"Catch-22 says they have a right to do anything we can't stop them from doing."
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CNN:
The Supreme Court rejected an effort by a group of attorneys, journalists and others to proceed with a lawsuit over the federal government's sweeping electronic monitoring of foreigners suspected of terrorism or spying.
The 5-4 conservative majority on Tuesday concluded that the plaintiffs lacked "standing" or jurisdiction to proceed, without a specific showing they have been monitored. The National Security Agency has in turn refused to disclose monitoring specifics, which detractors call "Catch-22" logic.
Justice Samuel Alito said plaintiffs "cannot demonstrate that the future injury they purportedly fear is certainly impending."
Purportedly?! What an asshole.
NSA hoovers up everything, and everybody knows it, including the Justices, who whatever else they may be, aren't idiots. What a farce.
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Re: "Catch-22 says they have a right to do anything we can't...
Yes, there's no way to predict that something will happen without having seen it happen already. Chemistry, physics, they're all shams - you only know that hammer will fall when you let it go and it hits your foot.
Some days, there seems to be precious little difference between Supreme Court decisions and theological debates.
Purportedly ...
Samuel Alito is a human being.
The law of "standing" is where the S*** Court has been cutting off the limbs of participatory democracy when it has tried to use law and the courts to bring cases of wide public interest. One of the first nasty "standing" decision was a Nino Scalia special, Lujan, et al. That case was about trying to make the government enforce one of the big environmental laws. The "concrete injury" standard took on a new life in that case and has been doing its duty ever since. E.g., this very case.
"Standing" is used by captured regulators....
... against locals fighting resource extraction all the time. If you're fighting a landfill, you'd better be living right next to the landfill. Of course, in ecological or systemic terms this is a nonsense.
Exactly.
I like "used by captured regulators."