5 ms·

I wish someone could make a treason case out of perjury in relation to a matter of national security during a time of war for these actions. This crap would st

• rayiner 13y ago
  Let's not go there: http://www.heritage.org/constitution/#!/articles/3/essays/119/treason http://www.heritage.org/constitution/#!/articles/3/essays/11.... The U.S. hasn't convicted someone of treason for more than half a century. Even John Walker Lindh, who was literally fighting with the enemy against the U.S., was not prosecuted for treason.
  • blahbl4hblahtoo 13y ago
    Isn't this due to treason being interpreted as providing an enemy with information or assistance during a declared war?
    • dragonwriter 13y ago
      > Isn't this due to treason being interpreted as providing an enemy with information or assistance during a declared war? Its probably because of the narrow definition of treason written explicitly into the Constitution [1]. [1] http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articleiii#section3 http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articleiii#section3
      • blahbl4hblahtoo 13y ago
        cheers. thanks.
  • latj 13y ago
    Ok fine, but can we at least fire people who lie to Congress and then admit it? What is the point of Congress asking questions if you are allowed to testify in the least untruthful ways?
    • twoodfin 13y ago
      President Obama can fire anyone in his administration any time he would like. That's how accountability works in our system, particularly when no clear-cut crime is committed. If President Obama doesn't sufficiently share your outrage, fundraise, campaign and vote for someone who you think would.
      • Silhouette 13y ago
        If President Obama doesn't sufficiently share your outrage, fundraise, campaign and vote for someone who you think would. Why, so you can stop President Obama being elected for a third term? To me as an outsider, this is a puzzling part of the US political system. The President has a huge amount of concentrated power within one branch of government, yet approximately half the time, the President of the day is effectively a lame duck with nothing to lose by behaving almost any way they like. Other parts of the government can make that President's job harder, but short of impeachment everyone is basically stuck with whoever it is until their time is up. I increasingly feel that giving the electorate an absolute power of recall if an elected representative angers enough people during their term would change politics for the better at almost any level. Otherwise, any term of office that is sufficient for reasonable medium- to long-term planning is also sufficient to allow serious damage to be done with relative impunity if the wrong person won the election but the voters only learn that after the fact. As a side benefit, this also balances the tendency for major elections to be fought on a tiny number of headline issues, with little if any incentive to represent the electorate's interests in all the other significant-but-not-dominant areas, because if you annoy too many small groups of the population, collectively they can become powerful enough to trigger a vote.
        • twoodfin 13y ago
          Democracy is all about giving the people what they want, good and hard. I'm sorry they got it "wrong" from your point of view last year, but in three years they get to try again. I don't think your version of "serious damage" from this issue matches most voters. Even if this were a parliamentary system where sufficient public outcry could force new elections, or a "do over" recall was available (a terrible flaw in the state constitutions where it exists, IMHO), you'd still not be getting the U.S. administration you seem to want. You need to convince the public and then win elections, that's how change happens.
  • icambron 13y ago
    I wholeheartedly agree about treason, but perjury is a perfectly reasonable thing to charge people with here. And it's a plenty serious crime. For non-immune people, it means jail time. For the president, it's good grounds for impeachment.
• dragonwriter 13y ago
  The kind of wishes people have about "I don't like it --> should be treason!" is one of the reasons that the US has a narrow definition of treason enshrined in the Constitution. Plus, no, it wouldn't: the President is both immune to criminal prosecution while in office and has plenary power to pardon, so "someone could make a treason case out of it" wouldn't constrain executive abuses. The only thing that constrains those is a public that cares enough to extract a price for the abuses, starting with public outcry and action at the ballot box.
  • dllthomas 13y ago
    The President could be impeached and then tried. Which is not to say I think it's a good idea.
    • TallGuyShort 13y ago
      I don't believe that would work. You can't revoke someone's immunity and then prosecute them for crimes committed while they had immunity. Seems like it would violate the concept of rule of law...
      • throwaway_yy2Di 13y ago
        I think giving immunity for breaking the law, in advance, also strains the concept of rule of law...
        • TallGuyShort 13y ago
          I agree - and in any case it seems I misinterpreted what kind of immunity the President actually has.
      • dllthomas 13y ago
        Placing the president above the law itself violates the concept of rule of law. I don't know of anything that explicitly grants the president immunity from criminal prosecution. The ability to pardon grants an implicit immunity absent impeachment, but pardon is forbidden in cases of impeachment. This, of course, could be my ignorance. Certainly the only appearance of "immun" in the Constitution is in "immunities" in an unrelated context.
• girvo 13y ago
  Would be rather fitting, considering "Treason! Burn him at the stake!" was the battle-cry for some of the politicians in regards to Snowden's actions.
  • fleitz 13y ago
    That was why I proposed something so ridiculous.
• camus2 13y ago
  if it was possible all the Bush jr administration would be in jail.