The Supreme Court ruled yesterday and dealt another blow to public interest lawsuits by rejecting the standing of civil liberties groups and citizens to challenge the Obama Administration’s surveillance programs. President Obama has long been criticized for his opposition to such lawsuits and his Justice Department has continued a successful attack on the ability of citizens to challenge the unconstitutional actions of their government in the war on terror. The 5-4 opinion by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. insulates such programs from judicial review in yet another narrowing of standing rules.
Alito rejected the ability of an array of journalists, lawyers and human rights advocates to challenge the constitutionality of the 2008 law allowing secret surveillance without meeting constitutional standards of probable cause. Alito simply said that the parties could not prove that they were subject to surveillance — since the Obama Administration has classified such evidence — and insisted that their fears and precautionary actions are merely efforts to “manufacture standing by incurring costs in anticipation of nonimminent harms.”
Alito wrote that just because no one may be able to challenge the law is no reason to recognize standing — a position that guts the separation of powers principles underlying judicial review. He also cites to the secret FISA as judicial review — a truly laughable proposition. I have been in that court as a NSA legal intern and the thought that it constitutes any real form of review is a preposterous notion. I have written and testified on this court in the past.
In dissent, Justice Breyer correctly noted that “Several considerations, based upon the record along with commonsense inferences, convince me that there is a very high likelihood that Government, acting under the authority of §1881a, will intercept at least some of the communications just described.”
Alito and his colleagues had to work hard bar these constitutional claims from review. It is a signature for Alito who has had a consistent and disturbing record of yielding to police powers. Absent a religious practice or gun claim or environmental claim where Alito turns on the government, he is the very symbol not of blind justice but the blind justice on government abuse.
The decision is Clapper v. Amnesty International, No. 11-1025, and it is a true nightmare for civil liberties. Alito and his colleagues have essentially guaranteed that even blatant unconstitutional programs can be insulated from judicial review by allowing the very same accused Administration to classify the evidence needed to bring any lawsuit.
Here is the opinion: 11-1025_ihdj
Source: NY Times
Don,
Just wait til tomorrow when the Traitor in Chief gets slammed for the stupidity of his choice of solicitor general to argue the voting rights case….. It’s pretty sad when the Chief Justice of the court know more about the case than the attorney arguing to uphold the law…. Coincidence that the person chosen was inept in this area….. But the defender will be the detractor….
ATTN: SHEEPLE who believe what the Teevee says.
“What if the 9/11 Commission consisted of experts instead of politicians with their fingers in the wind, and what if the commissioners had too much integrity to write a report dictated by the executive branch?
The unlikely and untenable failure of every institution of the American national security state would have been investigated, and the collapse of WTC 7 at free fall speed would have had to have been acknowledged in the report and explained. A totally different story would have emerged, a story unlikely to have locked Americans into permanent war in an expanding number of countries and into a domestic police state.
Americans might still be a free people. And American liberty might still be a beacon to the world.
On the other hand, a finding of government complicity in 9/11 could have threatened powerful interests and resulted in violent conflict and martial law.
What ifs are provocative, and that is what makes them fun. Thinking is America’s national disability. I’m all for anything that provokes Americans to think.”
REAGAN Ass’t Treasury Sec’y Dr. Paul Craig Roberts
http://www.globalresearch.ca/what-if/5324025
For a lil positive momentum check this:
Howard Stern- Alex Jones Interview 02/26/13
More and more Due Process Of Law Is A State Secret if you know what I mean Verne.
this remind me of the ACLU v. NSA case that was decided back in 2007. At issue was the inability by way of civil suit to get the telcos to provide lists of who had been tapped in the bulk collection the NSA was using. The 6th circuit used the same circular reasoning: no standing without harm, no harm discovery without standing.
Swarthmore mom,
How many people/kids lives have been saved by guns in the US since Sandy Hook?
That’s never reported nationally or even locally most of the time.
How many innocent Kids/People has Obama had murdered with the secret drone program since Sandy Hook. Any fake Obama tears for them?
Obama just as rotten as GW, BC before him.
BTW, I live in Oklahoma, home of many Native Americans who survived the US holocaust that the 1930’s Nazis used as a model for theirs, which the Fascist Obama, with his recent DHS purchase of 2 billion bullets likely has in mind for his & his buddies latest planned holocaust.
Love or hate people like Alex Jones, they have gathered the actual govt docs regarding the Obama/GW types evil plans.
Sam Adams,
We don’t have to wait til 7/4 to protest.
Many of us protest most everyday.
