So the supreme court refused to say whether warantless wiretapping is constitutional or not, because even though we KNOW its happening [from government whistle-blowers, and from the government accidentally releasing documents admitting it, and from the attorney general admitting it although he doesn’t think its illegal], if you can’t prove it happened to you personally, you can’t sue the government to stop it. And of course the government classifies the details, so no one can ever prove it happened to them personally. Therefore, no one in the world can sue the government over the constitutionality of warrantless wiretapping, so therefore the government doesn’t have to stop doing it. The suit was rejected because although we KNOW it’s happening to someone, the plantiffs couldn’t prove it’s happening to them, so they “lack standing”.
How in the world can anyone claim that’s right? Sure, you could claim warantless wiretapping is constitutional and should be allowed (though I’d disagree). But given that we know the government is doing behavior X, and there is legitimate debate over whether X is constitutional, then how else can anyone fix this (allegedly) unconstitutional actions if we can’t sue?
Can anyone defend the court’s actions today? Isn’t they’re position a huge catch-22?
This sounds like the very definition of “capable of repetition, yet evading review.”
The parallel to the signature case isn’t perfect, but the reasoning is identical: “appellate review will be effectively denied. Our law should not be that rigid.”
It’s the same bullshit the government’s been pulling for years. Recall the argument that al-Awlaki’s father didn’t have standing to challenge the assassination of his son or grandson, or that you don’t have standing to challenge indefinite detention without trial until you’ve already been disappeared (and thus rendered physically incapable of taking advantage of said standing).
That’s the test for mootness, not standing. Standing is a determination of whether the person actually bringing the suit is the one being injured by the challenged action. Mootness is a determination of whether the controversy has already been settled for the passage of time.
In this case, the plaintiffs don’t have standing because they can’t prove they’ve actually been injured by warrantless wiretapping. The case might be moot if, say, they had been wiretapped but weren’t being wiretapped anymore.
Leaving that nitpick aside, I agree that this is troubling. As the OP notes, almost nobody can establish standing on this issue because the wiretapping is secret.
Yeah, I know. But like I’d said, the lack of an actual parallel shouldn’t stop the same logic from prevailing for the same reason: this approach makes judicial review impossible, and our system should do the opposite. Since we don’t allow that sidestep with mootness, why allow the analogous sidestep with standing?
It was a 5-4 decision, with all the Dem nominated Justices voting in the minority, all the GOP nominees in the majority. Not a great place for a “both the political parties are the same” argument.
The Democrats had nearly complete control of the government for a couple years there. They easily could have cleaned up or done away with the Patriot act, right there in congruous. What did they do, again?
The OP is about the recent SCOTUS ruling regarding the 2008 FISA amendments. In that case, its pretty clear that there’s a partisan divide in the way the justices ruled, and that voting for Dems would be likely to bring about more Justices that would vote in the way you would like, and voting for GOP would do the opposite.
The fact that you can find some other issue you disagree with the Dems on is irrelevant (and a thread-hijack). On the issue being discussed in the OP, there is a clear partisan divide on the issue, and to the extent that ruling the other way makes one a “good guy”, the good guys are the Dems. Voting for a third party based on this issue would be self-defeating.
I don’t see how this approach renders judicial review impossible. A court can review it if a case is brought by someone who can show that the Government used information from a warrantless wiretap against them in a proceeding. If I am served with a search warrant, arrested, or put on trial, there are procedures for me to find out the sources of the evidence asserted against me. If the Government refuses to provide that information, citing secrecy privileges, surely I have standing to seek review of that refusal, right?
Perhaps, perhaps not. Given that warrantless wiretapping has bipartisan support in Congress and has now been actively supported by administrations from both parties, it’s unlikely that the selection process for Justices under a Democratic administration would be affirmatively searching for someone who opposes this practice. It’s going to be more a matter of whether the aspects of that proposed Justice that the Democratic administration likes outweigh their potential opposition to warrantless wiretapping.
Well, its happened four-out-of-four times for the Dems, and zero-out-of-five times for the other party. And two of Dem picks were selected by Obama after he’d already supported the law being challenged, so that doesn’t seem to have changed anything. The chance of that breakdown happening by chance is less then 1%.
It’s pretty clear that if you favour the type of legal reasoning in the minority opinion, then one of the political parties agrees with you, and the other doesn’t. Treating both parties like they’re interchangable on the issue is incorrect.
As I recall, the Patriot Act wasn’t up for renewal during the six weeks, between Al Franken’s assuming office in July 2009 and Ted Kennedy’s passing away in August, during which Democrats had majority in the House of Representatives, 60 seats in the Senate, and a Democratic president.
And as I also recall, Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman were among those 60 seats.
So yes, go on and tell me about how easy it would have been for Democrats to repeal the Patriot Act when they can’t even marshal the votes to end the filibuster, raise the minimum wage, or prevent the country from defaulting on its debt.
What sort of proceeding? If you are convicted of laundering funds for Al Qaeda, sure. If you are blown up by a drone or disappeared to Gitmo, not so much.
And who defended the government’s case in the first place? Who stood in front of the court and argued so persuasively that the 5 GOP-nominated judges decided as they did?
Your repeating the same argument Tom brought up in post #11 and I addressed in post #12. If you disagree with my response there, say why, but I don’t see much value in just repeating the same argument again.
Yet another argument against expansions of authority in the government- or a particular branch. It is very appealing for outsiders to rail against such abuses, but should they get in a position where they get to wield such authority…
I’m very disappointed in Obama’s consistent failure to step back what I considered excesses by the prior administration. Often makes me wonder exactly why the Repubs hate him so.
