Judge Throws out wireless searches and why it don't mean a thing.
POSTED BY: Hero
UPDATED: Sunday, August 20, 2006 19:32
VIEWED: 2071
PAGE 3 of 3
Now that enough rope's been fed out, let's pull it up short a bit...
I swear this is like standing 16 feet away from a nasty rottweiler on a 12 foot chain sometimes, and just about as easy.
Two points you do not address, because you either cannot, or will not, address them, would-be-hero.
#1 - How exactly does the christian fascism you propose differ significantly from the Taliban in form or execution ?
#2 - Why should I not see you and yours as the exact same threat or worse, because unlike the Taliban, they have the means and material to pull it off ?
See, your position sucks because you have nothing to offer but the exact same thing the terrorists do, a totalarianist government oppressive and hostile towards anything resembling dissert or freedom - so to my perspective, there's not one dimes worth of difference between people like you, and folks like Osama.
Also noteworthy, I am not disagreeing with you, I'm calling you an idiot - the same as I would with someone who thought the sky was green, or the earth was flat... there's no moving a zealot from their position, there's only hanging them out to dry on their own fallacies.
You can't save the Constitution by torching it.
-Frem
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"These words are not just for the Yangs, but the Coems as well. They must apply to EVERYONE, or they mean NOTHING, do you understand?!"
Kirkisall
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While I think this warrantless wiretapping is illegal and will ultimately be found unconstitutional, I would like to point out that Hero is probably right in that this decision is meaningless and will be overturned.
From the New York Times (not a friend of conservatives):
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/19/washington/19ruling.html?_r=1&oref=s
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Experts Fault Reasoning in Surveillance Decision
By ADAM LIPTAK
Published: August 19, 2006
Even legal experts who agreed with a federal judge’s conclusion on Thursday that a National Security Agency surveillance program is unlawful were distancing themselves from the decision’s reasoning and rhetoric yesterday.
They said the opinion overlooked important precedents, failed to engage the government’s major arguments, used circular reasoning, substituted passion for analysis and did not even offer the best reasons for its own conclusions.
Discomfort with the quality of the decision is almost universal, said Howard J. Bashman, a Pennsylvania lawyer whose Web log provides comprehensive and nonpartisan reports on legal developments.
“It does appear,” Mr. Bashman said, “that folks on all sides of the spectrum, both those who support it and those who oppose it, say the decision is not strongly grounded in legal authority.”
The main problems, scholars sympathetic to the decision’s bottom line said, is that the judge, Anna Diggs Taylor, relied on novel and questionable constitutional arguments when more straightforward statutory ones were available.
She ruled, for instance, that the program, which eavesdrops without court permission on international communications of people in the United States, violated the First Amendment because it might have chilled the speech of people who feared they might have been monitored.
That ruling is “rather innovative” and “not a particularly good argument,” Jack Balkin, a law professor at Yale who believes the program is illegal, wrote on his Web log.
Judge Taylor also ruled that the program violated the Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches and seizures. But scholars said she failed to take account of the so-called “special needs” exception to the amendment’s requirement that the government obtain a warrant before engaging in some surveillance unrelated to routine law enforcement. “It’s just a few pages of general ruminations about the Fourth Amendment, much of it incomplete and some of it simply incorrect,” Orin S. Kerr, a law professor at George Washington University who believes the administration’s legal justifications for the program are weak, said of Judge Taylor’s Fourth Amendment analysis on a Web log called the Volokh Conspiracy.
Judge Taylor gave less attention to the more modest statutory argument that has been widely advanced by critics of the program. They say that it violates a 1978 law requiring warrants from a secret court and that neither a 2001 Congressional authorization to use military force against Al Qaeda nor the president’s constitutional authority allowed the administration to ignore the law. A recent Supreme Court decision strengthened that argument. Judge Taylor did not cite it.
Some scholars speculated that Judge Taylor, of the Federal District Court in Detroit, may have rushed her decision lest the case be consolidated with several others now pending in federal court in San Francisco or moved to a specialized court in Washington as contemplated by pending legislation. Judge Taylor heard the last set of arguments in the case a little more than a month ago.
The decision has been appealed, and legal scholars said Judge Taylor had done the American Civil Liberties Union, which represents the plaintiffs, few favors beyond handing it a victory. On the other hand, they added, the appeals court is bound to examine the legal arguments in the case afresh in any event.
Indeed, Cass R. Sunstein, a law professor at the University of Chicago, predicted that the plaintiffs would win the case on appeal, but not for the reasons Judge Taylor gave.
“The chances that the Bush program wil
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Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:
"These words are not just for the Yangs, but the Coems as well. They must apply to EVERYONE, or they mean NOTHING, do you understand?!"
Thats a great episode. I note for the record he was teaching that lesson to Yangs only. In order to spread the words to the Coems he was imposing on the Yangs a burden to civilize the world.
You can't negotiate with people whose goal is to kill you.
Here:
"Ok Mr. Terrorist...what do you want to make peace?"
"You must die."
"How bout land?"
"OK, and you must die."
"Money and land."
"Deal...but you must die."
"Money, land, and power over us."
"And you die? Then deal."
See. Does not work. The only proven method of dealing with people like this is to kill them and keep killing them until finally you get one who says "enough". Ask Japan.
H
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Quote:
Originally posted by FellowTraveler:
She ruled, for instance, that the program, which eavesdrops without court permission on international communications of people in the United States, violated the First Amendment because it might have chilled the speech of people who feared they might have been monitored.
That was one of my favorite ones. Its like a bar owner suing to overturn the state's DUI laws because it might chill the drinking habits of folk who are afraid they are going to get pulled over.
Gee, speeding laws are unconstitutional because it might force people who may or may not have exceeded the speed limit to drive slower.
Quote:
“The chances that the Bush program will be upheld are not none, but slim,” Professor Sunstein said. “The chances that this judge’s analysis will be adopted are also slim.”
Well, this one is half right. This decision cannot get past the standing issue to argue the merits of the case. Such a case is coming and while I think any such case is a lock at the District level (if you look hard enough you can find a liberal judge somewhere that will interpret the sky as green or the sun as "not going to rise tomorrow) it is hit and miss at the appeals level (most likely in the 9th Circuit, least likely in the eastern ones), it is a sure loser at the Supreme Court (I'm guessing 5-4 or 6-3) given the Court's composition.
H
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