Comment Re:Epiphany (Score 1) 191
This is not a bill to be passed, but a Court ruling. It is much harder to circumvent Court rulings that somethign is unconstitutional than it is to circumvent a bill that outlaws some government action. The reason it is harder to circumvent Supreme Court rulings is that the Court gets very salty when you try to go around their clear meaning. If the Court rules that a certain action by the government is unconstitutional, the government has to show that the circumvention they came up with represents a different category of behavior. Further, lower courts often extend Supreme Court rulings in ways which limit such circumvention.
You'd like to hope so, but I doubt the CIA or NSA cares about due process. And if you do in-fact think the checks and balances system works like it should, you're severely mistaken. The first example I could find... "The federal Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) makes it illegal to knowingly hire or recruit an alien who is unauthorized to work in the United States. While IRCA imposed civil and criminal penalties on employers who violate this provision (when it is actually enforced by the Justice Department), it restricts the ability of states to implement similar penalties with one conspicuous exception. The federal law (8 U.S.C. 1324a(h)(2)) specifically allows states to impose sanctions on such employers “through licensing and similar laws.” That is exactly what Arizona did in 2007 when it passed the Legal Arizona Workers Act (LAWA)." Supreme Court rulings often come under question because similar cases keep coming back to them even though they supposedly made a decision 'x' years beforehand. The most important thing to realize is that it's often too hard to even get the audience of the Supreme Court, so what if the government gets in trouble for wiretapping you, the judiciary system can't just tell the CIA to shove-off instantaneously. Let's see, this case is originally from 2008, that's actually pretty quick whereas some appeals can take ten years. By that time, they will have long forgotten what they actually did, and ohhh, maybe they'll do an investigation.. maybe So, even then, if they can't wiretap you for prolonged periods of time, they'll just get a warrant after wiretapping you for a short amount of time.. (which is what I predict from this case, they will allow warrantless searches for an acceptable amount of time and then just go on with their daily lives. Big deal, the checks and balances system is way out of wack, they'll send a piece of paper to the CIA and they'll just add it to the pile that's already there. How many people have ever been indicted from the CIA.... I'll answer that for you, only the people who have released classified information. GG