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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

#181

Post by jessaustin »

ihumanable wrote: post #124
ed25519FUUU wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe we don't need the Electoral College? As someone who designs distributed systems for a living, I can say very confidently that the electorate system is a very good idea indeed. Why risk the entire system if a single small part is corrupted?

You could still let the states run the elections and remove the Electoral College. All the redundancy with none of the downsides of the Electoral College.

In a simple majority system, a close result will entail a nationwide recount. With the Electoral College, recounts are only necessary at the state level. Smaller tasks are easier and faster.

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

#182

Post by sudosysgen »

Alupis wrote: post #80
sudosysgen wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say the Second Amendment would need to be tweaked. Our gun control laws are honestly really in breach, and I think they are very sensible pieces of legislation, so we should make everything consistent.

The views of Californian's are not universally shared throughout the country.

It's not just California, almost all states have some kind of gun control.

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

#183

Post by refurb »

ihumanable wrote: post #126
Alupis wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The views of Californian's are not universally shared throughout the country.

You do realize that California's strict gun control laws were passed by Reagan right?

No. There have been at least a couple dozen gun control laws passed in CA since Reagan.

Hell, they passed more than 5 in the last 2 years.

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

#184

Post by sudosysgen »

Roboprog wrote: post #132
sudosysgen wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say the Second Amendment would need to be tweaked. Our gun control laws are honestly really in breach, and I think they are very sensible pieces of legislation, so we should make everything consistent.

Why can’t a state’s militia have its own military grade weapons and vehicles? Aside from the whole Civil War incident... I’m not going to argue if it’s a good or bad law, but as written, each state gets to regulate which residents get nothing more than a butter knife, or a nuke, and where the state keeps those things. Arms !== rifles.

A states militia? That's one thing. It's just that it you were to interpret the 2A literally even the State levek gun control laws are out of order.

The reason why a states militia would be an issue is that it's just mostly useless. States aren't allowed to meddle in foreign policy, so what would the militias do?

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

#185

Post by refurb »

Roboprog wrote: post #132
sudosysgen wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say the Second Amendment would need to be tweaked. Our gun control laws are honestly really in breach, and I think they are very sensible pieces of legislation, so we should make everything consistent.

Why can’t a state’s militia have its own military grade weapons and vehicles? Aside from the whole Civil War incident... I’m not going to argue if it’s a good or bad law, but as written, each state gets to regulate which residents get nothing more than a butter knife, or a nuke, and where the state keeps those things. Arms !== rifles.

State militias can have their own military grade weapons. They’d just need to follow the NFA.

Civilians can own things like howitzers, mortars, etc. At least at the federal level, state laws vary.

Check out the Knob Creek event held every year. Tons of military weaponry, all privately owned.

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

#186

Post by toast0 »

eesmith wrote: post #76
BeKindAndLearn wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Biden's promising to pardon all non-violent drug crimes, is he not? Though not historical, if it were to happen that could mark a turning point for our country. Though one could also use that same pardon power to avoid prosecution for domestic terrorists that support your agenda or crimes of election fraud. So I'm definitely on the side of revoking one person's power to override the entire judiciary for arbitrary rea…

I can't find mention of him making that specific promise of pardoning all non-violent drug crimes. I did find https://joebiden.com/justice/ saying: > Biden believes no one should be in jail because of cannabis use. As president, he will decriminalize cannabis use and automatically expunge prior convictions. And, he will support the legalization of cannabis for medical purposes, leave decisions regarding legalization…

> I have no clue how Biden can promise to automatically expunge prior convictions if only judges can expunge a record.

Political promises aren't binding. So you can promise whatever. Politicians in general love to promise things that aren't even within the baliwick of the position they're running for. The one that always bugs me is California mayoral candidates promising to fix the schools, when schools aren't a function of city government at all.

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

#187

Post by ByteJockey »

AaronFriel wrote: post #144
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…

I don't think it would be unconstitutional ex-post-facto. Obergefell v. Hodges didn't define sex discrimination in marriage certificates unconstitutional after a certain date . It was always unconstitutional, and was recognized as such in their ruling. And yes, I would like to see, actually, qualified immunity removed and governments held liable for rights violations. Perhaps not prison time for the clerks - who were…

I imagine that the rights you're talking about would never have been recognized in such a world.

Maybe I'm just being cynical, but it was hard enough to get those rights recognized in the realm of argument, I imagine putting a giant pile of money on the other side would make it functionally impossible to change anything.

Putting financial penalties on admitting your mistakes doesn't usually make people more compassionate. If it did, the world of corporate law would be a utopia.

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

#188

Post by srtjstjsj »

DennisP wrote: post #70
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…

Seems like the courts could make a distinction between "ok this was unclear" and "this was obvious, egregious and deserving of penalties." And while throwing Congress in jail seems unworkable, disqualifying members from reelection in egregious cases might be doable (though of course it would require a constitutional amendment).

> election

Congress was elected. If they are doing a bad job, the voters can recall them. There's no need for lower officials to deal with them.

If the majority of the voters are wrong, then your "democratic nations of laws" is dead.

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

#189

Post by laughinghan »

stefan_ wrote: post #173
ncmncm wrote: post #2

Now, 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?)

The historical track record isn't good. Nobody bothered much with prosecuting nazis or nazi collaborators after WW2, Stasi spies after the reunion, party members after the soviet collapse, AT&T and others for collaborating with the NSA on warrantless surveillance (that was Bush) or the CIA torturers (that was Obama). "[N]othing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past … we must resist…

I'm confused by your Bush and Obama references—both incidents occurred under Bush, the one that you attribute to Bush was revealed under Obama, whereas the one you attribute to Obama was revealed under Bush.

Are you attributing based on occurrence or based on decision not to prosecute? Did you accidentally switch them?

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

#190

Post by srtjstjsj »

krapp wrote: post #85
ColanR wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because there's no higher authority to appeal to for enforcement Technically, that higher authority is the people themselves. 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.

>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.

Look up when those events happened vs when the Constitution was written.
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