Parts of the Patriot Act Ruled Unconstitutional

BlueBlade writes "According to this CBS story, a federal judge ruled Wednesday that two provisions of the USA Patriot Act are unconstitutional because they allow search warrants to be issued without a showing of probable cause."

Comments

Re:And tonight's top story....

[rolfwind]

It has nothing to do with being a liberal. A lot of republicans voted for it and a lot of democrats did too. Hell, media darlings Hillary Clinton voted for it twice (original and renewal) and Barack Obama voted for the renewal of it.

The patriot act is just unconstitutional. Watch this video for a better understanding for where the country is heading (skip into 2:35 of the first video):
Part 1:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=t8QwTKKSvR8
Part 2:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=GXzUL9KkgvA
Part 3:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=35yhSifZ5jI
Part 4:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=fRukPp9Tq5k

Profile:
http://youtube.com/user/FutureFreedomF

Re:Useless Victory

[Elemenope]

So cynical...while it has limited utility, the decision is not useless. Police tend to use surveillance techniques and police procedures which procure evidence that can be used to obtain a conviction; if the Act is unconstitutional, evidence obtained under its provisions is inadmissible in court. Knowing that, police agencies will be less likely to use powers in accord with those provisions, since anything that they gather using it will be useless in a court of law.

Yes I know police do go off the rails--"Don't taze me, bro!"--but at least a ruling of this sort curbs one of the worst abuses that can emanate from inappropriate police investigative conduct, namely convictions in a court of law.

Re:And this took how long?

[DoofusOfDeath]

If the PATRIOT Act is in conflict with the Constitution, then it is unpatriotic, just like the Members of Congress who voted it in and the President who signed the bill.

Agreed. They were so afraid of getting attacked that they ignored the constitution they swore to uphold. So they are, specifically: cowards, traitors, and oath-breakers.

Re:And this took how long?

[Lloyd_Bryant]

I was asking myself the same question (parent of this parent as well), why did it take several years for something that was so much of a blatant violation of the Bill of Rights be removed? Does it actually take a challenge (ie lawsuit) for a court to overturn anti-constitutional laws? Yes. A judge cannot, on his own initiative, declare a law unconstitutional. There first must be a legitimate challenge to the law made by someone. And people can't simply file a suit to challenge *any* law - they must be able to show that they "have standing", which basically means they can show that the law in question has negatively affected them in some fashion.

You can go back even farther, how in the world did Congress ever allow this bill to become law anyway? It was simply 9/11 madness. If enough people can be sufficiently frightened, then just about *any* law can be ramrodded through Congress. It's one of the great weaknesses in the whole democratic concept, and one of the major reasons that the Founding Fathers put all those checks-and-balances into the Constitution.

Re:And this took how long?

[Daniel_Staal]

I was asking myself the same question (parent of this parent as well), why did it take several years for something that was so much of a blatant violation of the Bill of Rights be removed? Does it actually take a challenge (ie lawsuit) for a court to overturn anti-constitutional laws? Yes. In theory you could pass another law which says the old law is invalid, but in practice nearly any law will stand until challenged in court. Congress, like any other body of people, rarely wants to admit it was wrong.

You can go back even farther, how in the world did Congress ever allow this bill to become law anyway? Oh, did it ride on the coattails of another bill that was a sure-in to be signed? As much as I hate that practice, that is not relevant in this case: the PATRIOT act was it's own bill, and it was a sure-in to be signed. It was the immedeate, paniced, reaction to the 9/11 attacks. People wanted Congress to do something anything to make them 'safe' again. Unfortunately in the panic, the bill that was presented made us less safe, not more. But it sounded like it made people safe, so that was enough.

Re:Obama did NOT vote for the war.

[quanticle]

If you look at his voting record, you'll see that his record on supporting the war is mixed at best, and that he has supported the Patriot Act's reauthorization.

He's bigoted against gay folks.

[Grendel Drago]

He cited the Bible in a court decision which declared gay couples "presumptively unfit to have custody of minor children", and referred to gay sex as an "inherent evil and an act so heinous that it defies one's ability to describe it". That smacks of bigotry to me, but perhaps you have another interpretation.

Get your dates right.

[Grendel Drago]

The Bill of Rights was drafted by Madison in 1789. The French Revolution began that year, but the Reign of Terror didn't start until 1793. It seems a little odd that Jefferson could have foreseen how the Revolution overseas would turn out and been influenced to push for a Bill of Rights because of it, rather than arguments which had begun well before the French stormed the Bastille.

Re:And this took how long?

[Dausha]

"T. Jefferson saw the French Revolution supposed to be a copy of our own revolution going seriously wrong. He built this to prevent terror by the state."

1. Bill of Rights---1789 (drafted by Madison).[1]
2. French Revolution's Reign of Terror---1792.[2]
3. Jefferson's role in the Constitution---None, he was in France. [3]

Based on the three facts above, I don't see how your statement stands. The Bill of Rights was not to prevent terrorism, but to prevent the Federal government from becoming bloated and repressive. The Courts have misconstrued the 14th Amendment to allow leveraging the BoR against states as well.[4]

The Bill of Rights states that searches cannot be _unreasonable_, which the Courts have defined. You can be searched in airports by federal officers (TSA) when traveling because the extreme risk of a bomb makes searching everybody reasonable. Allowing another 9/11 carries a high risk; which makes an otherwise unreasonable search _more_ reasonable. Probable cause twists with the risk of not searching.

This is also a Federal District judge making a ruling. There will likely be an appeal to the 9th Circuit and perhaps also to SCOTUS. This is only a shot across the bow of the PATRIOT Act.

----
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Bill_of_Rights ("[The Bill of Rights were initially] drafted by James Madison in 1789...")
[2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_revolution (The Revolution began in 1789)
[3]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_jefferson ("Because Jefferson served as minister to France from 1785 to 1789, he was not able to attend the Constitutional Convention. He generally supported the new constitution despite the lack of a Bill of Rights...")
[4] Amend XIV, Sec. 5 gives Congress sole enforcement authority. (http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.amendmentxiv.html). However, SCOTUS and the state courts have applied it. This is itself unconstitutional in light of Section 5.