There was a Nationwide protest last weekend. I went the one here, citizens/polcats gathered calling for protecting the US Constitution, it’s Preamble of the Bill of Rights & the Rights themselves.
There are many other actions people can take.
Stay out of evil places like Walmart, JP Morgan, away from Monsanto products, etc. The best you can.
Grow a garden, buy from local farmers, ranchers, butchers, etc.
Buy one ounce of silver for the Crush JP Morgan, buy silver campaign.
Better yet buy an ounce for everyone you know. .
Make a hobby of pass info along to others. ( Don’t force it, it’s tacky.)
Here is one of the many groups popping up protest that have some plans.
defendruralamerica.com
Blouise, You are right. I don’t think they will have too much luck getting us to join forces with holocaust and Sandy Hook deniers.
Banksters Laundered Money for Drug Cartels and al-Qaeda – Infowars
http://www.infowars.com/ banksters-laundered-money-for-drug-cartels-and-al-qaeda/ – View by Ixquick Proxy – Highlight
Jul 17, 2012 … A Senate investigation concluded HSBC executives repeatedly ignored … According to the report, money laundering and other large scale …
HSBC to Pay $1.92 Billion to Settle Charges of Money Laundering …
http://www.infowars.com/ hsbc-to-pay-1-92-billion-to-settle-charges-of-money-laundering/ – View by Ixquick Proxy – Highlight
Dec 11, 2012 … HSBC to Pay $1.92 Billion to Settle Charges of Money Laundering … Iran and enabled Mexican drug cartels to move money illegally through its …
Stockman may be Bat Sheeet crazy, I don’t know his history, but he’s correct on Impeachment for Obama.
Wallst Puppet Romney is as big of a America hating piece of trash as Wallst Puppet Obama.
That’s why I voted for Wallst Puppet Obama on their rig electronic voting machines, because & want him to have Grand Jury charges brought against him & for him to have a fair trial. (Along with some of his other fascist buddies.)
The most of the Tea Party hasn’t attacked Wallst/London Banks/Insurance Mafia that have this country in this mess & neither has Obama & the Demo Leadership.
In the world’s history most of the trouble/problems is always caused by corrupt Bankers.
This was a major reason so many us supported most of Ron Paul’s positions.
The 1933 parallels are:
The Reichstag Fire = Twin Towers
Reichstage Fire Decrees = Patriot Act et al
Holocaust = Whats Next For America and the World.
As to Justice Alito:
[music]
Alito, lito, bo bitto,
Banana fanna fo fitto
Lito!
If the first two letters are ever the same
Ya drop them both and say the name…
etc
-Name Game
Before I get involved in any of this repeat Revolutionary War stuff I need to know who is a Whig and who is a Tory ’cause I refuse to get tricked into following Schuyler anywhere.
Swarthmore mom,
Did you say thing?
Are far down the rabbit hole about those Mafia/Fascist Aholes do you wish to go?
Chicago, a pop of about 2.8 mil had well over 500 murders & a near complete fascist Police State Gun Ban.
Tulsa area, Oklahoma, pop of about 1 mil had around 48 murders with very Liberal gun laws. ( Most everybody has at least one or their neighbors do.)
Do you want to fix Chicago, get rid of the drugs laws, treat it as a medical problem & you get rid of the CIA/DHS shipping the drugs in& bring back the 2nd & crime will be cut in half tomorrow.
Fast and Furious scandal blown wide open by … – Natural News
Oct 2, 2012 … On September 2, 2009, 18 young men were murdered at “El Aliviane, … Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was murdered with Fast and Furious guns … In fact, the Obama Administration has gone out of its way to keep a lid on its …
http://www.naturalnews.com/037395_Fast_and_Furious_scandal_gun_running. html
http://www.naturalnews.com/GoogleSearchResults.html?q=Obama+Fast+%26+Furous+border+patrol+murdered&cx=010579349100583850635%3Aw_kzwe9_yca&cof=FORID%3A11&ie=UTF-8&sa.x=0&sa.y=0&siteurl=naturalnews.com%2F&ref=&ss=31887j41363709j59
The first American Revolution was comprised of people of all walks. Some were assuredly ‘tinfoil’ hat wearing.
Dismissing some people because they may hold strange or seemingly far-fetched theories is a disservice to the need of the American people to take back control of their govt from the corrupt.
The defense of the govt will be to attack those of us on the fringe so to speak. We must defend against this.
”
Steve Stockman Is the Nuttiest Freshman in Congress—Again
The Texas Republican who wants to impeach President Obama is picking up where he left off—16 years ago.
