inherits ideas from the Articles, they have no legal bearing on the latter. They're out of scope. Meanwhile, the Constitution liter…
This was very eloquent. I appreciate this description.