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Under the 4th, the government has proposed and the courts have accepted a mendacious definition of reasonable. Under the 5th, due process basically means you h
by wl 11y ago
Under the 4th, the government has proposed and the courts have accepted a mendacious definition of reasonable.
Under the 5th, due process basically means you have a right to a hearing where you can present evidence, examine witnesses, have counsel if you desire, etc and have the reasoning for the decision written down. It doesn't require that the rules being applied be fair.
Under the 6th, nobody is being accused of a crime, otherwise it'd be a criminal forfeiture.
Under the 8th, civil forfeitures aren't fines or punishments.
The courts are far too deferential to the government. Unfortunately, presidents tend to appoint and the senate tends to confirm judges who will ignore all but the most egregious violations of the constitution when given laughable but marginally plausible arguments as to why the constitution is not in fact being violated.
- ams6110 11y agoIf you appoint strict constructionist judges who would interpret the literal text and original intent of the constitution, you would probably also have to give up Roe v. Wade and things like affirmative action, that are not literally in the constitution.
- rayiner 11y agoYou'd also have no hope of a future Supreme Court reading into the Constitution protection against surveillance as violating of some "right to privacy" that appears nowhere in the text of the Constitution.
- baddox 11y agoNo, not because of "right to privacy," but it would be pretty easy for those justices to rule that the federal government has no authority to conduct mass surveillance precisely because there is no explicit such authority given to the federal government in the Constitution.
- rayiner 11y agoBut a very broad national security power is part of the Constitution, by design. The necessary and proper clause would mean nothing if that doesn't fall within the grant of power to provide for the national defense.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- baddox 11y agoI don't know how to begin to estimate whether the good things (according to my own policy preferences) would outweigh the bad.