It occurred to me while reading this that reforming the NSA is impossible as long as lawbreakers are in charge. So the NSA should be shut down, obviously, but just as obviously, the scum officials responsible for spying on us ought to be jailed.
If the NSA is breaking the law, shouldn’t NSA bosses – and Obama – be charged?
Comments are closed.
24 Comments.
The articles of the Bill of Rights are not laws.
Laws require penalties for failure to act in observance of them and an enforcement arm to arrest violators.
The Bill of Rights is merely a collection of suggestions, lacking any enforcement arm other than the government itself whose behavior it is intended to limit with respect to the people. There are no limits on government behavior other than those it chooses to impose on itself.
The government, when initiated, once needed the consent of the people, exercising only the rights delegated to it by the people. Those days are gone. The government will now exercise powers never delegated to it and never consented to by the people.
It is kind of a tight, closed positive feedback loop—using engineering terminology—functioning not as sold, but likely as intended.
Count on all laws passed to regulate these excesses of power to continue to function, not as sold, but certainly as intended.
The problem isn’t the lack of penalties. Look at unlawful searches. The penalties are contained right in the Amendment. If a cop goes through your sock drawer and finds 10 kilos of heroin WITHOUT a warrant, the evidence is inadmissible. Boom, there goes what would have been, otherwise, a 1-2-3 case.
The problem is that too many cops are no longer interested in law enforcement. They’re having too much fun giving people a hard time.
That’s the dangerous feedback loop: a few more cops become bullies, a few more people lose respect for the law, a few more people break the law, a few more cops start thinking that everyone’s a criminal (back to beginning of loop).
Wrong Alex,
No arresting officer has ever been counter-arrested, much less convicted, for failing to read Miranda rights.
You did not respond to my assertion in asserting it was wrong. I will assume that was an honest mistake or a symptom of your liberal faith.
Police aren’t even commonly arrested for using excessive violence, shooting, and killing suspects.
Even Miranda rights have been reduced so that when you answer any question you have inadvertently and irrevocably surrendered them.
The penalty of having evidence dismissed is not in the 5th Amendment but in the government’s interpretation as a response to the suggestion posed by that amendment. The implementation of Miranda rights and their dilution are both of recent origin in law, and decided by precedent, not by the amendment itself except where the case is ruled on by a higher court on appeal.
That doesn’t mean shit if the court doesn’t accept the case or if you don’t have deep pockets to represent you.
@ Glenn – “The articles of the Bill of Rights are not laws.”
*
Then what means “The Supreme Law of the Land”?
http://www.linecamp.com/merchants/freedom_documents/commentary_us_constitution/suppreme_law_constitution.html
This is obvious to me, but for those not seeing the logic see The Federalist Papers No, 15 for the opinion of Alexander Hamilton:
“Government implies the power of making laws. It is essential to the idea of a law, that it be attended with a sanction; or, in other words, a penalty or punishment for disobedience. If there be no penalty annexed to disobedience, the resolutions or commands which pretend to be laws will, in fact, amount to nothing more than advice or recommendation. This penalty, whatever it may be, can only be inflicted in two ways: by the agency of the courts and ministers of justice, or by military force; by the COERCION of the magistracy, or by the COERCION of arms. “
When a court declares that the complainant cannot prove “damages” and thus throws a lawsuit out the window, what recourse is then available?
Constitutional Amendments makes new legislation constitutional. They give permission to enact laws or remove laws to comply with the post-amendment constitution.
Article 15 required was enacted in 1870 and legislation to enforce did not come until the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
FDR packed the Supreme Court because he knew the National Recovery Act would require an amendment and legislation not likely to happen in time to lessen the impact of the depression.
There’s an inconvenient truth (ooh, good phrase, I’ll have to remember it) here though:
The NSA actually does necessary work for the security of the country. The problem is that the current leadership of the NSA isn’t interested in that work. They’re too busy peeking into everyone’s bedrooms and copying every single e-mail and so forth.
But how do you get rid of them? If you arrest the leadership, where do you stop? All the effective leaders were in on it. You can’t lobotomize an organization and expect it to do precision work ever again. The whole place is rotten. You can’t amputate a finger on this one. You’ll have to take the whole arm. Whatever you replace it with will not be as effective as the original.
Quite right, the system is the problem.
Exactly, Ted – But where are the people who would initiate charges against them and follow through?
A climate has been created where most people are too scared of backlash to the point that no one does anything except type like crazy and hope that their posts can reach a sane mind.
This is obvious to me, but for those not seeing the logic see The Federalist Papers No, 15 for the opinion of Alexander Hamilton:
“Government implies the power of making laws. It is essential to the idea of a law, that it be attended with a sanction; or, in other words, a penalty or punishment for disobedience. If there be no penalty annexed to disobedience, the resolutions or commands which pretend to be laws will, in fact, amount to nothing more than advice or recommendation. This penalty, whatever it may be, can only be inflicted in two ways: by the agency of the courts and ministers of justice, or by military force; by the COERCION of the magistracy, or by the COERCION of arms. “
This was to be a response to derlehrer. This post can be deleted.
When a court declares that the complainant cannot prove “damages” and thus throws a lawsuit out the window, what recourse is then available?
Fed. PPrs, no. 46 Madison, has a suggestion. He says one must be delusional to believe that the government could get so powerful that it would no longer be accountable to the people. He says we kicked British ass and will do the same to legislative traitors.
Too late for that. the government would kill us like an elephant crushing an ant hill.
