(Not that it's all that important. Heck, it's only the FOURTH Amendment, right? - promoted by Paul Rosenberg)
In the last few years there has been a steady erosion of 4th Amendment protections. Now in addition to chipping way at it through judicial rulings there appears to be a movement to weaken its very concept.
Last week the Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on the privacy of cell phone records. It seems at best a mixed bag; while the ACLU was largely happy with it, Electronic Frontier Foundation attorney Kevin Bankston noted the decision "made clear that under some circumstances the privacy of such data could be constitutionally protected, and that judges have the discretion to require a warrant to avoid potentially unconstitutional seizures of location data." Qualifications like "under some circumstances," "could be" and "have the discretion" highlight the conditional nature of the ruling. A sympathetic judge can allow these records to be exposed without a warrant, and that is hardly a victory for civil libertarians.
This is consistent with a mostly unbroken trend towards intrusive government and an increasingly claustrophobic sphere of privacy. Consider the wholesale collection of internet traffic in order to engage in warrantless wiretapping, heavy handed search procedures at borders and use of satellite imagery to keep tabs on people's private spaces. (See the description of the Z Backscatter Van at the last link for another potentially troubling development.) Whether through old fashioned encroachment or new technology, the change is unmistakable.
For more on pruning back executive power see Pruning Shears.
Recent actions by the Department of Justice in the case of a Guatánamo detainee are more suited for the Queen of Hearts than a court of law, and the most plausible explanations are corruption or incompetence.
For more on pruning back executive power see Pruning Shears.
The damage done by the Bush administration to the rule of law occurred over a few years - relatively quickly in legal terms. Repairing it will be a much longer task, as repairing always is.
For more on pruning back executive power see Pruning Shears.
A rumored special prosecutor to investigate those directly involved in allegations of torture prompted sharply different reactions among those who have largely been in agreement on the issue to this point. The question: Would it be little more than a whitewash or the first step in a fuller accounting?
For more on pruning back executive power see Pruning Shears.
A recent court filing by the White House caused at least one reporter to remark on its curiously off-topic conclusion. The goal of it may have more to do with pending legislation than the case in question, however.
For more on pruning back executive power see Pruning Shears.
A recent Supreme Court ruling illustrates yet again the dangers of ever-expanding the power of the president. Perhaps even more troubling, partisans on both sides continue to be largely silent about it.
For more on pruning back executive power see Pruning Shears.
The former vice president would rather we not know what he said in a voluntary interview with a special prosecutor. But he kept it out of the legal system to suit his purposes at the time, and the inconvenience of that fact now is not enough to justify preventing its release.
For more on pruning back executive power see Pruning Shears.
Proponents of the Bush administration's antiterror policies argued for vast and unchecked new powers for the president. Recent events may give them reason to question the wisdom of such absolute grants of authority.
For more on pruning back executive power see Pruning Shears.
The president has gotten considerably closer to some on the right who until recently may have been supposed to be among his strongest critics. There are some possible explanations for this, but from a progressive standpoint no satisfactory answers.
For more on pruning back executive power see Pruning Shears.
(Here's the logic coming at us that Hannah is warning about: Because Democrats didn't rubber stamp ALL of Bush's judicial nominees, Republicans are justified in filibustering ALL of Obama's nominees. But knowing that logic is just the beginning of being prepared to fight it. - promoted by Paul Rosenberg)
Conservatives have spent much of the last eight years viciously attacking progressive Senators for mounting mostly unsuccessful filibusters against a handful of the most problematic Bush nominees to the federal bench. That was then, this is now.
In a turnabout startling event in the topsy-turvy world of judicial nomination politics, prominent conservatives have already started to threaten filibusters against President Obama's judicial nominees before Obama has nominated a single judge. In Boston recently, former Whitewater prosecutor and Bush I Solicitor General Ken Starr quoted Senate Republican sources for the proposition that a filibuster (denial of an up-or-down vote) is appropriate treatment for Obama nominees because Obama joined in attempted Senate filibusters of Bush nominees. Specifically, Starr noted that Senate Republicans have said that Obama's "voting record and long simmering resentments over Democrats' treatment of President Bush's nominees will leave Mr. Obama hard-pressed to call for bipartisan help confirming judges or even an up-or-down vote."
Never mind the fact that the Supreme Court nominee Obama attempted to help filibuster (Samuel Alito) had a disturbing record and was confirmed anyway, and that Senate Republicans during the Bush Administration criticized the use of filibusters and threatened to change the rules of the Senate to prevent them. Never mind, also, that the constitutional role of the Senate is to provide "advice and consent" -- and not "categorically reject" - the president's judicial nominees, something that President Obama certainly understands as both a former constitutional law professor and a former U.S. Senator who refused to join several filibuster attempts and voted to confirm the vast majority of Bush's nominees.
Barack Obama has already made a handful of decisions that have proved controversial among progressives. Some of his supporters have apparently taken criticism to be a personal attack against him, but some recent events show how the office he holds has become dangerously aggrandized.
For more on pruning back executive power see Pruning Shears.
A decision by the Obama administration has provoked criticism from civil and human rights groups, but much of it is based on a frame of reference left over from the Bush years. As long as that continues so will the controversies.
For more on pruning back executive power see Pruning Shears.
Our extranational shadow justice experiment has been a failure on virtually every level. The clear response would seem to be closing it, but circumstances inside the Beltway may trump the obvious.
For more on pruning back executive power see Pruning Shears.
A court ruling this week put new pressure on the administration to release seventeen noncombatatants held at Guantánamo. Their plight, and that of others similarly held, hint at the magnitude of the injustice there - and suggests why those responsible for it are so eager to keep them locked away.
For more on pruning back executive power see Pruning Shears.
