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Rand Paul wants to lead a Supreme Court challenge to Feds' tracking of Americans
- akiselev 13y agoWhat does that mean, "lead a Supreme Court challenge?" From what I understand, they'd have to file lawsuit with a lower court and fight the long long road up to the SC docket.
- khuey 13y agoIt means he wants to be on TV/in the newspaper/etc.
- aroch 13y agoSCOTUS can have "original jurisdiction"[1] over some cases depending on the matter under review. In this case, because the State (read: USG) is a party in the case, SCOTUS can be the court in which a case is first argued. _____ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procedures_of_the_Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States#Original_jurisdiction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procedures_of_the_Supreme_Court...
- _delirium 13y agoSince he's a member of the Senate, a more direct route than the judicial branch would be to pursue legislative-branch solutions, such as introducing a bill to amend the FISA statute in a more civil-liberties-friendly manner.
- Vivtek 13y agoThat wouldn't be in the spirit of empty grandstanding at all! You, sir, simply don't understand Ron Paul's strategy.
- meepmorp 13y agoRand, not Ron. But, yes, I believe this is probably of a piece with his drone filibuster in terms of being political theatrics.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- wl 13y agoA supreme court case has benefits that legislation doesn't. If he can get a favorable decision for civil liberties, he could bind future congresses that may not be as friendly to civil liberties as he is. This also could be accomplished through a constitutional amendment, but a court case is far easier.
- dnautics 13y agofor starters, Rand is proposing some legislation. A supreme court case is always non-binding to congress. They can just re-propose the law, and wait for someone to sue again (e.g. child labor laws in the 20s). Or the executive can just say, damn you supreme court we're gonna anyways (Jackson, early 19th century). And while a constitutional amendment would be nice, the only part of the constitution that the US follows anymore is 'election protocol' and details that create the pomp and circumstance around inauguration.
- otsuichi 13y agoA SCOTUS decision IS binding to Congress. They can't pass a law doing something that has been deemed unconstitutional unless they first amend the Constitution to explicitly allow them to do that same thing, which is obviously not going to happen.
- wl 13y agoActually, Congress can pass any law they damn well please. It's not until the courts deal with it that an unconstitutional law (in the opinion of a court interpreting law and precedent) can be thrown out. My original post was operating under the assumption that all branches would abide by the legitimate actions of the other branches. Grandparent is pointing out that sometimes this doesn't happen. Always a possibility, but not something I expect to see very often.
- known_unknowns 13y agoTechnically, Congress can pass any bill they damn well please, but it's not a law if it contradicts the Constitution.
- javert 13y agoBut Congress is filled with Democrats and RINOs, so that's a no-go. Of course, the Court is filled with know-nothings (as in, they are anti-abstraction, so there is no such thing as a valid governing principle, such as a right), so it's all probably pretty pointless.
- _delirium 13y agoHow is being pro national security and strong police/intelligence a "RINO" position? That's a very traditional Republican position, dating back at least to the early 1950s and cold-war conservatism, and hardening in the 1960s/70s with conservatives' worries about the Vietnam protests, hippies, Black Panthers, and other groups they felt needed to be suppressed. Most Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices have tended to be pro-military and pro-police-power along those lines— Rehnquist, Burger, and Alito being three of the harder-line examples. Perhaps you're thinking of an alternate history where the Republicans were a primarily libertarian rather than a primarily conservative party?
- newbie12 13y agoThe Tea Party faction of the GOP is a pretty vigorous libertarian movement-- Rand Paul is the most libertarian elected official of either party.
- timr 13y agoYou must be thinking of a different "tea party faction" than the one I know. Because the one I know has been doing its damnedest to to elect "social conservatives" who support "traditional family values". But yeah, they're pretty libertarian with respect to the liberties they like. Everything else can go.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- _delirium 13y agoThat's my impression of the Tea Party in my area (southeast Texas) as well, although the conservatism goes beyond social issues like abortion or gay marriage, and into things more relevant to this discussion, too. On security issues they actually seem rather pro-police and pro-military rather than the opposite. There's a lot of support among local tea-party activists for ideas like having drones patrol the Texas-Mexico border, or even nutty stuff like having roving police ID checks to catch illegal immigrants (Arizona's Sheriff Joe Arpaio is something of a hero). There are some libertarian views as well, but mostly limited to guns and taxes. On security issues, nativist views seem to override suspicion of government.
- mtgx 13y agoI think he did that, too. But he's tried that route several times before, and the majority of the Senate voted against it. So he's probably not very optimistic about it.
- adventured 13y agoHe knows that a legislative branch approach will fail without making any waves what-so-ever. That's very obvious. Too many members of Congress are openly fascist in their beliefs when it comes to supporting the police state (eg Lindsey Graham and Dianne Feinstein). The judicial branch approach is meant to spur action and interest on the part of citizens. It's meant to create waves. He's intentionally looking to bypass the legislative branch because the outcome there is already known.
- grimtrigger 13y agoMy guess is that if he hadn't filibustered the drone program a few weeks ago, he would of used a filibuster here. Seems like he did the math, and two filibusters this close would make him look like an obstructionist. Not blaming the man, political capital is not free.
- _delirium 13y agoWhat would he be filibustering? There is no proposed legislation to oppose afaik. What needs to happen is the opposite: someone needs to propose and try to push through new legislation curtailing FISA.
- Vivtek 13y agoRand Paul needs a class in civics, looks like.
