
Obama Sued by Rand Paul Over Phone Surveillance Program - T-A
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-12/obama-sued-by-rand-paul-over-surveillance-as-challenges-grow-1-.html
======
jdreaver
Take a look at the comments section if you want to see political tribalism at
its best.

> I thought Bush orchestrated the Patriot Act... who knew..?

> Regardless of your opinion of the surveillance, you gotta see this as a
> cynical political move. Bet he wouldn't sue a Republican president. Isn't
> good enough to disagree with Obama - a candidate has to demonstrate outrage
> with him to gain cred with the base.

Everything is right vs left to some people. There is no discussion of the
consequences of this action, just name-calling an unsubstantiated claims. I
hate discussing politics because the cognitive dissonance and mental
gymnastics required to fully support Republicans or Democrats makes my head
hurt.

~~~
ryguytilidie
That is the main problem I see with modern politics. It basically becomes
"stereotypes of the left versus stereotypes of the right". A friend of a
friend told me that he didn't see Gay marriage being outlawed in many states
as a civil rights issue. I said I did. At this point, he asked "so you're a
democrat?" I said "not really, I don't think of myself as associated with
either party" and his answer was, no joke, "well how can I understand why you
believe what you do without knowing what party you're in?" as if every
Democrats brain is connected to one thought center and the same with
Republicans. The strawmen that come out of this are utterly insane. "well you
think what Christie did with closing the bridge and putting lives in danger
was bad? What about Benghazi?!?!" as if you had to be on team Benghazi is bad
or team Christie closing the bridge was bad and there were no other options.
It's incredibly depressing really.

~~~
rohunati
This is exactly the problem. We could be having deep, analytical discussions
about the principles and philosophies that form the basis of our political
convictions. Instead, our conversations are tainted by partisanship.

~~~
saraid216
I'm sorry. We're busy training the next generation of knowledge workers.
Things like "how to construct a cogent argument based upon a reasoned moral
framework" or "how to distill essential points and deduce the original line of
reasoning from a long-form essay" are artsy fartsy humanities unnecessary to
getting a paycheck in the real world.

~~~
rohunati
Haha if that's the case, then we're all going to end up like drones. We'll
only be able to do what we're told and we won't be able to think for
ourselves. We'll never be able to think deeply about issues, because hey --
that's useless! That won't get me a paycheck!

Innovation is inherently interdisciplinary. If we aren't exposed to different
ways of thought, we won't be able to approach problems from the variety of
different perspectives that are both necessary and key to creative problem
solving.

~~~
webXL
Innovation can be interdisciplinary, but my suspicion is that specialization
leads to more of it. That's not saying that all political innovation benefits
society equally and we need more political scientists and politicians. At some
point we need to start solving more problems outside the realm of politics.

------
jfc
The complaint - [https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1017524-rand-paul-
co...](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1017524-rand-paul-
complaint.html)

What's frustrating is that I had to search through 5 articles/blog posts to
find it. Why do media outlets post articles on any lawsuit without a link to
the complaint?

~~~
zacinbusiness
Because they don't want you clicking out of their site. Why give away those
page views?

------
zacinbusiness
I dislike politics in general because, really, it's all just a giant reality
tv show. I lost faith when I was in high school, actually, because President
Bush stood on national television and said that they couldn't find any weapons
in Afghanistan and that was proof that they were there. And nobody, or at
least nobody that I had exposure to, thought that was the stupidest thing they
had ever heard.

Since then, I've seen politicians vote on a law and then admit to not having
read it. I've seen politicians simply not go to work because they don't want
to not vote, but they also don't want to vote. And then I've seen
filibustering.

While there are several laws that I disagree with that have been killed by a
filibuster, I think it's entirely disgraceful that there is a tactic which can
prevent a popular bill from becoming law simply because someone else decides
to be an asshole for 17 hours.

And the whole voting on a bill without reading it? I think anyone caught doing
that should spend the rest of their life in prison, period.

These guys are master manipulators, most or all of them are ivy league
educated, top of their class, cut-throat business men and attorneys. And yet
people think these are the guys that should be running a country.

The whole thing, start to finish, is a farce and it's appalling to watch.

~~~
saryant
My father is a lobbyist in DC and he calls it "Hollywood with ugly people."

Sounds about right.

~~~
erichocean
That's the joke about DC in Hollywood, too.

