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Rand Paul wants to lead a Supreme Court challenge to Feds' tracking of Americans

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Re: Rand Paul wants to lead a Supreme Court challenge to Feds' tracking of Americans

#11

Post by otsuichi »

dnautics wrote: post #10
wl wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A supreme court case has benefits that legislation doesn't. If he can get a favorable decision for civil liberties, he could bind future congresses that may not be as friendly to civil liberties as he is. This also could be accomplished through a constitutional amendment, but a court case is far easier.

for starters, Rand is proposing some legislation. A supreme court case is always non-binding to congress. They can just re-propose the law, and wait for someone to sue again (e.g. child labor laws in the 20s). Or the executive can just say, damn you supreme court we're gonna anyways (Jackson, early 19th century). And while a constitutional amendment would be nice, the only part of the constitution that the US follows…

A SCOTUS decision IS binding to Congress. They can't pass a law doing something that has been deemed unconstitutional unless they first amend the Constitution to explicitly allow them to do that same thing, which is obviously not going to happen.

Re: Rand Paul wants to lead a Supreme Court challenge to Feds' tracking of Americans

#12

Post by aroch »

akiselev wrote: post #2

What does that mean, "lead a Supreme Court challenge?" From what I understand, they'd have to file lawsuit with a lower court and fight the long long road up to the SC docket.

SCOTUS can have "original jurisdiction"[1] over some cases depending on the matter under review. In this case, because the State (read: USG) is a party in the case, SCOTUS can be the court in which a case is first argued.

_____

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procedures_of_the_Supreme_Court...

Re: Rand Paul wants to lead a Supreme Court challenge to Feds' tracking of Americans

#13

Post by bpatrianakos »

What amazes me is the hypocrisy in all this. The American people have basically known about this since about 2006. It's just that there wasn't as much proof or specifics but the media covered this and it was pretty much common knowledge that all phone calls and Internet activity were being watched. Of course that's not okay and I still get the current outrage. Totally understandable.

But then there are the senators... These guys approved this activity long ago and while not all of them knew the specifics the Intelligence Committe did. They were taken into meetings where no note taking tools or anything with a battery was allowed and briefed about this.

Now that this story breaks the senate gets their panties in a twist like this is news to them. They simultaneously defend it and condemn it.

It isn't fair to make such a blanket statement about the entire Senate, I know but what I'm really getting at here is that what Rand Paul is doing doesn't strike me as sincere at all. It looks like a dog and pony show set up to make it look like someone gives a shit while they all keep getting briefed and voting for this stuff behind closed doors.

It's like set up a bunch of PR stunts to make us feel warm and funny then do the opposite while no one is paying attention. On this issue I feel like its the guys trying to get attention the most who can be trusted the least.

Re: Rand Paul wants to lead a Supreme Court challenge to Feds' tracking of Americans

#14

Post by wl »

otsuichi wrote: post #11
dnautics wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

for starters, Rand is proposing some legislation. A supreme court case is always non-binding to congress. They can just re-propose the law, and wait for someone to sue again (e.g. child labor laws in the 20s). Or the executive can just say, damn you supreme court we're gonna anyways (Jackson, early 19th century). And while a constitutional amendment would be nice, the only part of the constitution that the US follows…

A SCOTUS decision IS binding to Congress. They can't pass a law doing something that has been deemed unconstitutional unless they first amend the Constitution to explicitly allow them to do that same thing, which is obviously not going to happen.

Actually, Congress can pass any law they damn well please. It's not until the courts deal with it that an unconstitutional law (in the opinion of a court interpreting law and precedent) can be thrown out.

My original post was operating under the assumption that all branches would abide by the legitimate actions of the other branches. Grandparent is pointing out that sometimes this doesn't happen. Always a possibility, but not something I expect to see very often.

Re: Rand Paul wants to lead a Supreme Court challenge to Feds' tracking of Americans

#15

Post by meepmorp »

Vivtek wrote: post #5
_delirium wrote: post #3

Since he's a member of the Senate, a more direct route than the judicial branch would be to pursue legislative-branch solutions, such as introducing a bill to amend the FISA statute in a more civil-liberties-friendly manner.

