Obama Administration Claims to be Beyond the Reach of the Law in Domestic Espionage

Mike · Jun 2, 2012

Government immunity today is so pernicious in so many ways. Based on the long-outdated concept of rex non potest peccare, it's time to scrap this outdated concept. Whether it's police shootings or domestic spying, it serves only to promote further abuses at the hands of governement.

Wired / ThreatLevel (31 May 2012): Feds Want Warrantless Spying Loss Overturned, Saying the Law Can’t Touch Them

The Obama administration is set to argue to a federal appeals court Friday that the government may breach, with impunity, domestic spying laws adopted in the wake of President Richard M. Nixon’s Watergate scandal.
The case tests whether Americans may seek recourse or monetary damages when a sitting U.S. president bypasses Congress’s ban on warrantless spying on Americans — in this instance when President George W. Bush authorized his secret, warrantless domestic spying program in the aftermath of the September 2001 terror attacks.
A federal judge found in 2010 that two American lawyers’ telephone conversations with their clients in Saudi Arabia in 2004 were siphoned to the National Security Agency without warrants. The allegations were initially based on a classified document the government accidentally mailed to the former al-Haramain Islamic Foundation lawyers.
The document was later declared a state secret, removed from the long-running lawsuit and has never been made public. With that document ruled out as evidence, the lawyers instead cited a bevy of circumstantial evidence that a judge found showed the government illegally wiretapped the lawyers as they spoke on U.S. soil to Saudi Arabia.
Against the government’s objections, San Francisco U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker awarded the two lawyers — Wendell Belew and Asim Ghafoor — $20,400 each in damages and their legal counsel $2.5 million in costs. It marked the first time anyone had prevailed in a lawsuit challenging Bush’s so-called Terrorist Surveillance Program.
The government appealed to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and arguments before a three-judge panel are set to be heard in Pasadena, California, this Friday.
Click to expand...

Wired / ThreatLevel (1 June 2012): Court Wary of Overturning Warrantless Spy Case Victory, But Might Have To

A federal appeals court appeared troubled Friday by the Obama administration’s arguments that the government could break domestic spying laws without fear of being sued — and that the government’s argument might be correct, due to an oversight by Congress.
A two-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard an hour of oral arguments here by the government and a lawyer for two attorneys whom a federal judge concluded had been wiretapped illegally without warrants by the government.
The American attorneys — who were working with the now-defunct al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, were awarded more than $20,000 each in damages and their lawyers $2.5 million in legal fees. They sued under domestic spying laws adopted in the wake of President Richard M. Nixon’s Watergate scandal. The government appealed.
Justice Department attorney Douglas Letter told Judge Michael Daly Hawkins and M. Margaret McKeown, both President Bill Clinton appointees, that they should dismiss the case outright because the government is immune from being sued for breaching the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act under a concept known as sovereign immunity.
“We think the simplest way here is the sovereign immunity argument,” Letter told the panel. He added that the aggrieved lawyers could sue individual government officials. But under that scenario, the government would declare the issue a state secret and effectively foreclose litigation.
Click to expand...

nachtnebel · Jun 3, 2012

If government agencies and individuals put themselves out of reach of the law, then remedies applied to right the situation will likewise occur outside of the law. Think carefully about that one.

Mike · Jun 3, 2012

Are you referring to that pesky 2nd amendment that's there in case we need another revolution?

Lisa Simeone · Jun 4, 2012

Mike said: ↑

Are you referring to that pesky 2nd amendment that's there in case we need another revolution?
Click to expand...

Good luck with that when the government has not only drones and LRAD, but more quantities and types and lethality of weapons than we can even dream of.

Log in or Sign up

Obama Administration Claims to be Beyond the Reach of the Law in Domestic Espionage

Mike Founding Member Coach

nachtnebel Original Member

Mike Founding Member Coach

Lisa Simeone Original Member

Share This Page

Log in or Sign up

Obama Administration Claims to be Beyond the Reach of the Law in Domestic Espionage

Mike Founding Member Coach

nachtnebel Original Member

Mike Founding Member Coach

Lisa Simeone Original Member

Share This Page

Useful Searches