

Court: Feds Can Spy On Americans Without Warrants With No Legal Repurcussions - mtgx
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120809/11041019980/court-feds-can-spy-americans-without-warrants-with-no-legal-repurcussions.shtml

======
mindcrime
Two words: "2nd Amendment".

There _are_ repercussions for the State violating it's bounds; if and when the
will of the People decides there will be.

~~~
stanleydrew
I'm pretty sure the right to bear arms does not give the people the legal
right to violently overthrow the government, which appears to be what you are
suggesting.

~~~
mindcrime
_I'm pretty sure the right to bear arms does not give the people the legal
right to violently overthrow the government, which appears to be what you are
suggesting._

If it reaches that point, I don't think we're going to be worrying about what
the current government considers "legal" or not.

------
stanleydrew
In cases like this where the court's hands appear to be tied by a bad law, an
appeal usually reaches the Supreme Court which will rule on the
constitutionality of the law right?

~~~
gee_totes
IMHO, INAL, but I doubt this case will reach the Supreme Court.

If you read the opinion, the 9th circuit court has basically declared that Al-
Haramain has no standing to claim criminal damages against:

a) The US Government

or

b) Officials in the US Government

For this case to move forward, Al-Haramain would have to re-establish his
standing to sue. To re-establish his standing to sue the US government, he
would need to demonstrate in a higher court that the US has in fact waived its
right to Sovereign Immunity (see my other post on this thread). To re-
establish his standing to sue officials, he would have to establish that they
acted maliciously or took some action that made them personally liable, as you
can't really sue an office holder of the government for doing their job.

------
sp332
The senators and representatives we directly voted for passed these laws. We
know who, exactly, wrote and voted for them. And statistically, most of us
will just vote for the same exact people again next time.

------
jobu
How can something be illegal but not punishable?

~~~
gee_totes
Sovereign Immunity, I believe.

I read the whole opinion from the 9th circuit last night because I was shocked
that the 9th circuit (supposedly one of the most liberal) would hand down such
an opinion.

From what I gathered, basically the US can break the law, but the government
cannot be held responsible in the courts. The only people who can be held
responsible are the office holders themselves (Barak Obama, Robert Muller,
etc.). However, in this particular case, the could not be held responsible for
damages related to the surveillance since they were just fulfilling their
duties as officeholders. And the government itself could not be held
responsible, as it had not waived sovereign immunity (a legal principle that
says the state (or king!) can do no wrong).

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_immunity>

~~~
mtgx
Is sovereign immunity a Constitutional right of the Government or something?
Or is it just a law passed a long time ago? Because it sounds like something
the politicians wanted to pass to save themselves when they overreach, rather
than something that was actually done with the citizen's rights and security
in mind.

~~~
molo
It is a matter of judicial law that was inherited via common law of England.
The US government now takes the place of the king -- the 'sovereign'. This has
no place in a democracy, and is not supported by the constitution, in my
opinion.

~~~
ebrenes
I suppose this adds another bullet point to Philip Greenspun's use of "King"
instead of "President" when referring to the sovereign head of the USA.

[http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2009/10/28/is-it-fair-
to-...](http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2009/10/28/is-it-fair-to-refer-to-
barack-obama-as-king-obama/)

------
dreamdu5t
Sad how individual sovereignty has seemingly been forgotten, yet government
sovereignty is unquestioned.

It's only a matter of time before this wiretapping system is hacked/misused
and a torrent of private communication from famous people is released. Things
have yet to get interesting.

