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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

#61

Post by JamisonM »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #31
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..…

Whoa horsey. Slow down a bit. I'm as pissed as you are, but you're spreading too wide of a net. Yes, Congress has oversight authority over all of this, but in practice what they've done is assign huge powers to agencies and then just hold PR committee meetings every now and then when they think they can get votes. As far as I know, the only legislators fully briefed on all of this were the majority/minority leaders.…

I don't know if the real problem is that Congress has abdicated its power. I think the real, real problem is that many of the sensible people in congress realize they have many colleagues who are either excessively partisan or incompetent. They realize that delegation to within the agencies or executive branch means the fewer of such folks with access to information that they might feel tempted to leak for personal or political gain or just because of raw stupidity.

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

#62

Post by bilbo0s »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #31
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..…

Whoa horsey. Slow down a bit. I'm as pissed as you are, but you're spreading too wide of a net. Yes, Congress has oversight authority over all of this, but in practice what they've done is assign huge powers to agencies and then just hold PR committee meetings every now and then when they think they can get votes. As far as I know, the only legislators fully briefed on all of this were the majority/minority leaders.…

If what you say is true...

These Congresspeople should be removed from office. They are obviously not doing their jobs. That's the one thing McCain said this morning that was correct. Congresspeople were informed... and are now feigning righteous indignation. He pointed out that there was only one vote against the Patriot Act... and that member is no longer in office.

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

#63

Post by d4vlx »

adventured wrote: post #41
d4vlx wrote: post #8

Rand Paul would probably do a lot more good by learning how to think rationally.

That's all you've got? You feel free to call a man irrational, but provide nothing to support that position. Dare I say that comes across as belligerent ad hominem.

From his Benghazi hearing testimony

"I'm glad that you're accepting responsibility. I think ultimately with your leaving that you accept the culpability for the worst tragedy since 9/11. And I really mean that. Had I been president and found you did not read the cables from Benghazi and from Ambassador Stevens, I would have relieved you of your post. I think it's inexcusable."

- his obsession with drastically cutting social programs at a time when so many Americans need them

- his obsession with balancing the budget when interest rates are so low and the so many things point to the problem being a lack of spending / almost nothing pointing to the deficit being a problem

- his backwards social views

I forget how easy mainstream American media goes on him. He makes some interesting points but overall he seems very much like a dogmatic and unimaginative libertarian conservative.

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

#64

Post by sageikosa »

d4vlx wrote: post #63
adventured wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's all you've got? You feel free to call a man irrational, but provide nothing to support that position. Dare I say that comes across as belligerent ad hominem.

From his Benghazi hearing testimony "I'm glad that you're accepting responsibility. I think ultimately with your leaving that you accept the culpability for the worst tragedy since 9/11. And I really mean that. Had I been president and found you did not read the cables from Benghazi and from Ambassador Stevens, I would have relieved you of your post. I think it's inexcusable." - his obsession with drastically cutting…

Your use of these as evidence of Paul's irrationality does not seem rational. Instead, they appear as a complaint that he doesn't share the same values as you; and by extension he must be irrational since your values obviously must be rationally chosen.

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

#65

Post by hellcow »

bilbo0s wrote: post #62
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whoa horsey. Slow down a bit. I'm as pissed as you are, but you're spreading too wide of a net. Yes, Congress has oversight authority over all of this, but in practice what they've done is assign huge powers to agencies and then just hold PR committee meetings every now and then when they think they can get votes. As far as I know, the only legislators fully briefed on all of this were the majority/minority leaders.…

If what you say is true... These Congresspeople should be removed from office. They are obviously not doing their jobs. That's the one thing McCain said this morning that was correct. Congresspeople were informed... and are now feigning righteous indignation. He pointed out that there was only one vote against the Patriot Act... and that member is no longer in office.

Russ Feingold of Wisconsin was the lone voice for liberty in 2001 [1]. There were 10 votes against its renewal in 2006. There were 66 Nays in the House in 2001, including—famously—Dr. Paul.

[1] http://educate-yourself.org/cn/patriotact20012006senatevote....

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

#66

Post by hellcow »

shpxnvz wrote: post #22
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..…

While this is undoubtedly true for some senators, Paul seems like quite a poor choice of target for this criticism. He has been very vocal in opposition of governmental encroachment on civil liberties during his senate term. He was, in fact, the last senator left in opposition to the extension of the Patriot Act.

But to be fair—regardless of the reasons behind it—Paul endorsed Romney for president, who promised to contribute to expanding our spy state like Obama and his High Command.

I find it hard to imagine his father agreeing to do such a thing for any price.

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

#67

Post by [deleted] »

javert wrote: post #25
_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.

But Congress is filled with Democrats and RINOs, so that's a no-go. Of course, the Court is filled with know-nothings (as in, they are anti-abstraction, so there is no such thing as a valid governing principle, such as a right), so it's all probably pretty pointless.

[deleted]

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

#68

Post by codex »

The fact is that civil liberties always contract during wartime and expand during peacetime. Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus during the Civil War, for example. 9/11 was twelve years ago, and we're possibly seeing the re-expansion of peacetime civil liberties here.

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

#70

Post by gizmo686 »

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.

There are two types of decisions made by SCOTUS. In the first type, they rule on Constitutional grounds, in which case it is binding to Congress. In other cases they simply rule on the interperatation of laws themselves; so if Congress changes said laws, the ruling becomes irrelevent. The law in question here is 'interesting' in the sense that it tells the court how to interpret the Constitution. If it ever gets brought up before SCOTUS, my guess would be they would deem the law unconstitutional on the grounds that Congress cannot tell them how to interpret the Constitution. Granted, they would need to find something in the Constitution (or precedent) that says this, but I suspect that would be relativly simple.
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