------
saalweachter
My two minutes of internet research says that this is going to get tossed. A
President can't be sued for actions taken as President, but can be sued for
personal actions.

A Daily Beast article mentions this:
[http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/01/30/can-
bachman...](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/01/30/can-bachmann-
really-sue-king-obama.html)

~~~
gizmo686
Minor nitpick, a president can be sued, however they have the right to refuse
to be sued.

~~~
winslow
What would that imply for this case then? Assuming President Obama refuses to
be sued, does that throw the case out? Or does the case still proceed with the
other defendants? Can all the other defendants refuse to be sued as well?

~~~
saraid216
I'm pretty sure gizmo686 is referring to "executive privilege". Clinton tried
to invoke it during the whole Lewinsky thing and was told that it doesn't
apply to personal stuff.

(This is entirely from me reading Wikipedia earlier today.)

------
frodopwns
More political theater from Rand Paul. If only he was as transparent to the
average voter.

~~~
troym
Would a similar suit by Pelosi also be theater to you?

~~~
Aloisius
It depends. Filing a lawsuit against Obama is political theater regardless of
who does it simply because he is immune from civil lawsuits for actions
relating to his job.

However, suing everyone and anyone else (as Paul seems to have done), isn't.

So what Paul has done is a little political theater and a little practical. If
Polosi had done the same thing, the result would be the same.

As a legislator though, it seems the far more practical way of ending phone
surveillance would be to draft a bill making it explicitly illegal.

~~~
abtinf
There is already a law that makes it illegal: the fourth amendment, further
backed by extensive case law.

And the Fourth Amendment was intended for _exactly_ this case. One of the last
actions of the English which precipitated the American revolution was a
general warrant issued in a secret court in England which gave English
soldiers authority to search any American's home at any time without any
reason for suspicion.

------
higherpurpose
Good stuff, but it kind of bothers me that so much focus is put on the _phone_
surveillance program, when I find the surveillance of private Internet
communications so much more damaging, especially since they are also the
_future_ of all communications.

~~~
zhemao
I'm not certain because I'm definitely not a legal expert, but I think this
might be because there is more legal precedent that warrant-less phone
monitoring is illegal compared to warrant-less IP traffic monitoring. Would
anyone with a better understanding of surveillance law care to comment?

------
zenbowman
Very thankful we have a few good men like Rand still in politics.

~~~
threeseed
Please. There is nothing good about Rand.

He is just cynically trying to stoke the libertarian base.

~~~
Uhhrrr
I think the desire to not be spied upon without warrant goes beyond the
libertarian base.

~~~
MartinCron
So this is just broad-based empty pandering, then?

------
k-mcgrady
Why is the lawsuit against Obama? Shouldn't it be against the USG or the part
of the government that passed the law (or against the NSA for the data
collection)? It seems strange to sue an individual politician, president or
not.

~~~
abtinf
The lawsuit is against Obama because the actions were taken by the executive
branch, Obama is the President, and the President _is_ the executive branch.

~~~
dopamean
And that is why this is such a preposterous idea. You can't actually sue the
President for things he does as the President. If it were for private actions
taken as a private citizen that would be different.

------
joering2
Clapper (defendant) is in my opinion the most disgusting dirtbag that
perfectly represent the broken state of our political system and its rotting
that we are currently funcion in.

This piece of trash lied to the Congress (something that hundred of thousands
of people commit a jailtime in this moment as i write this) and further
explained himself as "i choose the least truthful statement". Well, it wasn't
up to him to decide whether he should tell the truth or not, he was answeing
to rightfully appointed commision.

Imagine a society you live in where people you pay salaries for (public
servant) choose to lie in your face and perfectly get away with it.

This banana republic approach that a cocroach like Clapper can personally
decide whether or not he will tell the truth, and not being punished in any
way for blunt lies, but rater praised and kept on his post, perfectly
summarize the rotten system we live under, where all three branches merge into
one and someone like Clapper can call another dirtbag named Holter and asked
him not to press charges so life can just abrubtly go on...

------
shmerl
What about the Narus program which collects a major portion of the Internet
traffic without any warrant and probable cause? Do they claim it's also legal?

------
ck2
I thought the supreme court ruled once that a sitting president could not be
sued.

Because I vaguely remember some people wanted to sue Bush and were not
allowed.

