Supreme Court Declines to Hear (Early) Constitutional Challenge to NSA Bulk Collection

[Hissyspit]

Source: NBC News / AP

@BreakingNews: Supreme Court declines to hear constitutional challenge to the NSA's bulk collection of millions of Americans' telephone records - @AP

COURT REJECTS EARLY APPEAL OF SURVEILLANCE RULING

Apr. 7, 2014 9:53 AM EDT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has declined an early look at a constitutional challenge to the National Security Agency's bulk collection of millions of Americans' telephone records.

Conservative lawyer Larry Klayman persuaded a federal judge in December to rule that the agency's activities likely violate the Constitution's ban on unreasonable searches. The justices on Monday rejected Klayman's unusual request to bypass the traditional appeals process and hear the case immediately.

Klayman says the case is too important to wait for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to reach a decision. The district court judge granted an injunction against the NSA, but put it on hold pending a government appeal.

The Obama administration has defended the NSA program as a crucial tool against terrorism.

Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/court-rejects-early-appeal-surveillance-ruling

[ck4829]

1. Maybe someone needs to staple a thing about unlimited campaign contributions on it

[blackspade]

2. Of course they declined

We can't have light shining on the vampires of government.

[COLGATE4]

3. Hasn't this asshole Klayman

been disbarred yet?

[Octafish]

4. Terrorism = Democracy

Anyone who opposes the government is now a terrorist. We used to be called the "loyal opposition," a term as quaint as the Constitution itself in the minds of today's terror fighting secret government.

[reACTIONary]

6. What? Because the SCOTUS...

... want's it to go through the normal appeal procedure? What's so tyrannical about that?

[Octafish]

7. Don't know about you, but I believe SCOTUS, by its rulings alone, is tyrannical.

The majority wants to get the perfect case in order to side with the secret state, making the secret government's illegal domestic spying A-OK. So far in their rulings, they've sided consistently with the national security apparatus, the corporations it serves and the rights of billionaires and multimillionaires over whistleblowers, honest government types, transparency and the People.

Consider how John Roberts' meteoric rise:

Know your BFEE: John Roberts earned his Sgt. Pepper stripes as an Iran-Contra cover-up artiste.



The smarmy “Justice” John Roberts wasn’t around for the 5-4 decision that installed pretzeldent Junior George W Bush 43 into the Oval Office. The vote-suppressor supreme “Justice” William Rehnquist was at the top of that legal heap back in 2001.

But, if it wasn’t for young John Roberts workin’ his legal magic ‘n’ all back in 1986, it’s quite possible there never would have been a President Poppy George Herbert Walker Bush 41 in the first place.

The reason: John Roberts helped keep Pruneface Ronald Reagan from being impeached and the secret government arms-for-hostages Boland Amendment runaround ringleader Poppy Bush out of prison during Iran-Contra.

JR lawyered iran contra

The Smoking Gun: John Roberts "Lawyered" the Iran-Contra Scandal

Bob Fertik
Democrats.com
August 25, 2005

EXCERPT...

One file withheld, regarding the Iran-contra affair, was a draft memo from Roberts to his bosses with the heading "re: establishment of NHAO" -- referring to the Nicaraguan Humanitarian Assistance Office.

The office was one of the ways the Reagan administration got around what were known as the Boland amendments, which prohibited U.S. intelligence agencies from spending money to overthrow the Sandinistas. The office was a way the administration could get funds to the contras for nonmilitary purposes, but once there the money was used for all sorts of things.

In other words, John Roberts "lawyered" the Iran-Contra Scandal - one of the worst scandals in American history.

Now we know why Karl Rove is scrubbing Roberts' files!!!

CONTINUED…

http://www.democrats.com/roberts-iran-contra

Why does that matter? Well, Iran-Contra was treason of the highest order. Not only did the Executive circumvent Congress in carrying out its various warmongering treasons in the name of fighting godless communism, they were trading arms with the terrorists who had killed 240 United States Marines, 18 Navy and 3 Army personnel at the Beirut airport in 1983.

Firewall: Inside the Iran-Contra Cover-up

By Robert Parry
1995

EXCERPT…

Those combined interests likely will lead to very few favorable reviews of a new book by a man who put himself in the way of that cover-up -- Iran-contra independent counsel Lawrence Walsh. In a remarkable new book, Firewall: The Iran-Contra Conspiracy and Cover-up, Walsh details his six-year battle to break through the "firewall" that White House officials built around President Reagan and Vice President Bush after the Iran-contra scandal exploded in November 1986.

For Walsh, a lifelong Republican who shared the foreign policy views of the Reagan administration, the Iran-contra experience was a life-changing one, as his investigation penetrated one wall of lies only to be confronted with another and another -- and not just lies from Oliver North and his cohorts but lies from nearly every senior administration official who spoke with investigators.

According to Firewall, the cover-up conspiracy took formal shape at a meeting of Reagan and his top advisers in the Situation Room at the White House on Nov. 24, 1986. The meeting's principal point of concern was how to handle the troublesome fact that Reagan had approved illegal arms sales to Iran in fall 1985, before any covert-action finding had been signed. The act was a clear felony -- a violation of the Arms Export Control Act -- and possibly an impeachable offense.