“Let a regular army, fully equal to the resources of the country, be formed; and let it be entirely at the devotion of the federal government; still it would not be going too far to say, that the State governments, with the people on their side, would be able to repel the danger. The highest number to which, according to the best computation, a standing army can be carried in any country, does not exceed one hundredth part of the whole number of souls; or one twenty-fifth part of the number able to bear arms. This proportion would not yield, in the United States, an army of more than twenty-five or thirty thousand men. To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties, and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence. It may well be doubted, whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops. Those who are best acquainted with the last successful resistance of this country against the British arms, will be most inclined to deny the possibility of it. Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of.”
Glenn,
Let me try again then. First, your notion that the Bill of Rights aren’t laws is ridiculous.
“Laws require penalties for failure to act in observance of them and an enforcement arm to arrest violators.”
The penalty is, in the case of the cop who searches your house without a warrant, that his case is thrown out of court. (At least, that’s the intent. Just like it’s the intent of every airplane to land in one piece.)
The enforcement arm in such a case is the court: “Well, even though you were caught with an apartment crammed full of child porn, Mr. Molesto, since there was no warrant, the case is dismissed.” Dismissal IS enforcement.
The problem we, the People, face now is that the cops cheat. They plant evidence. They lie on the stand. They coerce and threaten witnesses (some of whom weren’t even in the room at the time). The judges also are in on it. As are the prosecutors. The public defenders are so overworked, that it’s appalling.
And why does the system continue to spiral out of control? Easy: all the newspapers are too busy trying to be “relevant” by hiring social media consultants. Ah, for the days when the alt-press would ruin some politicians’ lives …
@ alex_the_tired –
Thank you for that. I had reached the end of my rope and given up on trying to reason with the unreasonable. You did a good job here
I remember when the “throw-down” was the norm and was used in court to justify murder as “self-defense.” It is appalling what the authorities are allowed to do “in the name of the law,” even today.
A warning ticket is a warning that future violations will be punished in accordance with Alexander Hamilton’s definition of law.
My example of ten miles over the limit does not result in a punishment. Had other drivers called out to you to slow down I doubt it would have had the effect of being told by someone who could bring punishment to you under law.
Social disapproval does not constitute punishment although it can deter anti-social behavior. Slavery was not ended by calling attention to its depravity, the limits of social disapproval apparent here.
Someone who pours their coffee, to warm it up, back into the pot that everyone else pours theirs from is not illegal, but will meet with social disapproval that will tend to discourage that behavior.
(This is an example that actually occurred in an engineering department I worked in and witnessed.)
Non-sequitur.
Both alex_the_tired and I disagree with your notion that the Bill of Rights are not laws and find that to be ridiculous. That’s all.
BTW, your reference to “pulled over” was the injection of the “authority”: it didn’t originate with me. I find your various arguments to be inconsistent.
Your argument is crap if you have to start with, “You’re ridiculous.”
So if I was driving ten miles an hour above the speed limit, was pulled over and told not to speed anymore, then let go, that would be a punishment for breaking the law by your standard, even if the same thing occurred every hour for the next ten hours.
And yet if a figure of authority does that very same thing it is called a punishment by you.
I understand how the authoritarian mindset accepts different standards for different classes of people.
But I can’t imagine how your interpretation of the law could comport with Alexander Hamilton’s.
There have been lies told to the public, such as the WMD justification for war in Iraq and no punishment for that crime, and drone attacks with no punishment, the Church commission investigation for domestic spying, and no punishment and repeat offenses.
The system doesn’t work but you can’t see it as the problem.
Our relative positions are incommensurable.
@ Glenn –
alex_the_tired did NOT say: “You’re ridiculous.” He said your notion is ridiculous. Even if he had said that, you’ve out-gunned him with: “Your argument is crap….”
With regard to your attempt to analogize what he stated with the 10-miles-over-the-speed-limit argument, I find that you accurately interpreted his position. Surely, you’ve heard of a warning ticket, right? It worked for me.
.
That is not to say that those who perpetrated the fraud and economic abuses should get off with a warning; but to state that the Bill of Rights are not laws is (to borrow a phrase from you) “is crap.”
.
MERRY CHRISTMAS! 🙂
I got a little side-tracked with that last post and failed to address the NSA abuses (because I had just left a discussion of the bonuses that Wall Street executives are receiving), but the same thing applies.
.
HAPPY NEW YEAR! 🙂
Notwithstanding Alexander Hamilton’s definition of law, the Amendments to the constitution permit legislation to be enacted, and that legislation may or may not be enacted, and there may or may not be a punishment of certain acts that are contrary to such as the Fourth Amendment.
Given the above it is very unlikely that the government will take any action that will impede the government’s own acts contrary to the Amendments.
If the government does not write laws to limit its activities it will continue with these activities contrary to the Amendments, because without a penalty paid by individuals who act contrary to the Amendments there are no laws that they must consider as more than merely advice.
So count on the rampant violations of so called rights to continue despite legislation or the lack thereof.
Welcome to the Unitary State of America. Hail to the Unitary Executive.
All-in-all I believe we are on the same wave-length. If the Executive doesn’t do his job, if the Legislature refuses to pass meaningful laws, and if the Judiciary doesn’t enforce those laws that exist, what recourse do citizens have? (This is what I meant with my post on December 21, 2013 at 5:52 PM that said:
When a court declares that the complainant cannot prove “damages” and thus throws a lawsuit out the window, what recourse is then available?
I was referring to a lawsuit in California [I believe] that was dismissed because the plaintiff couldn’t prove damages caused by the illegal surveillance.)
.
Apparently, the only recourse is revolution or to gather enough numbers to impeach the bastards – all of them.
.
HAPPY HOLIDAYS! 🙂