3 ms·

>That isn't a fair characterization of the situation. Even forgiving that the police aren't a federal agency, first a question around the legality of what the p

>That isn't a fair characterization of the situation. Even forgiving that the police aren't a federal agency, first a question around the legality of what the police were doing would have to reach the court in the first place, then the court would have to determine that an ambiguity in the law existed, and then the court would have to decide if the interpretation of the law that the police has been using is reasonable and only if it wasn't would the court impose its own interpretation. That seems pretty fair even in the case of the police. There are of course federal policing agencies, such as the DEA, ATF and FBI, but it doesn't matter because the point wasn't about federal agencies as such. It was about deferring to the enforcers of a law about what the limits of their powers are, which just seems like a terrible idea at all levels of government. Was the FBI spying (and more) on civil rights leaders part of their powers as federal law enforcement officers executing their duties? I have no doubt they would say so, and absent a specific law from congress telling them they couldn't, who is to argue that they were unreasonable? Surely we should defer to them as they're the experts in their field right? If the secret service started shutting down cell towers within a 10 mile radius of presidential rallies, well that's just common sense protection against remote explosives and well within their directive to protect the president right? They are the experts on this after all and have wide latitude to do what's necessary. No need for the courts to review that action or the laws surrounding it.

autoexec 2y ago
> Was the FBI spying (and more) on civil rights leaders part of their powers as federal law enforcement officers executing their duties?....Surely we should defer to them as they're the experts in their field right? It's a fantasy to think that this will mean state spying powers will be reduced. > absent a specific law from congress telling them they couldn't, who is to argue that they were unreasonable? The courts are! They always have been, even under Chevron. If at any point a judge thought that the FBI, ATF, DEA, NSA, or <insert three letter agency here> interpreted the law unreasonably, or extended their authority beyond what was allowed that judge had the power under Chevron to impose the court's own interpretation of the law on that agency. The Chevron defense said that if the court agreed that an agency had an interpretation of an ambiguous law which was reasonable and permissible the court couldn't impose a more narrow standard on them. Because it's been overturned it now doesn't matter if the court thinks that what the agency was doing was reasonable and permissible, the court can inject it's own interpretation anyway. Chevron prevented the court from forcing the most narrow interpretation of the law on a federal agency in cases where the court couldn't justify doing it. That's it. Now that protection is gone and I promise that it's not going to make you more free or better off. It means that any and all of the rights and protections you have today thanks to federal agencies are at risk of going away as soon as a case goes in front of an activist judge
- tpmoney 2y ago
  >It's a fantasy to think that this will mean state spying powers will be reduced. Never said that it would, I said allowing enforcers to set the extent of their own powers is a bad idea. >Chevron prevented the court from forcing the most narrow interpretation of the law on a federal agency in cases where the court couldn't justify doing it. Federal agencies (indeed any government agency) should always be subject to narrow interpretations of the law when the extent of their authority and powers are in question. If that interpretation is too narrow for Congress, then Congress needs to be more explicit about their intent. The law needs to be as clear as possible. Ambiguity is a flaw not a feature and the fact that ambiguities can lead to problems means we should make better law, not throw our hands in the air and let whoever's in charge this week decide what the policy is. If we want a massive federal agency to oversee something then the extent to which that agency is empowered and what that agency is empowered to do had better be explicitly spelled out.
  - intended 2y ago
    To support what Autoexc is saying - this is effectively an argument about the theory on one side, and the practical reality of intentionally skewed judiciaries, a grid locked and obtuse congress - which in turn is driven by groups with a common cause. The law, in most cases, is about the practical application of an ideal (the law) to reality (the case). If things weren’t so lopsided and blatantly partisan, then yes, the theory would matter. It would probably be a prosaic and boring decision. This court is not only engineered to lean heavily in one direction, it is also being fed cases based on that common agenda. In addition - we cannot avoid ambiguities unless we have powers of foresight that make the entire governing edifice irrelevant. No one could predict the capabilities or failures of this generation of LLMs for example. There is no better “law”, unless it is an act that gets updated on a near monthly or quarterly basis. This is a timeline that a congress is not suited to manage. This is definitely something that an agency of some sort would. Finally - Saying that bureaucrats and experts are biased, but to leave out the bias of the courts feels unfair.
philwelch 2y ago
> There are of course federal policing agencies, such as the DEA, ATF and FBI, but it doesn't matter because the point wasn't about federal agencies as such. It was about deferring to the enforcers of a law about what the limits of their powers are, which just seems like a terrible idea at all levels of government. What’s more, these agencies—particularly the ATF—love to make up, out of whole cloth, completely new rules that are contrary to their own previously-expressed rules that have the effect of retroactively turning millions of law-abiding people into felons overnight.