- peterjancelis 13y agoOr you need to read up about the concept of "original jurisdiction" with regards to the Supreme Court.
- d4vlx 13y agoRand Paul would probably do a lot more good by learning how to think rationally.
- adventured 13y agoThat's all you've got? You feel free to call a man irrational, but provide nothing to support that position. Dare I say that comes across as belligerent ad hominem.
- d4vlx 13y agoFrom his Benghazi hearing testimony "I'm glad that you're accepting responsibility. I think ultimately with your leaving that you accept the culpability for the worst tragedy since 9/11. And I really mean that. Had I been president and found you did not read the cables from Benghazi and from Ambassador Stevens, I would have relieved you of your post. I think it's inexcusable." - his obsession with drastically cutting social programs at a time when so many Americans need them - his obsession with balancing the budget when interest rates are so low and the so many things point to the problem being a lack of spending / almost nothing pointing to the deficit being a problem - his backwards social views I forget how easy mainstream American media goes on him. He makes some interesting points but overall he seems very much like a dogmatic and unimaginative libertarian conservative.
- sageikosa 13y agoYour use of these as evidence of Paul's irrationality does not seem rational. Instead, they appear as a complaint that he doesn't share the same values as you; and by extension he must be irrational since your values obviously must be rationally chosen.
- d4vlx 13y agoActually no, except for my point on social views. A couple assumptions I made are: 1) He wants the American economy to improve 2) He wants to do what it best for Americans as a whole They seem like reasonable assumptions, correct me if you seem any hole in them please. I do not think he his actions and these assumed goals are linked in a rational way.
- diminoten 13y agoYeah this should happen, but no Rand Paul shouldn't be in front of it.
- alipang 13y agoWhy not? Like him or not, this is definitely in line with the libertarian position.
- diminoten 13y agoBecause he'll make concessions and strategy choices which are not in line with what I want.
- dredmorbius 13y agoPolitics makes strange bedfellows. I'm all for Rand Paul if he'll volunteer to ride this pony.
- bpatrianakos 13y agoWhat amazes me is the hypocrisy in all this. The American people have basically known about this since about 2006. It's just that there wasn't as much proof or specifics but the media covered this and it was pretty much common knowledge that all phone calls and Internet activity were being watched. Of course that's not okay and I still get the current outrage. Totally understandable. But then there are the senators... These guys approved this activity long ago and while not all of them knew the specifics the Intelligence Committe did. They were taken into meetings where no note taking tools or anything with a battery was allowed and briefed about this. Now that this story breaks the senate gets their panties in a twist like this is news to them. They simultaneously defend it and condemn it. It isn't fair to make such a blanket statement about the entire Senate, I know but what I'm really getting at here is that what Rand Paul is doing doesn't strike me as sincere at all. It looks like a dog and pony show set up to make it look like someone gives a shit while they all keep getting briefed and voting for this stuff behind closed doors. It's like set up a bunch of PR stunts to make us feel warm and funny then do the opposite while no one is paying attention. On this issue I feel like its the guys trying to get attention the most who can be trusted the least.
- gwright 13y agoHypocrisy? I'm not so sure. It is really difficult to get a single person to change their mind about something. Even more difficult to get large groups to change their collective opinion. Theoretical concerns about how a program might be abused are much less convincing to people than actual abuses. It isn't surprising to me that people who discounted the possiblity of abuse in the past might now think differently about it (politicians and public citizens alike) when presented with actual overreach or even abuse. I don't think that is an example of hypocrisy though.
- shardling 13y agoTo be fair to Paul, this is his first term -- he's been in the Senate for a bit longer than 2 years now. So he certainly wasn't involved in decisions made "long ago". That said, I generally disagree with many of his stances, and think you're probably right that a lot of what he does is fundamentally political.
- suredo 13y agoDo I need a warrant to get Obama's data for my data analysis project?
- suredo 13y agoI heard my neighbor making bomb threats against the goverment (not me, my neighbor) although I am mad at my government..
- ipsin 13y agoI was surprised by Rand Paul's proposed bill "To stop the [NSA] from spying on citizens of the United States": http://www.paul.senate.gov/files/documents/EAS13699.pdf http://www.paul.senate.gov/files/documents/EAS13699.pdf The effective body is fairly direct: "The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution shall not be construed to allow any agency of the United States Government to search the phone records of Americans without a warrant based on probable cause." What really surprised me was that it used the word "search", rather than, say, "collect". Given that we don't know what happened to the records gathered under Stellar Wind/RAGTIME, it's possible that the activity would still be legal under Paul's bill. I'm curious whether this choice of wording was intentional or accidental.
- jroseattle 13y agoMy wife is a former lobbyist. The wording is always intentional.
- codex 13y agoThe fact is that civil liberties always contract during wartime and expand during peacetime. Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus during the Civil War, for example. 9/11 was twelve years ago, and we're possibly seeing the re-expansion of peacetime civil liberties here.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- jmadsen 13y agoThe interesting side story behind all of this, that HN isn't looking at at all, is the "bi-partisanship as usual" reaction from outside Washington. A reason something might come of this? Ironically, it is because the Rush Limbaugh crowd look at it as a way to get Obama, et al, while liberals are equally aghast. Never mind that it was all spearheaded by a Republican administration. Now, as for me, I vote Green & don't like any of 'em - but it's nice to see everyone looking like they might agree on something for once.