—By Tim Murphy
| Wed Jan. 23, 2013 3:01 AM PST
115
Steve StockmanRep. Steve Stockman (R-Texas). Fox News/YouTube
On Monday of last week, Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Texas) announced that if President Barack Obama attempted to enact new gun violence prevention measures through executive order, he would have no choice but to file articles of impeachment. By Tuesday, he was comparing Obama to Saddam Hussein for using children as props at a speech introducing a gun control package. By Wednesday, he had stepped back from the precipice, asserting that “impeachment is not something to be taken lightly.” After all, where did anyone get that idea?
This is the way it has always been with Steve Stockman: Light a fire; add some potassium nitrate; then stand back and gawk at the crater.
The Texas congressman, who is three weeks into his second term after a 16-year hiatus from the House, is almost certainly the only member of Congress to have been caught with 30 mg of valium hidden in a cellophane wrapper in his underwear. He’s defended militia groups; accused an attorney general of “premeditated murder”; appeared on a Holocaust-denying radio program; waged a one-man war against Alfred Kinsey; compared his constituents—favorably—to Branch Davidians; and traveled to Denmark to protest climate change while wearing a red blindfold. The man who bested his 2012 opponent by 44 points isn’t the most ballyhooed of incoming lawmakers. He’s just the nuttiest.” Same Steve Stockman, Don?
July 4th 2013
Washington DC
“I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.”
— Thomas Jefferson, Letter to James Madison, January 30, 1787
It is time. Time to take back control of our country and to liberate our Bill of Rights from the corrupt whom have hijacked it. Whether their intentions were noble or not, is irrelevant. They need to be removed from power regardless.
It is time to have a Revolution in America. It does not need to be violent. We can change over the people in our govt without violence. We just need to make sure they leave.
Afterwards the only changes we need to make to the system is to insure that our Liberties are restored and protected against future encroachment.
It is time for both the Liberals and Conservatives, leftwing and rightwing, and all that remain in the middle, to set aside our differences, cease arguing over trivial issues and rise up together and unite as one loud strong voice. We must not allow them to racially divide us.
It is time to become brothers in voice and if need be, in arms. In this hour we must not speak softly, but loudly, while still wielding a big stick.
It is time to take Big Brother and crush it. It is time to take tyranny and drive it from our govt and from our shores. It is time to show the world that we truly are the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave….and not merely land of the fat, disinterested and preoccupied with our plastic toys.
It is time to decide whether we are nation of cowards who wish to maintain their status quo and not risk their material possessions. Or whether we are a nation of Freemen who willingly would sacrifice our homes, our plasma tvs and our iphones and then lay down our lives if need be, to insure that our children and grandchildren can live their lives in a land of true Liberty.
Our country is teetering on the edge of the descent into Fascism. A monstrous hybrid of Totalitarianism and Corporatocracy. It must be stricken and driven to oblivion.
Our ancestors risked their lives to make this country. Our fathers and grandfathers risked theirs to drive Fascism from Europe and the world. Why do we allow it to rise to power here now? No more.
Greg Hunter got his site back up & running.
http://usawatchdog.com/
Anyone else seeing the Traitors/Tyrant’s trolls on many of their blogs you read, I do.
There are many things you can still do to defend yourselves!
Demand your state impound an open to the public “Runaway Grand Juries” to go after those currently on Supreme Court because it’s clear by the evidence this SC is mentally insane & should be removed for cause.
“Demand a Plan to Rid us of the American Hating Gun Grabbin Trash that’s attempting to destroy our American Citizen Stakeholder’s Inalienable Rights.”
http://catb.org/~esr/guns/quotes.html
** In related news, Republican Rep. Steve Stockman has vowed to further investigate allegations that the Obama administration has been employing “spambots” to send out fake twitter messages and emails to members of Congress to make it appear that there is a ground swell of support for gun control legislation.
The messages have been linked to former Obama digital strategist Brad Schenck. The tweets were mostly sent from newly created accounts, and included the #WeDemandAVote hashtag — which Obama encouraged supporters to use.
“Obama’s anti-gun campaign is a fraud,” Rep. Stockman said Monday.**
http://www.prisonplanet.com/retired-general-tells-biden-military-can-help-with-gun-control-agenda.html
“It does not take a majority to prevail…
but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.” — Samuel Adams
Our minority seems to be irate, tired and keen on just getting through the day. Just the way they want us so we won’t fight back. Somethings gotta change.