autoexec 2y ago

> Was the FBI spying (and more) on civil rights leaders part of their powers as federal law enforcement officers executing their duties?....Surely we should defer to them as they're the experts in their field right? It's a fantasy to think that this will mean state spying powers will be reduced. > absent a specific law from congress telling them they couldn't, who is to argue that they were unreasonable? The courts are! They always have been, even under Chevron. If at any point a judge thought that the FBI, ATF, DEA, NSA, or <insert three letter agency here> interpreted the law unreasonably, or extended their authority beyond what was allowed that judge had the power under Chevron to impose the court's own interpretation of the law on that agency. The Chevron defense said that if the court agreed that an agency had an interpretation of an ambiguous law which was reasonable and permissible the court couldn't impose a more narrow standard on them. Because it's been overturned it now doesn't matter if the court thinks that what the agency was doing was reasonable and permissible, the court can inject it's own interpretation anyway. Chevron prevented the court from forcing the most narrow interpretation of the law on a federal agency in cases where the court couldn't justify doing it. That's it. Now that protection is gone and I promise that it's not going to make you more free or better off. It means that any and all of the rights and protections you have today thanks to federal agencies are at risk of going away as soon as a case goes in front of an activist judge

tpmoney 2y ago
>It's a fantasy to think that this will mean state spying powers will be reduced. Never said that it would, I said allowing enforcers to set the extent of their own powers is a bad idea. >Chevron prevented the court from forcing the most narrow interpretation of the law on a federal agency in cases where the court couldn't justify doing it. Federal agencies (indeed any government agency) should always be subject to narrow interpretations of the law when the extent of their authority and powers are in question. If that interpretation is too narrow for Congress, then Congress needs to be more explicit about their intent. The law needs to be as clear as possible. Ambiguity is a flaw not a feature and the fact that ambiguities can lead to problems means we should make better law, not throw our hands in the air and let whoever's in charge this week decide what the policy is. If we want a massive federal agency to oversee something then the extent to which that agency is empowered and what that agency is empowered to do had better be explicitly spelled out.
- intended 2y ago
  To support what Autoexc is saying - this is effectively an argument about the theory on one side, and the practical reality of intentionally skewed judiciaries, a grid locked and obtuse congress - which in turn is driven by groups with a common cause. The law, in most cases, is about the practical application of an ideal (the law) to reality (the case). If things weren’t so lopsided and blatantly partisan, then yes, the theory would matter. It would probably be a prosaic and boring decision. This court is not only engineered to lean heavily in one direction, it is also being fed cases based on that common agenda. In addition - we cannot avoid ambiguities unless we have powers of foresight that make the entire governing edifice irrelevant. No one could predict the capabilities or failures of this generation of LLMs for example. There is no better “law”, unless it is an act that gets updated on a near monthly or quarterly basis. This is a timeline that a congress is not suited to manage. This is definitely something that an agency of some sort would. Finally - Saying that bureaucrats and experts are biased, but to leave out the bias of the courts feels unfair.

philwelch 2y ago

> There are of course federal policing agencies, such as the DEA, ATF and FBI, but it doesn't matter because the point wasn't about federal agencies as such. It was about deferring to the enforcers of a law about what the limits of their powers are, which just seems like a terrible idea at all levels of government. What’s more, these agencies—particularly the ATF—love to make up, out of whole cloth, completely new rules that are contrary to their own previously-expressed rules that have the effect of retroactively turning millions of law-abiding people into felons overnight.