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The left oppose the notion of originalism. E.g. Roe v Wade decided people had always had a right to abortion because of an invented 'right to privacy'.

Nope, the right to privacy was not invented, it's natural.

The SCOTUS ruling on gay marriage was based on the notion that it was an inevitable consequence of Due Process under the 14th Amendment.

The SCOTUS ruling on gay marriage was actually based on the pattern of discrimination that had been demonstrated by the opponents of same-sex marriage.

Even though the people who wrote the original documents didn't believe in a right to abortion or a right to gay marriage.

They're dead. How exactly do you know what they'd believe, and why should we care anyway? Did I miss some declaration where we subsumed ourselves to their eternal dictatorship from beyond the grave?

Judicial activism is always about allowing your political views to alter the way you read the law. It's a sort of 'ends justifies the means' approach to law. If you agree with the ends, then the means
- twisting or inverting the meaning of the actual words in the law or inventing new rights that aren't actually there - doesn't matter.

That's actually original-ism, as found in numerous instances.

This is in of itself a good reason to distrust the US left. E.g. look at the gay marriage case. Both Obama and Clinton run on a platform of opposing it, but Obama set up a case which would legalise it and then celebrated. Even if left wing politicians say they won't do something, they may appoint judges who will twist the law to do it and then celebrate the result.

Both Clinton and Obama were wrong to take the cowardly position they did on same-sex marriage, and were roundly condemned for it, they set back civil rights for over a decade.

Now I'm not all that fussed about gay marriage. However even there you can see that the left will use it as a cudgel to beat the right - e.g. Christian bakers will be asked to bake a "I support gay marriage cake" and sued if they refuse.

Actually, it's the right that's upset that they can't get Confederate Cakes.

By the way if Gorsuch ruled in a way that you didn't like would you say "Well he's just interpreting the law. You can't say he's allowing his political beliefs to get in the way"? I'm guessing not, because he's an originalist and not a believer that the role of a judge is to invent new rights. if someone's political views explicitly include a different method of how to interpret law - e.g. 'Improving rights' vs 'Originalism' then those political views obviously alter how they'd rule when they were a judge.

That's because Gorsuch would allow his political beliefs to get in the way.

Look at the SC

It already is.

http://www.acslaw.org/acsblog/...

Congress, who is actually in charge of passing laws, says, "Hey, wait a minute. Shouldn't we have looked at this first?"

You mean the same Congress that delegated power to the agency in question to make just these sort of rules??? If Congress wants to pass new legislation to revoke that authority (or the budget of the agency under the Executive), it is free to do so - but that does nothing to change the fact that Congress approved it in the first place. You can find similar examples on everything from pot to DADT.

Indeed. This law already has been abused. 'Limited National Security Letter' usage? abused

Wikipedia is full of it in this case. The AUMF meets the constitutional requirements of declaration of war.

See:

http://www.acslaw.org/pdf/enemycombatants.pdf

New York's court of appeals has already determined that GPS tracking by law enforcement is illegal without a warrant. Since the powers of cops are a superset of the powers of an individual, this case should be a slam dunk for the plaintiff.

Unfortunately, federal courts have disagreed. In particular, the 7th Circuit Court of appeals ruled in United States vs. Garcia (Case no. 06-2741), that police don't need a warrant to attach a GPS device to a suspects car.

New York's court of appeals has already determined that GPS tracking by law enforcement is illegal without a warrant. Since the powers of cops are a superset of the powers of an individual, this case should be a slam dunk for the plaintiff.

"ACTA is being implemented in the U.S. as a sole executive agreement, and not a treaty of a congressional-executive agreement that would require legislative debate, consent, or approval."

The difference is that there is some hope that Holder will maintain some level of independence from Obama. Gonzalez viewed himself as the president's lawyer which is absolutely not the role of the attorney general. Holder's career, such as it is, has been made without help from Obama. He's not a longtime friend and employee who feels a personal desire to further Obama's career thereby furthering his own. Gonzalez' DOJ was in the habit of issuing legal opinions basically on demand to shield members of the Bush administration behind the defense "I'm not a lawyer, I acted with advice from counsel that *insert bullshit here* was legal."

Here is a speech by Holder on the rule of law given in June of this year.

I'm opposed to censorship and in favor of academic freedom. So I do object to Holder on that basis, and agree with you that people pinning their highest hopes on Obama will be disappointed. Me, I was just voting against McCain.

The right to vote, for one.

Voting has always been an exceptional case. The "exception that proves the rule", even. Voting has never been and still is not a universal right even among citizens. Originally, full suffrage was accorded only to white, male landowners. Today we often say we have universal suffrage, but convicted felons can't vote.

It's also worth pointing out that some people do think that non-citizens should be able to vote, and that we're hypocritical for denying them the vote.

Read this. It's the first thing I Googled. It's a PDF, but informative.

I read it, and it's interesting, but it doesn't really refute my point. I think it mostly tends to support my point.

What I took from it were a couple of key observations. First, when it comes to issues related to border security, the courts are allowing significant infringement of constitutional rights, but that the infringement applies equally to citizens and non-citizens. Second, the only area of the law in which non-citizens are not accorded full constitutional protection is immigration law -- an area that obviously doesn't apply to citizens, so it's impossible to compare the rights accorded to citizens and non-citizens.

The only issue raised that I hadn't considered at all was the question of whether non-citizens can serve as jurors. The answer was that it probably varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

The right to vote, for one.

Read this. It's the first thing I Googled. It's a PDF, but informative.