SNIP…

&quot White House chief of staff Don) Regan, who had heard McFarlane inform the president and who had heard the president admit to Shultz that he knew of the shipment of Hawk (anti-aircraft) missiles, said nothing. Shultz and (Defense Secretary Caspar) Weinberger, who had protested the shipment before it took place, said nothing. (Vice President George) Bush, who had been told of the shipment in advance by McFarlane, said nothing. Casey, who (had) requested that the president sign the retroactive finding to authorize the CIA-facilitated delivery, said nothing. (NSC adviser John) Poindexter, who had torn up the finding, said nothing. Meese asked whether anyone knew anything else that hadn't been revealed. No one spoke."

CONTINUED…

http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/story34.html

These are no mere gangsters. They are mass murderers dealing with mass murderers to advance their aims. And John Roberts let them get away with their corruptions and treasons.

Roberts & the 'Apex of Presidential Power'

By Nat Parry
September 6, 2005

EXCERPT...

In the 1980s, Roberts also provided legal advice to the Reagan administration on how to pick its way around the legal obstacles erected by Congress to limit military and other assistance to the Nicaraguan contra rebels who were fighting to overthrow Nicaragua’s leftist Sandinista government.

SNIP…

Conflict of Interest

Regarding the Hamdan case, Roberts also saw no impropriety in his simultaneous interviewing with senior administration officials for a life-time job on the Supreme Court and his judging of a case in which Bush was a defendant.

On April 1, Roberts was interviewed by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who had formulated many of the arguments for the “apex of presidential power,” including Bush’s right to override anti-torture laws.

Other interviews with Roberts were conducted by Vice President Dick Cheney; White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card; White House legal counsel Harriet Miers; Bush’s chief political strategist Karl Rove; and Cheney’s chief of staff Lewis Libby.

CONTINUED…

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2005/090605.html

Oh yeah. "No Poppy" means no one to appoint Associate Just-Us Tony the Fixer Scalia to the court in 1986. And everybody knows, Fangu Tony was da brains behind the 5-4 fiasco...uh ah uh, assisted by the lawyerly John Roberts, of course.

Roberts Gave GOP Advice in 2000 Recount

John G. Roberts, President Bush's nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, played a role in the chaotic, 36-day period following the disputed 2000 presidential election.

by Gary Fineout and Mary Ellen Klas
Published on Thursday, July 21, 2005 by the Miami Herald

TALLAHASSEE -- U.S. Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts provided legal advice to Gov. Jeb Bush in the weeks following the November 2000 election as part of the effort to make sure the governor's brother won the disputed presidential vote.

Roberts, at the time a private attorney in Washington, D.C., came to Tallahassee to advise the state's Republican administration as it was trying to prevent a Democratic end-run that the GOP feared might give the election to Al Gore, sources told The Herald.

SNIP...

U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, a Boca Raton Democrat, seized on Roberts' participation in the 2000 recount and suggested it should be grounds for rejecting his nomination. Wexler suggested the nomination ``threw salt on the wounds of the thousands of Floridians whose voting rights were disenfranchised during the 2000 election.

''Judge Roberts worked to ensure that George Bush would become president -- regardless of what the courts might decide,'' Wexler said, relying on news accounts that suggested Roberts gave the governor advice on how the state Legislature could name Bush the winner. ``And now he is being rewarded for that partisan service by being appointed to the nation's highest court.''

CONTINUED...

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0721-07.htm

Small world. And very, very bad.

The Lost Opportunity of Iran-Contra

Special Report: A quarter century ago with the breaking of the Iran-Contra scandal, the United States had a chance to step back from its march toward Empire and to demand accountability for White House crimes. But instead a powerful cover-up prevailed, reports Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry
ConsortiumNews
December 1, 2011

EXCERPT...

Walsh finally relented and agreed to shut down his investigation, meaning that one of the key lessons derived from Iran-Contra was that a determined cover-up of a national security scandal, backed by a powerful media apparatus and aggressive political allies, can work.

In the early 1990s when I interviewed the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s longtime Democratic chief counsel Spencer Oliver, he put Iran-Contra in exactly that historical place, as the polar opposite of Watergate when Richard Nixon’s abuses of power had real consequences, including Nixon’s forced resignation and prison terms for many of his subordinates.

“What [the Republicans] learned from Watergate,” Oliver said, “was not ‘don’t do it,’ but ‘cover it up more effectively.’ They have learned that they have to frustrate congressional oversight and press scrutiny in a way that will avoid another major scandal.”

The consequences of the failed Iran-Contra investigations have been long-lasting and profound. Not only did George H.W. Bush manage to get elected president in 1988 under the false claim that he had been “out of the loop” on the scandal, but the failure to hold him accountable in 1993 opened the door to the White House eight years later for his son, George W. Bush.

George W. Bush’s imperial presidency (and its costly “war on terror”) would have been virtually unthinkable if the full truth had been known about George H.W. Bush regarding Iran-Contra. Nor would it have been likely that the Republicans could have succeeded in elevating Ronald Reagan to his present iconic status.

CONTINUED...

http://consortiumnews.com/2011/12/01/the-lost-opportunity-of-iran-contra/

For all that, dealing with terrorists and going around the Congressional ban on dealing death on innocent people in Nicaragua, they all belong in the slammer for life. Instead, John Roberts gets to head the nation’s highest court in the land for life. That, too, should seem tyrannical.

[former9thward]

5. Their refusal to hear the case does not mean much.

The Court likes to see cases developed. That means they want the Court of Appeals for DC to make a decision. Then there will be a much better chance they will hear the case.