Greenwald goes into more detail than I care to, but the bottom line is that a Federal Appeals court voted 2-1 to throw out an ACLU case against the administration for violating FISA because the ACLU couldn’t prove they had standing.
The logic? If you can’t show you have been injured, you have no standing to sue. So…the government can secretly listen in on your phone calls without a a warrant or any judicial review. Since you can’t prove they are listening in on your phone calls, you can’t get a court to let you bring a case and compel witnesses and evidence. End result? The government can do whatever they want unless a whistleblower comes forward and names specific injured parties.
Nevertheless, the court did not rule the administration’s actions legal. In fact, the dissenting judge specifically said otherwise.
The closest question in this case, in my opinion, is whether the plaintiffs have the standing to sue. Once past that hurdle, however, the rest gets progressively easier…[The administration’s] AUMF and inherent-authority arguments are weak in light of existing precedent and statutory construction.
The AUMF is the Authority to Use Military Force that the Congress gave the president after 9/11. The courts have rejected the argument that the AUMF or Article II of the Constitution give the president the authority to violate the law. But, they have also ruled that we can’t do a damn thing about it unless we can prove specific injury to ourselves.
The erosion of our rights continues.
So by this logic the Sierra Club can’t sue the government for violating the Endangered Species Act because it is not the Sierra Club being pushed into extinction? The American Lung Association can’t sue a polluter because they do not have lung cancer that can be proven to be caused by that particular smokestack? Most children would be able to figure out that every citizen is injured by impunity for illegal government acts.
This sounds like a numbingly radical decision, and maybe one of the most obviously asinine in history. Who appointed these judges? Seems like there’s a case for impeachment here, or maybe an investigation of whether bribery or intimidation was involved. No sane intelligent person could issue a twisted decision like this without external compulsion of some kind.
“…external compulsion of some kind.”
Maybe not in this instance… but who would be better to appoint than someone already subject to blackmail?
The two judges who tossed the case out were both Repug appointees. The lone vote against the decision was from the Democratic appointed judge. We’re starting to see the poisonous fruit of the last 25 years or so of the courts being stuffed with conservatives. Welcome to the police state of George IV.
about this? Wasn’t it called Catch 22?
Yes, only someone who is crazy can get out of doing bombing runs.
Bombing runs are so dangerous that you’d have to be crazy to do them.
Ergo, desire to avoid bombing runs is a sign of sanity.
Someone who is sane cannot be crazy.
Therefore, you will go on the bombing run.