That wouldn't be in the spirit of empty grandstanding at all! You, sir, simply don't understand Ron Paul's strategy.

Rand, not Ron.

But, yes, I believe this is probably of a piece with his drone filibuster in terms of being political theatrics.

Re: Rand Paul wants to lead a Supreme Court challenge to Feds' tracking of Americans

#16

Post by [deleted] »

Vivtek wrote: post #5
_delirium wrote: post #3

Since he's a member of the Senate, a more direct route than the judicial branch would be to pursue legislative-branch solutions, such as introducing a bill to amend the FISA statute in a more civil-liberties-friendly manner.

That wouldn't be in the spirit of empty grandstanding at all! You, sir, simply don't understand Ron Paul's strategy.

[deleted]

Re: Rand Paul wants to lead a Supreme Court challenge to Feds' tracking of Americans

#17

Post by dnautics »

otsuichi wrote: post #11
dnautics wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

for starters, Rand is proposing some legislation. A supreme court case is always non-binding to congress. They can just re-propose the law, and wait for someone to sue again (e.g. child labor laws in the 20s). Or the executive can just say, damn you supreme court we're gonna anyways (Jackson, early 19th century). And while a constitutional amendment would be nice, the only part of the constitution that the US follows…

A SCOTUS decision IS binding to Congress. They can't pass a law doing something that has been deemed unconstitutional unless they first amend the Constitution to explicitly allow them to do that same thing, which is obviously not going to happen.

A SCOTUS decision is supposed to be binding to whatever act HAD been passed. Whether that happens in effect is entirely dependent on the (usually) executive branch complying with the SCOTUS ruling. Congress can, if it wanted, re-pass the law. Obviously, it would make a subsequent suit and overturning easier, but in reality, it can, and has happened in the past.

Re: Rand Paul wants to lead a Supreme Court challenge to Feds' tracking of Americans

#18

Post by gwright »

bpatrianakos wrote: post #13

What amazes me is the hypocrisy in all this. The American people have basically known about this since about 2006. It's just that there wasn't as much proof or specifics but the media covered this and it was pretty much common knowledge that all phone calls and Internet activity were being watched. Of course that's not okay and I still get the current outrage. Totally understandable. But then there are the senators..…

Hypocrisy? I'm not so sure.

It is really difficult to get a single person to change their mind about something. Even more difficult to get large groups to change their collective opinion.

Theoretical concerns about how a program might be abused are much less convincing to people than actual abuses. It isn't surprising to me that people who discounted the possiblity of abuse in the past might now think differently about it (politicians and public citizens alike) when presented with actual overreach or even abuse.

I don't think that is an example of hypocrisy though.

Re: Rand Paul wants to lead a Supreme Court challenge to Feds' tracking of Americans

#19

Post by shardling »

bpatrianakos wrote: post #13

What amazes me is the hypocrisy in all this. The American people have basically known about this since about 2006. It's just that there wasn't as much proof or specifics but the media covered this and it was pretty much common knowledge that all phone calls and Internet activity were being watched. Of course that's not okay and I still get the current outrage. Totally understandable. But then there are the senators..…

To be fair to Paul, this is his first term -- he's been in the Senate for a bit longer than 2 years now. So he certainly wasn't involved in decisions made "long ago".

That said, I generally disagree with many of his stances, and think you're probably right that a lot of what he does is fundamentally political.

Re: Rand Paul wants to lead a Supreme Court challenge to Feds' tracking of Americans

#20

Post by [deleted] »

bpatrianakos wrote: post #13

What amazes me is the hypocrisy in all this. The American people have basically known about this since about 2006. It's just that there wasn't as much proof or specifics but the media covered this and it was pretty much common knowledge that all phone calls and Internet activity were being watched. Of course that's not okay and I still get the current outrage. Totally understandable. But then there are the senators..…

[deleted]
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