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US Gov't Can't Be Sued For Warrantless Wiretapping
Wired has an article about a ruling from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals saying the government can't be sued over intercepting phone calls without a warrant. The decision (PDF) vacated an earlier ruling which allowed a case to be brought against the government. The plaintiffs in the case argued that the government had implicitly waived sovereign immunity, but today's ruling points out that it can only be waived explicitly. Judge McKeown wrote, "This case effectively brings to an end the plaintiffs’ ongoing attempts to hold the Executive Branch responsible for intercepting telephone conversations without judicial authorization." The ruling does, however, take time to knock down the government's claim that the case was brought frivolously: "In light of the complex, ever-evolving nature of this litigation, and considering the significant infringement on individual liberties that would occur if the Executive Branch were to disregard congressionally-mandated procedures for obtaining judicial authorization of international wiretaps, the charge of 'game-playing' lobbed by the government is as careless as it is inaccurate. Throughout, the plaintiffs have proposed ways of advancing their lawsuit without jeopardizing national security, ultimately going so far as to disclaim any reliance whatsoever on the Sealed Document. That their suit has ultimately failed does not in any way call into question the integrity with which they pursued it."
If a crime lacks consequences, is it still illegal? There's no longer remedy available through criminal prosecution or civil suit.
I'm sure they have to justify their action to their corporate owners come next election.
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Oh, wait a minute. He left office almost 4 years ago....
Doesn't matter - he's the one who made it law, so you're perfectly justified in taking him to task for it.
Just like how anyone blaming Obama for his failure* to not only abolish said unconstitutional laws, but expand upon them, is equally justified.
* failure to us. I'm sure the corporate masters who really run this nation consider it a rousing success.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
There is no law, except as a rhetoric for justifying power.
You are not a citizen - but merely a subject.
It is 1164 AD - with Nike shoes and a Prius on the curb.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
For decades we have held that phone calls are private communications that require a warrant to intercept per the 4th Amendment. The Federal Government isn't arguing that they haven't violated the 4th. They're arguing that they're immune from any legal attempts to hold them accountable for violating the 4th.
That's terrifying. It's so bad it makes me think I've wandered into tin foil hat territory, until I read the article:
The San Francisco-based appeals court ruled that when Congress wrote the law regulating eavesdropping on Americans and spies, it never waived sovereign immunity in the section prohibiting targeting Americans without warrants. That means Congress did not allow for aggrieved Americans to sue the government, even if their constitutional rights were violated by the United States breaching its own wiretapping laws.
That's Terry Gilliam "Brazil" logic, right there. The government is literally arguing they're violating the 4th Amendment, but that no one has the authority to hold them accountable. Literally, that the King is above the law. This ruling is so bad that not only does it violate the Bill of Rights, it violates the Magna Carta.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
This ruling is proof that the government is in fact above the law. The constitution means dick if you can't get the courts to enforce it.
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Lawyer here. There is nothing at all new about the doctrine of sovereign immunity. It goes back hundreds and hundreds of years. As a U.S.-trained lawyer, there is nothing at all surprising about any of this. It may be that we should abandon the doctrine -- I've never heard anyone give a very satisfactory explanation for it -- but it is probably unfair to blame the 9th circuit for not doing so. It would have been a very major break with hundreds (thousands, really) of years of legal tradition and almost certainly would have been reversed summarily by the Supreme Court.
It can get a little bit complicated but basically, you can't sue the government FOR DAMAGES unless the government has consented. For some reason, the government has actually consented to suit in a number of situations in the Federal Tort Claims Act (fun fact: passed after a B-52 crashed into the Empire State Building in the 1940s). This typically extends to suits against government themselves and suits against officials in their so-called official capacity.
But there are two other possibilities: you can still sue the government for non-damages remedies like (typically) an injunction. You can also sue government officials in their individual capacities, but they typically enjoy some degree of immunity themselves (if they didn't, all the law suits would dissuade anyone from working as a federal official).
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