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"The government also presses the extraordinary claim that this Court is powerless to review the lower court decisions even if they are mistaken. On the governm

"The government also presses the extraordinary claim that this Court is powerless to review the lower court decisions even if they are mistaken. On the government’s view, literally no court in this country has the power to decide whether citizens possess a First Amendment right of access to the work of our national security courts ... this case in-volves a governmental challenge to the power of this Court to review the work of Article III judges in a subordinate court. If these matters are not worthy of our time, what is?" - Gorsuch dissent FISC was created by an act of congress. Now the executive branch is asserting that the court created by this act is not reviewable by the Supreme Court, established in the consitution. And except for strange bedfellows Gorsuch and Sotomayor, the court is letting them get away with it. If congress has such power regarding foreign surveillance, why wouldn't they have the same for other issues, like establishing an unreviewable Sedition Court or an Ecological Justice Court? Like FISC, these courts would effectively get their own interpretations of the bill of rights and everything else, with no need to even publish the resulting case law.

raxxorrax 5y ago
You wouldn't even need a court in that case, it would just be ridiculous posturing. They could put on robes, but it would just be another LARPG.
lettergram 5y ago
I think it’s because the court is outside of the justice branch of government. Put another way, the courts aren’t sentencing people. They aren’t enforcing the laws on the books really either. They are outside of either. Congress is really the party that needs to reign this in. They created this mechanism and the Supreme Court is basically confirming congresses right to do so. The reality is your representative(s) are to blame. BTW I’m not saying this is moral, justified, makes sense, w.e. I fully think congress should completely demolish the security state. I’d rather live in a world with risks than a world constructed to keep me a prisoner.
- bb88 5y ago
  > The reality is your representative(s) are to blame. The representatives from nearly 50 years ago, that is. There are really just two reasons to keep things secret. One of them is to protect people from embarrassment.
  - themitigating 5y ago
    Is the other to protect government sources?
- Talanes 5y ago
  Not only is it not outside the Judicial branch, the Chief Justice appoints the FISC judges.
- Jansen312 5y ago
  Supreme court can review the act passed by Congress and modified it or nullify it which clearly unconstitutional. Essentially they are scared and just choose the cowardly way of ignoring it. Basically turning into NATO more and more each day.
Jansen312 5y ago
That secrecy court is illegal, supreme court is in constitution. That secrecy court is just an act by congress which is much lower than supreme court at constitution level. If the SCOTUS refuse to review this, then only people through revolt will have to take it down. These days our SCOTUS is basically a disgrace. Anything that "tickle" their "scared bone" it will be no standing or decline.
- themitigating 5y ago
  You created your account 11 days ago, you misspelled a word, and you used some unusual phrases that seem to resemble a common saying but you are a little off
  - robbedpeter 5y ago
    Non native English speaker most likely - his text is incoherent in a scattershot bad translation way (as opposed to a bad bot,) but there seems to be underlying meaning. Unless it's English translation from a gpt-3 bot in another language? Funny that we have to suspect everything now.
vmception 5y ago
the ACLU's challenge isn't that directly pointed at the existence of the court. It is pointed at saying a citizen's "free speech" right is involved in viewing the court's opinions. It was a stretch, and it failed. The dissenting justices are making it about something the case was not specifically about, the consensus judges don't have absurd opinions either, they looked at what the case was specifically about (does the first amendment have anything to do with this) and said nah. The question wasn't "do other articles of the constitution force us to curbstomp this court out of existence", and if it was there would probably be a different result. If people want a case about the FISC's constitutionality itself, then they need to make a case about that. This case wasn't that. One thing to understand is that this case got so much support because it was the only case they could put their energy on. If there was another or better case, all the motions and "friends of the court" briefs would have gone to that better case. The other cases don't exist because people accept the narrative that there is a big boogeyman this secret court protects us from, and so its always a compromise to try to get "studies" and reviewability done. But the thing about compromises is that they're usually just a long way doing the wrong thing. The original idea was the "right" thing, and compromises are often just the wrong thing and a waste of time. This time, the compromise idea of "lets make up a bill of rights reason why we can review court opinions" failed.
tssva 5y ago
From Article 3 Section 2: "In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make." Certainly seems like Congress could in fact have the constitutional authority to limit the Supreme Court's ability to review decisions from subordinate courts.

raxxorrax 5y ago

You wouldn't even need a court in that case, it would just be ridiculous posturing. They could put on robes, but it would just be another LARPG.

lettergram 5y ago

I think it’s because the court is outside of the justice branch of government. Put another way, the courts aren’t sentencing people. They aren’t enforcing the laws on the books really either. They are outside of either. Congress is really the party that needs to reign this in. They created this mechanism and the Supreme Court is basically confirming congresses right to do so. The reality is your representative(s) are to blame. BTW I’m not saying this is moral, justified, makes sense, w.e. I fully think congress should completely demolish the security state. I’d rather live in a world with risks than a world constructed to keep me a prisoner.

bb88 5y ago
> The reality is your representative(s) are to blame. The representatives from nearly 50 years ago, that is. There are really just two reasons to keep things secret. One of them is to protect people from embarrassment.
- themitigating 5y ago
  Is the other to protect government sources?
Talanes 5y ago
Not only is it not outside the Judicial branch, the Chief Justice appoints the FISC judges.
Jansen312 5y ago
Supreme court can review the act passed by Congress and modified it or nullify it which clearly unconstitutional. Essentially they are scared and just choose the cowardly way of ignoring it. Basically turning into NATO more and more each day.

Jansen312 5y ago

That secrecy court is illegal, supreme court is in constitution. That secrecy court is just an act by congress which is much lower than supreme court at constitution level. If the SCOTUS refuse to review this, then only people through revolt will have to take it down. These days our SCOTUS is basically a disgrace. Anything that "tickle" their "scared bone" it will be no standing or decline.

themitigating 5y ago
You created your account 11 days ago, you misspelled a word, and you used some unusual phrases that seem to resemble a common saying but you are a little off
- robbedpeter 5y ago
  Non native English speaker most likely - his text is incoherent in a scattershot bad translation way (as opposed to a bad bot,) but there seems to be underlying meaning. Unless it's English translation from a gpt-3 bot in another language? Funny that we have to suspect everything now.

vmception 5y ago

the ACLU's challenge isn't that directly pointed at the existence of the court. It is pointed at saying a citizen's "free speech" right is involved in viewing the court's opinions. It was a stretch, and it failed. The dissenting justices are making it about something the case was not specifically about, the consensus judges don't have absurd opinions either, they looked at what the case was specifically about (does the first amendment have anything to do with this) and said nah. The question wasn't "do other articles of the constitution force us to curbstomp this court out of existence", and if it was there would probably be a different result. If people want a case about the FISC's constitutionality itself, then they need to make a case about that. This case wasn't that. One thing to understand is that this case got so much support because it was the only case they could put their energy on. If there was another or better case, all the motions and "friends of the court" briefs would have gone to that better case. The other cases don't exist because people accept the narrative that there is a big boogeyman this secret court protects us from, and so its always a compromise to try to get "studies" and reviewability done. But the thing about compromises is that they're usually just a long way doing the wrong thing. The original idea was the "right" thing, and compromises are often just the wrong thing and a waste of time. This time, the compromise idea of "lets make up a bill of rights reason why we can review court opinions" failed.

tssva 5y ago

From Article 3 Section 2: "In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make." Certainly seems like Congress could in fact have the constitutional authority to limit the Supreme Court's ability to review decisions from subordinate courts.