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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

#21

Post by hga »

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.

Nope, the Founders were ... supremely suspicious of the Federal court system they were creating (e.g. lifetime tenure is double edged blade) and explicitly allowed the Congress to override it. Wikipedia has this under the words of art jurisdiction stripping: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurisdiction_stripping

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

#22

Post by shpxnvz »

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.

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

#23

Post by otsuichi »

dnautics wrote: post #17
otsuichi wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Oh, right. Congress can repass it, but provided the Executive branch respects the function and decision of the judiciary, the Supreme Court does have the final say over congressional acts that have been challenged.

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

#24

Post by otsuichi »

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.

Not to mention that he was only elected in 2010, well after a lot of this stuff had been implemented and reauthorized time and time again.

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

#25

Post by javert »

_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.

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

#26

Post by mtgx »

_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.

I think he did that, too. But he's tried that route several times before, and the majority of the Senate voted against it. So he's probably not very optimistic about it.

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

#27

Post by mitchi »

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..…

Rand Paul may have its faults. Many people like libertarianism but they don't like the pro-religion/prolife and pro-rich aspects that come with it. That's why Bill Maher has distanced himself recently from the libertarian appelation. However to say that it's not sincere coming from Rand Paul is not fair at all. If you know a little bit about who he is, who his father is, you couldn't say that... Of course Rand Paul is building a political portfolio for 2016. The filibuster, the TSA, the balanced budgets and now this, it's all going into it. But all these political actions are in line with who he is and what he represents. And still, after all that there's a very big chance he'll lose to a generic republican like Rubio or Ryan in the primaries.

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

#28

Post by dnautics »

otsuichi wrote: post #23
dnautics wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Oh, right. Congress can repass it, but provided the Executive branch respects the function and decision of the judiciary, the Supreme Court does have the final say over congressional acts that have been challenged.

Yeah, I should have been more clear about saying that a SCOTUS decision is non-binding to congress moving forward.

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

#29

Post by mtgx »

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..…

Sorry, but you have no idea what you're talking about. At all.

Rand Paul was one of the very few, along with Ron Wyden and Udall, to try and stop the FISA Amendments Act from being renewed last year. They voted against them (and for FISA renewal) 92-7.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIyLlXBcbjo

So HE HASN'T CHANGED HIS MIND ABOUT ANYTHING. This is how he was thinking all along. It's the others that supported the spying.

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