

Lord Camden on NSA Surveillance - timf
http://www.juliansanchez.com/2012/09/05/lord-camden-on-nsa-surveillance/

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tomrod
Wow. How accurate is this evaluation of the challenge? I'm not a lawyer, but
this would appear brazen if accurate.

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mtgx
I think pretty accurate. Isn't this how it works with the National Security
letters as well? You can't even tell a lawyer if the Government is coming
after you. One by one the law enforcement agencies are lobbying for laws that
strip down the Constitution of all its worth.

It might be time for Americans to pass a system where every new law has to be
reviewed by the Supreme Court, like it happens in other countries.

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daeken
> It might be time for Americans to pass a system where every new law has to
> be reviewed by the Supreme Court, like it happens in other countries.

I've always wondered why it is that we don't do that here. It's very much in
line with the 'checks and balances' concept of the government's structure.

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gbhn
Would this tend to politicize the court? As it is, the court can at least
ostensibly maintain some distance from the political lawmaking process. If it
was an integral part, judges would be subject to a lot more political
pressure.

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daeken
As it stands, the court is the arbiter for whether a law (or section of a law)
is legitimate and how it's applied. All this would do is remove the latency
between legislation being written and it being 'tested'.

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maxerickson
It probably wouldn't be practical, given that they currently don't review
anywhere near 100% of legislation (but maybe that is a feature).

I would be concerned about the situation where the court effectively ends up
with a veto and maybe decides that they should be the ones in charge. The only
way out of that pickle is to reject the constitution.

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twoodfin
I don't get this complaint. NSA "warrantless wiretapping" intercepts fall into
two categories:

\- Intercepts where at least one participant is a foreign party and thus are
100% constitutional without a warrant, under well-established national
security powers.

\- Intercepts where both participants are U.S. nationals.

Obviously, the latter would be unconstitutional to collect deliberately. But
the whole point of these systems is to avoid collecting these communications,
and to delete them as soon as they're discovered. It is, I think, fair to say
that it's nearly impossible to devise a system that will collect what you want
out of the first category while being absolutely certain not to intrude on the
second. The revised FISA law was designed to ensure that there's judicial
review of the process by which communications of the second category are
identified and their intercepts destroyed. That judicial review has gone
forward, as far as I know, and the program, with the current administration's
blessing, continues to this day.

What's the injury to citizens and their rights? You don't trust the executive,
under the supervision of both Congress and the judiciary, to follow the law
and delete any intercepts with your name on them? Well, then you have bigger
problems.

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ktizo
Catch-22 says they have a right to do anything we can't stop them from doing.
- Joseph Heller

